4 Favorite Ways to Destroy Your Tribe

Ed Welch, of Tribe Building blog, is the author of 101 Ways to Destroy Your Tribe. It's a PDF, free to download, from his site. And you should, too.

We spoke earlier this year about his book, what it meant to him, why he was so passionate about this list and why his book became so popular. You can listen to our conversation in streaming on-demand at this link.

During our conversation I asked him for his 4 favorite ways to kill your tribe of customers.

1. When you have a great product that is selling well, look for a way to make it cheaper, your customers won’t be able to tell the difference.



2. Make sure your employees care more about procedures than rules and customers.



3. Change the rules in the middle of the game, you customers will love it.



4. Customers should be like soldiers they should eat what they are fed.

Do you recognize any of them?

Are they practiced on your tribe by your vendors and suppliers?

Do you  recognize them as part of your company's strategy? It's ok, if you do. Well, it's not ok. But you're not alone.

But, there's your opportunity. It's a simple opportunity. Just stop. Stop doing the things that kill your tribe. Just say no. And that simple act makes you stand out from, I'm guessing, half if not most of your competitors.

Sometimes life is simple. Sometimes, we're reminded how simple it is by very smart and dedicated people like Ed Welch.

Thanks, Ed. Go OSU! 

9 Stories Main Stream Media Can Report to End this Recession.

Dog bites man isn’t news.
We’re in a recession isn’t news either.

What is newsworthy are the stories of all the companies who are not laying off their employees or see growth ahead in 2009. Most, if not all, of these companies are small businesses and startups.  That makes sense. Historically, recessions end when jobs are created. Jobs created generate spending. Spending drives an economy.

Who creates those jobs in a recession? Small business and startups.

What we need now are the stories of these small businesses who are not issuing pink slips. What we need are stories, profiles and case studies, of businesses and their leaders who are thriving...right now.

Mainstream media is desperate for readers, for an audience. These stories would be interesting. These stories would bring readers. And you would be doing a service for your community, if not our country, by sharing tips and tools, resources and profiles, of companies who remain successful right now.

Here’s 9 stories, that  mainstream media can report that will A. bring readers, avid and loyal, to your publication (that will help save your business); B. help save businesses in your community; C. their success will bring more jobs to your community; D. Collectively,  if enough stories like these are shared... speed the recovery of our economy.

1. Profile companies in your community that are growing.
2. Share tips and resources that help small businesses grow.
3. Provide a forum for business leaders to share their expertise in guest columns.
4. Host a live, in-person, community forum for business leaders, owners, members...to meet and share ideas and concerns.
5. Advocate for more funding for small businesses.
3. Write editorials pointing out how small business creates the jobs to drive an economy out of a recession.
6. Interview political leaders. Ask them why they're not providing more support, removing more barriers to small businesses and startups.
7. Allow guest columns from leaders in innovation. Innovation creates new products and markets that require new companies with new jobs.
8. Push for more transparency and accountability in any bailouts. Demand to see the jobs those funds will create.
9. Host job fairs. Maybe at this point, it's unemployment fairs, but get people together and talk and share ideas. (You're looking for reasons to bring people to your paper...)

Mainstream media: You're looking for readers. Your readers, and those in your community, are  looking for jobs and the companies that are creating them. We're all looking for solutions. I think there's a match, here.

The power of a phone call to your customer

From Chris Brogan, Thank You Continental Airlines. Chris shares his experience receiving a phone call from a Customer Service rep with Continental Airlines.

It's a simple act. Doesn't cost a whole lot, really. Done right, as it seems here, look what it does.

Enough. Chris' post is excellent.

Word-of-Mouth: Cheap AND Effective

From Social Media Playground: Word-of-Mouth Marketing - "Effective" versus "Cheap".

I'd say it's both.

Link from Jake McKee's Community Guy blog.

David Vinjamuri Answers 10 Questions

David Vinjamuri is author of Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands. He's interviewed recently at The Engaging Brand.

Now he answers 10 questions from Ben McConnell at Church of the Customer.

Ben's the high-priest at Church of the Customer. So, in some respects, he's asking David how laypeople...could rise to the temple mount of branding, brand engagement and commercial success from the extraordinary brand they created.

Here's the answer from Mr. Vinjamuri that spoke to me:

4: What do the accidental branders you profiled understand about customer evangelism and word of mouth that a typical business does not?
Accidental branders do not have the resources that corporate brands do, so they’re forced to rely on their customers for word of mouth.  Along the way they see that treating customers as the messengers actually works better.  And they realize that employees, vendors, suppliers, friends and family are also important conduits for the brand message.

Can I get a witness!!! Turn up the choir and let's shout!

Listen to your customer's story

I was reading this article Sunday titled Poison Pill. ( Sunday's I usually read about health care issues. That allows me to post about them on Monday for Health Care Mondays over at my other blog.)

But instead the article ended with the reminder to listen to your customers. They'll tell you what they need.  In this article the customer was a patient and vice versa. As a patient she was a customer of the hospital and the resident and his team.  After standard reports and tests had failed to diagnose the source of this customer's needs, the doctor asked the customer, the patient, to tell him her story.

Sir William Osler, the father of modern medicine, taught his students that the patient’s story will often contain the key to making a diagnosis. It was important advice at the turn of the 20th century, when few diagnostic tools were available. And it is still true, as research shows. Even now, 75 percent of diagnoses are based on the patient’s story alone. “Listen carefully to the patient,” Osler exhorted. “They will tell you the diagnosis.” You just have to pay attention.

I can't imagine the percent for solving a customer's needs, of delivering a product or service that best fits THEIR needs, is much different than with those of patient diagnoses. It's the same dynamic with customers:  Listen carefully. They will tell you what they need. You just have to pay attention.

How to lose 3 years of customer loyalty in one campaign

Bad profits are like empty calories. They fill a need; they do it quickly. But long term they leave you much worse than before. Barry Moltz profiles Intuit's recent plan to gorge on bad profits at the expense of their long-loyal customers of QuickBooks.

The plan is simple, easy. It's like grabbing a bag of chips or cookies at the checkout line 'for dinner. They announce that some of the best features of QuickBooks right now, like being able to email invoice/invoice receipts directly to your customers, will go away....unless...UNLESS you pay for the upgrade to QuickBooks 2008.

Sweet. Sweet as in empty calories. Intuit will post a spike in revenues and maybe earnings by this forced march of their customers to a purchased upgrade. The inspiration for this idea will likely get a bonus and a round of drinks bought for them one night. Their frontline customer service will field a deluge of calls and emails from angry, long-term customers.   And then revenues will spike downward next quarter. Then growth of new accounts will drop as the only WOM from existing customers is negative. Customer evangelists become customer vigilantes. And then their profits will drop as they spend more on advertising to replace what had been free from their customer evangelists and their testimonials: new customers.

The frontline customer service staff will be directed to try and upsell every caller. That only serves to alienate the remaining customers even more. And the person who got the great big bonus, the cherry on top of the dessert, will be long gone. They'll move to another company who's hungry, and lazy, for some cheap calories. They'll brag about the success and the increase in revenues. The company's too hungry to look more than one quarter. They'll hire this person, and the cycle of bad calorie consumption will consume yet another company.

Sigh. And Intuit is often a case-study, a corporate profile, for the use of Net Promoter Score and customer evangelism and customer loyalty. 

Oh well. Life goes on. Sometimes in business it's not about building a sustainable business model. Sometimes it's about....who knows.

Channel Conflict: ATT & iPhones

IPhones go on sale at the end of the month for ...$599? Yes, that's a bit pricey. But wait, there's more...as in more costs. Signs are that ATT Wireless, the exclusive provider partner with iPhones, will require a 2-year contract for data-transfers...

Hmmmm, yes. Makes sense. As wi-fi access continues to grow towards universal, at least ubiquitous (hey, we've got it here in rural Iowa...), it makes sense for a provider to require its customers to sign a 2-year contract chock full of penalties for early departure.

It's consistent with ATT's customer-centric approach.  Back in the day, back in the early 90's, when competition in the long distance market knocked on ATT's exclusive door...(by virtue of a court order) ATT's response was to contact their high-usage customers and lock them into 2 year contracts at fixed prices...Before their customers realized what competition in a monopoly can do for exorbitant prices...they were locked into a contract with ATT at prices 100% or more higher than prevailing market prices by the time the contracts expired.

Now, ATT's doing it again with their deal with iPhones.

The question's been raised if iPhone will boom or bust. If it busts, it'll be hard to tell if it wasn't the 2-year data contract with ATT that spelled its doom.

Link from Russell Shaw, ZDNet, Report: iPhone cool stuff access will require two-year data plan.

WOM, real people, real community and real rock n' roll

Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog  was how this article in the NY Times magazine was originally titled. Catchy title. But after reading it...it's really about WOM, real people, real community and creating real rock n' roll and what happens when you mix those elements together...today.

Will you pay more to get more?

Will you pay more to get more? That's the question  Cindy Loose poses at Travel Log, a blog at the Washington Post. (not sure if registration is required or not for the blog; it is for Wapo.)

Ailrine executives have cut services to the bare bone -- including things like customer service -- because they believe that passengers just want the cheapest possible fare, and they're doing what they have to do to keep fares down. That, according to travel guru Terry Trippler, is what execs tell him, but he's not sure they're right. Are they?

The first hint this market research may be...what?...inaccurate or self-serving is the source. Execs. Airline execs are doing the talking. By coincidence they're the ones who've created the current business-model we generously refer to as the travel industry. They're the ones who've rushed hell's bells with their career and threats of job insecurity for those around them to create this thing we label in the media as the travel experience. If you've flown recently, you know there's an industry built around that experience but it seems only distantly connected to ...travel and its successful completion.

I know there's a study out there waiting to happen that shows the trendline of companies who've decided to slash their customer service investments. It seems the mistake of the obvious kind to undercut your investment in customers, their needs, their happiness. I can't think of a single company that slashed customer care, customer service, whatever it's called...and came out ahead or even came out of the nose dive they put themselves into by insulting those that pay their bills...by communicating to the customers that their interests or care or happiness is so, so, so low on the totem pole of priorities.

( Funny, when you think about it.Customers are the ones who offer you money, their money, in the hopes you'll deliver on even half of your promises.  They trust you with their credit cards. And with the travel industry, they trust you with their lives, their business, their families...)

But...judging from near universal acclaim in business press and personal stories, this is the wisdom of airline executives. Most airlines, certainly, the majors, led by their execs choose to greet you with an attitude (you can't call it a philosophy as that implies logic ...) of abandon hope all ye who enter...you're ours for  the duration and we can do as we please with you in our midst...Why? Because we offer no staff, no policies, no options that offer an alternative to subservience to our masters and now as a passenger...your master. Who are these unseen masters we submit to with each travel experience? Execs and their whims.

Still, even in this industry are those that offer hope and respite from the beast. They're the gate agent, the customer service rep, the stewards, the pilots, yes the TSA employees, who go beyond the call of duty every day (remember if it's bad for you just one day a month...imagine working for that company every day...?), offer a solution, a smile, a helpful tip, a kind moment to answer our questions. Thank them. Be patient. Thank them again. Remember that this is the 5th or 10th gate change they've announced today...it's but one for you. And they'll do it all again tomorrow. And they're not the ones making the decisions; they're the ones though stuck with implementing it and taking the feedback from customers...feedback that execs will never deign or dare to gather.

And yes, I'd pay more to get more. Not food. Just a little dignity after I enter the terminal. And for those travel employees and TSA employees who've provided that...thank you.