Archive for March, 2009

Keeping an eye on space rocks (and how they’re spelled)

Mar 31 | by Sam Deeks | smile
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I’m keeping an eye on how hard it is to spell ‘meteorite’.  Maybe that’s why NASA calls them ’space rocks’?

I picked this piece up on the NASA site via Twitter (following Astronautics).


Moral of this story is: don’t give up, you’ll get there eventually.

When Alan Shepard was asked what was going through his mind sitting on the launch pad at the Cape in his Mercury capsule, his answer was ‘The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.’ (Interestingly, John Glenn also said the same thing many years later after his return to space aboard the Shuttle).

What would be going through my mind?  That my spaceship’s been put together by people who can’t spell meteorite. :-)

Big Marketing Mistake No.3

Mar 31 | by Sam Deeks | Big Marketing Mistakes
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Big Marketing Mistake No.3: Develop something you like but your market doesn’t

Too often, people come up with ideas for things that they think other people think they need.

Think ‘Life Coaching’.

Life Coaches love life coaching. They passionately believe in the benefits they’ve got from it. Naturally, they believe everyone else would too.

The Big Mistake.

There’s nothing wrong with Life Coaching – other than that most people don’t think they need it or want it.  You simply can’t make people believe in what you believe in.  Ask Clive Sinclair.

One place I’ve seen this happen a lot is any number of new online business networking sites that have sprung up over the last few years. Each one lists its ‘member benefits’. They assume I share their belief in their benefits. Most of the time I don’t.

Which brings me to the second part of this Big Mistake: ignoring any evidence that says I don’t share your ideas about what you think I want or need.

What does this evidence look like? No-one buying your products or services, for starters. And people taking the time to give you feedback. Which reminds me: a third part of this Big Mistake is to argue with that feedback. Stupid as it sounds, most people do it.

It’s quite a challenge to make an electric 3-wheeler.  It’s even more of a challenge to make one that the public wants to buy.

Sky Customer Service (Part II: It gets worse)

Mar 29 | by Sam Deeks | feedback
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Yes, Sky.  Your customer service seems to get worse the further I go to try to give you feedback.

No surprise really is it?

Sky’s system for creating addtional email addresses for account holders’ family members isn’t working. No-one seems to care.  I found that out in a 2 1/2 hour phone call the other day.

So I blogged about it. That post appeared on P1 of Google for the phrase ‘Sky Customer Service’.  Oh, the power of blogs.

And today I tried to use their online feedback form to let them know that they needed to fix the problem and demonstrate some good customer service.

So I ploughed my way through their clumsy feedback form which appears to be designed to dissuade and demotivate the average person every step of the way.  You know the kind of form – designed by some idiot in IT who has no idea that you’re a real, unhappy customer trying to say what you need to say.

The result is that you spend ages trying to give your feedback only to find you’ve done something else wrong that needs correcting.  I wasted 15 minutes writing my feedback before discovering that there was a ‘1000 character limit’.

Morons.  Like I or anyone else knows what 1000 characters is.

This is a pinnacle of customer service stupidity, designed to disempower the average mortal.  Well, when it comes to feedback I’m not your average mortal so I rewrote my feedback.

10 minutes later (and still not knowing whether it was under 1000 characters!) I clicked ’submit’ again – only this time to be told I couldn’t give that feedback without entering my parents’ viewing card number.

I tried to give you my feedback, Sky, but it’s too much like hard work. You could have had it to yourselves to learn from but you obviously don’t want it.  So here’s what I tried to tell you (now for everyone else to read, too):

This is on behalf of my parents – account holder name Mrs. Linda Deeks (see address below)

Your system will not create additional email addresses (it says “There appears to have been a problem.  We are unable to activate your Sky Email and Tools account”.

Your customer service is poor – and even more infuriating is your lack of willingness to take feedback.  Including this 1000 character limit (which has just wasted another 15 minutes of my time).

I’ve blogged about this (now on P1 of Google for an important key phrase). Happy to also blog positively if/when you fix the issue and demonstrate some good customer service.

I’d like a response please.

The moral of this story is that feedback is difficult to give and hard to take but if you’re not willing to listen, your customers will talk to anyone who is.

If you’re really fed up with Sky customer service, you might like this.

EarthHour: do it

Mar 28 | by Sam Deeks | news
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Why not turn your lights off for EarthHour?

This is a nice idea. EarthHour. Turn off your lights for an hour 8.30pm Sat 28th March and save energy.  And use the power of social media to get the message out there everywhere, quick.  NIce.

Does it matter that we don’t know who we’re saving the energy for, exactly?  Or what difference it will make to anything?  Not really.

This is what I call awareness-raising. It breaks us out of habitual ways of doing things and brings things to consciousness.  It just feels good to be doing it.

Sky customer service 0844 rip-off

Mar 27 | by Sam Deeks | feedback
1 Comment

No wonder Sky customer service likes to keep you talking on its 0844 number

They’re making good money out of it!

I spent 2 and 1/2 hours continuously on the phone to Sky trying to sort out my parents’ rubbish broadband service, their incomplete phone package and – wait for it – get my dad an email address of his very own.

The first thing I noticed when I dialled the 0844 number was how overwhelmingly talkative the nice technical man was. Without any invitation he took it on himself to give me a lengthy lecture on the physics of copper wiring and broadband signals.

He just kept on…and on…and on…and on.

On the one hand, he was very helpful and was able to improve the capacity of the broadband connection a bit. On the other hand, I couldn’t help wondering how much money his monologue on copper telephone technology had earned Sky.

The good news ended there.

The www.sky.com website repeatedly failed to create a new email address for my dad.  Why? ‘Because it’s broken’ said the wee fella on the end of the phone.  And it’s still broken.  What use is a broadband package if you can’t create additional email addresses for the family?

And would you like to sell them the full phone package you inexplicably failed to sell them a few months ago? I enquired.  The response was 20 minutes of incomprehensible cock-and-bull and STILL they couldn’t sell them the package.  They’d probably made so much money on the 0844 that they didn’t need to.

This is so typical of the UK’s biggest companies.  No-one to complain to.  No management or supervisors to be accountable. No buck stopping no where.  Just a lame suggestion to put my complaint in writing.

I am writing, Sky.  Here in this Google-visible blog.

If you’re unwilling to accept Sky’s bad customer service and lack of accountability, here are a few useful contact email addresses from saynoto0870.com you could try:

Sky CEO Email Address:-                                                            jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com
Only Other Executive Board Member Email Address:-                andrew.griffith@bskyb.com

Director of Customer Marketing (not a Board Director)              mark.anderson@bskyb.com

High Level Escalated Complaints Address Used
by Sky To Respond to Complaints Addressed to
Jeremy Darroch’s Email Address                                                CRsupport@bskyb.com

Obama talks to the camera

Mar 25 | by Sam Deeks | news
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Barack Obama speaks to the camera, not the people in the room

I watched Obama’s short press conference speech outlining his plans for US economic recovery and one thing struck me: he never looked anywhere else except at the camera.

Its clear that this President is talking to a screen audience, an online world.

Since I was also watching this online (here on the BBC website), the fact that he was looking directly at me (at the dark eye of the camera) seemed ‘normal’.

Having thought about this, what then seemed really odd was to see the long shot of the hall that Obama was speaking from.

What I saw was a man speaking over his audiences’ heads to a camera at the back of the hall.

How unnatural, how strange.  How…disconnected.

Spot the marketing tricks

Mar 23 | by Sam Deeks | business insight
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Can you spot the different marketing tricks in this email?

Hi Sam,

We screwed up…

Long story short – we sent out some emails with bad information, so
we’re “making good” on a promise made in those emails.

For the next 3 days you can get Market Samurai for just $97
(previously $149).
This is the ONLY link that you can use to get it:

http://www.marketsamurai.com/c/ourmistake

But hurry – this discount is only available for the next 72 hours
(and the clock is already ticking).

Here are a few in order.

1).  “We made a mistake”. This guarantees reader interest.  Why?  Because we love it when other people mess up. It makes some people feel better about themselves and it makes the business look human. “We made a mistake” is marketing magnetism.  Aaaaah….

2). “We made a promise…”  Oooh, did I miss a bargain?? Let me see, let me see.

3). “For the next 3 days..” – Oooh, ooh, this MUST be good, I’d better go quick.

4). “$97″ – Ah, look – the old ‘a price ending in 7 is GUARANTEED to sell more’ trick combined with the ‘as long as it’s under $100 people will be happy to buy’ trick.

5).  Woo.  The “ONLY” link.  Special, limited, exclusive.  Mmm.  (Homer Donut drooling noise)

6).  “The clock is ticking” – oh, oh, oh, better rush.  It’s probably already expired since…when did I get that email??

There we have at least 6 of the classic signs that someone’s trying to manipulate you towards their product. Like most marketing, this depends on a lack of critical awareness in the audience. Don’t be surprised.  Everyone’s doing it all of the time.  Including you, probably.

In marketing and advertising one thing is true whether you want to face up to it or not: the more unconscious your audience, the more effectively you can manipulate it.

BBC on blogging: it’s all about impartiality

Mar 21 | by Sam Deeks | business insight
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Watch as the BBC men miss at least half the point of blogging

No wonder the legislators, regulators and policy-makers can’t control the internet.

These guys still believe that blogging is just about people reading columns of text like they would a newspaper. (LOL) These same people probaby believe that Google is a philanthropical project to democratise information. (LMAO)

And that Facebook is a public service to connect people. (ROFL)

If you’re reading this, you’re doing so for one of two reasons: either because you’re kind of interested in my point of view and keep an eye on what I write (an exclusive little club) or – more likely – because you’ve come across this while looking for something about the BBC and blogging in Google.

I’ve yet to hear one middle aged journalist, businessman or politician speak about the true purpose and power of blogging: how it works with Google.

The young guns know it – and they’re running riot, safe in the knowledge that the old suits haven’t a clue what they’re up to.

:-)

Benugo BFI Southbank: excellent food, great customer service

Mar 18 | by Sam Deeks | mukau reputation boost
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A mukau reputation boost for Benugo BFI Southbank

I went to a Christmas dinner at Benugo restaurant at BFI and it was… ok.  Actually, it was a bit less than ok and one of the party gave them some feedback via their website.

Their response was an apology and £50 in vouchers to compensate.

Tonight we went back to Benugo’s for a second visit.

Going back to a place where you didn’t have the best experience isn’t always easy.  It’s nice to be able to report that coming back to Benugo’s we were not disappointed.  Julian and I both had shin of beef and roasted carrots with spring greens and roast potatoes and it was superb.

The new manager went out of his way to make us welcome and chat with us (despite actor John Hurt and his entourage turning up at the bar at the same time). The service was great too.

A mukau reputation boost to Benugo’s for taking feedback, making amends and going out of their way to keep us as customers and – more importantly – convert us into advocates.  Good move! ;-)

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