Marketing Logic

The other night I went to my local drive through to grab a quick meal for the family – of course, it was a big order. After paying for the meal, I parted ways with the drive-thru window, only to get home and realize that I did not have the kids’ meals.

Of course, I was incredible angry. All of my horrible drive-thru experiences came rushing back. To this day I don’t think I have ever gone through a Taco Bell and had something missing, usually the sauce I requested, napkins, etc. All that is going through my mind as I make the 10 minute drive back to the restaurant.

I pulled up into the drive-thru window and the lady recognizes me and brings out two kids meals. She put fresh fries and new food into the meals and then gave me a coupon for a free combo meal. Needless to say, I was very happy at the resolution and impressed at how it was handled.

My opinion of the restaurant was actually improved by a problem. If there were no problem, there wouldn’t be anything special about the place. They did what they were supposed to do. But because they handled the problem with graciousness and going beyond what was expected, my opinion of that restaurant and that particular one was greatly improved.

This is a phenomenon that has actually been measured and proven. Customers who experience gracious and timely resolution to problems have a high favorable opinion of a company. Usually they are just as happy as customers that don’t have any problems, but some companies have found that the satisfaction can be higher than customers that don’t have any problems. The swift, over-the-top resolution made the customer a fan.

For example, National Car Rental found that there is an 85% chance that a satisfied customer will rent again. However, there is a 90% chance that a customer who experiences a problem and “great service recovery” will rent again.

How do you handle customer problems?
Does your customer love you more after the problem is solved?
Do you have a plan for an over-the-top resolution that will change a customer with problems to a customer with great story – about you?

Simply by formulating a plan and allowing the people in your organization the freedom to handle such problems can drastically change your customer’s perspective of your company. It can’t be from the “top-down”. It has to be an organizational belief that customers are valuable.

ClickTracks CEO, John Marshall announced today that ClickTracks and eMarketing Firm J.L. Halsey, which includes other online marketing companies like Lyris, EmailLabs and Hot Banana, will merge.

The advantage of this merger will provide ClickTracks with accelerated product development, sales and marketing support, and a larger user base.  In addition this move will help ClickTracks develop additional customer tracking behavior through email and content management systems with the integration of J.L. Halsey products.

ClickTracks will remain a corporation, and an indirect wholly owned subsidiary, maintaining their independence, yet increasing their access for current and new customers.

Congratulations Jon, Stephen and the rest of the Team!  I wish you the best in this move and I am sure it will profit us all!

A new service is available from Google Talk, and it blows my chances completing a Google-free week.  Well, technically, I still haven’t done any Google searches though, so maybe I can still make it.

A few weeks ago, Google gave Google talk users the option of displaying “What’s Playing” as their personal message.  This week, Google rolls out Music Trends, a window into the world of what people are listening.

This seems to be an interesting experiment in some form of social networking.  While Yahoo Music allows you to see other user’s recommendations, this seems to mainly be a top 30 list for what’s playing in any respective genre.  The default genre is Alternative – World, which set me up for feeling really old when I didn’t recognize any of the bands or titles.

I found the way to switch Genres and also to switch to Unites States only.  This didn’t help me in the Alternative Category, but it did make much more sense in the rock, classic rock and punk genres.

Some of the classifications make me wonder, however.  Seeing Michael Jackson’s Thriller listed under Blues, Cutting Crew listed under Classic Rock  . . . something’s not right.  Then, it dawns on me.   There seems to be many mistakes and confusion in the file-trading services, not that I would ever use one.  But I have seen that many genres and artist-songs do not match on those services, which makes me wonder about the extent of file trading and the impact on music trends, such as this.

The occasional misclassification aside, This is a fairly limited look into some long-tail studies.   The list by genre simply whets the appetite.  I’d really like the option to be able to see a longer list or dig into sub-genres.

Getting into a few of the genres I was comfortable with (what? No 80’s New Wave?) I felt a little more relaxed, and I accepted the inevitable of getting older.  The Classic Rock category was much more to my liking – not many surprises there, FreeBird is #2.

I’ve written about the viral movement that is “Snakes on a Plane” before.  The buzz surrounding this movie has been intense, and pretty hilarious.

The latest installment of this genius campaign is Snakes on A Plane personalized email, direct from Samuel L Jackson.  Samuel himself walks you through the process of creating a personalized, custom message for that special someone that you would like to see trapped on a plane full of snakes.  You can then send the message by email or telephone.

Great marketing, great ideas.  This movie is really “The Perfect Storm” of social media, viral marketing and user-created buzz.  Have some fun and enjoy an amazing viral campaign, Snakes on your Internet!

So far, the Google-free week test has been going well. I made the commitment last week after a dinner with Ask.com at Search Engine Strategies. Some of us felt that we just had to “Give Ask a Chance”, as Ask seems to be the favorite underdog of the SEO community.

This was extremely easy to do. I use the FireFox Browser, which you should be using as well! There is an Ask search bar plug-in that allows me to search on any engine; I simply had to set it to Ask.com. There is also an IMDB plug-in, but that’s another post.

I haven’t had to do any hard-core searching, mainly some vanity searches, which are typical after an SES. I have had to search for a few products, which came up fairly well. I find that Ask does extremely well for content-related searches, such as techie questions. A few searches for current events bring up blogs all over the first page, which is very fresh, relevant and cool.  I stopped watching the news and reading the newspaper a few years ago – I get all my news from blogs now, but I haven’t yet decided if that’s good or bad.

The image search for “Reuters fake photo” was nowhere near relevant, as I got a picture of blue Viagra pills. However, the search results were spot-on.

My only hesitation was when I check how much of my own site was included in the search results. Ask had a good chunk of it – enough to make me happy. However, I did see that one of my redirected domains, www.site-logic.com (which is parked), was showing up in the results. That didn’t site too well with me. It doesn’t seem to affect me much, but it did bring up some more (sigh) redirect questions.

Search Engine Strategies San Jose was a great show this year, as exhibitors and attendees increased by 30% from last year. There was a lot of excitement and plenty of things going on. The evening parties seemed a little disappointing, as both Yahoo and Ask provided some fantastic parties last year, but both opted for low-key invite only parties this year. (Both of which involved loud music in a small room)

There were many new session on the slate, and most of the session halls were packed out. Many were standing room only, which was great to see. Mostly though, it was exciting to see the many conversations taking place in the hallways and lobbies.

The first day was technically my day off, so I took my time recovering from the speaker party that took place on Sunday evening. After that, a group of us headed out to lunch at PF Chang’s, which was the only “chain” restaurant that was allowed.

^{Jen, Chris, Scott (from AG Interactive) and Carrie (Carrie Mader Jewelry) at PF Chang’s.}
I hit a few sessions, Searchonomics was one. I thought it would be a little better, but it seemed to be the usual rehash of how search is growing and will dominate other forms of media. Bill Tanser from Hitwise showed us the mountain of data that he gets to play with on a daily basis – nothing like a little show and tell to make you envious.

Finally, I made it to my session on Tuesday, Site Architecture. I enjoy being on this panel, as I believe that site architecture is the critical component of a good web marketing campaign. Architecture is the foundation, and it had to be solid to perform well. My presentation focuses on accessibility, as good accessibility allows for both search engines and assistive technology and will help accomplish many goals.

^{Danny Sullivan with his new liederhosen. Detlev and Heather looking on . . .}

The Google dance was Tuesday evening, and it was very cool. Talking with the Google labs people was interesting, and the activities ranged from battlebots to dunk tanks. Of course, plenty of food, drinks and ice cream were on hand. This years shirt is probably my favorite, as everything was focused on Google Labs, the shirt was made to look like the period table of the elements, with Gl being the main element on the shirt.

Wednesday I was looking forward to giving a new session with Shari Thurow, SEO and Usability. Being a news session, there was a little nervousness, but it left as soon as I got up to speak. I was hesitant to use so many screen shots in my presentation, but it worked well and my new laptop was stellar! I have a gateway hybrid laptop/tablet which allows me to use a pen to mark-up slides – perfect for pointing out what is wrong with websites!

The session went really well, and the response from talking with people afterwards was fantastic. I think we really stuck a chord with people and helped out many others. The best comment is that someone had a list of things that they were going to do that night to improve their site – I like knowing that the information was practical.

^{After the session, Lee Odden mugged me into making a little testimonial video, where I unwittingly coined the phrase “wookiepedia”- thanks a ton, Lee.}
That evening, many bloggers were invited to a dinner with Ask.com in order to talk with them and the product managers. That was a great event, as we were able to get a handle on what Ask.com is all about and what things were coming up. I’ve always liked Ask.com, but like everyone else, Google seems to dominate the desktop. I am going to make a concerted effort to go back to using Ask.com for a while, as the interface and the quality are outstanding. Also, if you read blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds you need to be using Bloglines.

Thursday morning - site clinic, which is always fun. Having to be quick on your feet and evaluate sites within minutes is always a fun challenge. No one got angry, so that’s a successful site clinic.

Thursday became one of the busiest days as Jennifer Laycock, from Search Engine Guide and me were able to go with John Marshall and visit the extravagant ClickTracks offices in Santa Cruz. We were able to get a peek at some of the new features in Pro 6.2, talk with CTO Stephen Turner, and give the ClickTracks sales force some “small” marketing ideas. Thanks for lunch, guys!

^{John Marshall and Stephen Turner, ClickTracks Men of Genius. John’s “Dangerous Wayne” Visionary Award.}
After that, Jennifer and I were back up to Mountain View to meet with Avinash Kaushik. Regular readers of this blog will recognize the name as one of the blogs that I link to often. If you are into analytics, then you have to read Avinash’s blog. The conversation with Avinash was amazing. We talked a little bit about analytics, but the bulk of the conversation hit so many different subjects; Ohio State v Michigan football, usability wagering, Google lifeguards, and million dollar “fixer-uppers” in Silicon Valley. Avinash is a very down-to-earth hilarious guy – time very well spent. Seeing what he is able to do with ClickTracks with Intuit’s data was a lesson in itself.

^{Me & Avinash, The beautiful Intuit campus}
Thursday night and time to come home. With the airline scare, our flights were backed up. For some reason, Jennifer and I decided to take the red-eye back to Ohio. Being delayed about 3 hours past our departure gave us a new appreciation for why people sleep at night. Sleeping while sitting up in an airplane was hard enough - the terminal was packed with cranky, miserable people who must not have slept either. Toting a pregnant Jennifer with a sprained foot through the airport can be exhausting. No pictures of that experience are allowed to be posted.

Of course, I can’t wait until next year . . .