gave them an opportunity, and shared my excitement about their
product, but I wasn’t sitting around waiting for a response. I took
my new suitcase-of-awesomeness, packed it up for the trip and
away we went.
However, by the time I’d reached security at my first airport, I
was already frustrated with my new suitcase.
It tipped over. Many times.
It tipped over in line. It tipped over when I let go of it for a
moment to take off my jacket. By the time I had finished my trip,
the front pocket zipper had broken (It wasn’t over-packed by far). I
couldn’t wait to throw the thing out and use my old suitcase again.
The case had been expensive and instead of making my travel
more comfortable, it was more difficult.
Because I hadn’t built a connection to the company, I had no
problem voicing my issue publicly.
We went on to email and their CEO was apologetic and very
efficient at processing the refund for my purchase – but not before
the issue was shared publicly online. I was very impressed with how
great they were after the problem, which confused me as to why
they had no response before the problem. There weren’t hundreds
of mentions of the product, actually none other than mine that day.
If you only pay attention to your customers when they are angry,
you are only going to have angry customers publicly. You will miss the
chance to engage with the happy ones and create brand evangelists.
Here are the four steps to create Brand Endearment.
Listen. You need to be paying attention to what people are saying
about your brand and industry online. There are some great tools out
there to help you keep up. It can be as simple as setting up a Google
Alert or using keyword search on Twitter. Use a listening tool such as
Expion, Radian6, Vocus or Trackur. Paying attention is the first step.
Own the good you do. Value the positive voice. It’s too easy only to
focus on the negative. You need to make time to thank customers
who love what you do. Be proud and say thank you. (and by “thank-you
I don’t mean only RTing positive compliments about yourself. Avoid
the humble brag). I try to do this with people who tweet compliments
about my books.
Don’t leave all those high-fives hanging. Take time away from
fighting fires, and seeking out new customers, to thank the ones you
have. This is where the opportunity for brand endearment begins.
Don’t value your customers based only on purchases already made.
A happy customer is your best marketer. Grow those relationships.
Engage. Social media is just a fancy term for talking to other
people. When you listen and value your customers you can create
content and products that give value back to them. Be a part of the
conversation; find out what they like to chat about. Care about what
they are looking for. And then be there, to have a conversation that
matters to them.
When you do these three things, your customers will become
endeared to you.
As customers we feel like we know an engaged brand, because we
do. Brands who connect with their customers online earn a face, a
personality, and a reputation for listening.
People replied that they were also looking at this particular
suitcase and were glad I saved them the hassle after seeing my
original tweet.
When we are endeared to a brand we seek out private and
personal channels to manage resolution. With a brand I know, like
and trust, I will email or contact them privately first, rather than
publicly, when I’m unhappy. Since @GeniusPack hasn’t followed
me, I couldn’t send them a private message even if I wanted to.
Unlike the non-reaction to my first tweet, Genius Pack did reply
to my second very quickly.
Scott Stratten
Scott and Alison Stratten are co-authors of four best-selling business books, co-owners of UnMarketing Inc and co-
hosts of not only The UnPodcast, but five children, two dogs and two cats. This site, the show and the books all represent
their thoughts on the changing world of business through their experiences of entrepreneurship, two degrees (Alison),
not lasting long as an employee (both) and screaming at audiences around the world (Scott, Alison is more polite).
They were put on this earth to remind the world that not all Canadians are passively polite. Businesses like PepsiCo,
Saks Fifth Avenue, IBM, Cirque du Soleil, Microsoft and others have been brave enough to want their advice, to the point
that Scott has been named one of the Top Five Social Media Influencers in the world by Forbes.com. They now spend
their time keynoting around the world and realize they rank 10th and 11th in order of importance in their home.
Oh, and they met on Twitter. How’s that for ROI?
unmarketing.com
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