More than just good and fast coffee

Sitting here in one of my typical hangouts, Panera.  But this may not be my typical hangout for long.
Way back in February I wrote a blog article on tips for good service
http://chrisgeier.blogspot.com/2009/02/tips-for-good-service.html

In this blog I discussed how important good service and good food is to your choices in dinning.  But I now feel there may be even more to that idea.

Over the past few years I have come to this particular Panera A LOT, in fact I am there as I write this.  I have always enjoyed the experience.  The people were very nice, they recognize me, ask me how i am doing.  I genuinely enjoyed the interaction.  The "vibe" I got from the lot of them was all in all very good.  The food was always good, the "service" was always good.  Not to mention free internet.

Over the course of the past few months there has been a gradual and continual amount of employee turnover.  One by one the cool people I was used to interacting with stopped being there.  Replaced by...well more boring less interactive versions.  They still provided good service, the food was still the same, the wifi was still free.  Yet I have found myself not really all that excited or interested in coming in as often as I once did.  This has made me realize how important that customer connection is.  I felt connected in some small way to several of the people i interacted with on an almost daily basis.  In some strange way I wanted to go in and see them. I felt comfortable in the environment and a sense of belonging there. (Odd I know) At this point I do not feel drawn back, and as such I have dramatically reduced the frequency at which I go. 

The new people that have replaced those I have come to know, are not bad at their jobs, they are not bad or mean people.  They just don't have "IT" that customer facing connection making (Charisma, Authenticity?)  Those that had it here at panera, helped make this particular location into a place that i raved, and talked about.  I think it is precisely those types of people that can help you turn your company, your product into one that has a following of raving fans , one that has a connection with its community.  Its not just about the product you put out there, its not just achieving some arbitrary level of service like how fast they make me my coffee.  Its about that connection and that community they help build and foster.
How do you connect with your community and your customers? 

 

While not necessarily a component of this instance, I think social media can help establishing that connection with your community/customers.  If you can use social media in this way and establish that link, you too can work to stay connected with others and ensure you keep that link going.  Social media can help to establish and maintain a broader sense of community beyond employees and customers in one location but across geographies, product lines, groups, divisions etc.  Establishing that sense of belonging is the thing that builds communities and keeps people involved coming back.

 

What are you favorite haunts? why do you keep going back?  What community do you feel connected with, and why?  Drop me a note on twitter http://twitter.com/chrisgeier

Impulse contact

The Impulse Contact.

Marketing and retail companies alike are generally smart folks, and everything they do is for a reason. one example of this is the idea of the "impulse buy".  When you go to any store these days be it in the checkout line or by the register sometimes even surrounding area. There are a variety of other small things that they are hoping to entice you with and hope you buy. These can be higher profit items or just generally small ticket items they hope you will just throw in with your purchase to increase profit. 

They are "impulse" buys because you don't go to the store looking for them, they are typically not on your list. but you see them, and on an impulse you buy them. Companies make these items very easily accessible, and convenient. Thus making the barrier to purchase small and the likelihood of purchase higher.

Some quick links for further reading on this..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse_purchase

http://www.kindredmedia.com.au/info/tempting_shopping/199/1

I would like to correlate this idea to something i would consider an important point in

• Social Media
• Customer service
• General community

Many times i have been in a situation where i wished i could ask a quick question or make a comment to a company. Sometimes even an idea to improve something.  However, I would not be willing to take the time to call them, write a letter, sit on hold, try to find what to do or who to call. So i never did.  But as a company who would truly be interested to hear my feedback, my complaint, my compliment or the like, would you miss this opportunity?

If so. Enter in social media.

If I run a company and i have a presence on Facebook, or twitter, and i prominently promote it. I Ensure people know its there and SHOW people I am listening. I have just enabled "the Impulse contact"

If you follow the premise that typically customer contact is good, and the more contact i have with a customer the more likely they are to be a happy customer, more likely to be a repeat customer, more likely be be a referral or fan. If so I need to ensure i give people every opportunity and every avenue to be "touched" or interacted with. 

So you are involved with social media and being out there listening, waiting for people to talk about you.. That's great.  But you can also use it as a quick connect for easy quick access to the impulse contact.

As an example I could be on a southwest flight or in this case (while i am typing this) waiting for Southwest flight 125 en route to Ohio. and notice how awesome the gate area is and how much i love the chairs with outlets and USB hubs and think. WOW this rocks.  I can quickly go to twitter and say @southwestair I LOVE THIS. Thank you, or maybe tell them that this is the first time i have tried the business select and i am liking it so far. 

This could be feedback that i am sure @southwestair would love to get. they now have real direct empirical evidence that some of the investments they have made recently are working and are improving their customer experience.  Chances are that if they were not on twitter and made it SOO easy for me to provide that feedback that i would not have given it.  Southwest is putting themselves out there and are in the channels that i use.  They are participating in a genre that i am comfortable with and not forcing me to use the one they want.  I am not being directed to a specific feedback channel rather i am being given the options and i can participate in the southwest conversation in a manner I CHOSE.

I for one think that is a FANTASTIC way of doing business. If your company TRULY values this type of feedback, and you WANT to interact with your customers. Then just having a phone number and email address is NOT ENOUGH.  You must expand your presence and use of social media. You can use social media to benefit you and your customers in innumerable ways.  But you have to be willing to get out there and figure it out.

What do you think?

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

The underground beginnings

In my previous blog I told you how i started the idea and planning process of the K2 community.  Now it is time to tell the story of K2 underground.

When we started to plan out what we wanted in a community site, and figure out how that manifested itself in a platform decision.

I had a list of technical requirement list i used at the time as follows:

1. Support Blogging functionality
2. Separate “Areas” for classes of users.  “Insiders” “Partners” etc
3. Content targeting based on based on user preferences.
4. Ability to support rating posts, articles, blogs, uploads etc.
5. Ability to mark forum items as solved, answered etc.
   1. Search through forum for unanswered questions and or posts
6. Points system, different points accumulated raise levels different membership levels amounts to different rights and status on the site.
7. Ability to establish user profiles, to provide a self overview and points accumulated.
   1. Moderators of the site should also be able to give points or take them away. 
   2. Advanced Profile support for personalization.
8. Ability to link internally to other posts, copying one post to another and giving it credit.
9. Private message support for members to contact each other
10. Reporting for:
    1. Most active threads
    2. Most popular posts
    3. Newest posts
    4. Top rated posts
11. Events Section to post upcoming events
    1. Ability to sort by time or location or type such as on line or in person etc.
    2. Ability to publish event postings for Live Meetings etc.

Overall I really wanted to enable to community on its own to adapt and grow and not have it limited by the technology we use.  Nor would i want to tell the community how to work or what parameters to use. Based on this we needed to ensure that the platform we chose had to be very flexible, and configurable.  Based on that and the above requirements we chose Community Sever over SharePoint.  It would take too long to bring SharePoint up to the point that Community Server was. Primarily in terms of membership, points, and forums.  (mainly forums)

During the design and envisioning phase we had several Primary areas of focus:

User Group Area

We wanted to establish a separate or sub-area within the site to act as a hosting area for various user groups. The goal being to allow members of the broad community to establish sub-communities on their own.  Being a part of this sub-community will allow them to have discussions, post announcements, agendas, minutes from past events and allow them to connect virtually with other members.  Members of these user groups can also post to a more general announcement board on the main site.

Presence awareness

When you hit the home page of the site, users should be able to see who else is logged on. How many others are currently on the site etc.  Future additions will allow users to IM them.  Initial version will just allow for PM.

Blogging
The site will have a Separate section for blogs, that should be easily browse able and utilize “content TAGS” for ease of search.   Initially we chose that only K2 employees and Insiders would be allowed to have a blog. In future revisions we opened this up to partners but had no takers.

File Sharing
Each individual post can contain an attachment with example code etc. However there will be a self service file sharing area where users can upload their own little creations. These will also be rated and can be fuel for the points system.

Now that most of the techie stuff is out of the way, we needed to establish some site policies, visions, rules etc.  We wanted to have a site/community that encouraged discussion and participation and have that be the driving goal. To first to attempt to get the conversation going, and encourage people to jump in.  To achieve this we came up with the following:

1) Encourage newer users--especially those who've been active askers--to start trying to answer questions We will do this by making sure that the moderators are not always the Ones Who Know All.
2) We will give tips to the community on how to answer questions
3) At any opportunity we will ensure that people know it's OK to guess a little, as long as they ADMIT they're guessing
4) The site will Adopt a near-zero-tolerance "Be Nice" policy when people are posting to the site and or answering questions.  We will not allow other participants (especially the more advanced users) to slam anyone's answer.

So what does all this mean?  All of this boils down to a couple easy things. I wanted create the best community site possible.  A community site that people got a ton of use from, one that truly benefits those who participate.  The community also could use the site for a variety of reasons and not just for raw K2 technical discussion. But as a way to interact with others in their preferable way on their preferable topics.  This is not all there is to it, there is lots more. I love to talk about this and my experiences in the K2 community so there will be more to come soon

What do you think? What would you do differently?

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

Me and the K2 community

It occurred to me that i have not really told much about who i am and what i do.  I wanted to give you some insight into who i am.  For those of you who don't know me, I am the "community guy" at K2 (WWW.K2.COM) and run the community web site www.k2underground.com

I have been a techie for my entire career so I have been a member of many different communities similar to those I was trying to develop.  So I thought I should be able to help a bunch of people just like me.

I sat down to try to figure what goals I had for working with the community.  I believe that in most cases, the community is already there, people are already working and people are already talking.  So the question really is:

• What are you going to do to help them,
• What are you going to do in order to hear them?
• What are you going to do to try to get more people involved?

My goals/priorities became more obvious the more research i did

1.  Establish an online gathering place. (k2underground)
2.  Ensure that this gathering place enabled the community to network with each other, grow, become a place to do research etc.
3.  Create and grow content.  Once i really began to think about what this community needed most i found that it lacked good content.  Being that this is a primarily technical community what they are going to be seeking first is information. Information about how to do their jobs, learn, grow, be better, solve problems. Content is also going to keep people on the site, keep people coming back, and give people a reason to at least be passively involved.  Good content is/was the most difficult component of my challenge, and one to this day i have not done as well as i had hoped.

4.  Get/Grow community leaders.  I considered myself merely a helper in the community and a biased helper at that.  What this community needs are leaders.  Leaders that were self motivated, not motivated because K2 incents them.  These leaders help evangelize the community, help to get the community talking, engage them be the technical go to people if possible and when necessary. In addition we need solid people in the community that can help us know what the community needs.  We wanted bi-directional evangelists.  Not only did we want to have people go out and tell the K2 story, we wanted people to come to us and tell use the community story so that we can make it better. We have come to call these fine people K2 Insiders. I consider the Insider program a pillar of the K2 community strategy a piece that HAD to be done right and done first.  It has really been that and more.

Now i had my list of goals, to work on.  Once i established these goals, and things began to move, Focus needed to move onto the Underground, what did this site need to be and do to truly help the community?  More on that in a future blog post, as well as other blogs on my adventures building the K2 community.

What do you think, does this sound good to you? What could I do differently?

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

Can you see the intent

 

When i was first in college i did some internships at a local hospital.  There was always the talk of the differences between those doctors who became doctors because of prestige and or money and those who were in it for the money.  when being around them regularly you could really begin to tell who was who. 

or 

The intent became obvious.  When you being to sit down and think about your dealings with all professions you can tell peoples intent and why they are doing what they are doing.

• Do they really care?
• Do they really want to help you?
• Are you just another customer to them or are you a valued client that they truly care about your success, and or satisfaction?

Getting out there, using Social Media, and  building community gives you more exposure and gives people more views into your work, more exposure insight into your intent.

So ask yourself what is your intent?  Why are you out there?  Why are you interacting with others?  Why are you trying to get more involved in the community?

Think back to some good examples of great experiences as a customer you have had in the past 6 months.  Was the service extra special because you thought that they really wanted to help you?  Was the service great because how you felt special?  Try to be more conscious of this as you interact with people i think you will find that as you try to to notice it more you will see how it affects you more than you thought.

I don't believe that all businesses are going to have good intentions when they start out, or even at any point in their lifecycle.  However I believe that those that do have solid intentions will have the advantage.  This advantage will be even more obvious when delving into social media.    The more you interact the more it will become obvious and the more people will talk about it.

Something i believe everyone should do BEFORE getting out there in Social Media is to completely and honestly examine their intentions.  Ensure you understand why you are doing what you are doing.  What are your motivations?  What do you hope to gain by being involved?  If these motives became obvious, how would people react?  Would this help or hurt your cause?

What do you think? 

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

Social buying

I know there are some great online shopping sites where people can write up reviews and then even say how useful those reviews are. (reviewing the reviewer)  But I think we can use some social media to take this a step forward (at least I would love it)  I was walking through target yesterday and came across a series of computers. These computers were for gift registries.  You all know what that is, whether they are for bridal registry, or baby registry i am sure most of us have participated in some way.  But what if we used the very same concept but added in some cool social media.

Imagine this:

You go into your favorite store and walk up to the computer, punch in your favorite reviewers twitter name.  The computer spits back a list of that twitterers favorite or recommended purchases.  So i am going shopping for a new geeky gadget.  I know that @mattbremer  is very geeky and must have a good recommendation. I look him up on the computer and it spits out his favorites (much like it would a registry list).  I click on my product choice and print out some info. Run to the back and pick it up. 

Wouldn't that be cool?

We could even take this in a few different directions.  When i buy it it could auto tweet it. 

If i buy it, the system could give points to the recomender and then each store could keep track of the top recomenders.

There are literally thousands of options. All of them could work great. My point is that we have the ability to bring social media into the normal brick and mortar stores.  Especially in today's economy, stores need to think differently and improve the experience customers have in their shopping at their stores.  As much as i hate to use the old expression, it does fit.  “Think outside the box”

 

What do you think?  Would you use a system like this?

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome here. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Or you can email me directly chris dot geier at Gmail.com

The Star List

An old teacher of mine “Mr. Lester” who taught a writing class established a star list.  We were never allowed to break any of rules established on the Star List.  I thought this document was lost forever. But while cleaning out my old 3.5’ diskettes.  I found it, I thought it would share it

1. do not use contractions they are informal

2.do not use the word there

3. do not use it

4 do not use first person (i me my we our)

5 do not use second person (you your)

6 do not use the words good,bad nice,really,very a lot,thing,anything

7. do not underline to emphasize

8. do not use slang

9.do not use abbreviations

10. do not use like as a comparison use such as

11. do not use absolutes such as always,forever,never

12. do not use upon

13.do not use people, or person

14.do not use the word different alone you must use different from

15 use between when speaking of 2. Use among when speaking ok 3 or more

16 do not use !!!!!!!!!

17 do not use due to use BECAUSE OF or AS A RESULT OF

18 no numbers to organize

19 do not refer to your own writing such as in this paper as i mentioned etc

20 do not use big little or interesting

21 do not use ONE as a person

22 do not use off of

23 do not use () ( )

24 do not use fun

25 do not use healthy use healthful

26 do not use situation or issue

27 do not use type of person

28 do not use centered around

29 do not use ::::::

30 do not ask questions

31 do not use "the reason and because in the same sentence

32 do not use the words in conclusion

33 never use extremely

34 do not use mad

35 do not write what something is not write what it IS

36 do not use many

37 do not use located

38 do not bring up a negative in a comparison or argument

39 do not use obvious simply state the fact if it is obvious

40 never assume anything the reader knows or believes