Social Media: Maybe It’s Not for Everyone.

These days, it’s just about impossible to find a social media “expert” who doesn’t recommend that your company and/or clients jump on the social media bandwagon. And why not? It really is an amazing new channel that both empowers customers and is about as close to the holy grail of 1-to-1 communications as we ever may get.

But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment: Is there ever a situation where getting into social media is a mistake? Well, just maybe. There are at least a few companies on the social media scene that are taking a thumping.

I’m talking about companies that, justly or unjustly, are seen as having a less than sterling reputation when it comes to customer service. With the advent of social media, these companies have to deal with more than angry customers on the phone—they now have angry customers on the Net, with the ability to amplify their message to thousands of others, often on the company’s own social networking sites.

One vertical that seems to have more than its fair share of angry Netizens are the cable companies. Take for instance, Comcast. In a past post, I wrote about some Comcast service-related issues I was having with the cable conglomerate, but also pointed out that their Twitter presence was top-notch.

As far as I can tell, Comcast has no official Facebook presence but, as you might expect, others have filled the void. A quick look reveals two separate Facebook pages for people who don’t like the company, including “I Hate Comcast”. Yet the fact that Comcast doesn’t have its own corporate Facebook page may be a good move—especially when you take a look at competitor Verizon, who is being forced to fight off critics right on its home turf.

On Verizon’s Facebook Discussion page are threads that include “Verizon sucks” and “Awful Customer Service”. More vitriol can be found on the company’s “Fans of FiOS” page. Along with accolades, there is a steady stream of negative postings like: “Verizon has the worst customer service in the world and here are all the things I now HATE about FiOS”, followed by a 10-point list.

What’s most interesting are the responses from the “Fans of FiOS crew” (aka Verizon employees) who have the unenviable job of answering these rants. In most cases, they respond in a bright and chirpy manner that deals with the issue at hand and ignores the nastiness. But many times the FiOS crew appears to let damaging claims go unchallenged.

Here are two customer postings that did not get an official company response:

“Beware. Their billing is atrocious. Watch your bills closely, they are playing games with the bills.”
and:
“Verizon lies again with their offers and promotion propaganda and I am not the only one. Many people on this board are not getting the $150.00 gift card that you promised when we signed up as new costumers. Explain please!!”

The query below received some polite technical advice regarding the Xbox issue, but ignored the “bill” and ”dedicated line” comments:
“This service blows I’ve been getting so much lag on xbox live…my bill is crazy high every month going up and I’m still in my one year contract…and by the way its not fiber to the home… its a shared network too… stop advertising “dedicated line” until u back it up.”

Ouch! So what do you do if you’re Verizon, now that the social media genie is out of the bottle, and you’re consistently being hammered on your own Facebook page? Well, the “Fans of FiOS Team on Facebook” recently took action. They put up a “Notice Regarding Repeat Posts on the Wall” which in part reads:

To our valued Fans,
Recently, we’ve seen a number of fans repeatedly posting questions regarding content that we’ve addressed in the past…these repetitious posts have made it more difficult to address new questions…for this reason, we have decided to begin removing repeat posts of the same topic.

So they’ve given themselves the “right to remove posts”—which could mean taking down any complaint on any issue they feel like they’ve already addressed. This is sure to tick off some fans of FiOS, who see the Facebook page as a public square—but I think Verizon has done the right thing.

At a certain point, you just can’t let your own Web pages be a platform that assists in your own demise and further damages you’re already less than golden reputation.

What do you think?

This post originally appeared on the blog Loyalty Truth on May 11, 2010 and was written by Tom Rapsas.

Giving your customers a head start.

I have a young daughter and being the competitive type she will sometimes challenge me to a race. There’s just one condition—I have to give her a head start. This is important, at least to her, because it increases her chances of winning—and seems to motivate her to run even faster than if we’re at the starting line together.

It’s something I thought about as I read a passage in Switch, the new book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. They tell a story about a local car wash that ran a promotion featuring loyalty cards. Each time a customer bought a car wash, they got a stamp on their card. When the card was filled up with 8 stamps, the customer got a free wash – a concept known as punch card loyalty.

But at one point, the car wash tried something different. They gave customers a card that needed 10 stamps to qualify for a free car wash, instead of 8—except the card already had two stamps on it, effectively giving customers a “head start”.

According to the book: “The goal was the same for both sets of customers. Buy eight additional car washes, get a reward. But the psychology was different. In one case, you’re 20 percent of the way toward a goal, and in the other case, you’re starting from scratch.”

The result: those who got a head start were about twice as likely to stay in the program and redeem for a free car wash. As the book points out, it seems this group of customers was more motivated when they were partially finished with a longer journey than at the starting gate of a shorter one.

It’s something to consider in all loyalty endeavors: What if you gave new members a head-start? Would they be more motivated to stick with your loyalty program? It works with my daughter, it worked for the car wash in Switch, and it just might work for you.

This blog entry originally appeared on Loyalty Truth on April 15, 2010 and is by Tom Rapsas. Tom can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

IHG Hotel Group Grabs My Attention & My Business

Up until a few weeks ago, I had little awareness of the InterContinental Hotels Group. Known by the acronym IHG, they operate brands like Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza which are part of the Priority Club Rewards loyalty program.

The main reason IHG hasn’t been on my radar is simple: for most of the past decade, the majority of my stays were business-related and on the company dime. So to build up maximum loyalty points for personal use, I had narrowed my hotel universe to the Fairmont Hotel group (President’s Club), as well as hotels aligned with the Hilton Hhonors program.

Over the past few weeks though, IHG has come to my attention not once, but twice.

Reason #1. IHG made a brilliant marketing move. When Hilton Hotels decided to raise the number of loyalty points required for a free hotel stay earlier this year, IHG pounced. They launched a campaign for their Priority Club rewards program that called out the changes to the Hhonors frequent guest program via a contest called the “Luckiest Loser”.

The consumer who was the “luckiest loser”—the one with the most points invested in the HHonors program—won 2 million Priority Club points. Additionally, 20,000 “lucky losers” got up to 20% of their current HHonors balance in Priority Club points. Everyone else got 1,000 points just for entering.

It was a smart move —and a great use of the IHG database. It seems they had a 50 to 60% overlap between Priority Club members and those enrolled in HHonors, making it easy to target disgruntled Hhonors members. After all, these folks had seen their stake in the Hilton program shrink by 20-25% overnight.

Reason #2. IHG saved me a few bucks. Funny how when I went solo and hotel charges began appearing on my personal card, as opposed to a corporate credit card, I began looking at hotels that were, how can I phrase this, cheap. So when I was searching for an inexpensive place to stay in New York City a few weeks back, I checked the IHG corporate site—and came up with a mid-town Manhattan Holiday Inn with an eye-popping rate of under $100 bucks a night.

So what was a $100 room in New York City like? Okay, it won’t be confused with The Plaza. But while this particular Holiday Inn was a little worn around the edges, the room was clean, the bed was more than comfy and the staff was friendly. I even got a pretty good cup of coffee in the morning.

So now I’m a member of a new hotel loyalty program, IHG’s Priority Club Rewards. I’ve already received a “thank you for my stay” e-mail which was nice. And while I dearly miss the Fairmont, until the economy picks up, I’ll be pulling out my Priority Club Rewards card a little more often.

This article was originally published on March 17, 2010, on the Loyalty Truth blog and is by Tom Rapsas, a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

My Fan Rewards Goes for the Gold.

Does anyone remember the launch of the Discover Card? When introduced in 1985 as “the card that pays you back”, it really felt different from Visa and MasterCard. Forget the card’s super high interest rate—I was getting cash back on every purchase!

Times change and now the cash back bonus doesn’t feel quite so special, but an outfit called My Fan Rewards is putting a fresh spin on it. They’ve teamed with the U.S. Olympic Committee to launch a program called MyTeamUSA Rewards.

The program works like this: When you shop through MyTeamUSARewards.com, using any credit card, you not only earn cash back from the retailer—a like amount is given to support U.S. Olympic athletes. For example, shop at the Nike Store and you’ll earn 4% cash back, while 4% of your purchase is matched and handed over to the USA Olympic team.

The program is free and feels like a good way to tap into the emotions surrounding the country’s Olympics love fest. But the real test is coming: keeping fans interested in the MyTeamUSA program now that the Olympic torch at the Vancouver Winter games has been put out.

My take: a solid, targeted emotion-based communications program could do the trick. The key will be in getting program participants juiced not about the Olympics that just passed, but for the next Olympic games to come. (2012 in London, in case you were wondering.)

On a side note, My Fan Rewards is rumored to be expanding into the pro sports market next. It’s not a bad idea, as professional sports teams showing fans a little return love could help ease the grumbling about ever-increasing ticket prices. (Of course, let’s hope the cash rebates will be a one-way affair, and go straight into the pocket of the consumer!)

This article was written by Tom Rapsas and originally published February 28, 2010, on Loyalty Truth. Tom is a writer and creative director and a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Is Caesars Atlantic City “Swinging” for a New Target Market?

Just a few months ago, on these very pages, I gave kudos to Caesars Atlantic City and its Total Rewards loyalty program.

During some trying times for the economy in general, and Atlantic City in particular, Caesars AC was making some smart moves to get its loyalty program members back to the casino.

Last week, Caesars AC got my attention again. But not in a good way. You see, they ran a rather bizarre full-page ad in the Sunday NYTimes magazine.

Let’s start with the photo in the ad (which can be seen above): a well-dressed 30-something guy has a pretty woman to his right. She has one hand on his shoulder and another wrapped tightly around his arm. It looks like they’re at a show. Okay so far, except our guy seems more interested in another woman to his left. He has his lips to her ear and her extended arm appears to be resting on his thigh.

Under the headline “The Life You Were Meant to Live“, the stilted copy reads:
Who is that in Section A, Row 1, Seat 5, having the time of your life? That’s Todd. Flanked by your fiery vixens. Paying no attention to your favorite band on stage. But give credit where it’s due. Todd is an escape artist. And when it’s time for a getaway, he get it’s right.

What!?!

Putting aside the confusing use of the possessive “your”, who are the fiery vixens with Todd? Am I supposed to pretend I’m Todd…on some kind of a three-way tryst? Is this what they mean by “he gets it right?” More importantly, did Caesars’ market research show the ménage a trois market to be a growing demographic?

Personally, I can only think of one word for the ad – Stupid.

Instead of creating a scenario that the largely upscale readership of the NYTimes magazine might be able to imagine themselves in, they’ve come up with a fictional character in a contrived situation that’s a non-starter for anyone not in the “swinger” category.

It of course begs the question, what were they thinking? The only thing I can come up with is that Caesars AC is trying to out Vegas-Vegas.

Sorry Caesars, as much as I like you and your loyalty program, you’re no Vegas. And there are better ways to spend your precious marketing dollars.

This article was originally published on Loyalty Truth on February 15, 2010, and was written by Tom Rapsas, a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Tim McGraw Strums Loyalty for My Outback Rewards.

A celebrity endorsement—for a loyalty program?

The pros and cons of using a celebrity spokesperson in advertising have been long established. The pros? A celebrity draws attention The cons? A celebrity draws attention—away from your product or service.

What’s more, as we recently saw with golfing legend you-know-who, there’s the potential downside of aligning your company with a celebrity whose reputation takes a sudden nosedive. So when I learned that restaurant chain Outback Steakhouse had signed country music star Tim McGraw as a celebrity spokesperson, I was doubly surprised. You see, his job is not to pitch the brand, but to help launch their new loyalty effort My Outback Rewards.

As explained on the Outback Web site:

Fans of Tim McGraw and Outback Steakhouse will have the chance to win exclusive Tim McGraw memorabilia, downloads, tickets to the upcoming Southern Voice Tour and VIP access, great offers from Outback Steakhouse and even a chance to travel to Australia to see Tim McGraw perform live in the Land Down Under!

Another thing that’s different about My Outback Rewards are the rules: The program has no loyalty cards, as it’s based totally online. Once users register at the program Web site, they simply collect their Outback receipts–and then record numerical codes from the receipts on the rewards site. A point is earned for each dollar spent, and points can be redeemed for prizes.

The choice of McGraw as Outback’s loyalty program spokesman comes as less of a surprise when you learn the program was developed by event marketing agency Rally Marketing Group, whose specialty is experiential marketing. In the loyalty business we’ve long talked about the value of experiential rewards. But I wondered about putting the Tim McGraw experience on the same level as the Outback dining experience.

So it was with great interest that I visited the My Outback Rewards site on the program’s January 25th launch date. Just how would they incorporate McGraw into their communications? Would he be strumming an Outback inspired tune? Be shown chomping on a ribeye or a Bloomin’ Onion®?

Well, I can say they’ve done a nice job of integrating Tim McGraw into the My Outback Rewards Web site. The site is clean and easy to navigate, they do a good job of explaining step-by-step how the program works, and they have successfully linked Tim with the Outback brand by identifying several dishes that are “Tim’s choices”.

Still, I can’t help but wonder why Outback chose to put all its loyalty program eggs in the Tim McGraw basket. An e-mail welcoming me into the program came written and signed by Tim McGraw himself. A view of the reward list shows more Tim McGraw-related rewards than Outback options. And with the program so closely linked to McGraw, I’m left wondering if they have a fall back plan should the unthinkable happen.

I personally think Tim McGraw seems like a stand-up guy. Who doesn’t love his wife Faith Hill? And I really think they’ve done a beautiful job with the My Outback Rewards site. But in some ways the whole thing sure feels closer to a Tim McGraw loyalty program than one for Outback.


This article originally appeared on the Loyalty Truth blog, 1/29/10, and was written by Tom Rapsas, a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. Tom heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty and can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Six Myths of Customer Loyalty

Was attending a conference recently on Loyalty, and came across an interesting presentation from the team at Corporate Executive Board, outlining the myths of customer loyalty. This of course is based on extensive global research and inputs provided by leading firms, and offers a refreshing perspective.

Am also elaborating on each of the myths with a summary interpretation and perspective

Myth 1: A satisfied customer is a loyal customer : Proactive v/s reactive being the key message

Myth 2: Loyal efforts help you retain business, not acquire new business : Principles of WOM (word of mouth) shall prevail at all times, hence the benefits of customer loyalty in generating new business, though possibly not clearly measurable at all times, definitely works

Myth 3: Loyalty efforts should focus on the attributes that customers say are most important : Functional attribute requirements arising from customer / consumer dialogue and research are important. The tipping points however lie in the latent emotional support and benefits.

Myth 4: Enrolling a customer in a loyalty programme will result in loyalty : Logical.....

Myth 5: Developing personal relationships with customers is the best way for sales to drive loyalty : Personal relationship is par for the course. Making the extra effort in understanding the client's business drivers, goals & objectives, and even challenging the client is what makes the difference.

Myth 6: Employees who don’t face customers cannot affect customer loyalty : EVERYONE contributes and can make a difference. Enhancements in invoicing design can make an impact as much as a smiling sales executive.

Am also going to be shortly publishing another listing of myths in the context of loyalty programme design, but in a lighter vein
...

The Social Edge

Tasti D-Lite, the New York Ice Cream Parlour Chain, has launched a unique social twist to its loyalty programme.

Now it's loyalty customer base can earn extra points by allowing Tasti D Lite to send out tweets on their Twitter and Foursquare accounts. Customers can earn an extra point every time they purchase ice creams at Tasti D-Lite!

A novel and interesting twist on leveraging the power of social networking to the advantage of both the brand and its loyalty customer.

Napolean Hill, Chris Brogan and The Year Ahead.

Over the recent holidays, my friend Bill Hanifin pointed out a post written by the person arguably at the forefront of the whole social media movement, Chris Brogan. In the post, Brogan said, “People are slowing down to turn their thoughts to family and to their own development, and to what worked and what didn’t in 2009. Not me.”

While he did leave an escape hatch for those choosing to bail out during the holidays, “You don’t have to do it this way”, Brogan was working as hard as ever, holidays or no holidays.

It got me thinking about Napolean Hill, author of the classic Think and Grow Rich. Although it was first published in 1937, the book’s message about gaining monetary success through hard work, determination and positive thinking, still rings true today. The popularity of the book endures as well, as it ranks in the top 1,000 books on Amazon.

What a lot of people may not know is that in 1967, three decades after the publication of his magnum opus, an 80-year old Hill put out a book with a more expansive view of the role of work in our lives. Its title: Grow Rich—with Peace of Mind.

While offering many of the same valuable lessons on self improvement as Think and Grow Rich, Hill adapted his message to basically say, grow rich—but have a life, too. We’re not talking 4-hour workweek here, but Hill did suggest we “make a time budget”.

Spread out over a 24-hour day, his time budget looks like this:

* 8 hours a day for sleep and rest
* 8 hours a day for work at your business or profession (but as your success grows, less work)
* 8 “particularly precious” hours “devoted to things you wish to do, not have to do”

Hill’s suggested list for the final 8 hours includes: “play, social life, reading, writing, playing a musical instrument, tending a garden, or just sitting and watching the clouds or the stars.” (I would add “spending time with family.”)

Hill further amplifies the point with this passage: “Do not let a day go by without taking some time for yourself — some time you spend in pure pleasure, as you see it.” He adds, “With increasing success, increase your hours of pure enjoyment, do not allow these hours to be eaten away by business or anything else.”

God bless Chris Brogan, he’s an inspiration to all of us. But there’s something to be said about the whole work-life balance thing. And while I have personally set business goals for 2010, following Hill’s lead, I’ve set leisure ones as well.

The bottom line: Sure, let’s get rich. But let’s not forget that success is measured by more than the balance in our bank accounts.

This article was originally published on Loyalty Truth on January 11, 2010, and was written by Tom Rapsas, a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Tiger, Accenture and a celebrity endorsement gone bad.

Editors Note: This article originally appeared on Loyalty Truth on December 13, 2009. A few days later Accenture announced they had broken ties with Woods.

For me, the most compelling question to arise from the tawdry Tiger Woods scandal isn’t whether his wife will leave him, but whether his corporate sponsors will. In particular, the management consulting company Accenture.

We’re not talking energy drinks or golf shoes here, Accenture is a starched white collar Fortune Global 500 firm that, excuse the analogy, is figuratively in bed with Tiger. In the words of Accenture’s own Web site:

Since 2003, Tiger Woods has been the centerpiece of Accenture advertising. As perhaps the world's ultimate symbol of high performance, he serves as a metaphor for our commitment to helping companies become high-performance businesses.

A metaphor for your commitment to helping companies? Well Accenture, I’m thinking that right now Tiger Woods is not exactly the paragon of commitment.

Yet, a visit to accenture.com a full week after the scandal broke revealed he is still gracing the company’s home page. The headline, over a big color image of Woods apparently looking for a misplayed shot, reads: "Opportunity isn't always obvious." Which, like virtually any headline used with Tiger these days, can be followed up by a punchline. (Sure, opportunity isn’t always obvious. Sometimes you have to go to the back room of a Vegas lounge to find it!)

Naughty behavior is always a danger when using a celebrity as your spokesperson. But the fact is, when using a celebrity, even one as previously squeaky clean as Woods, you’ve got to be prepared for a worse case scenario. In this case, I think it would have been smart for Accenture to put Tiger on the shelf for at least a few weeks or months until the scandal blew over

Accenture’s TV commercials used to end with the line “Just another day in the life of a Tiger”. And if that becomes the perception of the company’s attitude toward the Wood’s scandal—that they’ve chosen to ignore the negative implications of being tied to the Tiger—Accenture is going to turn off more than a few current and potential clients.


Tom Rapsas is 20-year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas.

Can Total Rewards save Atlantic City?

Atlantic City, the famed gambling Mecca about an hour down the coast from me, is on a nasty losing streak. A recent story in the NY Times quoted a top gambling executive as saying “the city is in a death spiral.” Few disagreed.

It seems that after a rough couple of years, 2009 is looking even worse. Every Atlantic City casino but one is seeing a double-digit drop in revenue. The lone exception being the glitzy, feels-like-you’re-in-Vegas Borgata, which is down about 5 percent this year.

The reasons for the decline are many: the rotten economy, competition from newly opened gambling operations in nearby states, and the fact that Atlantic City, like the dwindling number of day-tripping seniors who bus into the city each day, is feeling old and tired.

The most-talked about solution: a cash infusion of a few billion dollars to build new hotels, new attractions, new anything that can start pulling in people again. Which, with the current economic environment, is as likely as me filling a double inside straight flush at the poker table. Or not very likely.

Harrah’s Entertainment ups the ante.

In years past, I’ve frequented the Borgata where I’m a member of the My Borgata Rewards program. But on my last two trips into Atlantic City, I ventured to the swanky but hip Caesars, where I joined Total Rewards–the casino loyalty program from Harrah’s Entertainment, the company behind the Harrahs, Caesars, Bally’s and Showboat casinos.

It appears that Total Rewards has upped the ante over the My Borgata program, by rolling out the red carpet for program members. My evidence here is strictly anecdotal, but I (and a good friend) recently received a bump up not one, but two tier levels to Diamond status. I also received a pair of free weekday hotel stays. (Surprising because, trust me, a high roller I am not.)

It’s obviously a play by Harrah’s Entertainment to get past customers back to Atlantic City and it’s either a smart move or a desperate move, depending on your perspective. I say smart—because rather than gamble on an expensive, and to my thinking, ultimately wasteful mass media campaign, Harrah’s is appealing directly to its customer base for more business.

Granted, they’re digging deep into the base by giving a two-time visitor like me special favors, but my guess is they’re mining the data for a few things: the recency of my visits, my perceived spend level, and my zip code, which tells them I live nearby and should be at a certain income level.

So can Total Rewards really save Atlantic City? It’s a lot to ask of a loyalty program, but it strikes me that Harrah Entertainment is playing the hand it was dealt—and reaching out to its customer base may be its last, best hope. I, for one, hope it works. In fact, I’m about to book a free night for my wife and I right now.

Now, a few words about the Total Rewards communications.

The first good thing I can say about Total Rewards is that they actually have a communications program in place. As a member of the My Borgata program, who opted in for e-mail, I cannot recall receiving the first piece of communications from them, digital or otherwise. (It’s good to be King!)

While the Total Rewards postcard and e-mail creative is perfunctory, they do some small but important things right. They recognize me by name and tier level, and occasionally by the casino I visit, Caesars. They’ve also made attempts to cross-sell me into other areas of the property, including their dining and entertainment venues.

But the Total Rewards communications could go even further. A few thoughts, for the people behind the program:

1. Pump up the engagement: I checked and Total Rewards has a presence on both Facebook and Twitter. Why not add these links to every e-mail? And while you’re at it, add an “invite a friend to join” link to each e-mail, as well.
2. Talk to my preferences: I know your part of the Harrah’s empire, but frankly I only joined the program because I like and visit Caesars. So more info on Caesars and less on Vegas and the other brands please.
3. Leverage the community: I know starting your own online community may be a hassle you don’t want to contemplate, but why not use some of the glowing testimonials found on social travel sites like Kayak and Virtual Tourist. This both encourages loyal customers to return and invites them to join the conversation.

This article originally appeared on Loyalty Truth on November 23, 2009 and was written by Tom Rapsas, a Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Sometimes even the best customer service comes up short.

It’s probably no surprise that the great brands are able to combine excellent products and services with a superior level of customer service. After all, it’s this magic combination that makes them great brands in the first place.

Go to an Apple store to purchase their (in my opinion) superior products, and you get service from friendly, helpful sales reps who truly know and love their stuff. I’m also a big fan of Credo cell phone service. Not only does part of my bill go to worthwhile social causes, every time I talk to customer service I find their reps are some of the nicest people in the world.

Then, there are certain products or services we use and like in spite of their customer service. Like the cool hotel on the beach, with the nice rooms and fantastic ocean views, but the less than accommodating staff. Or the pizza joint with the best pies in town and the never-on-time delivery.

But what about the opposite scenario. Can great customer service overcome a product or service that is lacking or deficient in some way?

Regular readers of this blog already know where I’m going with this: right to my television set and Comcast. On these very Web pages, I recently wrote about my efforts to get my hands on a digital converter box from Comcast in order to receive a couple of channels that had dropped off my set.

You see, back in April, I was informed that I needed to pick up a digital converter to continue receiving MSNBC and AMC. But after going to my local office, I was told, “we’re out of them, come back in January”. A 9-month wait. After checking back in September, I received several conflicting responses, and after a lot of back-and-forth, I was led me to believe a converter would be sent to me in two weeks.

Fast forward to September 26th: two days after my last Comcast blog entry was posted, I received an online reply from ComcastMark of Comcast National Customer Operations. After answering a few questions, I was turned over to ComcastMike (or was it ComcastRich?) who e-mailed me with a few more questions. He, in turn, had a Comcast customer service rep named Cynthia call me.

I wish I could tell you the story had a happy ending, that Cynthia stopped by in a Comcast van to hand-deliver the converter box to me, and I was now writing this from my bedroom office, Countdown with Keith Olbermann playing in the background. But no such luck.

You see, instead of bringing me good news, ComcastCynthia reverted back to the original story. She told me there was in fact a 9-month wait for the digital converters, due to a delay by supplier Scientific Atlanta. She would call me as soon as they came in, probably in January.

To me, a 9-month wait to get the converter box means that someone in the offices of Comcast had really dropped the ball. A 9-month wait means these devices must be in demand. Yikes, can’t Comcast put a little pressure on Scientific Atlanta to ramp up production? After all, in my town, a place where Comcast had a monopoly for many years, their share of market has dropped below 50%. Surely, there had to be a quicker way, Comcast. You’re bleeding customers!

It got me thinking about a recent post by Chris Brogan who pointed out that when a customer service rep tweets “some kind of comforting or informational note to someone who’s having a problem in real time, this information doesn’t exactly travel (easily) through the rest of the system to the people most likely to be directly in front of that person.” Or, in my case, to Cynthia, my designated Comcast rep.

Yet, I don’t really blame ComcastMark or ComcastMike or even ComcastCynthia. Sure, I was passed down the line once, twice, but that’s okay, as they all got back to me in a prompt and courteous manner. Cynthia also gave me the straight story, contrary to my previous encounter with a Comcast rep who said I’d have the converter mailed to me in a couple of weeks.

But despite their best efforts, I’m still in the same place I was back in April, before the Comcast National Customer Operations crew got involved—in essence, waiting 9 months for a part. (Which makes me glad I didn’t lease my car from Comcast.)

It just goes to show you that all the great customer service people in the world often don’t translate into happy, loyal customers—unless you have an organization behind them that gives them the tools, and great products and services, to back them up.

Note: This article was originally published on the Loyalty Truth blog on November 5,2009. A day or two after being published, I received a follow-up reply from Frank @ComcastCares, followed by phone calls from 4 different Comcast reps, local and national, some calling multiple times. Needless to say, I had a service guy at my door a few days later, new boxes in hand, who got me all squared away (for free). So there was a solution out there, it just took the right people to find it. Not sure what the learning is from this beyond the old adage, “the squeaky wheel…”

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Bling Bling!

Bling = flashy, ostentatious jewellery

Bling Nation, A country of rappers with gold bullion dripping all across, well not exactly.....,

A fairly young firm, with a ton of funding has rolled out possibly the first convergence of RFID. mobile and banking systems. Quite a heady cocktail!

Customers are issued RFID stickers, attached to their mobile phones. These in turn linked with their bank accounts, as in the case of a debit card. When tapped on POS terminals, configured with this solution, the payment is completed, with confirmations being Hence a contactless payment solution, without the hassles of issuing smart cards etc.

The solution breaks open new ground even further, allowing retailers to offer loyalty rewards to customers opting for this payment service.

Targeting smaller communities and markets that are not serviced by larger banks, Bling Nation offers pure convenience to customers and merchants are drawn in with lower fees.

This definitely promises to be a company to look out for.

Stub Hub and the creepy feeling of being watched.

Even though I come from the creative side of the business, I’m a big fan of customer data. There’s no better way to build a relationship than using data to personalize communications according to a customer’s past buying habits.

Amazon, of course, does a great job of this. So does iTunes. But is there such a thing as going too far in the personalization of communications? In essence, getting too personal with your customers? I think so and here’s why:

I am not a regular customer of the online ticket reseller site Stub Hub, but I have used their service once or twice in the past. Occasionally I go to the site to see just how outrageous the ticket prices are for the game or show I can’t get into.

A case in point was a recent show by the rock band Social Distortion. After realizing the event was sold out in my area, I went to Stub Hub to check out the ticket prices. They were selling at a minimum of 4 times the face value of the ticket so I declined.

Sure enough, the next day in my inbox, I received a personalized e-mail from Stub Hub. It’s subject: “Social Distortion Tickets in a Flash!” The body of the e-mail read:

Hey Tom,
We noticed Social Distortion tickets were on your radar. Great tickets are still available, but act fast. Head back to StubHub.com and use our interactive maps to find your perfect seats.

Which would have been cool. Except I hadn’t sign up for Social Distortion ticket alerts—or any other kind of alerts for that matter. All I had done was a quick search for tickets and left the site. And a day later Stub Hub had come back to me with a personalized pitch.

Did Stub Hub go too far in trying to engage me in a dialog?

My take: If they had sent me an e-mail merely pitching their service I would not have minded. But reporting back to me on my searching behavior seemed wrong. What else did their little cookie know? It felt like I was being watched in a creepy “there’s a guy staring at me through my living room window” kind of way.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not surprised me that Stub Hub knew about my search or that they had the capability to push the information back to me in an e-mail. But in the words of an old Hall & Oates song, some things are better left unsaid.


This post originally appeared on Loyalty Truth, October 19, 2009. Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist and can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Saturn and the death of a brand.

The end, when it came, was sudden. Just when it looked like the Saturn car company had been rescued by the Penske Group, the deal fell through and now, despite a loyal customer following, U.S. car company Saturn is no more.

As faithful Loyalty Redefined readers know, I have blogged about Saturn in the past, noting its social media miscues and also about the course correction the brand took to try and make things right. No matter what your take on the company is, for many the loss of Saturn is the loss of a beloved brand.

As David Aaker, author of Building Stronger Brands, put it "it was the only organization in the US that really had a quality culture to it…the loss of Saturn is a blow to a loyalty group attracted to the company's no pressure sales approach and solid customer service."

Some put the blame squarely on parent company GM. Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, (angrily) said: "It's criminal negligence. They got attacked internally, constantly, until today they were finally destroyed. How do you take something that was such a good idea and wreck it deliberately?"

As I write this, the Saturn Web site hums along, oblivious to the brand’s demise. It’s animated home page still buzzing with moving cars and people. I can still go thought the motions of ordering a new Saturn Aura that, alas, will never come.

The brand loyalist site Saturn Fans continues to provide news updates from around the Web, all related to the brand’s final days. They read like obituaries really, with headlines such as and “The Ride’s Over for Saturn Lovers” and “Farewell to Saturn’s Utopian Dream”.

Over at the company’s ImSaturn social network site the news was broken via a posted press release on the brand’s pink slip day, September 30. About 50 people have written in to what may be the site’s final post, with many customers either “heartbroken” over the “sad news” or bitter at GM vowing they “will NEVER get my business again.”

One more passionate fan wrote: “I hope someone can come along and bring the brand back as a proud American automobile company but that's a dream and the way things have gone, in so many ways lately, dreams don't stand much of a chance. Good luck to us, the true American dreamers...and believers.”

RIP Saturn, you have left a void in the hearts of a lot of American car buyers, another good idea put on the junk heap due to a lack of funding and foresight and commitment. For many, there appears to be no car company out there who can take your place.


This post was originally published on Loyalty Truth, October 8, 2009, by Tom Rapsas. Tom is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist and can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Comcast and the two faces of customer service.

If you’re like me and work on the creative side of the business, you’d like to believe that good communications and a healthy social dialog are the keys to building relationships and ensuring customer loyalty.

But the fact is, your company is often only as good as the people you have on the front line. One bad experience either in-store, on the phone, or via an online chat, can often tarnish even your best marketing efforts.

Take Comcast. Is there any company whose customer service reputation swings more wildly across the great/terrible spectrum? Comcast has been both vilified for its customer service via the infamous “Comcast must die” Web site and glorified for its prompt @comcastcares replies on Twitter.

Which brings me to a recent personal encounter I had with the cable conglomerate. I’m a decade long Comcast customer and in April I found that two channels we occasionally watched at home, MSNBC and AMC, had disappeared from our two televisions that did not have a dedicated cable box.

I called 1-800-COMCAST and was told that I needed a digital converter to continue receiving these channels and could pick one up for free—by going to the dreaded local Comcast office.

What’s most off-putting about this office isn’t the untouched-since-the-‘70s interior or the unsmiling, laconic customer service reps—it’s, I kid you not, the counter-to-ceiling wall of thick bullet-proof glass the reps sit behind.

It’s the kind of set-up you see on TV in the visiting rooms of prisons, complete with vented portholes through which you talk to the person opposite you. It serves as a quite literal barrier to developing any kind of customer rapport, and gets you wondering why they need this kind of security in the first place.

So anyway, I went to the office to get my free converters—only to have the customer service rep behind the wall of glass tell me, with an unmistakable I-hate-my-job vibe, “we’re out of them, you need to come back in January”. A 9-month wait!

From the parking lot I made a call to 1-800-COMCAST to complain and received an apology. I was told that the converters were on order and should in fact be ready in September, a slightly more tolerable 5 months away.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Using Instant Chat at the Comcast Web site, I check to see if the converters might be ready. After being passed from one associate to another more versed with the converters, I’m informed they’re now available and I can have them shipped to my home. Yes!

Only, after confirming my address, I’m told that, oops, they can’t mail the converters to my area (for a reason never explained) and that I need to contact my local office to see if they have them. “Wait a second,” I chat back, “I don’t want to contact my local office, that’s why I’m talking to you.”

A canned response is sent back to me to the effect, “I am so sorry about your situation. I know you’re frustrated, but you need to contact your local office. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

Yes, for starters you can drop the canned faux sincerity. Then, you can break the rules and ship me my free converters. OR you can contact the local office for me and see if they have the converters. After all, I started our conversation by telling you that I was very tempted by a money-saving Verizon triple play offer I was receiving in the mail 3 or 4 times a week. Hint: You’re in danger of losing me as a long-time customer!

Funny thing is, I call 1-800-COMCAST an hour or so later on an unrelated Internet issue. And, after addressing the problem, the customer service rep quickly switches subjects. “Sir, I see you’re having an issue getting digital converters. Can I have them mailed to you in the next two weeks?”

Shocked, I reply “Yes, you can, thank you.”

Sometimes Comcast offers terrible customer service. Sometimes Comcast offers great customer service. And sometimes you get to see both of them in the very same day. But my guess is, most customers only see one side. And if it’s the terrible side, they don’t stay customers for very long.

(Now, let’s see if I get my converters!)


This post originally appeared on Loyalty Truth September 26, 2009. Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist and can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com or via Twitter @tomrapsas.

Someone thinks your company sucks.

(Another reason your company needs a social media presence.)


Microsoft sucks. So does The Home Depot. Ditto Dell, Target and Dominos. And while it may not surprise you to hear that Wal-Mart sucks, you may not have heard that beloved brands like Apple, Ikea and Starbucks suck as well.

The fact is that despite you or your company’s best intentions, somebody out there thinks you suck. In fact, if you’re one of the companies listed above, there are multiple people that think you suck. And they’re not shy about telling people what they think.

I know this because I went to Google Blog Search and typed up every company name I could think of with the word “sucks“ after it. As you may have guessed, it’s just about impossible to find a company that someone somewhere doesn’t think sucks.

It’s something that my friend Bill Hanifin refers to as negative passion. While every company yearns for passionate fans and promoters of its brand, the flip side is there are people out there who don’t like your brand and won’t think twice about attacking it via a blog entry, or even an entire Web site.

Of course, after reading many “your company sucks“ postings, there are at least a few cases where the rants seem to have some merit. But there are even more examples where the attacks feel mean-spirited, or have little substance behind them, like one posting that says Wal-Mart sucks because “they don’t have big Pyrex measuring bowls“. Huh?

The net: Your need to pay attention to what people in the social media sphere are saying about you, your company or your brand. If there are legitimate issues or concerns, address them. If there are problems that can be solved, fix them. And if there is misinformation out there, by all means do all you can to counter it.

These days, if you’re not paying attention to what’s happening in the social media space, you’re not just standing still. You’re losing ground. There are people out there saying bad things about you, but there’s no easier way to neutralize them then to jump into the social media sandbox and beat them at their own game.


This post was previously published 9/7/09 on Loyalty Truth by Tom Rapsas. Tom can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com or on Twitter @tomrapsas.

The Ford Fiesta Movement. Take 2.

Earlier this year, I blogged about the Ford Fiesta Movement. As you may recall, the Ford motor company gave new Fiesta automobiles to 100 social media-savvy drivers for six months—hoping they would post videos and blog about the Fiesta, to build some buzz around the car’s early-2010 launch.

I really hadn’t heard much about the promotion since then, probably for good reason. None of the participants are within my social media universe and a search of Google News reveals the Movement has gotten scant post-launch coverage from the offline or online press, aside from a few well-placed stories.

They popped up on the TV show Extra when host Mario Lopez helped launch the Movement's “Social Activism Month” by donating items to a local charity while riding in a 2010 Ford Fiesta. They also placed a new Fiesta with a writer from Motortrend who made the equivalent of a head nod to the Movement while taking the car on a successful 600-mile trek through the mountains of Utah and Colorado.

Yet, while each of these stories gave the 2010 Fiesta some valuable press time, none featured any news about the participants themselves. What were those 100 Fiesta Movement social media mavens up to?

As it turns out, the 100 so-called “agents” in the program are not hard to find. Ford hosts a Fiesta Movement Web site with links to all 100. There are Live Feed pages that selectively highlight the latest tweets, videos and blog posts provided by the program participants. And a quick glimpse of these pages makes the program look like a buzz-worthy success with constant updates pouring in. It’s all Fiesta all the time!

But this got me wondering: how was this social media experiment working in the real world? Might I be exposed to the Ford Fiesta Movement message if I never visited the Ford Web site but was a quasi-follower of one the Movement agents?

As a quick test, I began looking specifically at about a dozen different agents’ blogging sites. What I discovered is that I had to do some real digging (or in this case, scrolling) to find news about the Fiesta or the Movement.

That’s no surprise really. The 100 agents in the Fiesta Movement were chosen because they already had a social media presence. And it appears that most involved are again writing about the things that made them Movement-worthy in the first place. The extreme spots dude is again writing about extreme sports. The hip-hop girl is out clubbing again. And just like in the real blogging world, one guy has seemingly packed it in, without a single post on anything in over 3 months.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this lack of Fiesta news, as Movement participants themselves have reported they are under no pressure from Ford to comment favorably on the cars. (Although there does appear to be an attempt by Ford to “sponsor” conversations, as one agent blogger mentions picking up 8 points for a new post.)

Still, I imagine the folks at Ford are feeling a little underwhelmed by the participation of some of the chosen 100. I also wonder if Ford's 100 agent pool is deep and wide enough to reach beyond a small sliver of what I perceive to be the millennial target market. With hundreds of thousands of bloggers and video posters on the scene these days, it strikes me there's a certain self-centered, party-on sameness to the Fiesta Movement agents.

But, bottom line: I think we have to give Ford an F-250 truckload of credit here for going where no other major marketer has gone before. This truly is a groundbreaking effort and a sign of things to come. More and more, social media will be used as a customer acquisition tool and will be every bit as important as other online and offline efforts when it comes to launching a major product.

Looking ahead, I see two key questions that still remain to be answered:

Will the online activity turn into offline success? Despite its noble effort, I’m wondering if the Fiesta Movement has made a big enough impression for a national product launch. Will it really deliver bodies to the showroom? Ideally, Ford is on top of this and is already getting a read as to whether this experiment is working or not. I also wonder if it wouldn’t make sense to feature the participants in more traditional advertising efforts, including print, banner or TV spots, that tell people about the Fiesta Movement and point them to the site.

Was launching the program a full year before product launch a bit premature? While the new Ford Fiesta is already the number two car in Europe, it won’t be released until early 2010 here in the states. And with the promotion scheduled to be over by late 2009, I wonder if they should have started the effort closer to the car’s release date. By early next year, the Fiesta Movement’s many tweets, blogs and video and picture postings may already seem like old news.

Look for another update to come in a few months.

This blog entry was previously published August 17, 2009 on Loyalty Truth.

Saturn takes a right turn.

Back in late-April, on these very Web pages, I called out the Saturn car company for its failure to engage with its customers. As rumors circulated about the company’s potential sale—or imminent demise—I pointed out there was a glaring lack of information coming from the company’s ImSaturn social network site, a place where many true brand fans would go to first for breaking news.

In my story, I cited a crucial two-week period in April when there was just a single posting on the ImSaturn site, compared to 20 entries at a site called Saturnfans. This fan blog was reporting all the news and rumors it could get its hands on while urging loyalists to “Save Saturn”. As I said in my post, it looked like “the brand fans are more passionate about saving the company than the brand employees.”

Well in the past couple of months, coinciding with Saturn’s sale to the Penske Automotive Group, I’m happy to report that things have changed. Since returning from its near death experience, Saturn has made a couple of moves that deserve to be applauded.

Good Move #1: They showed they were listening.

After the initial blog post, a Saturn executive in Detroit took the time to write in a comment to the blog where the story originally appeared, Loyalty Truth. He seemed genuinely concerned as he said: “We will take your observations to heart and examine if we can improve the information flow on the site. We were the first auto brand to have this type of site, and it has been a learning process.”

This comment showed that the folks at Saturn had their ears to the ground and were listening—and just as importantly, responding. And while talking to Loyalty Truth, apparently our Saturn exec also had a few words with the folks manning the ImSaturn site, because another change became apparent.

Good Move #2: They started talking again.
As a current Saturn owner, once the sale was announced I received a letter in the mail updating me on the news and “this new chapter in the Saturn story.” Upbeat and personal, it gave me a sense of promise and enthusiasm that was missing from the press reports.

This sent me to the ImSaturn site to see what was happening there and I came away impressed. The “Saturn team” who posts entries on the blog had picked up their output considerably, including updates on the sale and its aftermath. They also added a pleasing mix of comments from Saturn fans who were genuinely excited about the brand’s second life.

The Net: While Saturn still has an uphill climb, at least they’re back in the game and engaging with their customers again. Hopefully, they can maintain this new found passion and commitment as they move forward.

It just goes to show you that in social media, as in life, it’s never too late to make things right.

This blog entry was previously published July 22, 2009 on Loyalty Truth by Tom Rapsas. An independent Creative Director, Writer and Strategist, Tom can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com.

Is the Good Hands community a bad idea?

Regardless of your hobby, profession or even your belief system, these days it’s easy to find a group of people just like you. Go to online community organizer Ning and you’ll discover over 1 million communities, for everyone from sand volleyball enthusiasts to landscape architects to supporters of the Kwam Um School of Zen.

Now it seems more and more companies are getting into the act, especially those focused on the Gen Y market. From game maker Xbox to the Vans shoe company, companies with true-blue followings have created thriving online meeting centers where the devoted can exchange ideas, discuss products, solve problems and even schedule meet-ups.

But while social communities can work for some brands, it definitely feels like a stretch for others. So upon learning that Allstate had joined the fray with its Good Hands Community, I was skeptical. After all, who wants to join a community sponsored by an insurance company?

Yet, even before looking at the site, I saw how it might work—if Allstate didn’t stray too far from its core area of expertise, insurance. The Good Hands site could be a place where customers could engage with agents on insurance issues, from making sure they had the right coverage and deductibles to learning how to adapt policies to life changes like a new car, new house or new baby.

But the folks at Allstate appear to have set their sights on a much wider mandate. As the Good Hands Web site states, it’s a community where you can “share your thoughts with others about hopes, dreams and challenges. Together you can share ideas about keeping families safe, saving money and preparing for what’s next”. (Share my hopes, dreams and challenges?)

The community home page feels a little more down-to-earth with menu categories that include “Making a Difference”, “Daily Spending” and “Personal Finance”, and discussions on “helping others” “stay-cations” and “living debt free”. It’s all well intentioned, but the topics feel a little off-base for Allstate and better suited for the Peace Corps, AAA or Capital One respectively.

For auto insurance policy holders, there is a category on “All Things Wheels”. But I can’t seem to find any discussions on auto insurance, as posts are concentrated on issues like checking my oil, being alert at the wheel and hybrid automobiles. How about helping me figure out how much collision I should carry on my 8-year old Saturn?

The other thing that doesn’t feel right is there is not an insurance agent to be found on the Good Hands site. You see, the chief bloggers and hosts of the community are Allstate employees Ben and Amit who are both identified by the title “Strategy and Content Manager”. No offense guys, but I think Allstate policyholders would prefer to communicate with honest-to-goodness insurance agents.

So overall, a kudos to Allstate for the effort. It’s a nicely designed site that really is trying to engage with current and potential customers. But let’s not forget, you’re an insurance company. And with so many potential communities for people to join these days, it feels like Allstate may be stretching its good hands a little too wide.

Final note: For a company that does an online community right, check out Intuit. Its Intuit community connects customers with small business owners and features discussions hosted by Intuit-sponsored business professionals. The Intuit community keeps the focus where it belongs: helping small businesses succeed.

This blog entry was previously published June 29, 2009 on Loyalty Truth.