Archive for the ‘Customer Care’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Nothing like that here

January 18, 2013

London CallingI was 14, it was the summer of 1979 and my dad took me to London for the day to shop for records!

We took the ferry from Cork to Wales and a coach to London. We were supposed to arrive late at night, book into a hotel and then get up early for a days’ shopping – the poor coach driver took a wrong turn as a result of road works so we ended up pulling into London at 5 am

…there was no point booking into a hotel so we just grabbed a breakfast and wandered the streets until the shops opened.

We went to London quite simply because the music stores there were incredible – there was “nothing like that here“, just a few limited shops (Eason’s, Lee Records and Woolworths) with a tiny selection of records.

I’ll never forget that scorching summer’s day with my poor dad standing  patiently at the door of HMV and Virgin as I spent hour after hour browsing these mega-stores, shelf by shelf.   I can still remember the excitement in those stores – packed with possibility, undiscovered gems, fabulous artwork ..it was theatre.

HMVI eventually purchased over 20 records, rare items, bargains and basically music that I just couldn’t buy in Ireland.

Another memory of that day was the huge amount of women walking around London wearing no bras!! It must have been fashionable but I had never seen the likes of it before and I can promise you it made a big impression on this impressionable 14 year old … between the lack of sleep, the intense heat and the “scenery”, I remember feeling quite dizzy!

As we know Ireland gradually caught up with London and even in Cork we ended up with Golden Discs, HMV and Virgin. My own love for music resulted in me opening my own stores …the dream of a 14 year old!

Despite all of our progress and advances in technology we are very close to a situation where there will be “nothing like that here” and even worse “nothing like that there” – HMV are nearly gone and the others are not far behind (I sold my stores a number of years back and the crew that bought them have since gone out of business).

Browsing for recordsWe can thank unsustainable rents, record companies who handed their Top sellers at big discounts to supermarkets, record companies who switched to digital technology that it couldn’t manage and music stores who lost their passion for music, for where we have ended up today.

That incredible feeling of browsing for magic in the shelves of music stores was one of the special things in my life that has brought me so much pleasure..

Progress?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Holidays, Irish Economy, Marketing, Retailing, Sales | 14 Comments »

Christmas Interruption ..

December 28, 2012
interrupting christmas

Spend time with your loved ones!

“60% off nearly all stock tomorrow”

When someone likes our Facebook business page, follows our business on twitter, signs up for our newsletter or follows our company blog  in effect they give us permission to send them updates, news about our business and general communication. When they “sign up” they can’t control when we might interrupt them ..when it happens, about what or how often.

Permission to interrupt is a precious gift that we should respect.

In this “social media” age it’s become part of our ritual to check Facebook and Twitter , even on Christmas morning to see what our on-line buddies are up to, including friends and family – it brings us close ..I’m looking at friend’s children open their Christmas presents, I’m watching other friends having fun pictured in their new Munster Rugby Jerseys, I’m watching family pictures, I’m watching family reunions, I’m watching my “circle” cracking jokes and enjoying their precious family day ..

In between all of this I’m also watching supermarkets,coffee shops, gift shops, hotels, breweries and APP suppliers pitching in …in fairness most of them are wishing me Merry Christmas but a few are way too enthusiastic trying to sell, announcing their sales or offering special deals.

Most of these posts will have been scheduled in advance while their social media personnel were at work before the holidays and definitely not on Christmas day!

For everyone in business …with social media there is a time to interrupt and a time to definitely not interrupt. Christmas day, is a day when it is better not to say anything even when you think you have permission …you don’t!

Merry Christmas!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion provide social media consultancy and training from our offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Facebook, Holidays, LinkedIn, Twitter, Web Marketing | 4 Comments »

Looking for Anna

December 25, 2012

Ellen Canty - coffee

My daughter Ellen is in great form …I am so thrilled for her that life is going so well. She is enjoying her job, she is doing really well in a beauty course that she is doing at night and personally things seem to be fitting into place.

“You’re doing great” I said to her early one morning when she grabbed a lift from me to get to work.

“I am” she admitted, “I’m in great form”

As usual, not leaving anything alone I probed to see why life was so good and it was a mixture of everything that was going on in her life.

Coffee Pod, Winthrop StreetOne tiny but huge factor she attributes to her daily happiness is Anna – every morning before work she grabs a coffee at the Coffee Pod on Winthrop Street in Cork and Anna always sets her in great form with her cheery manner and warm greeting …isn’t life simple ?

Well done to Anna and all the other Anna’s out there, who put us in good form every day by the little, but huge things that they do …. I’ll be calling to the Coffee Pod soon to look for Anna to say thank you.

The small things we do can make a huge difference..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Brand Loyalty, Customer Care, Hospitality, Staff training | 6 Comments »

Can you do good business when you have a bad relationship?

September 15, 2012
Dispute

No quarter given ..

There is no point taking that phone call and even trying to sort anything out.

You may have read a previous blog post of mine titled “Are you doing bad business?“, which basically looked at business that is not good because something isn’t right between you and the supplier or the customer.

I gave a few examples where we ended up doing what I call “bad business” and at the heart of each of these there was a poor relationship between both parties.

One of the examples was a supplier of ours who I just hated dealing with because of their attitude towards us. I felt they never had any respect for us, their manner was always poor and there was no appreciation of the business that we brought them.

I always disliked dealing with them on the phone or by email as I found them to be unpleasant but on the flip side they were quite a reliable supplier who offered good products at competitive prices, so we continued dealing with them.

In truth I resented every order we sent them and every cheque we paid them but despite my best efforts I struggled to get my guys to find an alternative supplier. I found myself living with this poor business relationship and accepting that sometimes maybe it is not important to “like” or respect who you deal with as long as they deliver the goods – isn’t that the most important thing?

After all it’s probably unnatural and quite unrealistic to like everyone you deal with but given a choice (where you have one) it is clearly better when there is a good relationship. Right?

I guess this scenario is fine as long as the relationship is not put under pressure or tested in any way.

This week I had to deal with an issue that occurred with my “favourite” supplier. Something messed up on some work they did for us and cutting a long story short they were putting the blame on my guys and as a result wanted us to cough up 100% of the cost of this unusable job.

We do a lot of work with this crew (incredibly a relationship going back nearly 8 years) and even if we were to blame for the error I would have expected some level of compromise or willingness to come to some fair arrangement between both parties – I was shocked to hear my guys struggle on the phone with our supplier trying to resolve the issue.

They weren’t accepting any blame whatsoever and furthermore were most definitely entertaining no break or compromise with us – listening to conversation I knew this was not right.

I decided to jump in and investigate the “mistake” for myself and realised that the error was actually on their side. I’m not saying we never make mistakes because at times we do – mistakes can happen but it’s how you deal with them that is important.

If our relationship was good we would probably give each other a break, and arrive at some fair compromise. Both parties would want to address the issue and protect the good working arrangement for the future.

As it stands they say we are 100% to blame. For me they are 100% to blame.

In a normal scenario we could easily resolve this. In this scenario I know we won’t. Do I want to?…nah.

Bad business always bites you in the end!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Customer Care | 11 Comments »

Making your street my route

September 9, 2012
shop front

Love your shop !

I love my coffee!

On a typical work day at some point I will pop out of the office for my daily fix – there are one or two coffee shops that I normally go to, each a few streets or blocks (for the American readers!) away.

To get there I can take a number of different routes with a choice of side streets to pop down along the way. I normally work out of our Cork office which is located on the main business street, which backs onto a city centre retail area.

When I think about the route I normally take, the choice of streets that I walk down is totally dictated by those that are the nicest, the most colourful, the most interesting and the most inviting.

On my route I pass shops with colourful windows, pubs with attractive frontage, flower shops with colourful displays, book stores with interesting books in the window, clothes shops with fashionable displays, sweet shops with enticing treats, buildings that are bright, and streets that are clean and welcoming.

There are always alternative routes – make sure you and your street work together to merchandise those windows, paint up those buildings and make customers choose your street as their route to wherever they are going.

Eventually they’ll pop in and buy something!

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Positivity, Retailing, Staff training | 4 Comments »

Hiding from the customer

August 26, 2012

Old Pub

We had a great evening in Kinsale.

Tommy, our buddy wanted to hook up with Liam Brown who was back from Florida for a few weeks to visit some family members. Liam, a successful businessman was originally from Castleisland in Kerry but emigrated to the States over 20 years ago. So a bunch of us met Liam at the Blue Haven for a meal on a really pleasant Saturday evening.

Tommy and Liam exchanged stories and banter about football, the hospitality industry, the economy and some tales about characters from the “old days”.

Liam said he will never come back to Ireland because of the climate but still loves visiting. The recent weather won’t change that mindset!

One of the tales was about a certain publican in Kerry who according to Liam was the laziest publican ever. He was at his worst in the mornings and on one particular occasion he had just opened his doors for business and a bunch of Americans landed, all of them looking for Irish coffees.

This was all a little too much for our publican so early in the day who was more interested in browsing through the sports pages. “Sorry folks, the boss is gone to the bank and he won’t be back for at least an hour” and the Americans went on their way!

Sometimes even the boss isn’t able for customers …

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Hospitality, Ireland, Travel | 4 Comments »

1780 Cork Silver and things much more valuable!

June 17, 2012
Cork Silver

1780 Cork Silver

We’ve never ever been to an auction but for some reason, wandering around Cork City on a miserable Saturday in June (yep …rain, rain, rain!) we spotted a sign outside Woodwards Auctioneers on Cook Street.

They were showing a preview of items that would be on auction the following  week so for some reason we decided that we would have a little snoop around to see what all of this “auction” stuff was about.

The items on display were apparently from a few estates and there was a huge mix of furniture, ornaments, paintings and other assorted bits and pieces. There was even a pair of children’s shoes that were made by a prisoner in 1916!

After a few minutes in the display hall I heard my name being called and I spotted Pascal McNamara who is the Antique Auction Manager. Up until now I had only ever bumped into Pascal on the street and we always have fascinating chats about all sorts. It always struck me how much he loves Cork and the incredible knowledge he has about our city.

Pascal McNamara

Pascal McNamara

Pascal was standing behind an impressive display of silver, which was part of the following weeks auction. A minute later we found ourselves totally mesmerised by Pascal, listening to stories about the history of Cork silver as he showed us some items from the display.

He showed us his favourite piece, a large Cork George III silver sauceboat by John Warner circa 1780. To be honest I had no real interest in silver or anything like this but this piece came to life for me after listening to Pascal telling us passionately about the history of Cork silver. He spoke of the pride we should have in the Cork craftspeople who carefully manufactured these beautiful pieces.

Pascal told us the incredible story of what he called the “Golden Age of Cork Silver” which can be found in his Antiques, Art & Interiors blog, where he talks passionately about his work.

We stole a little bit too much of his time but decided we would come back for the auction. We left the display hall to get on with our Saturday with a little spring in our step, a little extra pride in our city and its history and an interest in antiques!

I reflected on the precious 1780 Cork Silver that would be going on auction but also on the even more valuable Pascal McNamara who’s passion for what he does brought the silver to life and left both of us totally mesmerised.

In all of our businesses the most valuable thing we will ever have is people who are passionate about what they do.

Pascal …thank you for sharing your passion.

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

The bad back and the Referral Engine

May 6, 2012
referral engine

Is your engine working?

“I’m crippled with my back at the moment, would you know of a good chiropractor?” my client asks.

We automatically find ourselves wanting to solve their problem, be helpful and resourceful …. Who do we know? Thinking cap on … Yep, a name of one came up in conversation recently or maybe we spotted a blog post or a tweet, maybe we spotted an advert or a piece of editorial.

In any case we want to be helpful and even if we haven’t had a personal experience with a bad back and scientifically been in a position to carefully assess the attributes and success rate of all the chiropractors in the local area we offer up a suggestion ” Norman Wesson is supposed to be really good“.

..job done and hopefully Norman was able to solve the client’s back trouble.

Every day we are asked for recommendations and mostly we offer them without truthfully knowing scientifically that who we are recommending is the best option available.

80% is the statistic that is always quoted as the source of business that we get from referrals and word of mouth – we find ourselves that a lot of business comes this way but often it comes via surprising sources, frequently from people that we have never actually done business with.

John Jantsch in his clever book The Referral Engine makes the point that if we accept the 80% principle about the power of referrals then we need to make sure that we make it easy for people to recommend us, that our “engine” is in good working order.

So how about looking after your engine….

– Do Great Work!
– Send Regular Newsletters
– Attend Networking Events
– Advertise
– Optimise your Website
– Get Editorial about what you do
– Host an Event
– Write Blog Posts about your area of expertise
– Boost your Visibility on Social Media platforms
– Ask for happy clients to Recommend you (LinkedIn is a great place for this)

Whatever you do, make sure that the next time someone is looking for someone in your area of expertise that your name springs to mind!

That Fuzion crowd are supposed to be a brilliant PR firm by the way …!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

…

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Advertising, Customer Care, Marketing, Web Marketing | 7 Comments »

Are examples of Good Customer Service harder to remember than Bad Ones?

April 21, 2012
Bad customer service

Can you think of a good example?

“What’s your example of good customer service?” ….. Silence

“I can’t think of any” our PR course participant replied …

“Ok, I’ll come back to you later, you’ll surely think of one example”

As part of our PR courses for small business we always emphasise that PR is about “managing your reputation“.

Your PR firm can play a valuable part in that process but any efforts here are totally worthless if a business can’t create the right reputation building blocks by providing good customer service. We make this point on our courses and conduct a small exercise by asking the participants if they can give us examples of good customer service.

This exercise always surprises me as we often see some repetition with names of businesses that are mentioned – for example at two recent courses Apple were mentioned for their “no quibble” approach to problems. Nash19  always get a mention in courses that we run in Cork. The examples given are always intriguing and often they relate to how a problem or an issue was dealt with.

At a recent class we conducted this “good customer service” exercise and the first person to respond launched into a bad experience she had with a mobile broadband provider. I stopped her in her tracks and emphasised that it was examples of “good” customer service that we were actually looking for. She nodded politely as if she had grasped my point …. She then continued to tell the group in detail, blow by blow how lousy the service was! The whole group broke into laughter as we witnessed first hand how enthusiastic we are about sharing “bad” experiences.

In our most recent course I continued asking the other participants for their examples of good service and I was surprised to come to another person who again could not give me an example of good customer service … Not one!

“You’ll think of one in a minute, I’ll come back to you” I said , giving them an extra few moments to think of an example.

Once again I continued asking the others for their examples.

My own example that I shared with the group happened quite recently in West Cork.

At the Celtic Ross Hotel recently I was running a Social Media course early in the morning. As I arrived a hotel staff member looked after me, took me to the well equipped and very comfortable conference room and then asked me if I wanted a coffee ….godsend!

On this gorgeous morning I found myself with a few minutes to spare so I vey briefly walked outside to take in the fabulous view. When I came back , Michal from the hotel brought me a cup of coffee but there was one already on my presentation table. Confused I pointed out that he had already brought me a cup ..”Oh yeah, I spotted that you had gone outside and I guessed your coffee would have been cold!”

Wow ….that’s great service – I shared my story with the group.

To finish the customer service session I went back to the two ladies who earlier could not think of an example.

“Sorry, I can’t think of anything” said the first. I turned to the other – “I’m really sorry” she said apologetically “I can’t think of an example either”

This just amazed me ..

Is customer service so bad that some of us never have a good experience or is it that we just remember the bad?

PR starts with good customer service.

Can you think of an example?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Hospitality, Marketing, PR | 7 Comments »

Why do we Subtract when we could be Adding?

April 13, 2012
add or subtract

Do I subtract or can I add?

On a gorgeous sunny day recently I sent out a tweet – “Make hay when the sun shines – it’s a great time to close those deals #Positivity”

Well, that’s what I meant to say …. With the predictive typing on my iPhone the intended message went out as “May hay when the sun shines ….” Oopps!

I didn’t realise my error until I received a message on LinkedIn by a connection letting me know in no uncertain terms “the expression is make hay….“.

I was really annoyed to see the comment – ok it was a mistake, but surely anyone who read it would have seen the positive intent behind the post instead of being pedantic and motivated to just point out my error.

As annoyed as I was feeling I reflected on this criticism and realised that at times I do exactly the same myself. Recently I was at an event where we spotted a few grave “errors“.

We read through the event brochure and spotted a poem as part of the literature – initially I thought this was a novel idea and when I read it I spotted a “typo“. Surely a crime worth at least 1,000 lashes!

They had used the word “there” when they should have used the word “their” …. Tut tut! Of course I enjoyed my discovery and shared the error with the person sitting next to me.

At the same event we spotted the careless use of logos on the large screens – low resolution, poor placement and white border that could easily have been removed ….. Tut tut! Once again it was worthy of a little conversation and maybe another 1,000 lashes?

Did these errors reduce our enjoyment of the evening .. Of course not!

Why do we take pleasure at spotting mistakes? In this scenario we were in effect criticising a voluntary committee who clearly had gone to a lot of work for the night and instead of acknowledging the positives we were busy taking a little pleasure in how sharp we were in spotting someone’s errors.

Just like my critic that felt obliged to comment on my error instead of complimenting me on the sentiment …

Why do we subtract when we could be adding ?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Customer Care, Marketing, Personal development, Positivity | 12 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »