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It’s amazing how often something is obvious to one person and not another. Granted, in some cases it’s because nothing is actually that obvious, the issue at hand is murky and no one really knows what they’re doing. That happens more than we’d like to admit.

But in a lot of cases there are reasons behind one person’s ability to see something or get something that’s “obvious” when another person doesn’t. When you run a company, and especially a startup, you are often blinded to a whole lot of “obvious” things. Why? There are a few reasons:

• you’re too busy just running the business, you can’t focus on anything else
• you have industry expertise and that’s what you pay attention to, the rest of the business is fuzzy at best
• you don’t want to know, or you’re scared to look at what’s going on
• etc.

For many of us, running a company is truly like being the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.

When someone looks at a company from the outside-in they can often – with a fresh pair of eyes and an unfettered brain – see obvious issues and solutions. Having an outsider poke around in your business from a different perspective can be very helpful. Often they’ll tell you what you already know, but often that’s exactly what you need to hear. It’s amazing how many times I’ve suggested things to people and they say, “I know, I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but just couldn’t wrap my head around it.”

Perspective and the right focus are so important.

Startup founders and business owners work their asses off. It’s almost a universal truth. But logging 200-hour workweeks is meaningless without honest perspective and the right focus.

So what can you do? If you feel you’re drowning, running around without a head, panicking in cold sweats on a daily basis or something equally unpleasant, you need to pull back, stop and breathe. Then you need to look at how you can increase the amount of outside perspective you can bring to the table. Here are some ideas:

1. Customer Development. Let’s beat a dead horse and keep the silly analogies going, OK? Customer development – the act of going out and talking to customers in a systematic way with hypotheses in-hand and learning – can absolutely help you find perspective and the right focus. And this isn’t a 1-time endeavor; you should be doing this throughout the existence of your organization.
2. Advisory Boards. An advisory board can help. Find the smartest, most experienced people you can, within your industry or otherwise. You want genuine mentors that will invest enough time in you and your business to give you honest, meaningful feedback.
3. Read Stuff. Rob Walling has a great post titled Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books. And his point is an important one. In the context of my post though I like the idea of just going off, reading some things, re-inspiring yourself, or even just taking a break. When it comes to blog writing, I know that one of the best ways to trigger a post idea is to read other people’s blogs.
4. Peer Mentoring. I’m a big believer in peer mentoring. If you’re comfortable airing your problems to others who are all in a similar position as you (e.g. CEOs of tech startups), a lot of value can come out of that.
5. Write Things Down. Things are more tangible when they’re written on paper. If there’s a problem, something nagging at you, put it on a piece of paper and have a look.
6. Get Outside Help. Recognize your weaknesses and how they’re impacting the business. Take that and hire outside help, or recruit people in to focus on key areas that you’re lacking.

Keeping a business pointed in the right direction at all times is nearly impossible. Without perspective and the right focus you’ll find yourself working hard but making less meaningful and consistent progress. Looking outside for help and guidance isn’t an indicator of failure, so don’t be afraid to do it.

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The iPad is an addictive device. So was the iPhone (and iPod Touch), but the iPad takes device addiction to a new level. For kids, that’s mostly because of the size (vs. iPhone): it’s bigger, easier to handle, and the graphics look fantastic. I think the iPad will fundamentally change how children interact with technology. There have been several videos showing young kids playing with an iPad as if it’s second nature. I can attest to the fact that this happens – my two boys (6 and 3) picked up my iPad and started using it almost immediately. Once I walked into the living room and my 3-year old was playing on the iPad (I had left it out by accident.) I asked him, “What are you doing?” He replied, “I played Angry Birds, some Shrek Kart, Super Why and now I’m doing Pokemon.” (Note: He said it so casually it was absurd. He also never looked up from the iPad screen.)

As iPads drop in price (and other tablets emerge), I believe they’ll be the “throwaway device” that hangs around living rooms, basements, dens, etc. sitting on sofas or coffee tables waiting for anyone to pick up and use for a few minutes. You can’t say that about a laptop computer. And according to Duncan Stewart, tablets are not just an additive device, they’re a replacement device, which means they’re eating into laptop sales.

Back to device addiction.

Kids get hooked on things very quickly. If you’ve ever seen a kid watch a commercial on TV you’ll know what I mean. Days later they can still be singing the commercial ditty, or worse (for parents), asking you to buy what they saw. Kids are a susceptible audience. And the iPad is the near-perfect device to attract kids – big enough, shiny, colorful and easy to use. That ease of use and intuitive use is what makes the iPad almost instantaneously addictive. That’s a homerun win for Apple. Two additional points:

• Instant gratification – Kids can get access to fun stuff almost instantaneously on the iPad
• Endless content – Kids quickly realize that content on the iPad is essentially endless (the same holds true on the Web, but it’s less obvious)

I’m more comfortable letting my kids play on the iPad instead of my computer. The computer always has a bunch of business stuff open (and therefore accessible to my kids dragging stuff to the trash bin for fun!) and it’s setup at my desk where I’ve got papers piled all over the place, bills, etc. The computer is a work device that doubles as a toy. The iPad serves both more easily.

Dave McClure recently tweeted: “Holy Crap: srsly rethnkg @500startups investment thesis & platform priorities re: 2011 iPad sales projctns. fucking *massive* disruption.”

I couldn’t agree more. And where I see huge opportunities is with kids.

The iPad wins by default because the device itself is addictive. Kids will want to use the iPad early and for years to come. That’s a huge opportunity for companies to reach that audience. What we need to see however, are new business models around “apps” because kids are an extremely fickle audience. They have very short attention spans and once they realize that “content is essentially unlimited” they’re loyalty to a specific app or brand (speaking of which, why aren’t more brands on the iPad??) will deteriorate even further. Connecting with kids might seem easy, but it’s far from it, and this is made even worse by the “come and go” nature of the App Store.

The innovation on the iPad isn’t going to be hardware (sure it will improve, but that’s not the priority) or with apps themselves, it’s going to be around business models and more all-encompassing businesses built around apps. For kids that means tie-ins with physical goods, other media and new ways of keeping kids hooked on individual apps. For businesses to succeed on the iPad they have to go beyond addiction to the device itself and create persistent addiction to their own apps.

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When ranking value propositions to pitch customers, efficiency should be at the bottom of the list. It doesn’t mean enough or have enough real value to inspire purchasing decisions.

For starters, efficiency means different things to different people. Who will be more efficient? Is it the person using the software, or are the efficiencies realized by others that get to view data and reports coming out of the application? If the person directly using the software isn’t the one benefitting from that use, there’s a big problem; but this is often the case with B2B products. For example: timesheet software. Employees generally hate inputting timesheets. They have to do all the work but get very little out of it. Bosses like timesheet software. It helps them become more efficient in processing pay (for example) and managing projects. It also gives them more control (which is really the value proposition of timesheet software.) The efficiencies in this case are gained by the boss and not the employees, which is why it’s often so hard to get people to use timesheet software. Unless it’s made mandatory, it rarely happens.

The big question when it comes to efficiency is: “So what?”

The efficiency in and of itself isn’t the key, it’s the value gained through the efficiency that matters.

For example, let’s say your software product helps automate a process that previously required one of my employees to work 40 hours per week. Now, with your great whizbang solution, I can cut that down by half. That’s a 50% improvement in efficiency! Woo hoo! Except, who cares?

What’s the real value extracted out of that efficiency? Too many B2B vendors don’t have an answer to that question. But that’s where real value needs to exist. Salesforce says it very clearly: “Give reps, managers and execs everything they need to focus on what’s important: more selling and less administration.” Salesforce is an efficiency tool. But it’s real value proposition is “more selling”. And reps, managers and execs can’t argue with that.

Making a process or business more efficient for the sake of doing so isn’t valuable enough.

Let’s go back to my example where your software product is saving one of my employees 20 hours per week. So what? What can I do with that newly discovered time that truly drives value in my business? Can I go out and get more projects to fill up that employee’s time and therefore make more money? Can I increase the quality of the work I deliver, because I don’t have to cut as many corners now that the employee is less rushed? Can I adjust that employee’s role somewhat so they can go out and sell more or earn more revenue in some way? Or, can I just outright let the person go because he’s now redundant?

I need answers to those questions before making a purchasing decision. Efficiency is great, but it’s only valuable if I do something with it. And I don’t want to figure that out on my own, I want you to tell me – very specifically – what the efficiency, and by extension your software, buys me. Without that type of specificity in a value proposition, which in turn permeates your branding, marketing, sales messaging, and product development, I’m going to stick with the status quo.

Startups need to set a high bar when it comes to value propositions. Selling efficiency isn’t good enough. Startups are competing against incumbents, the status quo and themselves. Many companies are hesitant about buying from startups because they’re startups – small, underfunded and unproven. So the value proposition has to be compelling and precise. “We help you save time” doesn’t cut it. Take that statement to its logical conclusion and you’ll start to see where your value proposition needs to be.

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Where does it say that enterprise software has to be boring, complicated and painful to use?

Dave Concannon asks a much less rhetorical question in his blog post: Can Game Mechanics make Serious software “sticky”?

There are two things I loved about Dave’s post:

1. He talks about being addicted to MUDs. (Who wasn’t right? Hell, I learned to hack away in C/C++ to build features on a MUD I used to love)
2. He expands on the concept of “Braggable Moments” for “serious software”.

Dave defines “Braggable Moments” as, “…a shared action which elevates an individual user in status among their peers.”

What we often forget within the enterprise is that it’s a collection of individuals. It’s not a mindless hive. If it is, the company is in trouble. Each individual (or at least most individuals) should have a need to, and an interest in, standing out. That’s human nature. Doing so feeds the ego, makes people feel good and gets them recognition from peers and superiors.

Braggable Moments absolutely belong in Enterprise software

We’re seeing user adoption models change (going bottom up into an enterprise vs. top down), and soon, hopefully we’ll start to see the application of Braggable Moments and game mechanics inside Enterprise software. We don’t need to turn Enterprise software into Farmville, but adding game mechanics into Enterprise software can help address some of the key challenges: user adoption, training / user comfort, scalability and sustainability. How often have you seen a company purchase a piece of Enterprise software that takes too long to get rolling, is too hard to use, and never takes off? Game mechanics and Braggable Moments can absolutely help with those problems. And the Enterprise software companies that get that are going to catch on very quickly with users and buyers.

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I’ve said before that great customer support has to be proactive. But what exactly does that mean?

The goal of proactive support is to identify and resolve issues before they become problems. In some cases you can be so successful with proactive customer service that you can solve problems before customers even realize they exist.

We’ve all had an experience where a small nuisance grows into a giant, destructive force. Think about the arguments you’ve had with a significant other; it starts with something small that’s irritating you, but you don’t say anything about it until it grows and grows and grows, eventually festering to the point that you explode and freak out. Your significant other can’t understand why you’re so upset, and you’ve actually lost most of the context as well. But you’re mad. Really, really mad.

The same thing happens with your customers. A small frustration left unchecked can turn into an absolute disaster.

The sooner you implement a policy of proactive customer support, the better. And you can start by using metrics.

You need to know what your customers are doing with your product. You need to track key usage metrics of importance (to you and them) and use that data internally, but also share that data with customers. Remember: Think of customer support as a feature of your product. That’s exactly what you’re doing by tracking usage metrics and sharing them with customers.

LinkedIn does a good job of this. Every week I get an email from them that shows me a summary of activity. I only started receiving these emails a few months ago, but all of a sudden I could quickly scan what was going on inside my LinkedIn network. It’s a great way to create customer touchpoints and increase engagement. LinkedIn doesn’t reach out proactively beyond that, but they probably could come up with some intelligent ways to do so.

Salesforce is another company that sends usage statistics. It’s interesting to get a regular report on people’s activity with the product. Again, I haven’t seen any proactive engagement beyond that, but even this report keeps me engaged. That’s a critical part of customer support’s role.

Dropbox takes it a step further. A few days ago I received an email from them because they noticed that I’ve only synchronized Dropbox on one computer. They explain the value proposition of synchronizing multiple computers with a link to do so. That’s very smart, proactive customer service. Incidentally, it’s also a smart sales tactic. Sales is a critical part of customer support’s role.

Aside from automated emails to customers, you should also add a personal touch. The usage metrics you’re tracking should influence how often your customer support people proactively reach out to customers, and how they do so. Here are some examples:

• High Usage: Empower customer support people to go and ask for a testimonial. Have them send a surprise schwag package. Thank customers with a personal email.
• Medium Usage: Call customers to see how things are going. Listen to the good and bad feedback. Have a sense of “best practices” on how to increase usage. Send a white paper with case studies from high usage clients.
• Low Usage: Call customers immediately and flag their accounts as “in danger”. Get to the root of the problem as quickly as possible. Empower customer support people to make suggestions immediately, but also escalate the issue to management so they can step in and help.

A few additional things to remember:

1. Use a good CRM tool. You should have a CRM tool in place that allows you to track all accounts in a very straightforward way. All issues (bugs, inquiries, etc.) should be recorded.
2. You can’t save every customer. It doesn’t matter how proactive you are, you won’t save every customer. But proactive support can improve client retention.
3. Know what metrics to track. You have to put some serious thoughts into the appropriate metrics to track. Some metrics might give you false positives — such as logins. A customer might be logging in frequently but not using the app “properly” and still be unsatisfied.
4. Don’t assume usage means everything is OK. High usage doesn’t mean that a customer is totally satisfied. The same holds true with low usage; you have to know each customer’s unique expectations and intentions behind using your product.
5. Implement a regular follow-up schedule. Start with a baseline schedule for checking in on customers (via email and phone), and adjust that for each customer based on usage and feedback.
6. Build metrics tracking into your application. Think about the value add you can provide customers by making usage and metrics a feature of your product. Also think about the potential for using metrics to increase virality and engagement inside a customer.
7. Track the Social Web. Your customers are out there complaining. And many of them may not do it directly (to you) but they’ll go to Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. and complain there. You need to monitor the Social Web and respond accordingly. Here’s a great example of what happens when you monitor what people are saying about your company and respond actively.
8. Track trends. Each customer is unique – that’s an important thing to realize – but there are trends that will emerge when you track usage metrics. For example, you might discover that certain features aren’t being used much, or they’re being used in ways you didn’t expect. You might also discover trends about the types of customers (by industry, size, etc.) and their usage patterns. NOTE: Ideally, you’ve followed a customer development strategy when building your product, and many of these issues of product/market fit will be “resolved”, but there’s always room for refinement.
9. Don’t go overboard. You don’t want to get so aggressive that customers get irritated. That can certainly backfire. If you build usage statistic reporting into your product, be smart about it — if you don’t see any usage, stop sending the reports. Instead, pick up the phone and call. Or send a personalized email.
10. Noting replaces direct communication. Be careful that you don’t get overly focused on tracking usage metrics and implementing automated reporting and support strategies. Nothing beats a direct, personal email or call to a customer. Nothing beats an actual conversation with a customer for providing proactive customer support.

Customer support touches most aspects of your business. Great customer support will increase sales and revenues. Great customer support will assist with product development. Great customer support will increase brand recognition, and business opportunities. Think about taking your customer service to the next level by implementing proactive strategies, ingrained into the product itself and your support staff’s every day activities.

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When was the last time you played Red Rover? The game is quite simple. You create a chain of people who hold hands (roughly at arm’s length from each other) and the other team tries to break the chain of people. Breaking through the chain is usually quite easy. The connections just aren’t that strong. They could be stronger if you were able to lock forearms with the people on either side of you. That would make breaking the chain harder. Now imagine for a moment that each person in the chain has four arms so they can make two connections on either side. Suddenly, the chain gets much stronger. The chain would be almost impossible to break if everyone simply hugged. It’s quite the challenge to run through two people and split them up when they’re hugging, let alone an entire chain of people. Go ahead, try it. I’ll wait…

Everyone OK? Great!

Companies need to create more touchpoints and connections with customers, then work on strengthening those connections on a regular basis. It’s not about providing customer support in disparate environments with no proper communication channels in place; that could very easily get out of hand. But it is about making sure that you’re accessible and available through different mediums – focusing on those mediums that your customers use. And not just for customer service. Being present and visible is important. Customers like to see that the founders and employees of companies they work with are out there, interacting and participating. It adds confidence and builds brand. Think about touchpoints when you work on developing customer service initiatives and policies around employee use of social networking-type tools. The more touchpoints, the better.

And just like the game of Red Rover, it’s not just about how strong a connection you have with the person on either side of you, but how strong the other connections in the chain are as well. If there are weak connections in that chain, your team loses. Companies need to create more touchpoints and connections between customers. That will strengthen the entire ecosystem that exists around the company, helping customers, and benefiting the company significantly.

image courtesy of shutterstock.

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Too many people look at customer service as a cost center, when it really should be a profit center.

I recently read B-A-M!: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World and it’s an important refresher and reminder of the importance of great customer service. Customer support is something I’ve obsessed over for many years.

The authors say it very clearly, and I’ve said it in the past as well, “Customer service is generally so bad that even a slight improvement can be a huge competitive advantage.” Customer service is critical for client retention as well.

Here are 9 important reminders + revelations from B-A-M!:

1. Tie customer service to revenue & profits. Barry Moltz and Mary Jane Grinstead (authors of the book) make it very clear that the nice, fluffy, altruistic reasons for providing great customer service aren’t enough. You have to tie the support you offer to revenue and profits. That starts by understanding the economic value of each customer, and then understanding how customer service is implicated in generating that revenue (and future revenue). This is all about cold hard cash.
2. Proactive support is key. In many cases, responding after a problem has emerged is too late. In that circumstance you tend to be dealing with angry people. But proactive support is all about reaching customers before the shit hits the fan, alerting them to problems, or reacting to what you see in terms of product usage. So look at what metrics you track on usage, and use those metrics to trigger proactive interactions with customers. For example, you might find a customer isn’t using your product a lot. Having that as a metric versus baseline usage (or expected usage) is a great way for customer support to reach out and ask, “Why? And, how can we help?
3. Think of customer service as a feature. The more you think of customer service as an intrinsic feature of your product and not some ancillary thing you “have to do”, the better you’ll be.
4. Think of customer service as part of your brand. You don’t get to define and control your brand like you used to. Your customers, prospects and users have taken it over. And that means how you service people has become a huge part of your brand awareness and value.
5. Tie customer service to surprise. I’m still obsessing over Surprise and its uses and implications for Web businesses. Surprise should be incorporated into your customer service initiatives. This shouldn’t be done by “under promising and over delivering” (I agree with the authors of the book – this is bogus). But it can be done in a much more subtle (and proactive) way. Matt Brezina, founder at Xobni, calls at least one customer per week to stay close to his customers and make sure things are going well. That’s smart for customer service, word-of-mouth marketing, brand building and PR.
6. Consistency is key. You want every interaction a customer has with your company to be very similar. You don’t want customers having a great experience one day only to be hugely disappointed the next. That inconsistency will make any great customer service you provide a moot point. This means investing significantly in training your staff and having well thought out policies in place.
7. Empower your people. Customer service people are treated like shit. The jobs are often low paying and the work isn’t easy. You need to empower these people to make decisions on-the-fly and respond effectively to customers. If every “tough situation” results in escalation to managers, you’re going to eat into profits and have more frustrated customers.
8. Loyalty programs work. The book has a section on using loyalty programs. They do work. But just to remind us that Barry and Mary Jane aren’t hippie socialists trying to kill companies by forcing them to spend all their money on customer service, I had to include this quote:
   

   “Let’s be clear. We appreciate loyalty. Companies that treat customers with dignity and respect want to reward that loyalty–but the primary purpose of loyalty programs is to create velvet handcuffs to lock our customers in and have them come back even when they have a choice.”

   Velvet handcuffs. Gotta love it.

9. You should sweat the small stuff. The authors point out that even “…tiny slivers of a customer’s total experience has the potential to affect the big feeling the customer has for the company.” This speaks to the issue of consistency, and the importance of each and every customer interaction for the overall success of your customer service initiatives, and ultimately your business.

B-A-M!: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World is a fairly quick read with some very good reference material / checklists at the back. In my mind we still have a lot of work to do in terms of elevating the importance of customer service inside the hierarchy of organizations. Too often, customer service is an afterthought, something scrambled together piecemeal to deal with customer complaints. That’s simply not good enough.

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Most retail experiences suck. They just do. It’s rare that I go into a store and leave feeling amazed. I might be happy with what I bought, but beyond that, the experience is usually “Meh.” And some retail experiences are so bad that you leave the store angry, even if you did buy something that you went in wanting.

Chris Brogan recently complained about a particular retail experience and the discussion is heated to say the least. For that reason alone I think it’s worthwhile; it’s good for these sorts of things to get aired publicly on a popular site like Chris’ blog.

I haven’t had any atrocious retail experiences recently, but it’s bound to happen with the Holiday Season upon us. But while on a recent shopping excursion with my wife, I couldn’t help but think that retail stores could do so much more to attract, engage and excite people. Like in the world of startups, there are too many “me too” retail stores, and they do nothing to really stand out, be memorable and generate critical buzz for themselves.

So here are some thoughts / ideas / ramblings on the retail experience:

It Starts with the Brand:

The brand in retail is so insanely important. This just can’t be overstated. Retail stores & companies have to stand for something more than their product. In fact, they’re not really selling their product at all — they’re selling something else. An experience. A belief. A higher purpose. S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G.

My wife recently received a gift card from lululemon. It came in a small bag. On the bag it says:

“lululemon athletica creates components for people to live longer, healthier and more fun lives. If we can produce products to keep people active and stress-free, we believe the world will become a much better place.”

And here I thought they sold overpriced pink sweatpants. Clearly they don’t. The bag has a bunch of sayings on it, things like “Do one thing a day that scares you.” And, “Life is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.” And, “Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment.” Damn! Now I want a pair of pink sweatpants!!

That’s a brand.

Brands don’t live forever, they need to evolve and fight to stay relevant, but they sure do have a huge impact.

You Can’t Compete on Price:

One of the stores we were in was having a 70% off sale. The place was packed. But that’s at 70% off. I wonder what it looked like at 25% or 50% off? Most retailers are already offering that level of sale a few days into a new season. And what happens when 70% off isn’t enough? Now I want 80% or 90% off. Price isn’t a competitive advantage anymore. And it’s certainly not an advantage that smaller retailers can leverage. Walmart = Low Prices. You can’t win that game. So what else can you offer?

The Element of Surprise!

Retail stores should be leveraging surprise. I don’t even think it would be that hard. Surprise drives word-of-mouth — and that’s what stores need. They need lots and lots of people talking about them. I had a couple simple ideas while I was shopping:

• Hourly giveaways. Get a megaphone, a stool and some tickets. Hand out tickets to people in the store. Every hour, stand on the stool and call out ticket numbers. The winners get $50 off their purchases right then and there. That’s not a sale, or competing on price. It’s just fun and a surprise. You can make it even more fun by doing it at random times. And don’t just use boring tickets, print nice tickets with something meaningful on them (tied to your brand.) It becomes something that everyone in the store collectively experiences and enjoys.
• Cross-store promotions. Instead of offering people a coupon or discount on their next in-store purchase, why not offer them a deal at another store? And have that other store do the same thing for you? Two non-competing but related stores could increase the foot traffic between them and build some nice loyalty.
• Play 20 Questions. Guys always dread the questions they get from their significant others: “Does this make me look fat?” “How is this color on me?” “Do you think this is too long? Too short? Too tight? Too baggy?” A smart clothing store would print out cards with answers to these commonly asked, often feared questions with great answers such as, “You look gorgeous.” “That color doesn’t do your beauty justice.” “I don’t know, but I love you.” “Just buy a shorter skirt to go with the longer one, so you have plenty of variety.” I’m being a bit ridiculous here, but in no way trying to be condescending to anyone. Everyone would know it’s a joke, but they’d get a laugh out of it, and I guarantee you it would get people talking.

Honesty is the Best Policy:

I actually saw this in action — A woman walks up to a salesperson and asks, “Does this look good on me?” Since she’s already asking we can assume she’s uncertain. Most of the time I’ve seen salespeople say, “Of course! It looks fabulous.” (Translated: Buy! Buy! Buy! And buy some more. And get out of my face. Unless you’re buying right now!) But the salesperson in this case replied, “Actually, I don’t think that suits you…” And then she followed up with a very reasonable, seemingly honest explanation. The woman kept nodding in agreement; she just needed support in her non-buying decision.

You can bet the woman was happy that she was “talked out of the purchase” (instead of going home, doubting herself and being frustrated by a pushy salesperson). You can also bet that the woman spent more time in that store, bought more stuff and told her friends about the great, honest service. For the scorekeepers among you, that equals: Engagement + Money + Word-of-Mouth. That’s like a Holy Trio..

Motivate Employees:

The employees in a retail store are so important. You can have the best brand, marketing, word-of-mouth in the world, but if you get one lousy, unresponsive or grumpy employee you – as the consumer – walk out pissed. And when you’re pissed you complain a lot. We tend to complain more publicly than praise.

In two stores I was in over the weekend I was being “processed” by employees who were asking other employees about taking breaks. One employee was ringing up my stuff and asked the girl next to her, “If you work 10 hours how many breaks do you get?” And I care, because?

Motivating low-paid employees in retail stores has to be tough. But we’ve all experienced great service in shops and restaurants where the employees make all the difference in the world. So figure this out. And fast.

Retail Experiences Don’t Have to Suck:

It’s really as simple as that. Some of the retail experience is challenging. I think motivating employees might be one of the hardest things to do on a consistent basis. Brand building is too. But there’s no excuse for not building a brand, finding strong (and real!) differentiators, integrating in exciting marketing with surprise, and pushing your staff to perform on a consistent basis. (Incidentally, there are critical lessons here for all businesses and startups.)

I know there are great retail stores. And I’d love to hear your positive experiences (as well as your negative ones.) I’d love to hear your ideas on how retail stores can put the WOW! back into their existence.

images courtesy of shutterstock

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Writing a great survey isn’t easy. At first it might seem straightforward, but after banging out a few questions with your favorite survey tool (I use Wufoo most of the time), you start to see the complexity and intricacies involved.

More and more startups are creating surveys as a means of collecting data from early prospects and customers. I’ve seen a few examples of this implemented; there’s a landing page with an email sign-up, and once you’ve converted, a survey pops up. This is a great way of collecting user feedback. But only if the feedback you collect is useful.

Recently I’ve been helping a friend collect data through surveys for a project he’s working on. (Sadly I can’t go into more detail than that, but it’s definitely interesting!) I logged onto Wufoo, created a new survey, and started writing questions. As I looked back at the questions, I asked myself, “What’s the point of each question?”

Good question.

Actually, out of all the questions I wrote (or asked myself in my head) that was the best one. What’s the point?

In reviewing the questions, I wanted to be crystal clear on each one’s objective. It took me a fairly long time re-working the survey before I felt it was ready for action.

I’m far from an expert survey-writer. And below I’ve included a number of great resource links to help you learn more about writing great surveys. But I wanted to share what I’ve learned to-date:

1. Take the necessary time to write a great survey. Don’t rush this step because you’re eager for customer data. And don’t rush this step because you “just know” that all the answers are going to be what you want. Take your time. Do the research. Think things through.
2. Surveys don’t have to be static. Feel free to iterate on your surveys, changing them as you see data coming in, adding / removing / editing questions as appropriate. I wouldn’t take this step lightly, because it could make the analysis more complicated, but don’t assume you nailed the perfect survey right away. And I think it’s reasonable to try A/B testing your surveys too.
3. Focus on actionable data and metrics. You need results that you can actually do something with. There have been some great posts on actionable metrics. I encourage you to read them all.
4. Be strict with yourself. I found when writing surveys it’s easy to let things slide a bit. You throw in a question, even if you’re not sure it’s right. Or you don’t edit the language carefully enough, assuming people will understand questions clearly. You need to be ultra-vigilant. And you need to be unafraid to kill a question completely if it doesn’t meet the proper standards.
5. Don’t worry too much about length. I’ve experimented a bit with various survey lengths, and haven’t found it’s made a huge difference in completion. I suspect this is similar to the debate between long and short landing pages — it’s not the length that matters as much as the quality and effectiveness of the content.
6. Ask tough questions. You have to force yourself to ask tough questions. You can’t be afraid, otherwise you won’t get enough honest, raw and actionable results. The survey.io tool (for very simple but useful customer surveys) asks, How would you feel if you could no longer use the product? That’s a tough question to ask, because you might not like the answer.
7. Stay open-minded to discovery. As I look at the survey results I’ve collected, I’ve noticed that there’s lots to discover that was unintentional. This may not be a great thing, but it’s still interesting. I have a couple of open-ended paragraph-style questions in the surveys and the results are absolutely fascinating. They lead me to think about new ideas, and also make me want to follow up with respondents to dig further. It’s just about staying open-minded to the possibility that you don’t know everything about everything (which is fairly easy in my case!)

I have a lot to learn about writing great surveys. But one thing is certain: You need to recognize the importance of collecting actionable survey metrics, testing surveys and putting a lot of effort into getting them right.

Here are some resources for writing great surveys:

• Qualtrics Blog – They did a 5-week blog series on writing great survey questions. Here are all the links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
• Survey Design
• Writing a customer satisfaction survey
• 6 easy steps on how to create customer surveys
• Writing objective survey questions
• Online employee and customer surveys — Great line: “If in doubt, throw it out.”

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A lot of people equate value with price. The higher the price, the higher the value must be, right? I’ve seen this repeatedly in the B2B world selling software to mid-to-large enterprises. It’s certainly not always the case, but it’s more common than you might realize. And it speaks to the possibility that you can increase your price instead of decrease it.

The drive in software sales is clearly to lower prices. Jeff Atwood asks, “Software Pricing: Are We Doing It Wrong?” His argument is that lower prices increase sales volume. He has a couple of good examples of this. And he admits this doesn’t work all the time, although it may certainly apply in high-volume sales to consumers. But ultimately this does lead to price wars that hurt everyone. When prices get too low, vendors lose interest in creating value, and customers get less valuable software.

I do agree with Jeff’s argument that experimenting with price makes sense. You can do so quite easily through targeted sales. Pick a target market, create a sale, build a landing page and drive traffic to it. Measure conversion and sales. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve written in the past on how to price your software product and it’s clear that there are many variables and very few absolutes when it comes to pricing. But one of the variables that’s rarely discussed of late is “value” or at least, “perceived value”, and whether or not people really do equate value with cost. And subsequently, how important is that to your business in terms of marketability, sales cycles, revenues, customer acquisition, etc.

What do you think?