March 30, 2008

MyStarbucksIdea.com: A Half-Full Idea

The big news this past week in Web 2.0 world: Starbucks dipped its toe into the pool where community and customers converge.

They launched a new Web site, MyStarbucksIdea. It’s essentially a Dell IdeaStorm clone designed to get feedback from customers. Give us your ideas on how to improve Starbucks, they say. Sounds fairly straightfoward, but there is monumental disagreement as to whether this idea is good, bad, or somewhere in between.

Is it merely a virtual suggestion box with voting? That’s the take of many people on Jim Romenesko’s StarbuckGossip.com, a site that’s always been critical of the company. “MyStarbucksIdea.com was clearly inspired by my site, which was created nearly four years ago to move barista/customer conversations to the Web,” Romenesko tells the Seattle Times. “My site will continue to thrive because it’s an authentic reflection of how customers and employees feel about the company. MyStarbucksIdea.com, on the other hand, is clearly a corporate propaganda site.”

He’s right about one thing. It’s missing the big detail that marks a true community: authenticity.

The way I see it, the site looks like a collection of possible improvements their marketing department already knew their customers wanted. Give us free Wi-Fi. Stop selling those warmed-over breakfast sandwiches and start serving something healthy like fruit. Give me a free cup of coffee on my birthday. I bet they’ve heard nearly all of these ideas before. I can’t help but imagine their marketing department sitting in a massive room scribbling out a giant flow-chart bracket on a whiteboard — their own version of March Madness.

But, it may be unduly harsh to call it propaganda. Yes, it’s censored and filtered, and yes, it’s wearing a grass-roots disguise, but it is doing one thing right: involving customers in conversations about Starbucks’ products. Whether you love or hate Starbucks, I think they deserve some credit for this relatively bold step. They need to lose their impulse to control the conversation if they want to be seen as legitimately caring about what their customers have to say, but it is a step in the right direction.

I’m betting that Starbuck’s new foray into customer feedback is an idea that nearly every media-savvy Forbes 500 executive will be pondering this week. If this idea gets co-opted and adopted by others, here’s hoping they get the other half right — the true community involvement — and not just ladle in an extra helping of marketing.

Starbucks is on Get Satisfaction.]

By Eric Suesz | Posted in customer service, community, reputation, Branding | Comments (7)
March 23, 2008

“Customer Service at its Finest”

Last week, I rapped lyrical about how awesome Rackspace’s commitment to customer service seems. This week, I’ve stumbled on the exact opposite: worst customer service ever.

The back story: Someone added a company to Get Satisfaction this week and began a conversation designed to warn prospective customers away from an online eyeglass seller. Fair enough.

And, to make it as fair as can be, I sent a friendly note to the company to let them know that someone had started this conversation. I do this a lot. It’s part of my job to encourage companies to engage with people who are talking about their products on our site, whether that talk is positive or negative. Most companies find out that even supremely angry customers will do a 180-degree turn when they see that the company is actually responding to them and trying to help them fix the problem. We see a lot of these “wow, I can’t believe you responded” moments on Get Satisfaction, and it’s always a pleasure to see it happen.

This time that did not happen. Instead, the proprietor of the business shot back an e-mail to me with a clip-art image of a businessman shooting me the bird. This message, in fact:

RE_ Your company on our site 2014 Inbox

Rude and crude, to be sure, and it certainly doesn’t live up to the motto in the sender’s e-mail signature: “Customer Service at its Finest”. It’s business suicide to engage with people like this, especially since the Internet allows customers to amplify and broadcast their discontent.

Sure enough, a Google search of the company’s name turns up a lot, including numerous accusations of selling fake sunglasses and a Better Business Bureau search turns up reports of “aggressive and harassing behavior” from the company’s owner. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

It made me wonder about other ways to research questionable companies online. One way to see if people have reported a business as fraudulent is to check with Ripoff Report. It’s worth noting, though, that even Ripoff Report has been accused of questionable business practices.

It’s hard to pinpoint a positive in this kind of experience. One comfort I think people can take in this online reseller’s behavior is that the business probably won’t last very long. The power of customer discontent on the Internet is mighty strong. Indeed, as I was researching this company, I saw this entry on Reseller Ratings, a Web site that helps consumers locate the best (and worst) online sellers:

“I almost purchased sunglasses until I saw this post.”

By Eric Suesz | Posted in customer service, hall of shame, reputation, Satisfaction | Comments (9)
March 18, 2008

Promises, Promises

rackspace.gif

Two weeks ago, Rackspace, the San Antonio-based IT hosting provider, announced their Fanatical Support Promise.

Sounds like a PR campaign, huh?

Only, it’s not. These folks mean it. As they put it:

“It’s the no excuses, no exceptions, can-do way of thinking that Rackers [Rackspace employees] bring to work every day. Your complete satisfaction is our sole ambition. Anything less is unacceptable. Working hard 24×7x365 to support you is more than our job. It’s who we are. Our driving purpose is to take care of your business, to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. And if for some reason they don’t, you’ll be surprised at the lengths we go to make things right. Any issue you have is quickly taken care of by your own expert Rackspace Support Team, so you’ll never have to worry about it again. Ever.”

Did they just say, “Your complete satisfaction is our sole ambition?” That’s just about the most forceful customer service attitude I’ve ever heard, and I wanted to call it out as an example for anyone else who’s planning on being known for their support. You should steal their idea — but only if you mean it.

This is a great strategy, but they’d better be able to back it up because the long and short of this promise is that Rackspace will break any contract their customers have signed with them if those customers are unhappy. That’s a pretty impressive stance for an IT host. It basically kills the contract, but it extends a big hand to potential customers. It also means they will actually have to perform for you, which is the way I personally like my subscription-based services. I like to be able to cut them off if I’m unhappy. I’m petty like that.

What makes this promise really impressive to me is that it empowers customer service reps to step up and provide authentic help — to do whatever needs doing to get things done. That’s a key detail that most stodgy corporations get very wrong: They prefer their reps to be nameless and faceless and by-the-book. I wasn’t surprised to learn, then, that Rackspace is also on the 2008 list of Money magazine’s 100 best places to work. I also notice that Rackspace recently announced their 4,000th customer. Sounds like they’re doing a heck of a lot right.

Is it possible to actually be this awesomely incredible at customer service? Probably not, but it’s certainly possible to try, and they are apparently willing to try harder than anyone else.

This sounds like more than just customer service to me. It sounds like marketing. Smart marketing.

[Rackspace is on Get Satisfaction.]

By Eric Suesz | Posted in customer service, hall of fame, reputation, Branding | Comments (4)
March 17, 2008

SXSW: 10 Texas-Sized Memories

1. Worst Website Ever: Wired wrote about the Worst Website Ever contest, which we participated in. Although he didn’t win (almost!), Lane’s idea about over-the-top shopping experiences in virtual worlds was pretty damn funny.

2. Judo Moves: Thor gave a spirited talk on how to deal with people who try to impugn your reputation online. It had some examples plucked right from the previous day’s headlines, including a hilarious song consisting entirely of lyrics culled from angry blog comments.

3. Taking It with You: Leslie joined a packed room to talk about taking your log-in information with you as you jump from social network to social network. The “Building Portable Social Networks” panel provoked a lot of discussion about OAuth, OpenID, and related topics. The response it received from the audience really made me think that these new strategies are moving forward, and quickly. Awesome.

4. Moblogging SXSW: Welcome to a panel on using tools like Twitter and Utterz to publish words, audio, and video in real-time. But, don’t bother sitting down. We’re all going to head outside and use these tools to interview people and come back in half an hour and see what we all sent to the Internet. Fabulous idea, and one that lives up to the “interactive” label that SXSW promises. There should be more workshop-like panels like this one.

5. The Sauce: The enchiladas verdes at Las Manitas. Tomatillos done right.

6. Twittering On: Twitter proved to be just as invaluable, influential, and fun as it was last year. Good. That’s what we all had hoped and expected. By all accounts, SXSW got much bigger this year, and the parties that go along with that growth didn’t always scale, as anyone waiting in line for an hour to get into a party can attest. In a way, Twitter helped fill that gap by moving all the people who couldn’t fit into the bigger venues into smaller ones. Thanks, Twitter, for being a crowd-caller when you need to draw a crowd — or leave a big crowd for a more intimate one.

7. Big Party: The big 16-bit party we co-sponsored was covered by Yahoo’s TechTicker. Skip forward to 3:50 in the video to see Lane interviewed by Sarah Lacy. My favorite part: Lacey asks, “Do you think people get too old for SXSW?” Lane: “I don’t because I’m delusional.” That’s the spirit.

7. RVIP Lounge: A recreational vehicle that scoots you away from the downtown crowds and into a rolling karaoke partyland? Why, yes, I would like to ride on that bus. Thanks, Jonathan Grubb, of RubyRed Labs, for creating the one thing we didn’t know we needed. Delightful. Also seen on the LA Times Web Scout blog.

9. Lone Star state: Lone Star: the perfect watery, domestic choice when you’re just not sure how long the party might go on.

10. Tacos Supremely Successful: Get Satisfaction hosted an informal Meetup about what we’re up to and where we’re going. We’re happy to report that all of the breakfast tacos were scrumptious. Thanks to everyone who joined us. I’ve already noticed a few of those new faces signing up their companies on Get Satisfaction. Right on! If you’ve got any questions about getting started with us, I’m here to help answer them.

All in all, it was a stellar SXSW. New faces at SXSW = more people to learn from. Old friends at SXSW = more ways to find unofficial meet-ups. Thanks to everyone who met us, promoted us, befriended us, or otherwise shouted out to us.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in community, conferences, reputation, Satisfaction, SXSW, tacos | Comments (0)
March 9, 2008

The Kindness of Strangers

“Apparently, ‘kindness’ is a requirement for using Get Satisfaction.”

So retorted someone on Get Satisfaction this week, as he accused us of censoring him. We hadn’t censored him (he’s still here!), but we did kindly encourage him to engage with a company rep who had been reaching out to him directly, instead of simply jumping into conversations to complain and then jumping out again; and again; and again.

This Get Satisfaction user is a long-time critic of the company. In fact, when you look at their Get Satisfaction dashboard (which highlights their activity), it’s pretty much a long (very long) string of criticism and complaints about the company, with no participation in any other sections of Get Satisfaction. This person holds a singular and distinguished record in our system: 0 topics started, but hundreds of replies to other people’s topics — nearly all of them angry — and all of them about that one hated company. It makes you wonder if this person is actually a customer of the company. Who would continue to pay for a service they hate that much?

There are a lot of disgruntled people like this on the Internet. Some of them obviously relish the mask of anonymity they can adopt in online places. It allows them to engage with people in an unabashedly negative way. They’re the flamers and haters and stokers of emotion. The reason they do these things isn’t really knowable (and probably isn’t all that fascinating if you were to dig down into it), but they can really kill a conversation. Just like in real life.

But where is the line they cross that makes them a troll? And, is it reasonable to expect everyone to play nice on Get Satisfaction?

This anonymously angry poster sparked a discussion this week in that vein, both on the Get Satisfaction site and in the Get Satisfaction office. We have a public set of community guidelines for dealing with spammers and trolls, but the subject always provokes discussion. It turned into a week of pondering how to keep everyone striving toward productive solutions to their problems, while avoiding the use of that tricky sword with the sharp handle: censorship.

Our conclusion (and this is no bolt of lightning from the heavens) is that it’s really all about context. You don’t sing your favorite song out loud while you’re in the library. You respect the value you get out of that place. You accept that you have to be quiet and mindful in that setting. The trade-off — knowledge, information, entertainment, in exchange for polite, quiet behavior — is worth it. If it’s not, you probably don’t go to the library.

We want to be known as a place where people work toward being productive, where everyone participates in finding innovative ways to turn negatives around. We certainly don’t mandate kindness on Get Satisfaction, but we also don’t want to be known as a place where people simply complain. (There are a lot of those kind of sites out there already.) To shape conversation toward that kind of outcome, we do sometimes have to encourage people to be less outwardly confrontational. We don’t want to overreach on this point and end up being overly touchy-feely in our language and attitude. We’re not trying to recreate Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood over here. But we are trying to get things done, for both customers and companies.

Dealing with trolls — and deciding what makes a troll — is an ongoing process at Get Satisfaction, and we’d love to hear what you think about it. If you can spot ‘em a mile away and want to share your thoughts about trolls, join us at our SXSW Meetup this Tuesday for our 1:30-2:15 p.m. session, “The Secrets of Managing Customer Communities.”

PureVolume Ranch

323 E. 2nd Street

Austin, Texas 78701

Map it

Help us shape the discussion by bringing your troll experiences to the table. But, please: no stink bombs or bullhorns.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in customer service, community, reputation, Satisfaction, SXSW | Comments (2)