Back in the day I was the Director of Customer Relations for a group of internet casinos. I managed the Customer Service team and basically anything that went in front of a customer. All marketing was approved by me as I wrote all of the Terms and Conditions and was intimately aware of what happened if we wrote those conditions wrong (it would cost us loads of money – never a good thing.)

During my time in the casino we many a crisis, but the largest was when we were accused of cheating by a leading famous player in the industry. Now having our algorithm cheat the players makes no sense. Being caught cheating is something that could destroy an online casino. But it didn’t. How did we survive this accusation?

Amazing customer service that we had been working on and honing long before the accusation took place.

Our players trusted us. We had a requirement for bonuses that players had to write in and ask for a bonus. Many players would add information to the email when asking, and we would respond with personal heartfelt real answers. I remember one woman who started playing because she broke her leg and was bored and bedridden. Every once in awhile I would send her an extra bonus just because and check on how she was feeling. She always played out the money and appreciated the personal touch. I did this because I really cared about our players, and this was how I led my team. I also understood who was a Platinum customer versus a Lead one and I focused on the ones who counted.

The few who read the accusations wrote in and asked what was going on. We explained that it was false, we apologized for the upset and offered a bonus – which they would then play out (but they were able to cash out immediately if they so chose.) We didn’t lose a single regular customer from the accusation. (Although I will say that in the same review where the player accused the casino of cheating they also noted that the customer service was excellent

Later on the player redacted his accusation after checking and playing again.

Our customer retention raised over 20% during my time at the casino, and as getting a new customer costs more than growing an old one – that brings a lot more profit to the table.

Is your company working on your customer service? How do you treat your customers? Would they trust you if you were falsely accused? What have you done to promote trust?

A month ago I gave a lecture on crisis management at the e-10 conference. It was a tale of two cases. The Tylenol Cyanide case where 7 people died in 1982 in Chicago after bottles were tampered with and returned to the shelves and the Israeli Remedia case in 2003 where 6 babies died because Remedia had changed their formula to not include Vitamin B1 and not state it on the package.

Both cases are tragic – but their circumstances are different. One was an error by the company and the other was an outside nutjob tampering with product. The endings were completely different – Tylenol was completely transparent, accepted all of the blame, took all of their products off of the shelves for months as the investigation progressed and ended up coming back with a new tamper proof bottle which allowed them to charge more for the same product. They also earned America’s trust with how they handled the situation.

Remedia blamed an outside manufacturer, didn’t accept responsibility, wasn’t transparent and ended up going out of business.

My question to the audience was:

How could Remedia have handled things differently so that their ending wouldn’t be quite as bad?

I knew what I was looking for from the audience, but it took awhile to get there. First off someone pointed out that the two cases are completely different. The public will want revenge on a mistake that results in dead babies, which is true, but am still of the belief that handling it differently would have saved the company.

Eventually someone mentioned that Remedia could create a device that checks the mineral / vitamin levels inside of formula in order to show the public that they never wanted this to happen again (which was exactly what I was looking for).

Remedia was responsible for the tragedy. They should have had random testing of all lots in place to check the product coming in from Germany before it hit the shelves in Israel. They didn’t. It was their fault and they should have accepted that.

However, the point is that Remedia should have been transparent, apologetic and work to fix the problem not only for themselves but for all other baby food companies.  (The full story of what happened here.) Furthermore, Remedia should have taken their products off the shelves immediately, and not the Health Ministry. The loss of trust from their customer is a result of their lack of action, their lack of transparency and their lack of admitting responsibility.

Unfortunately, crisis happens. What matters is how you handle it.

Here are some general rules to follow if something bad happens:

1. Be transparent.
   • If you don’t have information, admit you don’t have information. If you are working with police, let people know. If it’s your fault (and ultimately it’s always your fault if something happens, if only because you didn’t set up the precautions before hand) admit it.
2. Put your customers first.
   • Even if it will cost the company millions of dollars to recall every single item from the shelf, do it, before a government official does it for you. Being proactive in showing customers you care more about them then your bottom line is critical in regaining their trust.
3. Work to fix the problem.
   • This is obvious. Tylenol created tamper proof bottles which solved their issue, but it also solved an issue for the entire industry. The win for Tylenol is that they came up with it months before everyone else and gained the trust of their customers by working so hard to make sure no one would tamper with another bottle again.

I write a lot about Twitter because it’s one of my main networking tools for both Abel Communications and my side project – Tchochkes. As you probably know by now Twitter has a List Feature in Beta. The List feature is interesting for 2 main points:

1. You can see how people view you by what lists you are included in.
2. You can find the connectors in other networks to see who you should follow.

The first one is fairly obvious and has given me many a giggle.

However, it’s the second that has me excited. To use Twitter strategically it’s not just about engaging in conversation – it’s about finding the Paul Reveres out there who people listen to and engage with as well. Having a list that many follow show that you are a Paul Revere and not a William Dawes.

And to those of you who don’t know Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
- what I’m referring to is the snippet below:

Paul Revere’s ride is perhaps the most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic. A piece of extraordinary news traveled a long distance in a very short time, mobilizing an entire region to arms …

At the same time that Revere began his ride north and west of Boston, a fellow revolutionary — a tanner by the name of William Dawes — set out on the same urgent errand, working his way to Lexington via the towns west of Boston. He was carrying the identical message, through just as many towns over just as many miles as Paul Revere. But Dawes’s ride didn’t set the countryside afire. The local militia leaders weren’t altered. In fact, so few men from one of the main towns he rode through — Waltham — fought the following day that some subsequent historians concluded that it must have been a strongly pro-British community. It wasn’t. The people of Waltham just didn’t find out the British were coming until it was too late. If it were only the news itself that mattered in a word-of-mouth epidemic, Dawes would now be as famous as Paul Revere. He isn’t. So why did Revere succeed where Dawes failed?

The answer is that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts. Revere’s news tipped and Dawes’s didn’t because of the differences between the two men.

[Revere] was gregarious and intensely social. He was a fisherman and a hunter, a cardplayer and a theatre-lover, a frequenter of pubs and a successful businessman. He was active in the local Masonic Lodge and was a member of several select social clubs. He was also a doer, a man blessed — as David Hackett Fischer recounts in his brilliant book Paul Revere’s Ride — with “an uncanny genius for being at the center of events.”

It is not surprising, then, that when the British army began its secret campaign in 1774 to root out and destroy the stores of arms and ammunition held by the fledgling revolutionary movement, Revere became a kind of unofficial clearing house for the anti-British forces. He knew everybody. He was the logical one to go to if you were a stable boy on the afternoon of April 18th, 1775, and overheard two British officers talking about how there would be hell to pay on the following afternoon. Nor is it surprising that when Revere set out for Lexington that night, he would have known just how to spread the news as far and wide as possible. When he saw people on the roads, he was so naturally and irrepressibly social he would have stopped and told them. When he came upon a town, he would have known exactly whose door to knock on, who the local militia leader was, who the key players in town were. He had met most of them before. And they knew and respected him as well.

But William Dawes? Fischer finds it inconceivable that Dawes could have ridden all seventeen miles to Lexington and not spoken to anyone along the way. But he clearly had none of the social gifts of Revere, because there is almost no record of anyone who remembers him that night. “Along Paul Revere’s northern route, the town leaders and company captains instantly triggered the alarm,” Fischer writes. “On the southerly circuit of William Dawes, this did not happen until later. In at least one town it did not happen at all. Dawes did not awaken the town fathers or militia commanders in the towns of Roxbury, Brookline, Watertown or Waltham.”

Why? Because Roxbury, Brookline, Watertown and Waltham were not Boston. And Dawes was in all likelihood a man with a normal social circle, which means that — like most of us — once he left his hometown he probably wouldn’t have known whose door to knock on. Only one small community along Dawes’s ride appeared to get the message, a few farmers in a neighborhood called Waltham Farms. But alerting just those few houses wasn’t enough to “tip” the alarm.

Word-of-mouth epidemics are the work of Connectors. William Dawes was just an ordinary man.

Businesses and business people need to find the connectors in their area of interest. It makes communication easier, spread faster and raises your companies reputation to have the connectors on your side. And it’s relatively simple to find the connectors on Twitter. Start by looking at a list that you’re interested in – an example for @Tchochkes could be my friend @HomeWorkShop’s list. We’re in a similar industry, but she has been Tweeting under this monicre longer than I have been tweeting under Tchochkes so she has a lot more followers. Fair enough. My goal is to grow my list as smoothly and quickly as possible – so I  check out her list and follow all of the Tweeters who have many followers to their lists. Does that make sense? In other words:

1. Go to the list of someone else in your industry who has done well and has many followers
2. Check out what lists they are on
3. Find an appropriate (meaning if you are all about design and the list says “Hockey” it’s probably not for you) list with a lot of followers (anything over 10 is good – over 30 is great) and click on that list
4. Then click on the owner of the list to get to their page
5. Follow them

Now you have to work on building the relationship with these Tweeters. The first bit is simple, the second not so much. Twitter is about transparency and conversation – and if you’re fake you’ll very likely be flamed and you certainly won’t be followed. My interest in these Tweeters is the same as theirs – we are all interested in design.

I can’t follow everyone due to time restraints, etc. so it’s important that I focus on the right people who have interests the same as my own.

Keep in mind – I will still follow someone who has followed me who I find value in, regardless of who follows them. My point is that if you have limited time it makes sense to go after the connectors first. And Twitter Lists is the best way to find them.

I know Rochelle from my last trip home. She and I hit it off really well and I think she’s just fab. This post is spot on. Enjoy.

All the reasons why Social Media should not be ignored.

Yesterday I chatted with my friend Jeff who has a company that raises money for charities. He was making the decision on whether he should spend budget money on social media or a new high-end sales person. Granted, the cost of social media is significantly less than a high-end sales person, but there was only room in the budget for one of the two.

“What is social media for?”, he asked. He had been told that social media has a very high ROI, but he was concerned that the ROI was high simply because the cost was so low. In other words – would you rather get $10,000,000 from a sales person you pay $130,000 to or $1,00,000 from an intern you pay $10,000 to (assuming you could even get that)?

Jeff is selling an expensive product business to business that has a long term sales cycle. Social media will raise his client loyalty – but it will not raise his sales. And the few leads that might come from social media take time and energy to develop – and need the high-end sales person to start the relationship (a phrase I prefer over “closing the deal”.) In other words – for his companies specific needs social media didn’t fit.

So why was I the only person to tell him?

That’s a question I don’t have the answer to. It could be because right now I’m reading Major Account Sales Strategy (and yes, these are affiliate links) and listening to cds of SPIN Selling, which explain the differences in the techniques needed for high cost versus low cost items and as such realizing the difference sales tools needed (which is what marketing is) for selling different priced items.

Social media tools work to sell small goods that have a low risk on the buyer. No one ever lost their job because they decided to buy a Gap t-shirt for $12.99 instead of a J. Crew one for $15.99 or whatever. However, if the fundraising company you choose to hire doesn’t bring in the $50,000,000 your company needs – then your tush really could be on the line. No company is going to trust a risk like that on a company just because they happen to use Twitter. The risk is different, the sale technique needed is different.

This isn’t to say that the company shouldn’t use social media. As I mentioned earlier, social media helps raise customer loyalty. People like to know they can reach you through multiple channels whenever they need – so having a presence on Facebook, Twitter and such will be appreciated by current clients – even if they never contact you there. Having a blog will raise your SEO, which won’t do you much good if you’re clients don’t find you through Googling, but it will also make the site sticky and if you give information with value then your clients will appreciate it. And more than anything else, social media is expected today. So your company will look like it’s back in the dark ages if it’s not using these tools – but that doesn’t mean you should hire someone for social media over the high-end sales person. At the end of the day, it’s about what type of sales your company does and your goals.

I liked this too much to not share it in it’s entirety here. CLICK HERE for the original post.
Posted Friday, September 18th, 2009 by Joe Leech

As web professionals, we all know that the concept of the page fold being an impenetrable barrier for users is a myth. Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want.

In this article we’re going to break down the page fold myth and give some tips to ensure content below the fold gets seen.

What is the fold?

Above the fold is a graphic design term that refers to important content being on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper. It’s commonly used on the web to describe the area you see on a web page before you have to scroll down the page.

Why we don’t worry about the fold

People tell us that they don’t mind scrolling and the behaviour we see in user testing backs that up. We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for. A quick snoop around the web will show you successful brands that are not worrying about the fold either:

BBC, Play, Amazon.co.uk and the New York Times websites showing the position of the page fold

Adding evidence from user testing

When we user test here at cxpartners we use an eye tracker. The eye tracker lets us see what the user sees. We then take the combined eye tracking data from each study and produce a series of heatmaps. The heatmaps show us what as a whole the user group is looking at.

Scrollbars are used to assess page length and to indicate content below the fold

One of the most common things we see on a heatmap is a strong hotspot over the scrollbar. The scrollbar is used to assess the page length. Users expect to have to scroll. The heatmap below shows this.

Heatmap from eyetracking showing scrollbar as cue to page length.

Less content above the fold may encourage more exploration below the fold

The image below shows some recent eye tracking work we did with Bristol Airport. The screens show two different design treatments for the hero slot (the large, prominent image area) on the homepage. The surprising thing we learnt was that actually having less above the fold (one large content block as opposed to 2 smaller ones) encouraged exploration below the fold.

When there is not exploration below the fold

As we mentioned in the introduction there have been 3 occasions where there was little exploration below the fold. In each case the cause was the same.

One of these occasions was some user testing work we did for First Choice last year. The page below, a very long one, caused problems as users were not scrolling down the page.

The blue horizontal bar was the barrier to scrolling.

The long blue ‘Accommodation’ heading was acting as a barrier. This is the common theme – strong horizontal lines across the page discourage scrolling.

First Choice have now fixed the horizontal line issues and have content just showing above the fold.

The image library pokes up just above the fold indicating that there is content beneath.

Design tips to encourage scrolling

We can offer three design tips to ensure content below the fold is seen.

1. Less is more – don’t be tempted to cram everything above the fold. Good use of whitespace and imagery encourages exploration.
2. Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling - this doesn’t mean stop using horizontal full width elements. Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.
3. Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars - the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.

Update Friday 9th October 2009. 10am GMT

Just some clarification. On all our testing set-ups we force the browser size to be 1024 x 740 px. This puts the average page fold at around 700px on screen shots above.

Our research shows the most effective place for content is above the fold, no surprises there. We are saying that people do scroll. Users scroll if there are cues to scroll and no design barriers to scrolling.

Update 2 Friday 9th October 2009 1pm GMT

Richie Lee make a really good point below about bordering content to  give a further visual cue that there is further content below the fold.

There are some tips here for designing e-commerce product pages and forms with further tips on dealing with the fold:

• What people see before they buy: Design guidelines for e-commerce product pages with eyetracking data
• Web form design guidelines: an eyetracking study

Keep the comments coming,

joe (aka @mrjoe)

About the author

Fiz Yazdi
Fiz has 15 years experience managing projects. She’s worked with some great clients including the Houses of Parliament, Proctor & Gamble and UCAS, making their websites more usable and effective.

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About the author

Joe Leech
Joe specialises in designing every aspect of the user experience from initial research to developing a robust, measurable online strategy to producing beautiful, easy to use wireframes and website information architectures.

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Yes, I got my Wave invite. If you don’t know what Google Wave is – then you have no idea how big of a deal this is.

Google sent out 100,000 invites to use their new tool – Google Wave (what is Wave? I’ll get to that in a minute). Out of this 100,000 people (of which I was not one) they gave the option to invite 8 people. From there I got 2 invites (yes, I knew 2 of the 100,000 well enough to get an invite – my geek credentials should be soring right now).

So what is Google Wave?

Here’s the debate. According to the rumors before Google Wave was introduced it was something to replace all current social media networks (like Facebook, Twitter, etc…). It’s not that at all – it’s a work collaboration tool. Of course, if you read Robert Scoble’s scathing review of Google Wave you would know that already. My one critique of Mr. Scoble’s review is that he’s forgetting it’s a very raw Beta he’s playing around with. This is not a tool meant for the mass market – yet.

I think Google Wave has a lot of potential to do exactly what Google set out to do with it – which is to create a collaboration tool which will replace email. However, at this time the use and appeal is limited. Right now Google Wave would only be good for working directly with someone directly.

For example, I wrote an article yesterday for a friend who works in a newspaper on the east coast in the US. While I am a writer I’m not a journalist, so I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the article. I would have liked us to be able to have a real-time conversation inside the article itself where I could go point by point on things I wasn’t sure about and get his feedback. But we couldn’t do that. Instead I emailed him the article (via Gmail) and chatted about it on Google Chat.

And while some people would hate seeing what someone is writing while they are typing I’ve actually liked it from the few conversations I’ve had on there. It allows you to see the thought process – how fast or slow someone is typing shows how strongly they feel about something. Whether they take something out before pressing enter shows even more. Seeing the typing while it’s happening is the tone of the message. However, I would recommend that Google make the option to not see the typing for the Robert Scoble’s of the world – but please keep it for me. Living in Israel so far away from many of the people I collaborate with, having that little extra bit of psychological insight is actually very helpful in my opinion.

Another interesting thing that Google Wave does is get you to fill out your Google Profile in full. I didn’t before Wave – I have now. I’m certain that they will pull these options closer together in the future. Nice manipulation Google.

However, and this is the unfortunate part, at the moment Google Wave has little to no use for me. Other than the “Geek Street Cred” I get for having it, I don’t work with anyone else who is on there. It’s not open for the masses. So yes, I’m on Google Wave and I’ve checked it out a few times. But as my time is scarce, I don’t see myself using it regularly at all. In fact – the first person who invited me on Google Wave hasn’t used it. And that says it all.

I get asked this a lot. People don’t get the point of Twitter and as it’s a bit of a longer term investment they don’t understand the potential ROI.

Twitter is a tool. That’s it. It’s a tool that connects you to people and businesses around the world and as a connecting tool it can be used in several different ways.

Networking

Good old fashioned networking. It’s the water cooler for the work-at-home set (speaking from personal experience).

You can build relationships with:

1. People or companies in your niche
2. Media people (such as Bloggers and even Tweeters with many followers) who write about your niche
3. Potential and existing clients / customers who are interested in your niche

Start by finding people in your niche by doing a search for keywords, and using the tools WeFollow and TwitSeeker.

Of course, it’s not just about who you follow – but your influence as well. Which means people need to follow you back. This is done by offering value in your tweets. Articles you read, other peoples tweets you enjoy (which can be re-tweeted), and answering peoples tweets. It’s about the conversation. And through this conversation relationships are built.

PR

Remember those people you are Networking with? Eventually trust is built and you can ask if they would be interested in more information. Or if they would be willing to RT (re-tweet) or write about you in an article / their blog.

For example – I have a design blog called Tchochkes. I wanted to get some PR for my blog through a respected venue. Design Sponge is one of my all time favorite blogs and I asked Grace (through my relationship with her on Twitter) if she would be interested in a City Guide for Tel Aviv. She said “yes” and both of us won. I got a link and new readers from a top tier blog that I adore, and she got content for her site.

This could be done for any industry. It just takes time and effort to work on the relationship and give before ever asking for anything. I had RT’d Grace’s tweets for awhile and made comments on her blog before I ever asked for anything in return. The trust was built. Plus what I asked for was a win-win. It helps.

Advertising

Assuming that you are selling something (be it consulting services or an actual item) most of us are selling something. On my Tchochkes Twitter account I automatically post the latest blog post. This is essentially advertising – going directly to the eyes of whoever is following me at the time that it is posted. (Some people read all of the posts – most don’t.) You could tweet about the latest special in your store or the latest offering of your company. Just make sure that’s not all you tweet about. Tweeting at people is not engaging in conversation.

And that’s not all…

Of course it’s not all – but it’s a start. There are things to keep in mind, like the time commitment. It takes time to find the people you want to follow. It takes time to build the relationships with people who interest you and it takes time for them to trust you.

There are other things that  I tend to notice – like the following / follower ratio. I am weary of people who follow more than they are followed. Of course, saying this my Tchochkes account is following many more than it is being followed – but I’ve only started using the account again about a week ago – in a few months time it should have a better following / follower ratio.  In the beginning this is how it is – unless you’re Oprah.

And yes, Twitter will eventually be replaced with something else. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. It’s what we have for now.