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Volume One | Issue Three | December 2008
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Hello Everyone, Well, that was quick. No sooner is the Thanksgiving wish sent out are we saying Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I know, everyone says the same thing, “Gosh, where has the year gone?”…..gosh, where has the year gone? It is my hope this finds you doing well, being healthy and taking the world in stride. It is certainly interesting times….. |
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On Email Marketing
Email Holiday Wishes
With the “holiday season upon us”, many clients are using email to send holiday wishes. Others are “sticking with tradition” and mailing cards in envelopes.
As you can imagine, these diverse approaches have generated quite a bit of discussion.
So...is it OK to use email to send holiday greetings?
Knowing how I feel about it, and wanting to see what the “Industry” has to say, I turned to the web and boy....was that a mistake! There is a lot of discussion out there and of those who express an opinion - they have just that, AN OPINION! (Caps used to emphasize that the opinions are vehement!)
For the most part, the pundits do favor one side….and of course I am not going to tell you which side is favored because I want to ask you for a favor and do not want to influence you….
….Do you have five minutes to take a break and participate in my short survey?
Let’s see what we, collectively, think about the practice of using email to send holiday wishes - and if you really want to collect some data, go ahead and use the Forward To A Friend button at the bottom of the page to send this along to others.
Click here to take the survey and have fun!
Coming next month: "I can't write" and "What about content?" (The "holidays' inspired me to move this out- again!)
Customer Service
For those of you new to the newsletter, this is where I pontificate on my other favorite subject (aside from email marketing), Customer Service.
For the time-being we are looking at enhancing the customer service experience by adopting “Words To Avoid".
Word(s) of the Month: “It’s company policy”
“It’s company policy”. Ever face that solid wall of resistance when trying to get resolution to a conundrum?
The only guaranteed beneficiary of “company policy” is – you guessed it – the company. When used with the words, “I can’t do anything because ”, the customer receives no benefit from a “company policy”.
The alternative, or customercentric, approach is to “do whatever it takes” to make the customer happy regardless of the "rules".
Instead of “I can’t, it’s company policy”, it is easy to create a neutral starting point with, “Well, let’s see what I can do….” Further, it can fun to engage with the customer and ask "what can I do for you?". Such an expression of helpfulness disarms any anger and generates positive dialogue that is impossible in the “Can’t” environment.
Providing excellent customer service is not a binary “Yes, I will satisfy”, or “No, I am not going to satisfy” proposition - it is entirely possible to say “no” to a customer and still have them feel good about the experience.
Finally, a key to implementing a “positive policy” approach is to accept the notion that at least 95% of our customers are honest. Is it worth punishing those 95% by implementing a negative company policy just to protect us from the other 5%?
No! It’s “company policy” to help our customers in every way we can by thinking "yes…."
For a fairly complete, suitable for framing, list of words to avoid, click here.
Next Month: "But"