The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing – Presentation from #DMA2011

On October 5th I presented The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing to a packed house at the Direct Marketing Association Annual Conference and Exhibition.  Here is the deck from that presentation.  I have some video and pictures I will clean up and post next.  Feel free to pass this presentation on. The 9 Immutable [...]

Follow up: A tale of two CompUSA’s, extended warranties and the great social media bully pulpit

Two weeks ago in my blog (article here), I totally skewered CompUSA and their warranty company (found out it’s Assurant Solutions) for not doing the right thing and honoring the extended warranty I purchased for an HDTV. Within days of publishing that article, pushing it out to my Facebook, Plaxo, Twitter connections and posting it [...]

Your company’s product guarantee policy: reducing the barriers to purchasing

Some years ago I worked for a clothing cataloger that offered a no strings attached, lifetime money back guarantee.  Occasionally we received a tattered well used article of clothing back 2-3 years later, but mostly the guarantee worked for us.  We were pioneering organic fiber fashion and as a company wanted to do everything we [...]

Florida Direct Marketing Association Presentation on Facebook

This is the latest presentation I did for the Florida Direct Marketing Association.  Entitled Facebook: Breaking the Sales and Engagement Myth, it is a case study on how The Fresh Diet builds engagement, trust and sales on their Facebook page.  We had over 100 people in attendence, once again for the 2nd time in 3 [...]

How to Mess Up a Perfectly Good Customer Experience

As a marketer, you should be overly concerned about how your customers experience your brand, products and customer service. I evangelize how in the internet age it’s very easy for a company to wind up getting skewered via social media. But all isn’t the same out there. I come across businesses daily who don’t have [...]

How These Call Center Training Techniques Can Increase Your Call-Center Conversions

As direct marketers, we spend a great deal of time and money developing programs to make the phone ring. But it’s the call-center agents that truly make the cash register sing.

Therefore, I spend a great deal of time training customer service reps (CSRs) to be powerful brand advocates with the ability to make a difference with all customers. Personally, I hate calling a company and hearing some disinterested rep deal with my order in a lackluster way. It tells me the company I’m dealing with doesn’t get that the people manning the phones are the voice of the company.

A simple CSR training program can solve the lackluster attitude and increase conversion.

What Multichannel, Direct and Ecommerce Marketers Can Learn From the Way Old-School Retailers Do Business

This week I want to tell you a story, and pay tribute to a local businessperson who recently passed away.
So Why Am I Telling You This?
Think about your company: Do you know your customers by name, or are you just a nameless, faceless entity that people buy product from? How about your staff. Are they, especially your customer service reps (CSRs), connected to your customers? Via how many touchpoints?

Use these tips to connect the dots of your customer touchpoints, Part 1

Direct and multichannel marketers encounter moments of truth that make or break their sales and marketing effectiveness multiple times each day. How they interact with customers, prospects — essentially all consumers — is critical to their success. Direct marketers touch consumers in both traditional (call center, website) and nontraditional ways (mobile, social media). Reputation management is everywhere. Marketing in the 21st century, with the internet and social media in play, has become even more of a challenge

Attention Marketers: Watch this episode of Undercover Boss now

This Sunday’s episode of Undercover Boss, focused on GSI Commerce and it’s CEO Michael Rubin. It’s all about direct marketing, customer service, call center training and shipping and fulfillment. Lots of great nuggets of info to learn from here.

6 key takeaways for getting a handle on this new-fangled social media customer service

To me it’s simple: Make it easy to speak with me or my business goes elsewhere. But the big impact on my life was the discovery of social media as a customer service tool