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The HD and Blu-ray DVD format discussion debate will likely go on for a while. Each format seems to have its advantages.

To help, or take advantage of (depending how you look at it), customers who will face a period of frustration with competing systems, LG has now promised a dual player system. Read about it here.

Problem partially solved!?

roar at roarweb dot com

Sxore goes beta:

This good news from Sxore was posted on February 16th. At that point I chose not to write about it. Why? Because I feel Alpha testers should have been given this knowledge before it was made public!

Maybe not a big deal you might say. You are right. But sometimes it is the small things that makes a difference!

Today I received an e-mail from Sxore and decided to give it a few lines. This e-mail was sent to those of us who subscribes to the sxore development list. Attached was 7 documents. My initial test feedback, dated December 15th, was among these.

In December, after testing sxore, I uninstalled the alpha version from my blog. It had a few bugs that I could not live with while waiting for them to get fixed. Good thing I did - today was the first time I heard from them since a “thank you for your feedback” e-mail came in mid December.

While I’m planning to give sxore another try in the near future, there are a few process issues I’d like to look at with regards to their test program. The bottom line is that I feel there was a few steps missing:

• Ongoing feedback to testers is important: We’re more likely to continue to test if we hear from you!
• Tell us BEFORE you launch the next phase: That way we can be ready - and even help you spread the word through writing about it! [Note: The attachments shows that they sent out an announcement on Feb 16th - but I never received it! And I think they should have told us BEFORE it was posted on their site!]
• Help us help you! If we had know BEFORE and been able to download and launch the BETA before it was publicly available, Sxore would have had a series of blogs to point new users to. This would have given each of us some exposure - a bit for each individual blog, lots for sxore!

We believe in providing legendary customer service and are looking for creative, team-oriented stars who work brilliantly, meet deadlines and live to innovate.

I did not find Sxore able to live up to this Sxip quote. Personally I look at the small things when looking at Information Technology companies. And customer service processes are very important to me.

If they can’t get a simple customer service process right, how can I then trust them to get their code and functionality right?

Hmm, I wonder if the job of Product Manager for Sxore is still available???

roar at roarweb dot com

I think the latest Microsoft TechNet mailer show that they don’t understand the new realities of the “conversation“.

I recently received a marketing piece for TechNet Flash from Microsoft Canada. I looked at the copy on the front and thought “Wow, they just don’t get it!”

The copy read:

Some people believe it is who you know that gets you ahead.

When I opened the piece I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I first thought:

Members of TechNet Flash believe it’s what you know, too.

The “too” at the end made the difference. While “what” absolutely is important in the technical arena, the Cluetrain Manifesto showed us that “who” can be even more important.

As a provider of technical knowledge TechNet tries the typical approach of making their stuff “the most important thing since …”.

What’s wrong with that you might ask? Well, to really show their class I think they should have acted differently. By wording their marketing piece differently they could have acknowledged that they understand the importance of the “conversation” - and at the same time underlined the importance of technical knowledge.

Let’s face it. With 95% of all jobs never advertised you need to know somebody. Without contacts you are stuck! Thus the importance of “who”. When you know somebody you have the possibility to get ahead - if you know “what”.

So, while Microsoft got both of the elements in their message, I think they should have stressed the overall importance of “who” much more, and then played the “what” card.

One possible option:

Networking expertise is important. It is who you know that might get you ahead!

Networking expertise is important. Do you know what to do to run your network properly?

Any other ideas? Suggestions welcome!

roar at roarweb dot com

The Cluetrain Manifesto showed us the reality of the Internet age. A reality where there are multiple conversations going and “Corporate” no longer is the only voice heard by the outside world.

In a web 2.0 world, employees talk about their employers, projects and products in a new way, as a direct voice to the customer, a voice that has not been polished by the corporate communications department.

In a web 2.o world, customers talk to each other. They share their knowledge about your company, your projects and your products. They do this in a human voice, giving their own opinion, in a direct conversation with the “outside world”.

We know that “Customer Experience is King “.. Since the overall customer experience is a product of all conversations a customer have with a company the Employee Experience is of importance too.

In a recent Harward Business School (HBS) article, researchers point out that how leaders keep the stated corporate values impacts their Employee Experience.

…employees also said that the worst thing about the company was that the CEO had been, from their point of view, breaching the values that he himself had developed for the company. Unwittingly, even a committed leader may appear to followers to be violating principles he or she has espoused.

It seems that in a web 2.0 world, less and less issues can be dealt with “offline” or at the “back-office”. Thus there are fewer opportunities for leaders to make silent adjustments. A web 2.0 age leader must show integrity by “walking the walk”. Anything else will soon impact the customer experience.

“Walking the walk” does not have to mean being nice to the customers. Ryanair is a good example. While notorious for poor service - one airline quality tracking site gets 35 negative comments per positive comment, there are those that feel they are getting good value from Ryanair’s extremely low prices.

The book Loyalty Myths has shown us that loyal happy employees does not necessarily mean loyal profitable customers. Still, all actions taken by the members of a company/organization have the power to impact someone else’s experience of the company/organization.

Service quality impression depends on our expectations. When we expect little, we seem to be satisfied with little. When a leader’s breach of corporate values impacts the conversations between the members of a company, the “press” and the customer, it impacts our expectations and then the overall interaction experience. Thus, as leaders we must strive to “walk the walk”, so we do not negatively impact the customer experience.

How does your company stack up?

roar at roarweb dot com

From Peppers & Rogers

Customer loyalty can be one of the most complex initiatives a company can take on. Customer value, behavioral data, and purchase data are just a few of the elements that need to be considered. But when it comes to online loyalty, customers are myopic. According to two recent studies, they care about one thing and one thing only: the customer experience.

Does your site/blog/e-mail deliver?

roar at roarweb dot com

Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second), according to Canadian researchers.

OK, so we need to make good first impression. That should not be news to anyone. My mom told me that.

Hmm. Maybe we need to be told such news over and over again. I’m thinking my mom probably had to tell me more than once that you only have once chance to make a first impression.

Which makes you wonder. In the Internet world - how long does it take until we forget the first impression?

I think a very important question is “What happens after you have made the first impression?” How to you keep your readers coming back for more?

You might remember how Liz at successful-blog.com helped me find a way to solve my Technorati problem… well, I thanked her and left her blog.

Then I wrote about my experience and Liz called me a SOB! The funny thing is that I only found out thanks to … Technorati showing links to my blog.

In the comment section to Liz’s post there was a discussion going on. It was partially on the value of the SOB list. It was also partially of a nature that Liz asked the commenters to take the discussion off-line.

I thanked Liz and, kind of as a response to the discussion going on, mentioned that I had not fully figured out her business model.

Roar Says:
February 21st, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Hi Liz. I just noticed my SOB. Thank you so much. While I’m still trying to figure out your business model I must say that your blog helped me solve one of my problems. So, because of your SOB list I found help for my Technorati problem.

Thanks, Roar

Liz followed up and we ended up exchanging some e-mails on what I was wondering about. From our conversation, and my later thinking about this issue, I’d like to share a couple of points.

Value

As bloggers we must show our readers we give them something of value. It could be information or an emotional impact. Without being able to easily see the value proposition, a reader is not that likely to come back to a blog.

Trust

Our readers need to be able to trust us. Without some kind of trust it will not matter if our content is great!

Usability

Our valuable content, presented in a trusted way, must be easy to find

Key Message Positioning

Your key message, the essence of your “About” page must be visible at all times

In Liz’s case her blog is full of blogging tips. But I had not seen that. When looking at her site, I had not found this referenced in the About section. And with a discussion about her SOB list making me think that there might be little value here, why should I come back?

Liz convinced me that she is serious. She convinced me I can trust her content. I suggested she make it easier for people to find out. I also suggested she change her SOB requirements to increase the value to me as a reader, and that she should add descriptions to the SOB list to make it even easier for me to understand her choices.

Since then Liz has posted some really good references to similar blogging ideas. She talked about understanding your customer:

First impressions tell customers that a business understands who their customers are and that the business knows what their customers are looking for.

Since, in her Editing for Quality and a Content Editor’s Checklist post, she has shared some great editing ideas.

It looks to me that “keeping the attention” boils down to making it a customer experience worth coming back to!

roar at roarweb dot com

In my last post I wrote about one of the findings from the book “Loyalty Myths”. If the wrong customers can be so costly, how to we then attract the right ones?

Especially, in a world where generic messaging does not work and proper one-to-one marketing is too expensive (in time and resources) for many companies to engage in, what is a marketer to do?

Well, it depends!

For “Costly” customers you need to decide if you can move them to a different group. If you think they are staying “Costly” for a long time, then you would probably be better off not spending much of your resources on them.

• while you might not need to develop content for a true one-to-one campaign, at least you need to have an idea if you are dealing with a profitable customer.
• developing loyal long-term relationships with customers that continue to cost you money is most likely a waste of your time and money. I say most likely, because there are times and business models where the real focus is really long term and thus it might be ok to keep non-profitable customers on the book for a long time. Amazon.com, for example, was not making money for a long time, but they are now able to provide much more than books to a very large cutomer group.

With customer profitability in mind, let’s have a look at the next step in finding the right customer.

Sales and marketing techniques such as AIDA [wiki] can help us focus our process.

AIDA is an acronym used in marketing that describes a common list of events that is very often undergone when a person is selling a product or service:

* A - Attention - to attract the attention of the customer.
* I - Interest - to get the customer interested by demonstrating its features, advantages, and benefits.
* D - Desire - convincing customers of the product’s advantage and its ability to satisfy specific needs.
* A - Action - to push customers toward actually purchasing the product.

As we can see, attracting the Attention and getting the customer Interested is not enough. They also need the Desire to use your products and services to fill their need and then something must create a purchasing Action. (In some AIDA models, Action is replaced by Authority - indicating that A,I and D might all be there, but without Authority to buy, no Action can be taken).

As a marketer you can not guarantee a sale, but you can do your best to enable AIDA. Keep in mind that it’s not always about generating a sale, but also about pushing a potential customer down the funnel. (For more info on the funnel, check out Seth Godin’s post on Understanding The Funnel .

roar at roarweb dot com

Does loyalty create value or a profit?

The bottom line objective of marketing is to provide a “profit” for your organization. This profit may be financial or something else, it depends on your industry and your unique objectives.

How do you generate a “profit” or “get the most for your money”? By making sure you reach and/or keep the right (”profitable”) customer!

In the book Loyalty Myths, the authors shows that not all customers contribute positively to the bottom line:

“It is likely (especially in services) that 60% of a business’s customers could actually be generating negative profits…..”

The book breaks customers into 3 groups: Desirable, Break-Even and Costly.

Do you know how your customers fit into these groups?

roar at roarweb dot com

IIMA, the International Internet Marketing Association just launched a new blog at iima.wordpress.com

The blog, a result of their current e-mail marketing events, replaces their previous discussion forums. Thes forums were disabled due to a high amount of spam posted. The new IIMA blog is still not linked to the IIMA web site, but such a link is expected in the near future - as soon as the new board has organized the responsibities of the newly elected chairs.

Disclosure: I’m the IIMA Treasurer.

roar at roarweb dot com

The IIMA is bringing together some of the leading email marketers in North America for two intensive and interactive email marketing events. If you’re responsible for email campaigns, these are the “must attend” events of 2006.

roar at roarweb dot com