The NSI Partners Blog

We always stress to clients that it pays to listen to their customers.  But when suddenly it paid to speak out as a customer, I have to admit I was taken aback by such great “listening.”

Tonight I received a 10pm response to a product review I had posted a few hours earlier on Amazon. Now this is going to be frustrating to explain, because it involves a health product and I keep both my politics and my health interests under the lock-and-key of a different identity on the internet. (Though I must admit a little breach here … by using my “nom de net” on Amazon, the vendor now has my real name associated to my internet identity; I shall swear them to secrecy!!)

Anyway, I gave a 5-star review to a great health-care home testing product on a Sunday afternoon, and around 10pm the same evening received this email asking me try what they think will be a solution for the problem revealed by the testing, and taking it a step further, suggesting I buy another test strip to test to see if my problem is getting solved. The kicker: offering to refund my money for both the potential solution and a new test kit if my problem isn’t solved.

The truth is, I had already bookmarked that potential solution they are offerering – along with a couple of competing products. Guess which one I’m ordering?

Thanks and good work, N@#^& Team ! Your response makes me so tempted to blow my alter-ego identity and hawk your product here and now! But you can believe I’ll be pushing it on http://twitter.com/w…oops!!

NSI ships through UPS often and usually doesn’t have a problem. But when last week’s critical hard-drive shipment was delayed three days due to a storm, it cost some money and, worse, caused some frustration.

On the money side, we had a computer down, and technical services standing by, awaiting the shipment. The website and two calls to UPS yielded only inaccurate information, making contingency planning even more difficult.

But storms happen, and the money wasn’t the real problem–even our tight budget can weather some wind and rain. The real problem was that UPS’s tracking system was not designed to provide its Customer Service Representatives enough useful details. All they could tell me was that a “critical emergency had occured beyond UPS’ control, but the package will arrive later today.”

“What is the emergency?” I asked.

“It is a critical emergency. It’s beyond UPS’ control. But your package will arrive later today,” repeated “Johanna.”

“You said that yesterday, and you can’t even tell me what the emergency is. Can you ask someone who knows to give me a call to let me know?”

“You would have to call the shipper and ask them to ask us to give you that  information, sir.”

What?!?  UPS wanted me to believe that this was not their fault. Ok–plausible. UPS wanted me to believe that I should bear the costs of this continued delay and misinformation. Difficult, but I could be convinced. Now, though, UPS wanted me simply to accept that any evidence to support this leap of faith would only be provided to me at the pleasure of New Egg, which probably knew nothing about the apparent emergency in the first place? No way!

And that’s when Johanna and I plunged head first into the CSR Information Gap. Now, lacking the solid ground of trust previously established, my faith in UPS had given way. The more my confidence in UPS’ information was in freefall, the more I started to wonder about alternative cost-sharing plans in which UPS gets a little more skin in this game.

Fortunately, I was eventually able to persuade Johanna that asking someone more familiar with the emergency to fill me in was a better plan. Within an hour or so, someone else from UPS called back.

He sounded tired but polite. He also sounded informed and confident. “Sorry, but there was a bad storm. The guys are having to get two days’ worth of packages out in one, but they’re doing their best and getting it done. Your package will be there later today.”

Without even realizing it, he pulled me back up out of the information gap and restored UPS’ standing. Money at this point wasn’t even an issue: these guys were working hard — the storm wasn’t their fault. Sure enough, the hard drive arrived about an hour later. Occasional storms,” mostly of a technological sort, have affected NSI’s client service as well at times, but promptly providing a basic explanation of the problem usually goes a long way to resolving it.

If UPS’ tracking system could have provided Johanna this small set of facts, it would have eliminated any doubt before thoughts of refunds, recompense or reparations even entered my head. It would have prevented a gap from breaching the long time trust I’ve had in UPS.

(Image Credit: WorldTimZone)

(Photo credit: Telegraph Media Group)

Google’s Buzz seems to be catching on. We are thinking about including it as part of some social-media marketing initiatives, but how should organizations use Google Buzz in ways that they’re not already using Facebook and Twitter? It appears to be yet another platform that a business will have to 1) establish and 2) maintain (via a Google account), while 3) having to work at gaining contacts. Most or all of the potential contacts, it seems to us, are likely already using Facebook and Twitter.

We’re especially curious about it, since the trend for social interaction appears to be away from email, yet Buzz is so tied to email, it doesn’t work unless Gmail is a primary email client. (I knew I was supposed to love gmail more truly–bad marketer!)

And, looking at it from the search angle: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now seriously threatening Google as alternative search platforms. Most businesses are still not using all three of these — so why introduce a fourth when they haven’t yet put these others to work?

But, there are some advantages. Since it can easily be connected to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others, it adds a new dimension to maximize client visibility. Although Facebook is working on its own webmail client, GoogleBuzz rallies the gmail community with its opt-out-or-you’re-in approach. It has other advantages, too, as captured particularly well by SEO Optimize. Don;t forget the SEO impact as well.

Of course, Buzz is trying to ride the increasingly important trends toward mobile marketing, which Discover Magazine explains– that’s where the huge eyeball growth is taking place, and where businesses can reach those eyeballs (via ads and custom apps). I’ve been watching mobile marketing for several years, and think this year is the tipping point — the iPhone is becoming part of the culture, has been joined by the non-phone iTouch and, soon, the iPad; Google and the other phone competitors now have their own smart phones with apps, etc.

Makes us want to delve more into FourSquare, actually….