Turning Customers into Brand Ambassadors

Check out this article posted on PRWeb about getting your customers to talk about your brand. See the original article here.


You know that social media has the power to amplify everything you say about your business. But there's a flipside: it also amplifies everything your customers say. While this lack of control might seem like a cause for concern, it's actually a great opportunity to leverage your customers as brand advocates.

Some of the most effective marketing you can do is good old word-of-mouth. When happy customers spread the word about your business, new customers will soon be knocking at your door.
Thanks to the speed of social media, word-of-mouth now works faster than ever. Here are four ways to generate it from your customers.

1
Reward loyalty.
Make sure your customers know that you value their business. Even a simple "Thanks for your business" can make a difference. Tactical tools such as loyalty cards or discounts are great, but they're even better when offered in conjunction with face-to-face gratitude. If you're feeling confident on social channels, try recognizing your most loyal customers on Facebook or Twitter with a special "customer of the week" feature and discount just for them.

2 Embrace the good and the bad.
People tend to share extremely positive or extremely negative customer service experiences. However, some of the most compelling stories arise from companies responding to bad customer experiences effectively. If someone shares a negative story about your company online, respond to their complaint, do everything possible to remedy the situation, and communicate what you're doing. Think of complaints as opportunities to improve customer relations and earn more word-of-mouth.
                         

3
Get more social.
Apps like FourSquare, Yelp! and Open Table to name a few, allow customers to leave real-time reviews about your business. Make sure you know what people are saying about you on these forums, and respond appropriately. Better yet, become an active presence yourself, thanking people for positive reviews, responding to concerns, or even offering discounts or promotions for users. To encourage reviews, you can add buttons to your website which link directly to these sites.

4
Give customers something to talk about.
Neutral sentiment does nothing to further your brand. Customers don't talk about 'average' experiences with brands. What they'll remember—and share with others—is how your company goes above and beyond to make customer interactions easy and pleasant. Check out these "10 Examples of Shockingly Excellent Customer Service" for some inspiration!

By managing relationships with your customers effectively, you can turn them into marketers for your brand, as well as keeping them happy and satisfied.

The LOL's of casting/ hiring people

When I used to be the one looking for a job, I always wondered what people thought of my responses. What I could do better, what I was doing wrong or right. Then, when I had to post for jobs and casting for photo shoots, I realized how difficult, annoying, comical and interesting it is to get responses from people that want the job you are offering.


Some people reply with:

- almost nothing like- "I'm interested. Here's how to contact me." (delete)
- a question like "so what exactly do you want?..." (like I have time to answer every question- and some of these don't even have any info, they want you to respond first before they send info.)
- "can you change the date that you posted for the shoot?" (uh no, I can find 50 more people that can make that date I asked for)
- "I would like to work with you if we can negotiate on more pay" (who do you think you are?)
- " I need you to fill this out for me and tell me exactly what you need" followed by a long list of questions. (I'm 100% more likely to respond to someone who didn't want me to spend 20 min. on a survey.)
 - It is stated in the post that I need people to interview on Tues and Wed. - "Can I come in on Thursday for an interview?" (Obviously if I asked for Tues & Wed., I'm probably already making the decision by Thurs.)
- A million replies to person casting. (likely, the person who posted the job is sifting through 100 people and is extremely busy, also they are likely not the person making the final hiring decision)



Responses to when I ask for someone local in LA:

- some people just send their info anyway and never even say that they are located on the east coast
- "I may be in another state but I work well remotely" (yeah but that's not what I asked for)


Some tips on replying:

- You don't want to be the last person to interview. Maybe not the first, but definitely within the first day, especially if it's for a gig that's time sensitive on picking someone.
- Reply with a little info about yourself, what you do and a hook as to why we should hire you, but not too long. And attach your resume in the same email.
- Don't ask questions about the job in your first response to the post.
-  It's helpful to change the name of the email you send back instead of using "re: Looking for Photographer in LA" (everybody responded with that and it's hard to tag which email you sent)
- Don't call, unless asked to. And if you do, only call once, not 5 times. (It's annoying, I'm busy)


When your coming in for an interview:

- Ask what to bring (always a resume, and a portfolio if it calls for one in your job)
- Ask what to wear (most likely dress conservative, unless you know you are interviewing with someone from a really alternative artsy type of job)
- If your job has something to do with computers and you need to show examples on a computer, be sure to bring the computer or iPad with you. Don't assume the client has one right there to use.


Whatever you do, don't make someone have to jump through any hoops for you. Hiring and casting people is a pain in the ass most of the time anyway. It's best to just get your interview time and date, show up on time, look like a million bucks and have a great personality and portfolio. 

Negative emails accomplish nothing

Let me start off by saying, don't say that you can do something like say, set up a fashion photo shoot when you've never done it before, because you think it will be easy. The first time is always a learning experience... with anything you do.

I've been working with my client on getting together her fashion photo shoot but more standing to the side to let someone handle getting the crew together. There was some miscommunication with the make-up artist/ hair stylist for the shoot. First, the person who is in charge of getting the crew confirmed a tentative date with the stylist, which they must have mistaken for being a set thing. Strangely enough, the models weren't picked and the clothes hadn't completely arrived to even do the shoot. So the coordinator asked the client to pay a $100 fee for "cancelling" 5 days ahead of time to the make-up artist, which seemed strange enough considering that usually that much time would be enough for most professionals unless otherwise noted.

Then, when the dates were finalized, the client called the stylish who originally quoted through the coordinator that her day rate was $300, now states that her rate is $150 per hour and that it is more than usual as a "penalty" for the cancellation of the previous date. Then the client and stylist come to an agreement as to the final price. Two days later, the stylist writes the client a rude email stating that she feels like she is being "taken advantage of" by giving this rate and explaining that she missed out on a higher paying gig and also spent a lot of money on the make-up kit for the original date. The client received the email and immediately writes back cancelling the stylist completely.

My thought was, "what was the stylist thinking writing that email?" Did she really think that she would get paid more by saying that she thought she was being taken advantage of? Instead, she burned a bridge with the client and got fired from the job. If she was unhappy with the pay rate and felt that it wasn't high enough, she should have just cancelled instead of writing an offensive rude email back. Not even making a phone call, just passive-aggressively writing an email.

The moral of the story is "think before you type" and instead of being negative and offending the client, nicely cancel and explain that you re-assessed your finances and don't feel that you can offer the rate you previously offered and apologize for the misunderstanding. At least in that case, you wouldn't be blacklisted completely from the clients universe.

Another point I'd like the bring up is the fact that the people who think they are can't be replaced, are often the easiest to replace. lol I have about a dozen new excellent professional hair/make-up artists lined up to for the job.

Update on the customer complaint blog

Today I received a chargeback notification from Paypal that was started by the lady who emailed me to complaint that she didn't receive her package, the froze the $108.00 from the payment in my account.  So I responded immediately to Paypal with the tracking number of the package. Then, I called Paypal to ask if they needed anything else from me. They said that all they needed was the tracking number, then the girl checked online and saw that the package had been delivered and released the funds to my account saying that this was protected under the paypal seller protection policy. They said that they will deal with the credit card company about the claim. I'm pleased to hear that paypal does protect you, as long as you have a tracking number.

I still wonder what happened to the package that the customer claims was never received. Her emails were very rude and threatening but it's hard to tell if she really didn't receive the package or if she is just lying about receiving it. So that means that there are only two possibilities, either the package was stolen from her porch or she's lying about receiving it in the first place. If it was stolen, there's nothing I can do. The only thing to do would be to see if I can offer "signature confirmation" as an add on to shipping in my online store. It costs $2.50, which would make the shipping cost that much more, so I wouldn't just add it in the price, but maybe if someone ordered a package and they knew that there was a possibility that someone could steal a package from their porch, they would opt for spending the $2.50 extra to get the signature confirmation. I feel bad if it was stolen, but there is no way to tell if what the truth is and either way, and I can't just refund someone $100 if I don't get anything back from it. You can't run a business where you let everyone get away with everything just because they complained. 

The customer is not always right

I've heard of all kinds of Internet scams. I've gotten the scam emails claiming to be PayPal or a credit card company or someone wanting to send you a check and you send them back money. Those seem to be obvious ones to me. But I haven't had a lot of experience with people personally trying to scam me as a business so I was shocked when I started getting mean emails from someone who had ordered an item from me online.

The person claimed to not have received the item, eventhough the post office had confirmed that it was delivered. They told me that I was scamming them by taking their money and trying to claim that I had never sent anything. They told me that they were going to refer my company to their friends but now they are not. Not only did they ask for their money back on the exact day that the package had been confirmed as delivered by the post office, but they told me that they had also called their credit card company to "inform them of the bizarre situation"

Then the went on to say that they contacted the post office and the post office told them that something had been delivered but they couldn't confirm that it was a package and it could have been a letter. Although obviously wouldn't they have gotten a letter in the mail that day that had "delivery confirmation" on it if that were the case.

At first I felt very threatened. Obviously it seems like I would be receiving a chargeback dispute from PayPal someone was claiming that there was a problem. The person even went on to say they were going to contact a lawyer. I laughed a little at that wondering what lawyer they knew was going to take a case over not only a $100 dispute but over a very small online business.

So I contacted PayPal to make sure they had me covered for this. I had shipped out the package through paypals USPS shipping label service with delivery confirmation. There is even a message on the PayPal page that says I'm eligible for seller protection.

I spoke with a representative from PayPal who informed me that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. If the post office says that the package was delivered, then I'm covered from someone trying to scam me.

So far, I don't see any dispute being claimed. I've heard of this type of thing happening but I didn't realize it would come with horrible threatening harassing emails. Then again, this type of thing just comes with running any type of business. You can't fear this situation happening, you just have to be as professional as possible and nicely let them know that their scam won't work on you.

How to Get Celebrities to Show off Your Brand

Here is an interesting article about how to get celebrities to show off your brand by Under30CEO. I have been involved with gifting products to celebrities in the past so this article makes a lot of sense to me.

"Getting the attention of a celebrity or someone relevant in your market can be a huge advantage for your business. I was involved in very competitive high-tech startup companies for most of my career. These businesses were enormously challenging for reasons that would require lengthy dissertations; additionally; they had very long sales cycles. Overcoming these challenges has helped me maintain infinite patience with my own business. This has been critical because my venture as a jewelry designer/entrepreneur also falls into a highly competitive industry.

As a strategic edge to differentiate my collection from what seems to be an endless number of indie designers, I’ve chosen to utilize gifting as a marketing tool for my business. This strategy can be impactful, but it’s not a tool with guaranteed effectiveness. Like all strategies, it’s subject to failure and dependent on preparation, follow-through, product quality, and timing. Here are a few suggestions to help you find celebrity matches for your own product."... click to read more here...

from:
http://under30ceo.com/get-celebrities-show-your-brand/