Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

The other day I was meeting with a client about their web site. They had found out the happy news that their Flash elements could (maybe) be searched! Sooo, I had to climb on my soapbox gently remind them that Flash - while it’s “cool” - may not be the best idea.

Then I read this from a web developer news site: Adobe, Google and Yahoo Join Forces To Make Flash More Searchable
“Previously, search engines had a hard time peering inside Flash files to accurately read and catalog the content within. This created a barrier for Flash adoption among content producers, many of whom were nervous that search engines wouldn’t be able to see much of what they put inside a Flash movie. Adobe especially is hoping this new agreement will erase that barrier.”

(I can practically hear all the “creative” agencies jumping up and down - “See, See, Flash/Splash is great! Now there’s NO reason not to do that whiz-bang entry page with no text!” Aaargh and yaarggh.)

So? Does this make Flash any less time-consuming (wasting) or annoying for the human being looking for you online? I mean, c’mon. And, who among us doesn’t know how to find that teen-tiny dim little “skip this ad” in the upper-right corner of the NYT pages after the first time? I don’t even notice who is advertising now - I’m so quick to click on skip.

P.S. People don’t care about your carefully crafted keywords and Google Adwords strategies. They want to know what you’re going to do for them…and make it snappy!

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, emarketing, keywords, SEO, web development, Flash

Related Posts:
Web Sites: The Dark Screen of Death!
Five Signs You Should Fire Your Creative Agency

1. You ask them for a new web design for your ecommerce site - and they show up with flash/splash, and then argue with you that this is the best way to go. This old quote from Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering at Macromedia pretty much sums it up.

“When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today.”

2. You ask for something like making the buy button bigger so people can actually see it - and they resist, going into a long dissertation about “integrity of design.” (I’m all for great and beautiful design, but you want people to buy from you, not appreciate your agency’s creativity.)

3. You ask about help with branding - and they go into full-press pitch mode about new logos and/or “image” advertising.

4. They win awards with your ads - and you don’t see any change in your business.

5. They tell you “social media” and blogs are fads and not to bother. Then they pitch you spending big bucks on late night cable spots. (Note: Agencies make money on media buys.)

Related Posts:
Advertising: Creative or Effective?
Don’t Hire An Ad Agency To Build Your Web Site
“Marketing” Is Broken And I’m Thrilled!

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, advertising, web marketing, web design, ad agencies

Rule Numero Uno: Respect the customer. If only one customer has a problem, you have a problem. Seriously. Yet, PayPal seems to have some mystical, magical number before they consider a problem a problem.

One of my Ask Mary subscribers sent me an email a couple of weeks ago - seems she didn’t see the monthly subscription payment on her account. So, I contact PayPal, thinking it’s probably some minor glitch. After several emails back and forth, PayPal tells me the subscription hasn’t been canceled and “thanks for sharing your concern.” When I respond, asking yet again why then the payment hasn’t been processed, I get an email telling me to call them, from “Nicole”

I understand that this is frustrating, so let’s eliminate the frustrating part by calling us at 1-888-221-1161. This will be less frustrating, you will be able to talk to an actual person, and you won’t have to wait for a response. Your issue will be resolved a lot quicker if you call.

Wow, I’m thinking, a real person! Somebody that gets service! Um, not so fast there, oh naive blond one.

When I call - there I am in phone system hell. After punching in numbers and responding to prompts, I get a guy who can’t grasp I’m a merchant with a problem that has already been reported multiple times. So, I ask to be escalated. I then speak to a supervisor, who tells me there is no problem with the code, that I’m the only one with this problem and “it won’t be taken seriously” if he submits a trouble report. “Maybe if five people called us, but you’re the only one.”

Finally, he says he’ll contact the subscriber since “it could be a problem with that account.” (Begs the question, why didn’t they check that when I first reported a problem?) He asks me for the subscriber info, which he can see by accessing my account (which I know he’s done because he’s quoted some of the info from it to me.) So, I pull up my account and read it to him. When asked when I’ll hear from him again - no commitment. I ask to be escalated, and - nope, can’t do that. He’s a “supervisor.” And, no, I can’t call him back directly. Sorry. Wonder if Scott Thompson, the relatively new CEO of Paypal, ever sits in on customer calls? Hello? Scott? It may not be fun but it sure could be educational! Everything you do is marketing - and that includes customer service call centers.

(Just so you don’t think I’m a hopeless crank - I also recently had a great positive service experience with a local company that I’ll be writing about tomorrow. If a small “low-tech” company can get service right, why can’t the high-techies, with all those marvelous systems? Hmmmm.…)

Update, 6/17/08: My client never heard from PayPal. And I got no response to my email sent to PayPal’s PR contact. Soooo….I’m looking into alternatives, will let you know my recommendations.

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service, Paypal, Scott Thompson

Well, of course not! But in the virtual world, some marketers think it’s perfectly fine to barge into your private space, uninvited, blaring their pitch.

Example: Ads on Facebook. Now, I’m most definitely not their target demographic for most ads. (I also ignore all of ‘em. I’m not on Facebook to read ads.) However, based on what I’ve seen, their “target demographic” is “people who love all kinds of ads, have nothing better to do, and who will buy anything.” How many people do you know that fit into that category?

Now, look at your own marketing. Are you trying to barge into people’s lives, unasked? Keep this in mind, as you think about all that new-fangled social media stuff. (Which isn’t really so new-fangled. It’s people talking to people.)

Read More: Facebook Ads Prove The “Targeting” Demographic is Silly. by Robert Gorell, at GrokDotCom.

Related Posts:
Will A Rich Young Latina Who Buys Diapers at Wal-Mart Buy McCain?
“Marketing” is broken and I’m thrilled!

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, social media, Facebook

Or…how to lose two customers in four days.

Doing business on the Web is great. BUT, some companies take the living/breathing the web stuff way too far.

Example: WebFaction. I recommended the company to a client for hosting. We are now on day FOUR of trying to get her email working. What could have been a 15 minute call has turned into a flurry of back and forth emails and no resolution.

As a former Director of “Worldwide Help Desk Services” for Unisys, I’m painfully familiar with the costs of phone support. But, not offering it in this case is likely going to lose Web Faction at least two customers. (My client and I talk to a LOT of people - on and off the Web.) And, we’ve eaten up a lot of Sean’s time (the fella who provides support for Web Faction out of Las Cruces - so the company must grok some of the basics of remote support…) I asked him to call my client and got the response “we don’t provide phone support.” Great.

After some digging, I found the CEO of Swarma in London who owns Web Faction. Sent him an email via Linked-In.

Now, it’s up to WebFaction. Can they recover? Do they even want to? Stay tuned…

Oh - and WebFaction? I hear they’ve got this new-fangled thing called “online chat” and some radical thingie where you can access other PCs remotely. Golleee!

Monday Update: Richard, one of the co-founders of WebFaction, responded to my email to the support address on their web site. Iit seems the problem is fixed. WebFaction claims it was a Comcast problem (they block the specified port).

Two things:
1. WebFaction should post re such known problems - and have a standard fix, written in non-tech language, step-by-step. (And, if your problem is you can’t send email - it makes it really difficult to communicate with them via email…)

2. Richard, although apologetic, didn’t provide any personal contact information (including - sigh - a phone number.) And, he said the situation appeared “under control” - that if there were further issues he’d call my client. (How about calling her anyway? Take two minutes and might be a good service recovery.)

I have to compare this to Scott Westerman, Regional VP of Comcast - who passes out his direct line, email, and Twitter info with great abandon, including starting a Q&A forum at Duke City Fix. I forwarded Richard’s email to Scott this morning and he’s already responded (within about 5 minutes) that he’s on it. I have no doubt that he is - I’m not sure the man ever sleeps (or stops smiling.)

Wednesday Update: No response to my email of Monday. I also invited Richard to post a comment here - nothing. And, no call to my client. Guess we’ll be looking for a new hosting service for both this site and that of my client. Any recommendations from my readers? Hello? WebFaction?

Tags: web hosting, Web Faction, emarketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service, Remi Delon, Comcast

Lots is written about airlines - their horrible service, their financial woes, the rising costs of jet fuel, the problem of increasingly overweight passenger bodies reducing fuel efficiency, battles with the unions, safety issues, etc. etc. I’ve written several posts myself about airlines. And, there’s really no excuse for making it a policy to treat your customers badly.

All that said - here’s the root cause of their woes. Cheap-o travel. The airlines made tickets so affordable that “everybody” got into the habit of flying. And the airlines got used to having hordes flying. Basic economics and pricing methodologies (and marketing common sense) went out the window.

When I first started flying, over 30 years ago, travel was more civilized. Then, gradually, things changed. People that normally would have taken the bus or train or driven…started herding onto the planes, clutching bed pilows and whacking me in the head with leaking bags of goodies for the grandkids. Note: Before you think me an elitist snob - when I was a child, we did a lot of business with Greyhound and we drove many thousands of miles. Daddy loaded us in the car (no air conditioning) and we were lucky to get one bathroom break every 400 miles…

It couldn’t last - and now the airlines are (desperately) trying to keep “everybody” flying. The trend is to charge for everything - right down to those disgusting pillows. (I’d love to sit in on an airline financial meeting, “Yes, we project that we can make $250M on pillow rentals this year!”)

As Maureen Rogers notes in Air Fair, why don’t the airlines charge a price at which they can make a fair profit? They’re going through downsizing anyway - why not try a different business model? One that would enable them to make a profit and still provide good service.

Watching the entire airline industry struggle and crumble is a good lesson for all of us. You can’t be all things to all people - and “everybody” isn’t a sustainable market.

P.S. Maureen also gives a great example of marketing blah-blah spin…by an “industry analyst” no less. “Ultimately, they [the traveler] will be more satisfied because they will be in control of their travel experience,” said Henry Harteveldt, principal airline analyst for Forrester Research Inc. The folks at Forrester are usually smart…but they also make money selling research to industries, such as the airlines…so they’re going to sprinkle a little feel-good dust on their stuff.

Related Post: I Want Whatever United is Smoking.

Tags: emarketing, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service, United, Airline problems, American Airlines customer service, American Airlines problems, Airline problems

People routinely abandon web site shopping carts…often because: A. It’s difficult to find relevant info quickly; B. it’s impossible to quickly make changes; C. The site forces them to start all over if they change one element of the order…and those little cart icons can be flat hard to find. (Particularly for us aging Baby Boomers, who have the bulk of discretionary income in this country.)

Brick & Mortar Example: Lowe’s. They’re supposedly more helpful and “woman friendly” than Home Depot. And maybe they are, if you can manage to flag down an employee.

Earlier this week I went to buy a lot of dirt in BIG bags. But, first I had to find a flat-bed cart. I walked up, down, around, out, back in…no carts. And, no employees around to ask. Sooo, I unloaded a cart that was apparently being used for restocking, stuck way at the back…and proceeded to heft about 300 pounds of dirt on the cart. Employees (having magically appeared), intent on their tasks, zipped around me as I was grunting and groaning, And - yep - I would have bought more, but I couldn’t manage two flat-bed carts.

So - in both the real and virtual world:

1. Have carts ready and waiting, all over the place. Have a “buy now” button everywhere you have a product on the web site…don’t make me have to go somewhere else to buy it. The more I click the more likely I’ll abandon my shopping…as I almost did at Lowe’s, but I needed the damned dirt since I was in mid-project.

2. Make it easy to get/find help! If you’ve got an online chat feature, make sure it works and is staffed (At one site I was told everyone was on break and to send an email. Buy-bye!) In the real world, have signs, phones, buttons…and train employees that when they see a customer looking (or groaning) to stop and help. (Really, customers should be more important than sweeping the back room.)

Next trip I’m buying mulch….good thing I’ve got Ibuprofen!

Tags: customer service, ecommerce, emarketing, Lowe’s, marketing troubleshooting

Lordy, lordy, the trouble I’ve seen in reviewing people’s web plans and sites…here’s another real world example of a designer/developer you shouldn’t hire:

Flag 1. No results when you google them. And these people want to sell you SEO (Search Engine Optmization)???

Flag 2. They don’t have a web site. Sorry, the old “cobbler’s children” dodge won’t work here. If they’re supposed to be “web experts” they should not only have a site, but a GREAT one - that both looks great and works great.

Flag 3. Their email address is @aol or @msn, etc. Shows they’re clueless about emarketing and branding. It’s very easy to have your own domain and email, even if you don’t have a site.

Example: which do you think has more credibility? mary@maryschmidt.com or mrschmidt4502@aol.com?

The free and ISP email addresses scream hobby business.

Flag 4. Their eletters end up in your spam folder. Text is poorly formatted, fonts are whacked and the whole thing set off spam alarms…and they’re trying to tell you how to “optimize your online marketing???” Ouch!

As for knowing all that “techie stuff” that you don’t - don’t bet that the developer knows a lot more than you, just because he or she can throw around some jargon…as evidenced by all the terribly broken sites out there.

Related Posts:
Don’t Hire An Ad Agency To Build Your Your Web Site
Web Business Model: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Tags: web marketing, small business marketing, marketing troubleshooting, web design, web development

To which I can only say, Well, Thank God! You’ve been cluttering my email box with relentless pitches re a limited time, limited availability big deal event…and here we are are the day of the event…and you still have space. So much for those “limited” c’mons, heh? (And, at least a small forest died as well…since I also received a big cheesy postcard…which probably went out to hundreds or even thousands of “prospects.”)

Before you, constant reader, market an event - stop and think. Is it really “special?” Would you want to hear about it over and over? (And, do you like being called by your first name when you’ve never met the person? I hate the faux friendliness - particularly when, in this case, the consultant is threatening me, having started out with “please join me” a couple of weeks ago…but, then mebbe I’m just gettin’ old and cranky.)

Read More: How it should (and shouldn’t) be done, Seth Godin’s post, Ouch.

Tags: emarketing, email marketing, direct mail, marketing troubleshooting, direct mail

John Whiteside has a great post about a small company, Rice Epicurean, that’s got both the right attitude and right approach. And, they’re “doing it right” with ecommerce and grocery delivery, a gnarly combination if ever there was one. Here’s the clincher, from John’s, the customer, perspective.

In a world of ever-declining customer service, Rice Epicurean made my week. Obviously, someone there understands the fundamentals of customer service - responding to customer needs, prioritizing those responses, and treating interactions as two-way communications.

If you add resources and technology to that, you can have a much larger customer service operation that satisfies a huge customer base. But if you lack those fundamentals, all that investment will just give you an ability to alienate your customers on a truly epic scale, along the lines of AT&T.

Which brings me to - The Top 4 Excuses For Small Biz Web Failure:

1. “We can’t afford to update our web site.” So, you’re just going to let that broken one sit there, continuing to create a bad impression and even drive business away. You spent thousands on a direct mail “special offer” campaign with the Web address, and there’s nothing about that special offer on the site. You’ve changed locations and there’s nothing about your new address on the site. Etc. etc. etc.

Sorry, if you really can’t afford a good site, you shouldn’t have one at all. (Yeah, I’m going to get whacked by some “web experts” on that one, but them’s the breaks.)

2. “I don’t have time to answer the phone.” Great, they’ve seen your site, they’re ready to buy, they’re calling…you’re not there. NOBODY should be too busy to pick up. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Sure, there are times you can’t jump like a trained seal at the bell ringing, but letting calls go to voice mail should be the exception, not the rule. (There’s also this really cool thing - “caller id”…)

3. “I’m too busy to get to my emails.” Doing what? Going to another rubber chicken networking meeting? Filing? Trying to figure out Quickbooks for the umpteenth time? Making cold calls? And, if you’re trying to do EVERYTHING in your business, you’re not focusing on the things that really need to get done - like respond to existing and potential customers.

Excuse 3.5: “But I get so much spam, it takes hours to wade through my inbox!” This stopped being valid years ago. I get almost NO spam, thanks to my levels of spam filters.

You can also “pre-fill” the subject line on any inquiry emails from your web site. For example, if you have a question about my services and click to send me an email - I (and you) see, “I have a question about your services” already in the subject line. Easier for everyone.

4. “I don’t have time to ‘play’ on the computer.” Well, neither do I. You can have this ‘tude if you’ve got all the business you can handle right now…for the rest of your biz life. But, if you’re not retiring in the next couple of years - you’d better revisit your Web biz perspective. It IS possible to get it right, get business, and not spend your life on the computer - if you’re willing to put some work into it at the beginning, have the right attitude AND some commitment - just like anything else you do to build your business.

Read More: John’s entire post, Little Guy Customer Service Revisited, in which he walks us through Rice’s process and why it works so well. (Hint: People, people, people…)

Tags: web marketing, small business marketing, marketing troubleshooting, entrepreneur sanity check