How to generate good publicity from bad service
Based on my observations, the success of a service provider company, in a competitive market, is mainly based on two basic factors:
- Market Demand for your products (The higher demand, the higher the revenues will be - in parallel, fighting for market share is always vital).
- Customer willingness to purchase from your company/products.
You will say, yea, yea but what about "Quality of the product delivered to the end-customer"? On that question, my answer will be: You are right, quality is important, BUT the most important is the image of your company, the reputation of your product, this is the only way to generate sales. In other words,
(if you are not in a zero-bug tolerance business, like aircraft manufacturing or missile industry), you don't need to have a "perfect" product to start generating cash.
In order to improve the customer willingness to purchase your product,
one way is to invest your time, money and talent on improving the customer relationship by creating/developing a strong and durable relation.
I learned from my short experience that even problematic events can be used to generate good publicity and develop the so-wanted durable customer relationship.
I received a letter from Jet Blue last week. I feel that this letter is the example
par excellence of the above method. Take 5 minutes, read it, it is worth every seconds... I'm convinced any company can learn from the below...
Dear JetBlue Customers,
We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.
Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history.
Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our
customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and
other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft,
and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and
inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the
airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's
Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at
1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further
hindering our recovery efforts.
Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and
inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue
was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and
making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses
to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.
We are committed to you, our valued customers, and are taking immediate
corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We have begun putting a
comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more timely information to
you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures
for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a
result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and
even more customer responsive airline than ever before.
Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of
Rights-our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational
interruptions going forward-including details of compensation. I have a
video message to share with you about this industry leading action.
You deserved better-a lot better-from us last week. Nothing is more
important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us
the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the
positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.
Sincerely,
David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways
Impressive, no?
Note that in this case, the message passed to the customers is even stronger than previously analysed as the
reason for the bad service was somehow totaly out of control.
The Google way
This video is old (2005), very long (more than 5 hours), with bad video/audio quality (and I don't mention the poor quality of the subtitles) BUT IT IS A MUST IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND GOOGLE'S CULTURE, GLOBAL OBJECTIVES, CORE TECHNOLOGIES, AND THE GLOBAL CHALLENGES THE TECH COMPANIES FACE OR WILL FACE.
Here it is:
Faux training videos for Microsoft UK employees
Sorry for that, but it was both so funny and so true... I post it at the end.
For those who, like me, use to listen business podcasts like INSEAD Knowledgecast or Manager Tools, this is video is hilarious.
Part one of two faux training videos for Microsoft UK employees featuring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in their roles from the BBC version of The Office
Enjoy!
How to reduce costs using an expert system?
No panic... I will explain what it is...
An expert system, also known as a knowledge based system, is a computer program that contains some of the subject-specific knowledge of one or more human experts. This class of program was first developed by researchers in artificial intelligence during the 1960s and 1970s and applied commercially throughout the 1980s. The most common form of expert systems is a program made up of a set of rules that analyze information (usually supplied by the user of the system) about a specific class of problems, as well as providing mathematical analysis of the problem(s). It is a system that utilizes what appear to be reasoning capabilities to reach conclusions. (Source: Wikipedia)
My theory is very simple as always... I'm not someone that can have complex theories... I'm too lazy for that...
Let's say your business includes a large part of decision making and problem solving. In general, you will need some very clever and qualified employees to first of all understand the parameters of the problem and then propose the optimized solution(s) to you or an end-user. Hiring such employees is often extreemly hard, consisting of a large part of your cost (training, salary, etc...) and furthermore can be a serious pain in your business expansion.
If an expert system fully suitable for your problems was available, your life would have been much more easier now. You could in theory:
- Find more rapidily and easily employees suitable for the job you propose and ensure the expansion of your business at the speed you choose. In other words, the number of employees available of a specific mission is not the bottle neck anymore.
- Reduce the costs using on 3 differents vectors: hiring campagns cost saving, employee's salary cost saving, and training cost reduction.
Note that the cost of expert system on its own is not so high, the problem is more:
- To make it correct. Imagine using a system that gives you results with even let's say 20% of errors... It could be disaster for your entire business.
- TTM (Time To Market). Set-up such a system can take months of development and testing.
In short, if it's done very carefully and with the focus of your best people, this can be the key to the success of your company.
(Note that the next trend will be to have expert systems embedded in your CRM and covers all the entire flow of transactions faced by your business)
(:~ This article is for Myriam and the rest of the world ~:)
The Hasidic Masters, Guide to Management - Personal Review
Here are my views on this book I read a few months ago. I had a very good time reading this book but, the truth is, I didn't learn much about management from this book... This is a good one if you are interested to read a book about work on Shabbat :)
I saw the author of this book once, Moshe Kranc, he worked for my company (NDS Technologies Ltd) a few years ago. He seems to be a very interesting, straight and clever person according to his reputation. When I think about it, I really think you need a lot of courage to write a book of this kind. In his book, he mentioned he is a descendant of Rabbi Jacob Kranc, the renowned Magid of Dubno, also known as "the Jewish Aesop". I guess being a storyteller is in his blood. I would be interested in meeting him again... who knows... I understood from a friend that he now serves as Vice President of Research and Development for Jerusalem Venture Partners Studio... A person I may contact if I finally decide to create my start-up... BTW, this venture is the main partner of DoubleFusion (see article below...)
Even if I don't see this book as a true guide to management, I recommend this book. Enjoy.
The only way to define a product
The background for this post is something that really upsets me today. A large company, I don't want to mention (as this will not bring any added value to my point here), has proposed to sell an upgrade for their lines of products. If you carefully read the brochure of those products, you will quickly understand that the only "improvement" is the fact those products are based on the latest version of Oracle, Oracle 10g... Really, who is stupid enough to purchase the upgrade package of such a product that doesn't bring any additional true added value to the product... You name it, EVERYONE...
Why? my guess would be those companies said to themselves "Everyone else is doing so, so I guess we should too"...
Now listen to this revolutionary, simple and obvious idea that everybody knows and rarely applies when decisions need to be made:
THE ONLY WAY TO TRULY DEFINE A PRODUCT IS BY ANSWERING THIS BASIC QUESTION: "WHAT CAN THE PRODUCT DO FOR THE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER?"Did you ever ask an engineer about his last creation in front of one of your customers that came to visit your R&D facilities and look for new products he may be interested to add in his catalogue? (if you didn't, you are one of the both: unexperimented or very clever)
From my short experience, it would sound like: "It's web applet written in java that can be automatically plugged and played into a web browser and can generate HTML page based on templates located in the remote server"... gggrrrrr!!!!
Probably his product would have been able to generate millions in sales... but not... not that way... Java, HTML, template, remote server... who the hell cares? That's not what the client wants to hear... if only your message would have been: "this product can increase your sells on the web by 40% by simplifying the purchasing process"...
Bottom line, no matter if you are a supplier or a demander, an entrepreneur or an engineer, the only way to truly evaluate/define a product is to understand what it can bring to the end-user.
In-game advertising
A few days ago, I was contacted by a company called
www.doublefusion.com .
This start-up seems to be well positioned to gain a bunch of money on the in-game advertising market.
You are not familliar with this concept... I don't worry... I copied below a short explaination taken from this site:
"In-game advertising is a new advertising medium which allows marketers to display their brand messages, in a variety of graphic formats, directly inside the actual games played by hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide.
While products and brands have appeared in games for years, these product placements have historically been “hard-coded” and couldn’t be changed. Double Fusion now provides the technology that makes these advertising opportunities dynamic and real-time¸ so that advertisers who want to promote their products for a specific period of time, or change their messaging during the campaign, can now take advantage of the huge audience of game players.
Why is in-game advertising on everyone’s lips these days? For good reason. With every year, more people play games, and the audience of gamers is in the hundreds of millions worldwide. More than half of all US households own a gaming console, and the number continues to grow every year in parallel with the number of game players and their hours of gameplay. It’s gotten so big that the largest games alone can generate hundreds of millions of hours of audience time per month.
Time spent gaming is coming directly out of other media, with a particular emphasis on TV. At a time when advertisers and marketers are questioning the value and impact of their television campaigns, in-game advertising offers the answers…which is why everyone in the marketing, gaming, and investment communities are focused on Double Fusion and the in-game advertising business overall. "
"Serious Game" - a new way to deliver your messages...
This reminds me of a story I heard this week in one of my favorite podcasts (BFM: 01 Business - sorry but yes it's in French) about a new type of electronic game called "serious game". Those games are in general free and are a kind of simulation game where the author wants to increase the awareness on the gamer on a specific topic. For instance, a simulation around creating a new village in Africa, developing the basic infrastructures (water, electricity, even internet access point...), fighting a pendemic, finding external funds, etc...
This time again, a simulation is on the center of a communcation strategy.
By the way, the dark side is that this new type of games can also be used as propaganda to unfair causes like terrorism...
The Cone of Learning
A propos increasing our financial knowledge, and our knowledge in general, Mister Kiyosaki brought, in his latest book mentioned in the above post, a very interesting study completed in 1969 that shows the effectiveness of different types of learning. It reveals that the least effective way to learn is by reading and lecture, whereas the most effective way is by actively doing. The next most effective method is through simulating the real experience.
I used this principle in one of my training session, I presented to 10 engineers few weeks ago. Instead of giving a linear lecture on a complex topic, I choose to pass the message via a simulation where the participants were hired in a new start-up to delevelop a solution/product around the complex presented topic. The participation in class room was not only very high but also the result of their work were amazing. Some parts of their solution were far better than the actual products I wanted them to be introduced to during this training (The reason for that is simple: (1) new solutions from scratch means no need to backward compatible with some painful legacy issues, architectures, etc... (2) I gave them a chance to express themselves and it was bi-lateral communication, they took the simulation and they wanted to prove to me and probably to themselves that they are capable to beat the actual solution proposed by our company, and the truth is, for some points, they did it). By using a simulation, they also deeply understood the technical and non-technical challenges faced by the development teams. After completing the simulation, explaining them the caracterists of the actual products were obviously much easier. Weeks after this presentation, some participants stoped me in the corridor to discuss some new solutions they thought about since the session. It was impressive... they remembered the majority of the material taught during the training even the small details.
In conclusion, the cone of learning theory seems to be incredibly true...
Why we want you to be rich - Personal Views on this book.
This book is indeed interesting but may be problematic in some ways. Really, I don't think real estate is suitable for any invester. This book tries to convince the reader that the best business opportunities are in the real estate area due to several simple factors like tax or control. The truth is, I'm not conviced someone who invests in real estate has more control on his investment than someone else investing in stocks, bonds or mutual funds... All is a matter of being professional and really understanding the impact of your transactions. On another hand, this book taught me one essential concept: in order to win in business, constantly increasing our financial IQ is a must no matter the business area chosen. When reading this book, I was thinking about why Donald and Robert wrote such books... was it indeed to help others, or simply for them to make more money and to be in the buzz for another couple of months... After finishing the book, I understood that the answer to this question in fact doesn't really matter... the rich will be richer but it seems the poors will NOT be poorer this time. How? By increasing their Financial IQ...
In brief, a book I may recommand...
Yohan
Welcome to my new business related blog !!!
Welcome to my new business related blog !!!A place for book reviews, new ideas, opportunities and fun...
