Five things you may want to consider when setting up an effective boater feedback process:

1) Make it painless for both you and the customer. Short, timely, to the point, easy to take surveys. Boaters want five or six questions. No more. Nowadays people want convenience. Online surveys take 30 seconds if designed right. Go online.

2) Leverage your reservation or service management software. Contact and invoice information is all there. Use it for timely feedback real time. It should take less than a minute to get the boater’s emails.

3) Make it a process, not an event. Survey close to when boatyard service is complete or the transient stay, but don’t over survey. New and sporadic buying customers within 30 days of order, repeat customers no more than every 90 days. Too much of a good thing kills response rates and relationships. You can ask one marketing question, but no more. Ask what they buy elsewhere. They will tell you and then you can expand client share.

4) Shoot for a 25 to 30% response rate. If done right you will hit that. Monitor response rates, product and service quality, and loyalty. Review the info in team meetings.

5) Do something with the data. The boater gave you a gift by sharing. Cherish it and thank them by following up on leads and correcting problems. The best run marine service providers have a process for this.

Good luck in retaining customers by trolling for continuous feedback, staying paranoid, and doing something with the information gathered.

You think your industry is changing! The old, crusty movie rental industry is changing even faster. First there was brick and mortar, then mail order, kiosks, on-demand and now iPhone downloads. Netflix has instituted its second major price increase—a 60 percent increase—in less than a year and customers are complaining big time across the Internet.

Netflix is taking a gamble with a bunch of loyal, but less profitable, customers. No one knows how many will walk. No one knows if this is the catalyst for a mass exodus to Redbox or piracy sites, but my guess is that Netflix knows what it is doing. Netflix sent a message to its loss-leading customers, but will there be a backlash? Only time will tell. The company is blending price increases with more value-added service options to approach this challenge.

Raising prices is a fact of life for any business, and how you handle it could make or break you.

A few years ago, a business conducted an annual customer survey noticed several customer complaints about it raising prices. Many said they were buying somewhere else now, and others noted they were shopping around. The owner went on to explain to me that he raised prices about 20 percent over six months because of an ugly lease situation that was putting pressure on his business. He felt he could slowly raise prices unnoticed. Ooops!

It just so happened that sales were slipping as well. The owner immediately went into damage control to explain his situation to key customers in hopes they would understand. He felt he had to delicately explain what was going on in hopes many of his larger customers would stick with him. The better thing would have been to be proactive before or during the time when the increases were happening.

Netflix will be very interesting to follow in the months to come as we learn what happens with drastic price hikes. Blockbuster took out the local movie rental guys with lower prices, Netflix took out Blockbuster by changing the game and lowering prices, and now Redbox is trying to do it again with kiosks and iPhone downloads. Netflix has 22.8 million customers in the United States, but Redbox is growing like a weed—it currently has 27,000 kiosks, an established iPhone application download strategy with over 1 million downloads already, and recently rented its billionth movie.

While I don’t pretend to be a movie expert since it’s been 25 years since I stepped foot in a movie theater, this dynamic is going to be interesting to watch from a pricing viewpoint. Whether cleaning carpets, making cabinetry, printing or renting movies, pricing strategies change, and you need to be prepared. Call me weird for not appreciating movies, but I think everyone else is weird for not fishing for hours on end. My wife and friends just don’t get it!

Five things to consider when raising prices.

1) Have a roll-out strategy that gives customers options. Analyze the worst case scenario and prepare for it.

It appears that Netflix knows it will lose customers with its most recent price change. The business mentioned earlier underestimated the impact of a quiet price increase. Setup some pricing models, look at each larger customer individually, and decide if you will lose the business. Decide and don’t look back, but also watch what happens in the market, take a pulse maybe with shorter surveys after jobs go out to understand customers’ impression of the experience, watch your win/loss ratio on bids, and have an adjustment plan ready if needed.

2) Go overboard preparing and managing the communications strategy with your most profitable, loyal and largest-revenue customers.

Let’s look at each of these three scenarios separately:

a) Your most profitable customers may not be the biggest, but they are buying the services and products that make you the most money. It seems that Netflix looked at this and raised prices accordingly—so as not to tick off profitable customers, but instead tick off its lower end customers. At least it appears that’s what the company is doing out of the gate.

b) Have a plan for the top 20 percent of your customer base that generates 80 percent of your revenue. My guess is that Netflix looked into this and priced its lower end services knowing it would lose those customers.

c) Be careful not to tick off your loyal customers. Word of mouth and social networking sites can make or break you. In my opinion, Netflix has the biggest issue here. It had a very loyal customer base within the 22.8 million subscribers. Customers who have been with the service since day one feel betrayed; they feel the company is jacking up profits and no longer cares about the customer. These customers are magnifying their dissatisfaction across the Internet. I believe Netflix could have explained its reasons for the pricing strategy change better, but what do I know. I’m not a movie guy!

3) Don’t underestimate word of mouth.

Customers will share with others. Have a strategy for communicating to everyone and letting them know what is going on. It may not be a popular decision, but by showing the value-add and how you are justifying the higher prices, customers hopefully will understand. Have a public relations plan in place whether you are a small, $1 million shop or multimillion shop.

Netflix is being hammered right now across Facebook and Twitter, and hoping it can weather this storm. Assume that customers will notice the price increase and be proactive explaining the reason for them. Be visible with a consistent message.

4) Have integrity.

Prices will continue to go up. Bread is no longer a nickel, a gallon of gas is no longer $.35, and you can no longer buy a house for $3,000. Still, you must have integrity, a logical reason for raising prices and appreciate how the customer will react.

I will never forget my first customer service job. Our new, “turnaround expert” VP of sales came to me explaining that sales were way off and that I needed to double the price on a custom product we made for one of my customers. As a green-behind-the-ears 23-year-old, I said, “Okey Dokey Boss! I’ll do my best to be nice as I drop the bomb.”

I called the customer back with a $180,000 price instead of the normal $90,000. It went over like a lead balloon. The company had no other choice but to accept the price because we were the single source. Its buyer did say she would get even, felt betrayed and would proactively look for a second source. My employer was short sighted, I lost confidence in my employer, and I left within a year.

5) Try gradual price increases over time whenever possible.

The key is to have discipline in raising prices slowly whenever possible, or at least having a method to your madness. Also, be ready to explain the reasons for the price increases if you are asked.

Netflix has had two significant price increases in a year and customers noticed. I don’t fully understand why it couldn’t increase prices in small increments over time. I’m not a movie guy. Maybe the company doesn’t have the luxury just like the business I referenced above, but whenever possible you should try to keep your pricing up with inflation and rising costs, instead of waking up one day and noticing that you’re way out of whack and now need to get back in line with a singe huge adjustment.

The bottom line is to have integrity, be prepared with a plan, and be ready with a solid answer for customers. For small pricing changes, you may not need to broadcast them like Netflix, but be ready with an answer when asked. Train your sales people to be able to handle objections or attack it head on if you believe the increase will be noticed.

I hope this helps, and good luck with your price adjustment strategies.

• Knowing how and when to use QR codes
• Building and managing mobile websites
• Designing and managing corporate websites
• Using PURLs the right way
• Managing social media marketing
• Designing and managing e-mail strategies
• Marketing promotional products
• Creating show exhibits
• Managing digital content

Can make your head spin huh. This printer group knows their core is printing and accepts the fact they lack the resources of larger printers to build the broad, cross media team. They came at the opportunity by leveraging a whole new breed of what I call “Behind the Scenes” suppliers, or BTS Suppliers, who are filling the void. Okay, maybe we don’t need a fancy name for these guys, but they are different. These suppliers understand their role in life and built services to remain hidden from end user even answering email and phone calls as if they were part of the printer’s staff. The printer closes the deal and collects the money, and the vendor does the rest. And, the margins beat that earned on print.

These printer owners are aggressively reinventing themselves into brokers. For three days this group watched sales pitches and educational presentations to figure out how to sell these services without getting their hands dirty while also protecting the relationship with each customer. These owners were focusing on understanding how to sell beyond print and position themselves as the go-to person to manage complete campaigns and cross media efforts. They leaned on their partners to deliver the final service or product, many times without their customer even knowing. These printers were thrilled with the profitability, and here are a few examples of services, vendors, and results shared.

Net Solutions, Inc.(www.netsolutionsna.com) offers a seamless solution for printers interested in offering web design services. They train the printer on how to sell the service, but then they do most of the work, right down to answering the phone as if they are on staff for the printer. Pretty cool. While having dinner with one printer they shared how they sold a $70,000 website and his expense was about $10,000. He said he felt guilty, but quickly laughed saying he will lose it somewhere on a print job. He did confess this was an anomaly for him and doesn’t expect a ton of deals like this, but it helped him sell other stuff and be truly on one stop solution and he knows another service beyond print for the future tool chest.

What about translation services? Inline Inc.(www.inlinela.com) is a printer vendor partner who helps printers with language translation. One printer sold $16,000 in translation services for a customer, and they did none of the work in-house. Think about how many customers you have who need solid, certified translation services when printing up such things as manuals. You may not sell a ton of translation services, but they are out there and why not have that available. Again, they are just a dealer of the service and not actually doing the work.

All Viso (www.allviso.com) set up a process for printers to sell mobile websites for their customers and be done within an hour by leveraging QR Codes. The tools were very intuitive, the entry fee was $500 for their first mobile site and then the printer receives 100% margin on anything they sell to their customers.

Many are familiar with ASI (www.adspecialities.com) for promotional products. One printer explained how easy it was to have the website setup so customers could just go and buy their pens, mugs, whatever. He explained some customers thought he was doing the printing. He sold tens of thousands of pens a year. One medical services organization gives them out to visitors buying online. He said it was easy money, customers order online, and after three years he knows which products to guide customers to with very little effort. The margins he said were incredible. He sold $90,000 last year which was very profitable.

4Over (www.4over4.com) is another name that just continues to come up when speaking with printers open to outsourcing to ride the tide. Less smaller printers are printing business cards in house. They take the order, have 4Over produce for some crazy low price like $20, and mark it up from there. Margins are insane.

I’ll never forget visiting MCI, the large telecommunications giant in the 1990s before they were bought out. They did not build a thing. They became experts in outsourcing and picking the right partners to put the right pieces together for the end customer. Is this a model we may see more printers evolve into as they expand beyond print or certain printing becomes a commodity? The choices are to build a team and infrastructure or just buy it. My vote would be the latter. Will more printers become brokers for services beyond print? Will there be more brokering in the future for commodities such as business cards and promotional products? This group of printers sees an opportunity to grasp this new, exciting opportunity to grow revenues, get closer to their customers, and have fun learning new ways to add value.

Back in 2007 I met the owner after speaking at a conference. They mentioned they liked the idea of surveying customers, but they really only have one big customer who represents about 80% of his business. My first reaction was “You’re nuts! Isn’t that scary?” With a smile he said yes to some degree, but his business is very profitable and the customer is like family, they get all the business, he know the executives, and they are easy to work with. He just wished all the other smaller customers were that way. He said the business was easy to manage this way.

Fast forward to September, 2010. I noticed he signed up to attend a webinar I was giving, but never showed. I thought maybe he was busy, but for the past six months I wondered how he was doing over the last three years. Did he still have that one big customer? Had he diversified, found other customers, was he doing well after this horrible recession?

Today, April 28, 2011 I decided to pick up the phone to see how he was doing. When I called I got the disconnected phone message. At first I thought I dialed it wrong so I dialed again. Same result. I went to his website and got the “no website found message”. Then went to Google and found a nice Google map with the little flag sitting there with his business name nicely indexed with the exact phone number I just tried twice. A business is dead, but still registers as a viable business on the web. Feels kinda creepy. No one is home or alive for that matter. My last thought was that maybe another business bought them, but I doubt it because that business would be smart enough to redirect the phone number and website. Also, no one in the right mind would buy a printer who only had one big customer who probably went south in the recession or had something else bad happen to them. They are gone. Another business bites the dust.

No management team can afford sit still, get complacent, milk the cash cow, and get comfortable. It is a tough world out there. Beware of someone moving faster than you in your industry. Refine and reinvent. I hope this example helps those businesses out there change their thinking if riding on only a few large customers to make revenue targets, and instead think about how they can diversify the business to have a healthier foundation. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with discipline and perseverance you can build a balanced base of business to stay healthy over time.

I recently stumbled onto a white paper published by Positivesearches.com that highlights several practical ways to protect your brand and company from malicious content. Many potential customers, investors, and employees will do an online background check before working with you, and while a best practice is to monitor performance and constantly deliver beyond customer expectations., things happen and there are those out there out to get you. Be prepared.

The problem with complaint sites is that complaints are never removed. Take a look at the mission of RipoffReport.com, one of the top complaint sites with over 610,000 reports. They state “Some people have criticized this policy as being unfair, but we strongly feel this policy is essential, fair, and far better than the alternative – rampant censorship.” They have been sued by Fortune 500 in both state and federal courts and ripoffreport.com has won 20 of 21 times. You probably should consider another way to combat ballot stuffing or removing bogus content.

Protecting yourself involves posting positive content to drive down any negativity or garbage content when searching your company. Try searching your company and see what you come up with. It is amazing how many businesses have a .com business listing service site such as Manta.com on top of the first page search results. Here are a few things you may want to consider to drive up positive results when people are learning about you on the web. The goal is to have positive information on the first page of search results.

• Google Alerts tells you of new results for your keywords.
• Facebook to increase your ranking using both Fan Pages and Groups
• YouTube since video gets ranked higher for SEO
• Twitter because shortly this is going to become visible as Google implements real time search
• LinkedIn is great for controlling your image and they rank high on search engines
• Flikr.com for the Yahoo community and great for images and video
• Start a blog to drive up ranking and your voice on the internet
• Join Yelp! to place your own reviews and become part of the community
• Google “Free Press Release Distribution” to get press releases out.
• Google Maps to put you on the top of the search criteria
• Post Job listings since they get high ranking as well especially on Google searches

You don’t need to do all of these, but most are free. Even doing a few and sticking to it will help keep positive things out in front on the internet.

Background:
On December 3, 2010 I placed an order for replacement windows with one of the big two home improvement centers (Lowes, Home Depot). I don’t want to throw stones here so will just leave it at that. The sales reps were great and overall I am happy, but they could have done a few things much better. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of this transaction through the eyes of the consumer.

Strengths:
* The sales rep who came out to meet.
* The quality of workmanship while installing.
* Availability when I called the center for help.

Weaknesses:
* Inconsistency in information flow.
* Timeliness of information and installing. The windows finally went in January 29th, 2011
* Their survey process was intimidating and left a sour taste in my mouth.

Let’s focus on the way they tried to gather candid feedback. It is great that they had a process, but clearly the fox is watching the hen house here. Ever buy a car at a dealership and hear the plea for a top rating so they get their bonus? Well, that happened here.

First Interaction for feedback.

The installation person pulls out a survey form at the end of the installation, hands it to me, and asks 5 Yes/No questions I could not answer until I went around to each window. That would take 30 minutes to check to make sure I could answer the question. The good part was that it forced me to do this. Then the 240 lber. looked me in the eye and asked the dreaded question “You are going to get a call in a few days from the local store asking you to rate me. Is there anything I could have done that would stop you from giving me the highest rating of 7 when they call you? Then corporate will call you in two weeks. Is there anything holding you back from giving me a 7 at that point as well?” I could not blame him for asking, but boy was that uncomfortable. Here is why.

* He had been in the house for the full day and I had a rapport with him now.
* He explained the fact that these surveys are critical to his contractor status with them.
* My first thought was “Yes, I do have a problem and here is why.”
* I was told the windows came in weeks ago and you were suppose to call me.

*The center was surprised you did not call me when I finally called after 6 weeks.

* You were suppose to be here Friday, called me that day to say you weren’t coming.

* You made me change my Saturday schedule to stay home another day for you.

*This job took 30 days longer and you knew this was a rental property that is holding up the tenant.

But, instead I just smiled at the 240 lber. and said “NO”. We are all set.

Second Interaction for Feedback:

On Monday I listened to a voicemail message on my cell phone from the center that came in Saturday asking if he showed up and if I was all set. That was odd since I thought they would know. Then I noticed another message from the person’s manager calling Monday morning with the following message ” Hi, this is Joe, I noticed Sally called you a couple times this weekend for feedback and you haven’t responded. This is the last time we will call and assume everything is OK”. I only got one call so thought this was very strange so I called Sally. Sally explained how important these surveys are and after I explained how uncomfortable I was with the way the survey went with the installer she just explained how important it was and that is the way it goes. She only asked me one question about being satisfied and was done, but did explain that corporate may call in a couple weeks and to please give a 7 rating. Again, a plea for them to save their job. Frankly, this is not a process improvement initiative as much as a way for corporate America to keep tabs on the troops as a top down watchdog. Something seemed broken.

Lessons learned:
1) Make surveying a comfortable safe environment for the consumer or buyer of the service.
2) Make the process easy to give feedback and try to pull the human element out of the equation.
3) Don’t get defensive when getting feedback and look at all feedback as a gift.
4) Be careful not to bonus employees in an unnatural way with your process or you will not get meaningful feedback.

I wonder if I will get that corporate call in a couple weeks. Wonder how that will go.

Anyway, I looked at the bottom of this 20 year old ladder and noticed a caution sign with 11 tips on installing and maintaining, complete with diagrams and pictures. All on a well designed 5 by 6 inch red sticker. Someone at this business took the time to think like a customer. Then I saw their phone number in big font. I guess I could have gone on the internet, but felt like calling this morning. I had a few questions and felt like speaking to someone. OK, I am old school sometimes.

I called at 8:05AM and the simple front menu directed me to customer service. One ring later I had Frank. He was such a down to earth person who just wanted to help. Also he knew his stuff.

I explained that I needed a spring assembly, and then he asked some questions and explained why I had the problem in the first place. That was a surprise since I just thought he would either say they don’t sell parts separately or that he would just take the order. Instead he wanted me to know why it broke so I could take care of the spring on the other side and maintain better in the future. You see, you need to oil these every few years. The red sticker said this, but what American reads the directions? Germans, Yes. Americans, No.

Frank said he could send out the assembly right away for $17.50 plus $15 shipping. They took credit cards and in 10 minutes it was done. Perfect.

Why Frank was so good.

1) He did not judge at all and was totally other centered through the entire call.
2) He was humble and just asked the right questions to figure out what I had and what I needed.
3) He was efficient and explained the entire process as he was going.
4) He went the extra mile without me even asking and added those few things that made me feel unique and special and not just another number.
5) He was trustworthy and I felt I was talking to the owner and designer at the company. Maybe I was? Think about your CSRs. In the customer’s eyes they are the CEO.
6) He had credibility with his questions and answers.
7) We got along. I felt we had a rapport.

Don’t underestimate the power of customer service.

http://americanprinter.com/casey

Check out this comment that came in today from a fishing listserv I am active on. WOW, this guy is one of the few that goes out of the way to promote a business. You can’t pay enough to get this kind of positive marketing done. It went out to thousands of New England fisherman. Check out what Brian said on the Southern New England Angler’s listserv a few minutes ago.

“Yesterday for the first time I went to Jamestown Distributors in Bristol to buy some parts for my boat. The staff there went out of their way to make sure what I was buying would work for the project I was doing. If you’ve never done business with them, check them out, they have a huge online catalog.

Another company I had a recent experience with was Attwood Marine. I needed a new scupper flap on the boat. I had seen a posting in the Seaswirl owner’s forum to contact Attwood for the replacement. I followed the email link, it was answered promptly asking for the size etc. The rep then mails out two flaps to me free of charge. Brian”

Thank you Brian for sharing a positive experience. 1,000s of people reading this from a trusted source. Nice referral without doing anything. Attwood and Jamestown Distributors just did the right thing and treated him with respect and he was “WOWed” and compelled to tell everyone.

Back in the 80s an HP study shoed that for every dissatisfied customer they tell 20, yet a satisfied customer only tells 3. Brian beat the stats here and maybe the internet will balance out that statistic in favor of the companies going above and beyond.

The Encounter

The Banana Nazi starting barking out orders right from the start.

Banana Nazi: “You need to shower before you get on the boat, give me your glasses, hat, and anything else you have.” (No smile. Stone cold.)

I started thinking this lady must have had a rough summer and couldn’t wait for it to be over. She acted like the owner so I let her slide on this one. Maybe she was having a bad day.

I went on to say, “I can’t see without my prescription sun glasses so do you think I can wear them as we drive out to the tubing area? Also, I am a little light in the hair department so can I wear my hat to avoid sunburn of the head?” All said while chuckling a little to loosen things up and maybe brightening her day.

Banana Nazi: “Well, you are better off leaving your glasses here and being able to see the rest of the day than losing them aren’t you? The hat needs to go. I will do you a favor and put your stuff in my car so nothing happens.”

Again she was stone cold looking at me like I said something offensive or idiotic! I starting boiling a bit and thinking “She didn’t really say that?”. I couldn’t go on that boat blind no matter how she felt about it. I handed the Banana Nazi my stuff while white knuckling my glasses before she left me blind!

Banana Nazi: (No reaction as she took my stuff).

I was thinking “I don’t need this abuse and arrogance. I’m leaving.” Then looking at my son I had a change of heart. For my son’s sake I sucked it up and said “Thank you.” With a smile of course!

At that point we met two other people working the boat. They were great! Very polite and made the trip a memorable one. The driver with dread locks was awesome and fit the part perfectly, looking like he grew up water skiing and knew how to throw people! They explained to me right out of the gate why I could not wear my glasses on the boat. It made perfect sense since I was getting dragged out on the tube from the dock! Why didn’t she say that?

Customer service people make or break the deal. They got lucky this time.

Lessons learned:

1) Be careful with who works directly with customers. They may be blowing deals before you have a chance to know about it. The best customer service people are other-centered, patient, and listen to customers. What employees work directly with customers, but are not trained in customer service skills? Be careful.

2) Don’t assume prospects and customers know the reasons you do what you do. I now know why I could not bring my glasses and hat, but she did not listen to me, explain and communicate the reasons! Do customers know why you do what you do?

3) Customer Service people must start with communicating before we can show what your product or service does. It all starts with connecting and communicating the way your customers prefer. Be flexible and change your communication approach to fit your customer.

4) No product or service is so good that customers will put up with arrogance to get the goods. The Soup Nazi found this out the hard way and hopefully the Banana Nazi figures this out before it is too late.
Is your business just pumping out product? Are you in the customer service business? The end product is important, but customers want to buy from those they can connect with.