Using Twitter to draw and connect with Customers 

It has been often said that “desperate times call for desperate measures”, we are in desperate times, economy is down,  companies are cutting down their budgets including their marketing budgets.  The solution is social media, where the marketing playground has been leveled for both the start-ups, small & Medium businesses versus the big corporations; I say give it all you got. 

What is Twitter? 

If you didn’t hear by now about Twitter, I have to ask where have you been?. Twitter is a micro-blogging application that started in 2006.  The updates are called Tweets, they can be of a maximum 140 characters, as you need to have space for your handle or user name.  The 160 characters were derived from the mobile text messages model or SMS messages that are a maximum of 160 characters so 140 characters and the characters for the handle will make the 160 characters.  The heading on Twitter is “What are you doing?”  No one really cares ing unless it is really interesting. Use Twitter as a communication and conversation tool.  Twitter  is not an advertising medium. Posting one marketing message after another isn’t effective. It doesn’t attract prospects or engage customers, and actually can costly dearly. 

Twitter

Why should you use it? 

Twitter is the fastest-growing social-media site, with an estimated 14 million unique visitors in March 2009, (Source: Compete, Inc.) Most of the users are age 25-54, with the largest segment the 45-54 age groups. (Source: comScore Media Metrix) 

 The growth and activity provide an opportunity for you to get your message out to customers and prospects,  to grow your audience and followers. 

How to start tweeting? 

You need a plan, because building a following requires a consistent message and continual updates. If you are not actively tweeting, you defeat the purpose.  Have a goal for tweeting. Your mission statement or unique value proposition should have already been set, but they might evolve as you progress. 

Guide to how to implement Twitter 

After you have defined your purpose, follow these 10 steps: 

1. Create tweets that fit your product, brand and goal. Since the maximum number of characters is 140 try to keep your tweets at 120 so they can be RE-tweeted, you can mention your product or service with a rate of 90% to 10% and mixed, not in your first tweets though. 

2. Choose your handle name/user name as your business name: Complete the profile, including the bio, and include the names of all those who post. Make it personal; people like to connect with humans. 

3. Add a uniqe picture or a unique  avatar& create a unique background. If you are the business have your photo (same one that you use across the board in all other social media platforms), or use the corporate logo, whatever fits your brand.  There are free services like www.twitterbackgrounds.com where you can have a free background if you use your logo or picture or $4.95 if they upload up to 20 pictures for you as a background or $99 if they totally personalize the background for you.  Make sure it follows the theme of your brand.   Not everyone has the latest and greatest technology. 

 4. Determine the best days/times to tweet, and make sure that some of your tweets lead back to your website. You could time your tweets using applications like www.tweetlater.com Select a scheduler to post your tweets. Run them 24/7. You can choose to run them for an 8-12-hour cycle and then repeating.   Make it easy for people to link back to your website, make sure to use keywords in your bio 

5. Engage with your followers:  Thank whoever retweet your tweets, thank who follow you, and respond to your DM (Direct Messages). The idea is engagement, building relationships, and not blasting  

 6. It is a lifelong mission: You can’t procrastinate or get lazy; it is a constant day in and day out duty. Be persistent  

 7. Monitor your Twitter profile as number of followers, the ratio between the people your follow (should be lower) that your  

8. Communicate your brand through your tweets.  What you tweet is what you become, even if you delete your tweets, they still show up in a search. 

9. Have fun. Make your tweets engaging, entertaining, understandable and most of all helpful, solving your audience problems or offering them solutions, even if they are not yours. 

10. It is OK to ask for help or guidance if not sure. 

Till we tweet again. 

Sahar Andrade 

www.saharconsulting.com 

www.linkedin.com/in/saharandrade 

www.twitter.com/saconsulting

В рубрика Становища Съветът за електронни медии е публикувал Разпореждане. Правно основание – чл.117.3 ЗРТ.

Мая Вапцарова, ид председател, разпорежда на Нова телевизия “да прекрати излъчването на  Цената на истината преди от 23,00 часа.”

Част от констатациите  в разпореждането:  “От 16 до 29.09.2009 г. бяха излъчени 4 броя (предавания) в сряда и четвъртък от 20.00 ч. В три от тези четири броя бяха включени малолетни и непълнолетни със съгласието на техните родители. Селекцията на участниците според скандалното в техните лични истории отразява стремежа на екипа да шокира аудиторията. Обвинения в отровителство, признания за ексцентрични сексуални преживявания, агресия, измами, ненавист към родителите, хомосексуален секс, безотговорност към децата, прелюбодейства, клевети, перверзни сексуални фантазии, наркотици, лъжи и доминиращата над всичко жажда за пари – такава е палитрата на темите.”

Достатъчно ли е съгласието на родителите за участието на деца в подобен тип предавания и за освобождаване на операторите от отговорност: не.

Ölüm kader değil. Her gün bir dal semizotu yemenin ölüme karşı etkili olduğunu bas bas bağırıyor bilim insanları. Bu kadar basit.

Bir kurban bayramını daha geride bırakmak üzereyiz. Büyük şehirlerde yol kenarlarının kurban kesmek için kullanılmasına bu yıl da şahit olduk. Aynı yol kenarları Ramazan bayramında da panayır yerine dönmüştü. Yeni yıla yol kenarlarında girmek isteyenler yüzünden bu ay sonunda da çeşitli kazalar olacak, demedi demeyin. Nedir bu yol kenarlarının olayı? Hasta mısınız?

“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted”

-Albert Einstein.

Sometimes it feels like understanding, designing and measuring customer experience is almost too daunting a job to attempt. Where do you start? How will you know you have created new brand loyalty in the minds of your customers and how can you measure and track the improvement?

Let’s take a step back and ponder the wisdom of Einstein. Then just ask two critical questions:

1. Which customers matter most to my business?
2. Do I know what matters most to them?

The answers to these questions are the ones that count. Don’t bother about understanding and measuring every single customer. If you deliver unique solutions that meet the important needs of your most valuable customers you create experiences that define and differentiate your brand experience. When you deliver that experience consistently and intentionally to the right customers you build brand loyalty, advocacy and attract new loyal customers.  

It sounds too simple. What about all the great new technology tools we have to listen to customers, measure their transactions, engagement, sentiment and satisfaction? Shouldn’t we be listening to the “Voice of the Customer?”

First of all, there isn’t just one customer voice. There many different voices. And many of them will never be loyal no matter how well you listen to them. You need to listen to those who look like they will be your most valuable customer segments and filter out those who don’t.

Think carefully first about how, where and when to use these tools. There is a lot of buzz right now about “Sentiment Analysis”, the new software applications that can determine the attitude of a speaker or writer particularly in social networks.

As described in Wikipedia: “There are two main approaches, statistical and linguistic. Statistical relies heavily on mathematical and statistical comparison of the occurrences and number of negative or positive statements in the text, whereas the linguistic approach tries to build a set of rules and compare the analyzed text with them. With the proliferation of reviews, ratings, recommendations and other forms of online expression, online opinion has turned into a kind of virtual currency for businesses looking to market their products, identify new opportunities and manage their reputations”.

But then Wikipedia sucks us into the quagmire of debate about the accuracy of the algorithms. I’ll spare you the details. What is not discussed is how these new tools help provide a deeper understanding of just the customers who look, believe and act like your most valuable customers. 

It’s easy to see how a marketer can get caught up in a debate about the pros and cons of this new technology and how to best “boil the ocean” of sentiment on the web.  But how does the ability to uncover sentiments of millions of undifferentiated bloggers really provide actionable insight into the needs of your most valuable customers?

Even applying sentiment analysis to an open-ended survey question emailed to your entire customer base is not giving you an accurate picture of what’s important to the customers who are most important to you. Not every sentiment that can be counted counts.

However, if you begin by identifying the profiles of your most valuable customers and then identify where (and whether) they are active on social media, your analysis of their “sentiments” can be a lot more useful in engaging and creating new value for these valued customers.

Sometimes good old-fashioned interviews with 20 to 30 valuable customers are enough to reveal insights into customer needs your brand is uniquely able to satisfy. It makes sense to validate these insights through further quantitative analysis and testing, but you will have already eliminated a host of insights that just may not count.

And a review of secondary research efforts can uncover new trends that are profoundly affecting these valuable customers’ buying patterns. But always be sure there’s a correlation between the trends identified and the profiles of your most valuable customers.

Once you have identified these “golden” customers, you can divide them into smaller groups based on common differentiating characteristics, (demographic, transactional, behavioral, attitudinal etc.) and create profiles or “personas” of these distinct customer segments that will help all employees recognize them and personalize brand experiences to meet their unique needs wherever and whenever employees interact with them.

When you focus first on the customers that count, then you can begin counting. Now using regular feedback and data analysis tools, you can measure their transactions, behavior and attitudes and compare them over time using quantitative and qualitative metrics. But keep your eye fixed the customers who count and then count how much their loyalty, willingness to refer your brand and most importantly, their profitability, grows.

Today we’ve continued on our air travel theme – with yesterday’s Luton airport and aeroplane classroom stories leading the way – with a piece on CEM’s IP access equipment in use at Heathrow’s much-loved Terminal 5. Jet-setting!

We’ve also got an article on Mercury Security Management, a company gearing up for SIA-licensing in Northern Ireland by obtaining Approved Contractor Status. Keeping it regulated.

Apparently vehicle ID thefts are on the rise. Is someone impersonating your car? That sounds completely insane to me.

Also today, we’ve got a new Mirasys UK MD; some sporting access from Salto; and a new mid-priced anti-vandal dome from Samsung Techwin.

Well, that’s all absolutely splendid.

www.info4security.com, www.ifsec.co.uk

They don’t call me Yoda for nothing. This little rant is for those acolytes drinking the Kool Aid of disbelief, the recipe that says that one day, if we stay the course, this will all get better, those who believe that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train.
For the next few minutes try and disassociate yourself from your responsibilities at work and become a patient.  Recall a time when you’ve been a dissatisfied patient. If you’re totally honest, that simple exercise should quicken your pulse. Cold beads of sweat appear on your forehead; your palms feel a little clammy.

The transition is faster than Clark Kent in a phone booth. A mild mannered and pedestrian acolyte transformed into a right-winged, Myers-Briggs INTJ A-Type with a passion for metaphorically devouring the unfortunate person awaiting your visit.

As you think about managing the equity of your patients think about it from the perspective of the patient, goodness knows they do. That relationship is black and white—there are no shades of gray. It’s good versus evil, Yoda versus Darth Vader.

I think with most patient interactions the patients believe that the person on the other end of the line is incented to make them go away as quickly as possible and at the lowest possible expense to the provider.

For most patients, patient loyalty is a thing of the past. Who do you do business with? Why? For any product that is even close to being a commodity, I deal with the firm who I find to be the least offensive, the one that will irritate me the least. That’s why I buy cars on EBay so I never again have to hear the phrase, ‘What’s it going to take to get you into that car?” If you find yourself doing that, why is it such a stretch to believe that so many patients feel the same way? That said, could it rather naïve to believe that your firm’s current approach to patient relationship management will make any difference?

Vizyona giriş tarihi 1 Ocak 2010 olarak belirlendi. Yeni Yılı Osmanlı – kovboy karışımı bir film ile karşılayacağız. İnsanların Yahşi Batı filmine ilgisi o kadar büyük ki, aynı tarihlere rastlayan diğer film yapımcıları tarihlerini değiştiriyor.

Просто и ясно: през 2007 и 2008  надзорът на СЕМ е неефективен, според публикуван днес доклад на Сметната палата.

И през 2009 е така.

Вижда се с просто око, но Сметната палата е специализиран орган.

Преди два месеца председателката Пешева е коментирала, че ще коментира, след като излезе докладът. Наистина, има разлика в оценката:

Недостатъчно ефективен надзор (в проекта) вече е  неефективен надзор (в окончателния вариант).

The idea of  “BRAND” yourself posts came to me after giving a presentation/ workshop last Saturday named ” Empower Women Seminar” that was sponsored by “NOW: National Organization of Women, the Hollywood chapter”.  My part of the seminar covered the Marketing part discussing the power of  “Brand Yourself” for landing a job or getting a better one.

 A brand is not limited to big companies like BMW, Coca-Cola or to artists like Paris Hilton,  Brad Pitt & Angelina, we all have our own brands either we are aware of it or not.  A brand is how people around us perceive us, what do we transmit as a message to others about us, without even talking.

So let me start by deciphering what is “Brand Yourself” or “Personal Branding”.  Personal/ Self branding is simply positively grabbing someone’s attention by creating a unique unforgettable image.  Personal branding, by definition, is the process by which we market ourselves to others.

Imagine if you go to a store looking for a certain product, one is packaged in fancy colors and the other packaged in a simple white blend box, they both have the same functions and usage, the first one is a bit higher in price than the 2^nd which one would you get? I personally will pick the one that catches my eye i.e. the colorful fancy package, even if I have to pay a bit more.  So Brand Yourself is about “Self packaging” It’s identifying the unique qualities, marketable skills, and organizational knowledge that someone possesses and building a reputation that captures the attention of others (clients, managers, prospects or future employers)

No matter how old we are, what titles we hold, what business we are in, we all need to understand the importance of self-branding, we all are the CEOs, and CMOs of  “Me, LLC.” need to be unique in who we are and how we stand out from the crowd.

 Each one of us needs to develop their own USP “Unique Selling Proposition” to communicate our brand, and develop “Brand Equity” & “Brand Image” exactly as the big corporations do.  Now the question that presents itself is: “How do I brand myself, or how do I find my brand?”

The “My brand” exercise starts by thinking about 3 things you are very passionate about (loving chocolate is not one of them) and 3 things other people think you excel at.

It is a process that has 4 steps: DCCM

• Discover: What is your brand (As described above)
• Create: your USP
• Communicate: Promote your USP
• Maintain: keep adding new content and manage your brand reputation

Your USP should be one concise sentence that best describes you, who you are, how unique are you, your biggest strength and how you can benefit anyone that hires you or your services (Clients or employers).  

For example a USP for a Marketing expert would be:

“I am an experienced Marketing expert strong in creating marketing campaigns and developing new business that have resulted in additional revenues of over $ 2.5M for my last company during the last 2 years.”

This sentence demonstrated who you are, your biggest strength and how you benefited your company.

Branding Yourself is all about leveraging marketing and its famous MIX: The 4 Ps

1-     Product: YOU

2-     Promotion: what to use, which social media networks, which associations etc…

3-     Price: How much are you services worth or how should your salary be

4-     Place: Where to expand

Social Media tools have leveled the playing ground and have enabled us to reach amazing altitudes, at the cost of our time, but the ROI is way worthed.

I will be sharing in my next posts, the personal branding process, so you can think about what face you want to show to the world and how to brand position yourself to achieve your goals, and land your dream job, and how to become the hunted instead of the hunter

Cheers,

Sahar Andrade

www.saharconsulting.com

www.linkedin.com/in/saharandrade

That’s me in the back row–just kidding. There are approximately 640 muscles in the human body. Yesterday I pulled 639 of them. In anticipation of the onset of winter I’ve been ramping up my workouts, and at the moment am scarcely able to lift a pencil. I came across an article that describes the full body workout used by the University of North Carolina basketball players. It involves a ten-pound medicine ball, and 400 repetitions spread across a handful of exercises. I’m three days into it and giving a lot of thought about investigating what kind of workout the UNC math team may be using. At my son’s basketball practice last night, the parents took on the boys—they are ten. That 640th muscle, the holdout, now hurts as bad as the rest of them.

So, this morning I’m running on the treadmill, because it’s cold and the slate colored clouds look heavy with rain. While I’m running, I am watching the Military History Channel, more specifically a show on the Civil War’s Battle of Bull Run—I learned that that’s what the Yankees called it, they named the battles after the nearest river, the Rebs called it the Battle of Manassas, named after the nearest town. The historian doing the narration spoke to the wholesale slaughter that occurred on both sides. He equated the slaughter to the fact that military technology had outpaced military strategy. The armies lined up close together, elbow to elbow, and marched towards cannon fire that slaughtered them. Had they spread themselves out, the technology would have been much less effective.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss the segue. You had to know this was coming. Does your hospital have one of those designer call centers? You know the ones—wide open spaces, sky lights, sterile. Fabric swatches. The fabric of the chair matches that of the cubicle, which in turn are coordinated with the carpeting. Raised floors. Zillions of dollars of technology purring away underfoot. We have technology that can answer the call, talk to the caller, route the caller, and record the caller for that all important black hole called “purposes of quality.”

The only thing we haven’t been able to do is to find technology to solve the patient’s problems. Taking Care of Patients (TCOP).  We’ve used it to automate almost everything. If we remove all the overlaying technology, we still face the same business processes that were underfoot ten years ago. Call center technology has outpaced call center strategy. Call center technology hasn’t made call centers more effective, it’s made them more efficient. Call center strategies are geared towards efficiencies. Only when we design call center strategies around being more effective will the strategy begin to maximize the capabilities of the technologies.

A vida é uma sucessão de labirintos. Da infância à adolescência a dificuldade para vencê-lo aumenta. Uma força além de nossas capacidades de compreensão coloca diversas dificuldades em nosso caminho. Em 100 Escovadas Antes de Dormir uma das dificuldades que se erguem é a sexualidade.

Melissa, uma adolescente de 15 anos que está descobrindo o corpo e os prazeres que ele pode dar, percebe que o garoto que amava a vê apenas como mais uma que pode realizar suas fantasias. Ela aceita a situação e se perde em um vórtice mortal de sedução, orgias, a busca desmedida pelo prazer como fuga da realidade. Sua família desestruturada com um pai ausente, uma mãe cega de espírito, que não enxerga as mudanças de comportamento da filha e os problemas da própria família, e uma avó cheia de vida podada pela nora.

De modo poético, o filme compara as fases da vida de Melissa com as estações do ano. O Verão inicia o filme com a descoberta da sexualidade, um mundo novo a ser explorado. A Primavera trás a promessa do amor verdadeiro, e quando esta não é cumprida, chega o Outono, que mostra que o a trilha para o amor pode ser difícil e dolorida. De dor tão intensa que Melissa deseja ser outra pessoa, criando uma nova personalidade para poder carregar a dor. E o Inverno mostra que a vida pode ser uma sucessão de dores que te preparam para crescer, encarar a vida e escolher no Verão se quer continuar neste caminho ou não.

O filme convida a refletir sobre as relações que cultivamos na família, no círculo de amizades, pela vida. Veja o filme e faça a reflexão.

Cem Escovadas Antes de Dormir (2005) é um filme italiano baseado na obra100 colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire, da escritora Melissa Panarello, e sim, há toques biográficos no livro, que é mais denso e extenso que o filme por razões óbvias. Assista o trailer!

Durante mucho tiempo, las iniciativas relativas a la Satisfacción o Lealtad del cliente han estado basadas únicamente en el sentido común.

Las compañías saben que es importante tener clientes satisfechos, saben que cuesta más conseguir un cliente nuevo que mantener uno actual, que los clientes insatisfechos se van a la competencia, etc… Pero… ¿Cuánto más voy a vender por subir un punto la satisfacción?

Esta pregunta, o variantes similares, son las que se escuchan en los Comités de Dirección cuando alguien presenta una iniciativa destinada a mejorar la satisfacción del cliente y para la que hace falta un determinado presupuesto.

Debemos ser conscientes de que las organizaciones hablan un lenguaje financiero, y es necesario traducir los conceptos como experiencia del cliente a este lenguaje si queremos que las iniciativas cuenten con el soporte económico que necesitan para que la estrategia sea implementada en la realidad.

Sin embargo, la mayoría de las organizaciones en España e Iberoamérica desconocen los indicadores fundamentales para diseñar el Plan de Negocio de la Experiencia del Cliente:

1. ¿Cuál es el coste real de adquisición de un nuevo cliente?
2. ¿Cuánto cuesta una reclamación (el coste completo de la reclamación y el impacto en la decisión de compra futura del cliente)?
3. ¿Cuál es el coste total de resolución (no sólo la llamada al Call Center, sino todo el proceso con todas las personas que intervienen)?
4. ¿Cuál es el porcentaje del gasto total del cliente que se invierte en mi compañía? (Lo que los americanos llaman “Share of Wallet”)
5. ¿Cuánto cuesta perder un cliente? (Teniendo en cuenta su gasto y duración media)

Conocer estos indicadores es el primer paso para diseñar un modelo económico que refleje la economía de las relaciones. El siguiente paso es correlacionar los resultados de satisfacción para cada grupo de clientes, con los resultados económicos. ¿Cuánto más gasta un Promotor vs un Detractor (según la nomenclatura del NPS, Net Promoter Score)?

Es necesario por tanto hacer un trabajo de identificación y cálculo de los indicadores, y un análisis de correlación entre estos y los resultados de los diferentes estudios, para construir la Plataforma de Decisión Financiera que soporte el análisis para la priorización de los esfuerzos y valoración de las inversiones en la mejora de la Experiencia del Cliente.

Armados con argumentos financieros consistentes, los responsables de Gestión de Clientes o Experiencia de Clientes de las organizaciones, ganarán un espacio relevante en la toma de decisiones de inversión, al poder demostrar como las inversiones, recursos y priorización en Experiencia del Cliente generará un mayor gasto, incremento de la vida del cliente, incremento de las recomendaciones y mayor disposición a adquirir otros productos y servicios.

Aquela ressaca braba acumulada do final de semana e para variar aquele tédio natural de todo domingo. Para completar aquela programação da televisão que não ajuda em nada. Que tal então um filminho?

Para ajudar na sua escolha, o jornal britânico The Times, em sua versão online, fez a sua lista do que considera serem os 100 melhores filmes da década.

1. “Caché” (2005)

2. “Ultimato bourne” (2007)

3. “Onde os fracos não têm vez” (2007)

4. “O homem urso” (2005)

5. “Team America: detonando o mundo” (2004)

6. “Quem quer ser um milionário?” (2008)

7. “O último rei da Escócia” (2006)

8. “007 – Cassino Royale” (2006)

9. “A rainha” (2006)

10. “Hunger” (2008)

Clique AQUI e veja a lista completa.

Many companies are now realizing that gathering lots of information on customers can create overwhelming uncertainty as to how to identify the most valuable and useful information. Even integrating  various sources of data into one central database and organizing it one way or another isn’t actually using this data to drive fact-based action plans that create brand loyalty and exceptional customer experiences.

These companies are asking “How do I know which data gives me the most valuable customer insight?”

As Stuart Lauchlin advises in his Customer Intelligence post: Do you really know your customers? There are plenty of technology options to help you gather and sort data. CRM applications, Business Intelligence (BI), Web Analytics, Data Warehousing, Speech Analytics (for unstructured data and social network conversations) and even Loyalty Cards can provide vast amounts of customer intelligence.

And he rightly points out that: “Customer intelligence needs to also reach further than traditional CRM. Organizations have spent millions on customer data capture, storage and analytics but this is based on actions which took place. But what about the actions that didn’t take place? What about the customer who wandered into a shop and didn’t buy anything? Why did they leave? Has anyone asked them? Is there any data on file to monitor track and spot a negative trend that can be addressed?”

These are provocative questions that need to be asked but he stops short of providing a clear, step-by-step roadmap for answering them. How can you translate data into fact-based insights and action plans that can advance the business goals of the organization and fulfill the needs of its most valuable customers?

There is a pretty simple (but not necessarily easy) approach for putting all that data to work to reach your business goals and build a system for ongoing creation of new value for customers.

Step 1:  Don’t try to boil the ocean. Identify just a few of your most important business problems or questions you need the data to help solve. For instance, if customer churn is a key business problem, then you can narrow down the specific questions you need to look to your data to answer. Who is leaving? (Demographics, geographics, etc)  When?  Connected to which transactions?

Step 2:  Identify your most valuable customer segments and draw a preliminary profile of their common characteristics and behavior. Identify what is unknown about them as well as what is known. For instance why does one customer in Segment A remain loyal for 5 years but another in that same segment defect after one year?

Step 3:  Explore all data sources and consider data mining and predictive analytics to uncover the “why” of customer churn. You can then start to draw “predictive” rather than just behavioral or transactional profiles of your most valuable customer segments.  These two data analysis techniques can provide attitudinal insight through exploring correlations, patterns and trends in large amounts of data. Also consider new “Sentiment Analysis” technology that can mine unstructured data from social network conversations and open-ended survey questions to identify emotional attitudes that are driving customer satisfaction (or lack thereof).

Step 4: Refine your most valuable customer profiles to reflect attitudinal characteristics as well as behavioral. Include qualitative insights gained through other forms of research. If you use data mining and predictive analytics you should be able to determine which customers look like they are “most grow-able” based on a deeper understanding of how their needs may change over time.

Step 4: Using these profiles, you can then begin to design the optimal customer experience for each valuable customer segment based on their emotional needs as well as transactional behavior and map that experience back to the original business goal and your brand’s unique value proposition. For instance, to reduce churn you could create a special service, or cross-sell an existing one, offer an exclusive incentive or act of recognition that will surprise and delight a valuable customer who looks like they may be likely to churn based on a predictive trigger.  The key here is to make the customer feel like you understand their needs better than your competitors do. For instance, a good car insurance customer might defect when their adult child no longer needs the family coverage if you don’t anticipate their need for a more favorable rate or type of coverage. You can then create in-market tests to determine which offers, messaging and customer touch points deliver the most impact on reducing churn.

Step 5: Pilot, test and continuously measure the impact of your brand experience action plan tactics on your most valuable customers and your overall business goal. Build new data gathering techniques into your tests to continuously refine and enrich your customer profiles for further experience design and testing.

The ultimate goal should be to use your data to become predictive rather than reactive in how you design customer experiences and anticipate your customer’s emotional as well as transactional needs.  Over time you will spend less time solving those vexing business problems and more time innovating new customer insight-informed brand experiences that will create more brand value and customer loyalty.

Curso abriu esse ano em Pontal do Paraná no Centro de Estudos do Mar (CEM). Em Palotina foi aberto o mesmo curso. Curso integral, dividído em módulos e é tecnólogo. Tem duração de três anos. Não tem prédio, salas, laboratório e só foram constratados 2 professores (um só foi nomeado) próprios pro curso. As outras aulas são ministradas por professores da Oceanografia, com quem dividem o campus. Eram 30 vagas no vestibular, inscreveram-se 7 pessoas e (por transferencia de curso) tem 20 estudantes no curso. Curso ainda tem diversas indecisões, como de que forma se dará o estágio supervisionado, as disciplinas práticas e outros. Segundo a coordenação do curso teria um terreno para ele em Praia de Leste e a construção de estrutura não se iniciou em função da burocracia da universidade.

Ever notice how the computer can shave about fifteen years off your looks? This is especially true when you post old photos of yourself. High School friends, which you know you will never see again, find you on Facebook and comment as to how good you look. That’ll show ‘em.

So, how’s your day going? Mine’s fine—thanks for asking. I’ve been meaning to write about a few customer care experiences I liked, and then see who we can apply the idea to healthcare and Patient Relationship Management (PRM), so here goes.

It recently occurred to me that very few of today’s children know how freshly baked bread smells, so I decided I would learn how to bake. For those who know me, I’m neither big on details nor on taking direction—not a big detail when it comes to mowing the lawn, but rather significant in baking since it’s almost all chemistry. I like sourdough, so I thought I’d start with that.  It turns out you can’t.  You can start to start, but you can’t actually bake any until you’ve created a ’starter’.  The starter is somewhat akin to creating life where there was none.  From a concoction of flour, water, sugar, and salt (basically the recipe for Play-dough) wild yeasts will infest the mix and begin to grow.

With my science project growing in a Ball jar on my counter, and after several rather impressive attempts at white bread, I decided to whip up a rather large batch of pizza dough.  Since I was in a hurry I ignored the admonition to slowly add the remaining three cups of flour, and dumped it into the mixing bowl.  Thwump!  As the bright red mixer ground loudly to a halt I learned why they’d included that little warning. A faint smell of burnt ozone wafted through the kitchen as the cloud of flour settled slowly on the granite counter top.

The KitchenAid mixer was dead. The last thing I fixed was the bell on my tricycle when I was four, so I don’t know what made me thing I could fix this. I went to Kitchenaid’s web site, typed in the model number, and hit enter. Nothing. I searched their site. Nothing. Went to Google. Typed in, “repair Kitchenaid mixer.” Within two minutes I found a web site that matched exactly my problem. I clicked the link. There was a step-by-step set of instructions and photos instructing how to disassemble the mixer right down to the broken part, the worm gear. The author also provided a link to a parts supplier, the price of the part, and an estimate for how long it takes for it to arrive.

Painless. Within a week my mixer was working although I did have one screw left over. I didn’t have to box it, ship it, pay for it; nothing. Some kind soul had taken it upon himself to make my day by posting his success on the internet. Could KitchenAid have done the same thing? Yes, for almost no cost. Another example of a firm who hasn’t learned to color outside the lines. Thank goodness one of the customers had.

Chances are good that your patients have posted more information about how to help their fellow patients than your hospital has posted.  It’s worth a look.  Chances are that they’ve also posted information that is wrong, things you would like to correct, but if you don’t know about it, you can’t correct it.  Want to know a good place to start a social media strategy?  Learn from your patients.

Missionário Mártir

Por Antonia Leonora van der Meer

A missionária Antonia propagou a fé de Cristo durante 10 anos em Angola, tem o direito de usar esse título de Missionária com “M” maiúsculo. A seguir a segunda parte do artigo dela:

Parte 2: Missionário Mártir?

Missionário?! “Para mim é um ser muito mais santo, uma pessoa chamada para sofrer”, pensam alguns.

É alguém que não se preocupa com as coisas do mundo, despojado. Um verdadeiro mártir! É assim que muitos veem o missionário. Um ideal que pode ser admirado e colocado num pedestal, não um modelo para ser seguido. E é claro que uma pessoa que está no pedestal não precisa de minha ajuda e compreensão. Está ali para ser admirada (ou apedrejada).

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Muitos missionários voltam dos campos emocionalmente exaustos, confusos, quebrantados, precisando muito de um tempo de renovação, cuidado e repouso. Mas passam por dois extremos: ou são recebidos ou como heróis, como um programa lotado de compromissos, ou sem nenhuma atenção. A igreja deveria ser a família onde fossem recebidos com amor, carinho, cuidado, interesse neles como pessoas e não só no trabalho que realizam.

Há cristãos que, quando ouvem relatos de crises tremendas ou encontram o missionário doente, magro e exausto, aplaudem: Esse é um verdadeiro missionário! Mas, quando o mesmo missionário passa por uma fase mais tranquila e recupera a saúde, facilmente surgem críticas e desconfianças:

-“Ele fica viajando por aí com nosso dinheiro…”
-“Que trabalho realmente está fazendo?”
-“Parece até que está passando muito bem!”

O que significa mártir? Vem da palavra “ser testemunha”, “dar testemunho”. Mas aí o martírio não é privilégio só de missionários, e sim de todo cristão verdadeiro…

O que vemos na igreja primitiva? Certamente houve alguns mártires que morreram pelo seu testemunho. Mas a maioria deles recebia vários tipos de apoio de igrejas e irmãos, e não buscava o sofrimento. Este vinha sem ser convidado, muitas vezes inspirado, e era enfrentado com fé e coragem pelos discípulos de Jesus, que até se sentiam honrados por sofrerem pelo seu nome.

Será que estou defendendo a volta de uma busca do martírio? Não! Mas se não estamos dispostos a encarar seriamente essa possibilidade como consequência de nosso ministério em situações de crise, teremos de abandonar muitos dos campos missionários mais carentes.

No século 19, muitos missionários iam ao continente africano sabendo que havia um alto risco para suas vidas. Oitenta por cento morriam de malária, doença que ainda tem matado alguns jovens missionários brasileiros na África. Isso é doloroso, mas não significa o fim de nossa responsabilidade.

Mais difícil é a situação em muitos países, onde o fundamentalismo religioso vê o cristão como ameaça à sua cultura, família ou nação. Tem havido muitos martírios, a maioria de simples cristãos nacionais, dispostos a arriscar suas vidas no seu testemunho (martírio), muitas vezes sobrevivendo com salários ínfimos.

Leia também – MISSIONÁRIO: Maluco, Mártir, Mendigo ou o Quê? – Parte 1

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Domuz gribi hakkında hiçbir fikrim yok. Kusura bakmayın.

Yok aslında maç çift kale oynandı. Sedat, Yasin, Serkan, Hakan, Cem, Emre, ve şahsım olacaklardan habersiz daha 1 hafta kala kazanma yeminleri ediyorduk. Bize göre olay basitti, ben kalede panterleşmesem bile üstüme gelen topları tutar, Hakan ve Emre defansta devleşir, Serkan, Yasin ve Emre Sedat’ a çıkardıkları muz ortalar, derinlemesine paslarla Rıdvan Dilmen’ i hayrete düşürür, Sedat mükemmel gollere imza atar ve maçı kazanırdık.

/en azından plan buydu!/

Maç hazırlıklarına iş yerlerimizde aralıksız devam ediyorduk. Ben kimsenin olmadığını sezdiğim dakikalarda arkadan kolileri çıkarıp dişime uygununu sağa sola atıp sıçrayıp tutuyor, bu sayede kartonik bir haz duyarak motivasyonumu arttırıyordum.

1 hafta sonra maçın yapılacağı büyük adrean halı sahasına arabalarla ulaştık. İnanılmaz hazırız. Karşı takım zamanla gelince hazırlığımız keyife dönüşüyor.

/zira en uzunu 1.68 boyutunda insancıklar!/

Yaş ortalaması 20 olan karşıtakım karşısında takımımızın yaş ortalaması 29 bu ilk bakışta dezavantaj gibi görünüyor. Ancak maç sırasında apaçık görünüyor ki bu bir dezavantaj değil bu bir yok oluş.

Maça çok hızlı başlıyor, ancak istediğimiz gole bir türlü ulaşamıyoruz. Sinirlerimiz daha 4. dakikada geriliyor. Zira biz bu dakikaya kadar atacağımız 3 golün bizi çok rahatlatacağını düşünmüştük.

/biz aslında 1 sat maç oynayabilmeyi düşünmemiştik yalnızca!/

Maçın 13. dakikasında ilk firemizi Hakan ile veriyorduk. Hakan “Ulan bu maç ne zaman bitecek?” diye sorduğu an takımıız inanılmaz yorulduğunu farketti. İlk devrede attığımız 2 golün acısını karşı takım 9 tane atarak çıkarmıştı. İlk devrede hemen hemen bütün takımın üstüme yüklenmesi elbette isyan bayrağını açtırdı şahsıma. Yani maça başlamadan önce kendini, Tores, Ronaldinho, Figo gibi duayen addeden takımda bir tek ben yumurta Hayrettin görevini üstleniş gibiydim. 

/ki ben zaten başarısızlığımı beyan etmişim./

İkinci yarı tamamiyle maç bizim sahada geçiyordu. Moralmen çökmüş olan kabakulak top kaleye girdikten nanay zaman sonra topu kaleden çıkarıyor, bir de çamura yatarak “gol değil ulaaağğann!” diye kendini haklı çıkarmaya uğraşıyordu. Takımımız giderek yorulmanın 7. aşamasına geçmişti.

7. Aşama şu;

Hakan yorgunluktan yere düşüyor, top ona inat maç boyunca gitmediği bir yere; Hakan’ ın yanına gidiyordu. Hakan topu görünce ölüm öncesi enerjisini sonuna kadar topluyor, kalkıyor, koşuyor ancak bu koşuyu bana doğru

/yani kendi kalesine doğru!/

gerçekleştiriyordu. Sesim halı sahayı delip geçer cinsten ama bir tek hakana etki etmiyordu. 

/Hakaaağğaann lan diğer tarafaaa diğer tarafaaaa!/

Hasılı, bi ton gol yememiz yetmiyormuş gibi, psikolojik olarak da çökmüş durumdaydık. Hakanın bu hareketi kaleyi Hakan’ a teslim etmeme vesile oldu. Ama kaleden çıkarken kendime nasıl bir gaz vermişsem artık, kendimi takımı için kendini pert etmeye hazır Tsubasa gibi hissediyorum. Ta ki ilk top ayağıma gelene kadar. Top ayağıma değer eğmez ne yapacağımı şaşırdım. “La bi dur, la sekme, la ananııı…” derken  boy olarak yarıma gelemeyen cicoz rakip ayağımdan topu şaka yapar gibi aldı gitti, bir kuğu gibi süzüldükten sonra Hakan’ ın dibinden topu ağlarla buluşturdu.

16 dan sonrasını sayamayan takımımız attığı 2 golü günlerce konuştu. Eksikliğimizin takımın tutunmasından kaynaklandığına inanıyoruz ve savımız şu;

Emre defansta kalsaydı, Yasin defansa geçmeseydi, Serkan birazcık paslı oynasaydı da kendini pert etmeseydi, Sedat o kadar pozisyona tecavüz etmeseydi, Kabakulak kaleden çıkmasa, Hakan onun yerine girmeseydi, Cem daha maç başlar başlamaz yoruldum deyip defansta oturmasaydı. Veya genç kalsaydık, yenilmezdik.

/üzgünüz senyor Terim!/

¿Qué le ponemos a la experiencia?

Parece que últimamente hablar de experiencias se está convirtiendo casi en moda. Creemos que es algo mucho más que una moda. Si no somos capaces de construir experiencias para nuestros clientes no conseguiremos “tocarles” realmente, es decir ser verdaderamente relevantes para ellos.

Ya hemos dicho otras veces que los seres humanos nos regimos en nuestras decisiones principalmente por el sistema límbico, aquel en el que radican las emociones. Las experiencias, deben ser diseñadas por lo tanto para alcanzar el estado emocional de nuestros clientes en lugar del racional.

Pero antes de ponernos a diseñar estas experiencias debemos entender de qué están compuestas. Desde nuestro punto de vista, la experiencia se puede representar de la siguiente forma:

¿Qué ingredientes le ponemos a esta experiencia?

Nosotros proponemos esto:

• Compra: Es uno de los momentos en los que debemos asegurarnos de que la experiencia es completa y coherente con todo aquello que se comunica y con lo que queremos trasladar al cliente sobre el posicionamiento de la compañía. En muchos casos la tienda debe ser la que cumpla esta función, pero hay otros muchos factores que intervienen: Ubicación, personal, precio, existencia de parking si fuera necesario… Toda la construcción previa se puede desvanecer por una mala implantación en este aspecto. Las tiendas on-line no se libran de este paso, ya que la coherencia debe ser absoluta en cualquiera de los canales que la empresa utilice. Mini o Desigual son ejemplos de coherencia en la tienda o en el momento de la compra.
• Uso: ¿Qué pasa cuando el cliente compra algún producto o servicio y luego no cumple sus expectativas? Que la experiencia se tira por tierra. Se consiguió la venta, pero se va a perder la posibilidad de fidelizar al cliente y lo que es peor, se pierde la oportunidad de conseguir un fan. Cuando se diseñe tanto el producto como la experiencia de compra/uso hay que pensar en todos los momentos en los que el cliente interactuará con lo que ha comprado en condiciones normales. ¿Instrucciones imposibles de entender? ¿faltan piezas? ¿Se rompe con facilidad? Hay que pensar en todas estas preguntas y en muchas otras para, en primer lugar intentar minimizar los riesgos de crear experiencias negativas y en segundo lugar crear protocolos de actuación en caso de fallo. Nos parece ejemplar el caso de Lego. Si falta alguna pieza en una de sus cajas, te las envían sin preguntar. ¿Se arregla del todo el desagravio? No, pero la próxima vez el cliente sabrá que Lego se preocupa por ellos.
• Branding: Es tal vez uno de los más importantes. La marca afecta de forma definitiva en la experiencia que el usuario vive tras realizar la compra y/o el uso del producto o servicio. ¿Le trasmite seguridad de que no se equivocará en su decisión? ¿Le hace “pertenecer” a un club que le es de agrado, ¿todo lo contrario? En cuanto a la comunicación que se realiza, hay que tener en cuenta el efecto que tendrá tanto sobre los clientes actuales como los que no son clientes todavía. Si ponemos como ejemplo a las empresas de telefonía, podremos ver como se centran en los nuevos clientes, dando la espalda a los ya existentes. Los valores que trasmite la marca son en nuestra opinión el factor más determinante en este sentido. Si los valores coinciden con los del cliente, la experiencia será más completa. En caso contrario, será mucho más difícil. La marca es la que trasmite los valores y el posicionamiento necesario para crear parte de la experiencia antes de que se produzca la propia compra. Es la preparación de la experiencia, el momento en el que la empresa empieza a crear las expectativas de compra/uso en la mente de sus clientes previo a los momentos de la verdad. Apple comparte principios con sus clientes, diseño e innovación son parte tanto de su ADN como del de sus clientes.

Será más fácil definir experiencias si tenemos claro cuáles son sus componentes.

¿Podemos descuidar alguno de los pasos del proceso de compra? Obviamente no, todos son importantes y en todos se va construyendo la experiencia para llegar a la parte emocional de los clientes.

borjaime

Following the unprecedented admissions of failure with Incas by the DENI, CCEA and the CEM at Durham University it may help parents to see how the false reassurances from the Project Management Board from CCEA were not matched by reality.

No software errors have been reported

En motiu de l’intercanvi amb el Cor Jove d’Oleiras – Portugal – l’Excel.lentíssim Alcalde de Terrassa Sr. Pere Navarro, ens va rebre a la sala de Plens de l-Ajuntament – Maig 2009