#followfriday (or #ff) is a tradition started by Micah Baldwin (according to Mashable), whereby you name Twitter user your followers should know about. It is important to provide information about the name user, to help others decide whether to follow them. Hence, in addition to naming interesting users on Twitter, I provide a bit of background information on them in here. Enjoy!

Paul Fennemore is Managing Partner at Viapoint, specialising in social commerce. He is also one of Oxford Brookes University’s MSc eMarketing graduates and one of the researchers in the project looking at Social Media and Segmentation

Admittedly, there is no shortage of social media experts out there – so, why am I recommending that you follow @PaulFennemore?

Much (most?) of the articles and posts you see around Twitter adopt a really narrow view of social media. They see it, simply, as a promotional tool. Paul, on the other hand, approaches social media strategically. That’s because he has a deep understanding of management practice, as well as theory.

Previous follow friday recommendations (in alphabetical order):
- @liveBarefoot – redefining bookstores (Oct., 14th 2011)
- @mrsoaroundworld – for the hedonist in you (Oct., 21st 2011)
- @myographer – management, pirates and personal branding (Oct., 7th 2011)
- @OxfordCityGuide – helps you make the most of living in Oxford (Sep., 30th 2011)

If customer dissatisfaction is a fact of business life, how can you ensure disgruntled customers choose to tell you, rather than switching to a competitor and telling the world about their negative consumption experiences?

In a recent post, I argued that organisations should not fear negative word of mouth. It provides insight into customer (dis)satisfaction, it creates an opportunity to recover from an unpleasant consumption experience and it may help increase sales of your product (though, in specific circumstances, only).

Having said that, the best outcome for the firm is when customers choose to complain directly, rather than switching to a competitor or taking to social media to let the world know about their negative consumption experiences. Therefore, it is vital for organisations to develop a structure and create an environment where customers choose to voice their dissatisfaction directly. The first component of that structure is access. These are the three most common access barriers.

1. Complaining is an unpleasant experience in itself
Your customers are frustrated because they received the wrong product, because it took to long for that meal to arrive or because that gadget broke down, already. Why would they put themselves through the hassle of filling out a long and complicated form, calling an expensive number or waiting for the relevant manager to be available?

Dissatisfied customers will refrain from contacting the organisation if complaining is, frankly, a pain. Instead, you need to make it easy for the customer to reach you – ask them whether they are happy with their purchase, use feedback cards, subscribe to a customer feedback service (like Fizzback) etc… just make sure that you are asking the right questions, or the feedback received will be completely useless.

2. Customers don’t know how to complain
Customers need to have clarity about where and how to log their complaint.

The other day I needed to talk with Skype about a technical problem I was experiencing. I had to go through various menus before I could find an e-mail address I could write to directly. Very frustrating. Most options directed me to the FAQ pages, which were useful but not enough.

If you genuinely want to hear from your customers, you need to let them know how to reach you. Have the contact details clearly displayed in your website or product packaging. Also, make it really easy for customers to find the contacts to your customer support team via the search box in your website.

3. You are not providing suitable complaining channels
Not all consumption experiences are the same and, so, not all customers complain for the same reason. Dissatisfied customers may contact the organisation for one of two reasons: to get compensation or to vent frustration. Research shows that customers’ preferred channel to contact the organisation varies with the reason for complaining.

Customers seeking compensation prefer interactive channels such as face-to-face, telephone, web-chats or other forms of direct interaction between the customer and the company employee.

Conversely, customers who want to express their frustration prefer remote channels like letters, e-mail messages or feedback cards.

This means that it is important to provide a variety of channels to capture complaints.

In essence, unhappy customers will complain to the firm when the perceived benefit of doing so outweighs the costs. The cost may be tangible (e.g., the cost of a phone call) as well as intangible one (e.g., stress). So, the one simple question a firm should ask itself is: Is it easy for customers to reach out to us when something goes wrong?

What else stops you from complaining directly to a firm?

#followfriday (or #ff) is a tradition started by Micah Baldwin (according to Mashable), whereby you name Twitter user your followers should know about. It is important to provide information about the name user, to help others decide whether to follow them. Hence, in addition to naming interesting users on Twitter, I provide a bit of background information on them in here. Enjoy!

I’ll be honest – right now, I would rather be somewhere else. Somewhere warm would be ideal, but I am not picky. Just somewhere to recharge my batteries.

Do you have days like these? Then follow the lovely, smart and well travelled @mrsoaroundworld

Ana travels to the coolest places around the world, in luxury and style, and is a regular blogger at HG2. She is also a social media enthusiast and an accomplished marketer.

Previous follow friday recommendations (in alphabetical order):
- @liveBarefoot – redefining bookstores (Oct., 14th 2011)
- @myographer – He thinks managers should learn from pirates and that you should manage your ‘individual brand’ (Oct., 7th 2011)
- @OxfordCityGuide – helps you make the most of living in Oxford (Sep., 30th 2011)

You wish customers had only good things to say about your company, product or brand. Instead, they seem only too ready to share their negative experiences online. Can organisations benefit from this negative attention?

In the social media workshops I participate in, one theme pops over again and again: what if customers say bad things about me? Businesses big and small fear negative word of mouth (WoM).

In the current technological environment, disgruntled customers can voice their dissatisfaction through very public platforms such as status updates, blog posts, videos, etc… These negative comments may reach viral status influencing a large number of customers. Those same comments will remain online, influencing potential customers long after the initial problem has been solved. It is, thus, no surprise that many organisations are concerned about the consequences of electronic WoM (eWoM). However, that does not mean that organisations should fear eWoM and here is why.

1. Insight
Problems happen. Sometimes it is your fault; sometimes it is beyond your control. Sometimes it is not even a fault, but rather a problem of inflated customer expectations. Whatever, the case, wouldn’t you rather know when your customers are unhappy?

Research shows that only a minority of unhappy customers complain directly to firms, following a negative consumption experience. Most will simply switch to another service provider and share stories about their negative experiences with their social connections.

Not hearing from unhappy customers may lead organisations to a false sense of security – comfortable, maybe; but not very helpful. eWoM gives you another channel to the customer. It allows you to participate in what were, previously, private conversations (figure 1).

Figure 1. Consumer complaining behaviour

Source: Canhoto and Clark 2011

2. Recovery opportunity
Once you hear that a customer is unhappy, you can intervene. If you can address the customer’s concern, you will improve customer satisfaction.

Research shows that the majority of dissatisfied customers whose complaints are handled in a timely and effective manner go on to repurchase from the business. Retaining customers has very tangible benefits for the organisation: existing customers are more profitable because they ask fewer questions, have more realistic expectations, are more familiar with company employees and products and have lower price sensibility than new customers (source).

3. No news, is not good news
It may be counter-intuitive, but read on. In a world where customers increasingly seek out other customers’ reviews and recommendations prior to purchase, negative comments may actually help you sell.

An interesting piece of research explained here indicates that, as far as eWoM is concerned, quantity is more likely to influence purchase decision than quality (i.e., whether the review is positive or negative). This effect is particularly relevant in the early stages of the product life cycle.

It is human to dislike criticism, but organisations can not afford to ignore it. Any thoughts on this topic?

P.S. – I am conducting research electronic word of mouth. I am looking at users’ perceptions of how organisations deal with their negative feedback. Would you like to participate? Please contact me or leave a comment below.

#followfriday (or #ff) is a tradition started by Micah Baldwin (according to Mashable), whereby you suggest a Twitter user you think your followers should know about. It is important to provide information about the persons you are naming, to help others decide whether to follow them. Hence, in addition to naming interesting users on Twitter, I provide a bit of background information on them in here. Enjoy!

In the previous blog post I wrote about a bookstore that had recently opened in my neighbourhood. I have now started following their Twitter account and thought that you might be interested in following it, too.

This Twitter account is not specific to the bookstore. Instead, it is for the umbrella brand that owns the bookstore (they call it ‘studio’). Still, it will be interesting to see how the voice of the brand comes through in this Twitter feed and what part the bookstore plays in the overall conversation.

If, like me, you are intrigued by this firm’s latest venture, then, this friday, you should follow @liveBarefoot.

Previous follow friday recommendations (in alphabetical order):
- @myographer – He thinks managers should learn from pirates and that you should manage your ‘individual brand’ (Oct., 7th 2011)
- @OxfordCityGuide – Helps you make the most of living in Oxford (Sep., 30th 2011)

There is a new bookstore in my neighbourhood! Looking at the statistics of book sales in the UK, it seems that there could not be a worst time to set up business selling books. But this is a different kind of bookstore…

At a time when bookstores, big and small, are struggling all over the country, someone decided to set up business selling books in my neighbourhood. More information here.

It is quite a large space and the official opening, this past weekend, offered a broad range of free events and workshops. However, I was left wondering: Have they not heard about troubled Borders? Don’t they know that bookstores are struggling for sales, in the face of competitive threats such as online bookstores (e.g., Amazon), supermarkets (e.g., Tesco) and eBooks? Have they not seen these statistics?

Figure: UK Book Sales – Retail 2005-2010
Source: Books & The Consumer (BML/TNS) – www.bookmarketing.co.uk

What makes these investors believe that they will be successful, where others are so clearly failing?

I visited the bookstore to find out. Here are some of the things that I discovered during my brief visit.

This bookstore has a café. Cafés in bookstores are not a novelty, of course. At the end of the day, Borders had a Starbucks café, too – and that did not prevent it from going bankrupt. What is different is that, here, you have cakes, etc… that you can not get anywhere else, because this place is not part of a big chain. The food looks positively delicious (the carrot cake seems to be particularly popular). And there is a very visible display telling us the chef’s name and background. The result is a feeling of connectedness that you don’t usually get in a chain café.

This bookstore also offers lots of workshops for children and adults. A quick glance at the events planned for October reveals the habitual events like arts & crafts sessions, story time or writing workshops, as well as unexpected (for me) offerings such as yoga lessons, drumming workshops, dance classes or baby massage.

The sessions are paid so they bring in additional revenue to the bookstore. But are low priced, so the cost is not a major deterrent. Most importantly, these sessions give residents a reason to visit the bookstore regularly, over and above the need to buy a book. It brings people through the doors… the first hurdle for a retailer. Obviously, the range of activities is in line with the message of the brand – Barefoot Books – which is very much about creativity and exploration, with a strong social awareness message.

Some people may say that this is not really a bookstore, anymore. But, then, is it fair to say that Starbucks is not a coffee shop, anymore? This bookstore may challenge our perception of what a bookstore is and how books are sold, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It may just be what high-street bookstores need, really, in the face of the many challenges that they face.

It takes the emphasis away from acquiring books and focuses on the experiences of consuming the messages in those same books. Just like Starbucks’s value comes from the social exchanges around a cup of coffee rather than the drink itself.

Will this be enough to avert the decline of independent bookstores? I don’t know. What do you think?

I certainly wish this bookstore all the best and will be following their progress, closely.

#followfriday (or #ff) is a tradition started by Micah Baldwin (according to Mashable), whereby you suggest a Twitter user you think your followers should know about. It is important to provide information about the persons you are naming, to help others decide whether to follow them. Hence, in addition to naming interesting users on Twitter, I provide a bit of background information on them in here. Enjoy!

@myographer – aka David James – was my manager in a former job. Some months into the job, I realised that I had met him years earlier… and had not liked him at all, then. I was wrong those years earlier – David is a great person to work with and to listen to.

He is a maverick. He doesn’t care about how things are usually done. Titles don’t impress him. He thinks managers have lots to learn from pirates’ tactics. He also thinks you should manage your ‘individual brand’ just as professionally as companies manage theirs – it is not about smoke and mirrors, but about ensuring that the truth (your truth) gets told better. David James shares really interesting links from a variety of sources.

And that is why, this friday, you should follow David James @myographer.

Previous follow friday recommendations:

@OxfordCityGuide – helps you make the most of living in Oxford (Sep., 30th 2011)

I recently had two very different experiences of dealing with insurance companies. In a previous post, I talked about how one company got it so very wrong. In this post, I talk about the other one and I will do something I never thought I would: praise an insurance company.

The car accident
It was a minor accident. Both cars were driving slowly, so no one was injured. Still, there was a big dent on the side of the car. Moreover, as it was just above the front tyre, there was a really ugly noise whenever you turned the steering wheel to the right. You had to plan your route very carefully

The other insurance company
The other driver was insured with LV, also known as Liverpool Victoria. I had a vague memory of seeing their adverts on TV and outdoors some years ago. I recall that their visual identify resembled the word ‘love’ and was a lively shade of green. But that was all, really.

The interaction with LV
We submitted the paper work for the insurance claim and were in for a few surprises.

First, the issue was handled quickly. After informing the company, it was only a matter of days for the expert to check the car and make a decision. Also, whenever we called the company, they could access the file and move on with the issue. By contrast, at my own insurer, there was only one person moving on with the issue… and progress stopped when the person went on holidays.

Second, it was very convenient. They came to our house to make the assessment, at a time that was convenient for us. The same happened when it was time to have the car repaired and to get the replacement car.

Finally, there was a genuine feeling of helpfulness. At no time did we feel that they were dragging their feet or trying to get away from repairing the car. It really felt like they were trying to fix the problem.

How could this company get it so right, while the other one got it so wrong? It is quite simple, really. LV saw the situation from the point of view of the user – and, therefore, they could identify and eliminate the pain points in the customer journey.

It was a refreshing customer experience… except that we weren’t their customers – but we are now!