Category: Customer Experience

Customer Experience

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Steve Ballmer Speaks – Should Steve Spin Off MSN?

There is an interview in the Wall Street Journal today with Steve Ballmer.

First I’d like to say that I wish they would have hired me to do the interview as it was mostly a rehash of many things Steve has already said save the Bill Gates is leaving and how does this affect you.

For example the article says: “Google Inc., meanwhile, has outpaced Microsoft online, poached key Microsoft employees and will likely become an even greater Microsoft rival in years to come. The Internet search company’s rising share price has raised debate over what more Microsoft can do to retain and attract employees.”

An intelligent question about whether MSN needs to spin off a portion of MSN to create a high growth currency would have been nice on this issue.

Asking about Yahoo! when Microsoft just hired the CEO of Ask is just plain silly – especially since this issue has been talked to death. A question about what exactly Steve Berkowitz’s mandate is and whether Ask might be acquired makes a million times more sense than to rehash the Yahoo speculation.

If anyone at Waggoner Edstrom is listening, I would to have one of the first public MSN interviews of Steve Berkowitz, a groundbreaking and unique conversation, you may find my contact information in my about section.

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Cellular Startups and Carriers the Next Google(s)?

The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting article today about how celluar carriers are shying away from partnering with Yahoo! and Google and instead forming partnerships with smaller entities that they can control. It’s interesting and exciting to me because it’s a modified pay per call play – not just search. This is truly exciting and potentially extremely lucrative.

I would like to invite Brian Lent, CEO of Medio and Dan Olschwang, CEO of JumpTap to have an interview or podcast on this blog shortly. Learning more about the specific people involved at the major carriers would be most interesting to me and I might make the same offer if they were to contact me. Seeing this article gives me significant context to the comments in the recent Google earnings conference call. I look forward to networking more with people in the mobile marketing space.

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UPS – Not Customer Focused

Today’s WSJ Journal talks about UPS software. Well, I actually consider UPS to not be customer focused and in need of resetting it’s priorities. What I mean is that the person being shipped to is the ultimate customer not the shipper. The person receiving the package is the one paying for both the shipping and your salary and is the true ultimate customer. It’s about time UPS spent both time and money on acknowledging that reality and serving that customer as a true customer not an object there for UPS convenience. 

Hardly any of their software focuses on satisfying the one receiving the package. Allowing people to control the last mile of the package, electronically instruct UPS where and when to leave it is where they should be focusing their efforts. In my post about my recently purchased Dell computer, I discussed how UPS shipping was the worst part of the experience. When is UPS going to recognize the people being shipped to as the true customers of the organization? Millions of people are impatiently waiting for you to change.

(In my case this is made worse as the local office refuses to put a regular driver on my route – after several years)

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Dell Blog – Still Waiting for USB Port Shortage Acknowledgement

As I posted on Easton Ellsorth’s blog, the emerging future of corporate blog leadership should likely be:
LISTEN – to other blogosphere posts
ACKNOWLEDGE ISSUES – by linking to the post and talk only about how that issue is being addressed
LISTEN AGAIN – to all feedback
ANSWER – include a we hear you and are working on the problem if it can’t be immediately addressed
REPEAT

On July 7th, I posted a balanced review of my new Dell Dimension 9150, it would be great if Dell acknowledged the USB port shortcoming on their blog and discussed ways they could instruct UPS to actually treat people like the true customers they are when delivering packages. This would demonstrate that they are learning and innovating from customers which is what it is all about!

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The Recent Economist Article

It probably isn’t surprising to you that many people in the Search Engine Marketing arena don’t read the Economist. So I’ll point out this unique article. Fantastic read here on advertising and how it’s changing. It will require new leaders with a combination of both people skills, branding and data skills like those found in the financial services industry.

It contains a quote from Rishad Tobaccowala of Publicis. He is a real innovator and someone I’d like to interview on this blog someday. I met some people that surround him recently and they were a quality bunch. It also talks about the timeline of Google and Yahoo!/Overture, etc.

One great paragraph in the article has elements of the thesis I’m now developing: “Now, however, chief executives are taking trips to Silicon Valley, often without their “chief marketing officers”, to educate themselves. And what they hear impresses them. Tim Armstrong, Google’s advertising boss in North America, preaches to his clients a “notion of asset management” for their products that “shocks” them. Traditionally, he says, most firms would advertise only 5% to 10% of their wares—the blockbusters—in the mass media to publicise their brand, hoping that it shines a halo on the remainder of their products. Now, however, “companies market each individual product in that big digital stream,” says Mr Armstrong, from the best seller to the tiniest toothbrush. This is called exploiting the economics of the “long tail”.” 

Once again, it’s a great read.

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Dell Opens a “Blog”

Dell opened a blog at http://one2one.dell.com/ that no longer exists. I put blog in quotes because: It has moderated comments, no trackback ability and has numerous posts that are product pushes.

Here is what they should have done, one post admitting to mistakes of the past, saying we want to change, we want to listen and left it alone for like at least a week and let comments roll in. Then let those comments dictate what gets talked about next. Corporate blogging is about listening not PR. You must hire extremely senior, dynamic, highly skilled and understanding people with diverse experiences in life and a passion and understanding of process refinement for these roles. That would have gotten respect from the blogosphere. Rick Klau has a nice post on the topic of feedback.

Late last month, I purchased a new Dell, here is my unbiased review of it so far. It was written a week ago as a public service to both Dell and the blogoshpere. Maybe blog search engines need to reward those types of posts more, what do you think?