It was a Saturday morning, sunny and relatively warm even though it was the middle of winter. Driving toward the highway, I reminded myself to rehearse my elevator pitch a few more times before that morning’s networking meeting. But before I could rehearse my pitch, I spotted a “Going-Out-of-Business Sale”…

By Alice Korngold, Co-Editor, Giving Thoughts Blog, and Author, A Better World, Inc.: How Companies Profit By Solving Global Problems… Where Governments Cannot Boards with women are not only more successful financially, but they are also more effective in achieving the company’s social responsibility and environmental purposes. Unfortunately, male board members are less likely than […]

– the book: Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers, a vital resource for leveraging customer service as marketing
– the brain: Jay Baer, bestselling author, advisor to more than 700 companies (including Caterpillar, Nike, The United Nations and 32 of the FORTUNE 500), entrepreneur, and founder of Convince & Convert, a strategy consulting firm in the intersection of technology, social media, and customer service.

– the best bits: Hug Your Haters starts off with the basic premise, “Haters are not your problem…Ignoring them is.”

The book explains, “Answering complaints increases customer advocacy across all customer service channels…Conversely, not answering complaints decreases customer advocacy across all customer service channels.” So, Jay offers the very basic, simple conclusion:

“The Hug Your Haters success equation: Answer every complaint, in every channel, every time.”

He then walks you through how exactly to do that.

Hug Your Haters is based on extensive research that Jay conducted with Edison Resarch. Key findings of the research include:

There are two main types of haters: offstage haters who almost always complain first in a private, one-to-one format, often by telephone or email; and onstage haters who almost always complain first in a public venue — social media, review sites, discussion boards, or forums. Offstage haters want an answer, while onstage haters want an audience. When complaints are made by telephone, customers expect a response 91% of the time; email, 89%. When complaining in social media, only 42% of the time does the complainer expect a response. 62% of complaints are first made offstage, but that is rapidly changing.

Among the important insights Jay shares are:

“Customer service is now a spectator sport.”

“The greatest businesses in the world are training your customers on what to expect and they will eventually demand that you also meet that standard.”

“Globally, $500 billion each year is invested in marketing, compared with just $9 billion in customer service.”

– the brand story:  Jay writes about a full range of companies, from local small businesses and large established enterprises. One of Jay’s favorites, as he tells me in our interview (listen below), is Fresh Brothers Pizza, a 13-store chain in Southern California.  Debbie Goldberg is the co-owner of Fresh Brothers and she replies to every customer feedback, including Yelp reviews.

Her response to a complainer reads, “Hi Ray — I’m really sorry that you had this experience when you visited in March. We’ve made some changes in the store and I think the environment has really changed for the better. Would you consider trying us again? I’d like to send you a gift certificate so you can try us, on us!…”

As Jay writes, “Perfect.  She acknowledges the issues, apologizes, and provides a remedy.”  And she does so publicly, because she assumes, “A Yelp review is actually a representation of the thoughts of many customers.  So if they’re commenting, then it’s probably not just that one person who may have had that experience…Overall, I want people to know that, good or bad, we’re listening and we care, and we’re working on it…”

It’s a terrific example of how hugging your haters can benefit your brand.

– the bottom line: Companies can no longer afford to ignore customer complaints and Hug Your Haters is the bible for embracing customer service as a competitive advantage.

Listen to my conversation with Jay to learn:

how customer expectations for what a business can and should do are changing how Discover Card is beating out larger, better-resourced competitors with customer service why Jay has made it a goal that 18-24 months from now, people won’t be able to name specific examples of extraordinary customer service

other brand book bites:

Mastering the New Media Landscape by Barbara Cave Henricks and Rusty Shelton Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder Youtility by Jay Baer

The post brand book bites from hug your haters appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

By Ahsiya Posner Mencin, Director, PULSE Volunteer Partnership, and Manu Juneja, Global Volunteering Manager, GSK This is a new kind of year for GSK and the PULSE volunteering program. First, we’re creating different volunteering options for our employees worldwide to fit with the various interests and needs of all stakeholders across the globe.  Second, we’re […]

This post is second part of a two part series, in which I describe how the web is providing you relevant information from the ever swelling ocean of information. In the first part, I described what strategies internet based companies use to organize new information continually. Click here to read Part 1/2.

In this part, I will describe some strategies that internet based companies use to present relevant information in an easily assimilable way.

Presenting

1. Maximizing Information Transmission Efficiency
Web pages overloaded with text and hyperlinks are giving way to cleaner layouts and more visual content. Most well designed websites provide a very good sense of modularity and hierarchy in their front-end architecture. I think there are at least two distinct styles which deserve mention. First, where information is presented in a single column, as if, on a long canvas, and you just need to scroll down to see more and more information. Some examples are the websites of Wunderlist, MotoX, Spotify and Uber. Second, where the web-page is divided in grids, and information is usually presented in the form of large thumbnails. Pinterest, Groupon, eBay, your Facebook timeline and Google+ sport such a style.

2. Recommendations
From Zappos’, “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” to YouTube’s “Recommended for you”, making recommendations to visitors has become a rave across the web. Companies make recommendations in order to make visitors stay longer on their websites, so that they end up purchasing more stuff and/or clicking on more ads.

3. Portability across devices
Many people in developed countries use more than one computing device. Those who do so, have come to expect seamless functioning of websites across their devices. This is being achieved thorough what is known as ‘responsive web design’, which refers to web-designs that fluidly change and respond to fit any screen or device size. Some of the prominent companies which have already adopted such a web-design are: Microsoft, Starbucks, The Next Web, and Time magazine. Responsive web design when used with cookies enable websites to remember stateful information (such as items in a shopping cart) of visitors, thus making the transition across devices even more seamless.

For the success of a good idea it important to understand the context in which the idea will materialize. What I have described in my two post series, I believe, are very fundamental aspects of operating in today’s internet based business context.

What is your take on doing business in today’s internet based business context? Would you like to add something to the information I presented in the post? I would love to know your views.

To stay tuned with me Follow @nbhaskar888

Although this week’s focus is squarely on TED2006, there’s always room on our radar screen for speakers from TEDs past. Especially when that speaker is the incomparable Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink. For those like me, who scan each week’s New Yorker for his byline, we can now get a more regular fix. Yes. It had to happen. Malcolm has a blog.

With the Fed raising rates this week, the monetary policy debate on the next step will commence, focusing on whether or not the Fed made a mistake in raising rates too soon, and what it should do going forward. There is clearly no consensus regarding the Fed decision. Some economists vehemently oppose raising rates in […]

10. Louis Vuitton – From 2012 at the age of 70 Mohammad Ali appeared in this ad, it ran in magazines and newspapers in 60 countries and captures him in private reverie. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz in his Phoenix backyard.

9. Ford Motorcraft – Ali travels to Alaska for this ad from 1978.

8. Louis Vuitton – In July 2012 Louis Vuitton presented a dedicated digital experience celebrating the inspirational words of Muhammad Ali, with the participation of calligrapher Niels Shoe Meulman and word artist Yasiin Bey (formerly know as Mos Def).
Ad Agency: Ogilvy Paris

7.Adidas “Impossible Is Nothing” – From Zaire 1974, this ad campaign taps into athletes desire to push themselves further, to surpass limits and break new ground.

6. Apple Macintosh – Ali was featured in on of several “Think Different” print ads for Apple in 1998.

5. Pizza Hut – The Greatest surprised us all in this Super Bowl Ad from back in 1997.

4. Under Armour – In 2015 the sporting wear company launched the The Muhammad Ali collection with this web film.

3. Dr Pepper TV Spot “/1 Americans” – Ali was featured as in this Dr. Pepper commercial from the “Always One Of A Kind, /1 Americans” campaign.
Ad Agency: Deutsch Inc.

2. 2016 Porsche 911 “Compete” – Three legendary competitors go head-to-head against themselves. Muhammad Ali takes on his doppelganger in the ring, tennis champion Maria Sharapova hits the court with her copy and grandmaster Magnus Carlsen challenges his other self to a game of chess. After intense competition, all three matches end with the better version of each person reigning victorious. A narrator says that this philosophy of greatness coming from within informed the creation of the 2016 Porsche 911.
Ad Agency: Cramer-Krasselt

1. 2015 Toyota Camry “How Great Am I” – Amy Purdy, paralympic athlete and “Dancing with the Stars” contestant, stars in Toyota’s Super Bowl XLIX commercial featuring audio from one of the greatest speeches of all time by Muhammad Ali.
Ad Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi LA

You will be missed.

The first days and weeks on the job for new employees are crucial. They can literally make or break a new employee’s impression of your company and determine whether or not they want to stay.

Based on recent data from the ADP® DataCloud, a Big Data platform that allows business leaders and HR professionals to generate actionable insights from the workforce data embedded in their ADP HCM solutions, more than 25% of employees left their jobs within the first 60 days.

These are pretty startling statistics and constitute a real challenge for recruiters. That’s why after successfully attracting and recruiting talent into your organization, a positive onboarding experience is the next step to ensuring you retain them.

All too often, new employees are emailed a packet of intimidating forms to fill out and told to come back when it’s completed. Today’s workforce expects more and the talent you invite into your organization deserves a better experience.

Organizations should strive to create an onboarding solution that incorporates the latest best practices and trends, emphasizes employee socialization, increases engagement, and speeds the employee’s ability to contribute to your organization’s success, as well as their own.

A Fresh Approach to Onboarding

Every organization has its own version of the complex process of onboarding, but introducing the latest technology can benefit companies across the board.

If your onboarding experience is not using technology to the fullest, consider incorporating these four popular techniques:

Simplify. Make the onboarding experience easy and enjoyable for new hires. Use technology to communicate regularly and boost engagement. Enhance the user experience and simplify the process to make completing the required forms easy instead of tedious. Most importantly, seek feedback and continually work to improve the process over time.

Build Connections. Tap into social tools to introduce new hires to their team members and help them feel connected even before Day 1. No one is better suited to teach new hires about your organization, culture, and roles than their new colleagues. Facilitating relationship building early on will help them feel comfortable and bring them up to speed in record time.

Remove Friction. Ensure that onboarding is the beginning of the employee journey where information flows to the HCM system to avoid hours spent on repetitive data entry by HR and employees. The less time spent on data entry and paperwork means more time for assimilation, network building, and productivity.

Assume “Mobile-First.” According to the Nielsen® 2014 Digital Consumer Report, nearly two thirds of Americans own a smart phone and use it for everything from getting directions to online shopping. Today’s workforce has high expectations when it comes to accessing information at their fingertips. Developing a streamlined, intuitive onboarding processes with forms and social tools that can be easily read and accessed from a smart phone should be a major initiative.

Going beyond technology innovations, an overarching theme of any effective new hire experience is that onboarding is a continual process throughout the journey of work, not a single event. Bringing a new employee into an organization or on to a new team goes beyond a week of orientation and should include several conversations over time to allow the new hire to fully assimilate to their role and to the organization. Take time to clarify the company culture; check in often over the course of the first year of employment to ensure your new hire remains on a good path, and establish a follow-up plan to monitor how they’re faring.

Convert New Hires to Engaged, Productive Employees

Your organization gets one chance to do onboarding right, so go all-out to make it a meaningful experience for your employee. With the importance of recruiting and retaining talent at an all-time high, business leaders must understand that effectively integrating new hires into the organization is an important step to ensure their success.

Above all, the onboarding experience is a personal one. If new employees are treated as valued contributors from the start, it increases the probability that they’ll be engaged, and remain engaged, as they disperse throughout the company.

This article was written by By Dave Imbrogno, President of National Account Services for ADP’s Global Enterprise Solutions unit. He is responsible for many of the company’s Human Capital Management solutions, including Human Resources, Payroll, Time and Labor Management, Comprehensive Outsourcing Services, Talent Acquisition and Talent Management.

Transforming Onboarding to Help Maximize Success

Transforming Onboarding to Help Maximize Success

Los Angeles-based Central Films North’s award-winning director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz captures the unwavering pride and devotion of a father in the touching spot “I Am Your Fan” for Special Olympics, out of Young & Rubicam Mexico. The spot depicts a footballer anxiously and gleefully awaiting the arrival of his first child—a boy. When the birth finally arrives, we see that though the child brings an unexpected surprise with her arrival, his love continues as strong as ever.

Creative Credits:
Client: Special Olympics
Agency: Young & Rubicam Mexico
Global Executive Creative Director: Tony Granger
Chief Executive Officer: Hector Fernandez
Chief Creative Officer: Saul Escobar
Creative Director/Copywriter: Manuel Guillen
Creative Director/Copywriter: Mario Vivanco
Regional Creative Director: Martin Goldberg
VP Account Director: Britta Dahl
Agency Producer: Bernardo Salum
Production Company: Central Films North
Director: Rodrigo Garcia Saiz
Executive Producer: Mauricio Francini
DP: Mateo Londono
Art Director: Oscar Carnicero
Post Production: Cluster Studio
Audio Producer: Benedicte Leclere