By Shel Holtz I regularly develop an overview of news stories, posts, studies, and reports designed to help organizational communicators stay current on the trends and technology that affect their jobs. This post is an overview of all the stories that have caught my eye this week. You can read the full version here. News […]

– the book:  The Service Culture Handbook:  A Step-By-Step Guide To Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service, a practical guide on an important topic

– the brains:  Jeff Toister, customer service author, consultant, and trainer.  I met Jeff when we were both launching our first books — his was Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It — and I’ve enjoyed our friendship ever since.

– the best bits:  The Service Culture Handbook really is a handbook — it walks you through the steps to developing a customer-focused culture in your organization and refers you to a downloadable toolkit comprised of worksheets and guides for doing so.

After starting out by explaining how “culture is the key to outstanding customer service,” Jeff shows how to define your culture and then align your company’s service with your customer service vision through goals, hiring, training, empowering, and leadership.  Some of the best sound bites include:

“…Culture isn’t attributable to just one thing. There’s no single initiative that will magically get your employees to consistently make customer service a priority. Culture is the sum of all the things we do in an organization.”

“Every customer interaction is an opportunity for a hero moment or a service failure.”

“Trying to copy another company’s culture is an exercise in futility.  Every organization is unique.”

“Building the right culture is simply too much work for most companies.  The few that break through work at it every day.  They resist the urge to take shortcuts, and they stick with the initiative for the long-term.  These elite few companies understand that culture isn’t easy, and they embrace that challenge.”

– the brand story:   A highlight of the book is the story of Rackspace, the computer hosting company.  Jeff recounts the unexpected solution when an internal network outage shut down service to its 300,000+ customers.

Initiated first by a lone technical support agent who tweeted out his personal phone number, employees started reaching out to upset customers on Twitter and many used their personal cell phones to get customers on the phone and help them solve their problems.   This unconventional approach was born out of the company’s ingrained culture — an extraordinary brand of customer service it calls “Fanatical Support.”

Its “Fanatical Support Promise” reads:

We cannot promise that hardware won’t break, that software won’t fail, or that we will always be perfect.  What we can promise is that if something goes wrong, we will rise to the occasion, take action, and help resolve the issue.

Rackspace employees took the creativity and initiative to deliver on this promise at a critical moment when most other companies would simply have put up a service advisory on their website.  The story demonstrates the power of a customer service vision that is articulated with conviction and executed with commitment.

– the bottom line:  The Service Culture Handbook is a terrific resource for organizations that want to lead the field in customer service.

P.S.  At the risk of seeming too promotional, I want to mention that Jeff has an “Early Purchase Program” in which you receive lots of cool benefits if you buy the book by Friday, April 7, 2017, so if you’re interested in The Service Culture Handbook , I recommend getting it now.

related:

Uncontainable by Kip Tindell

Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer

Customer Service Ain’t What It Used to Be

The post brand book bites from The Service Culture Handbook appeared first on Denise Lee Yohn.

Every business owner is a dreamer, steeped in the belief that they can be, create, and deliver the very best. A new ad campaign from Dell Technologies and Y&R New York shows them how they can build a solid, vibrant reality from the magic of their dreams.

“Let’s Make It Real” is the first major campaign for newly formed Dell Technologies, now the largest enterprise technology company in the world.

The series of four television spots feature Jeffrey Wright, star of the HBO series Westworld. Tom Hooper, director of feature films including the Academy Award-winning “The King’s Speech,” directed.

“Magic is pretty amazing,” Wright says in the first spot, from his seat at a lavish performance theater, where a toad is transformed into a prince. “It can transform a frog into a prince, and sadness into ‘happily ever after.’ But it can’t transform your business.”

Then, from center stage, Wright highlights the work of Dell Technologies clients, transporting viewers via life-size, projection-mapped images and models to a hospital room, which technology has transformed into a global diagnostic network; an airplane hangar, housing a jet now powered by engines able to self-diagnose and send alerts about problems; and a dairy in India, where cows transmit their habits and health data by text message to farmers.

Each element in each of the television spots was chosen to demonstrate the Dell Technologies approach, down to the use of the projection mapping technique – creating complex visual effects using on-set, in-camera projection mapping technology – rather than the quicker, more common post-production CGI.

“We used projection mapping to bring some tangibility and create a visual language for all that Dell Technologies does and all the technology at work around us,” says Christian Carl, Y&R’s Global Executive Creative Director “Let’s Make It Real” is an invitation to customers to bring us their toughest problems and biggest challenges, so we can work together to make what might sound like fantasy, or the impossible, a reality,”

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Dell Technologies
Chief Marketing Officer – Jeremy Burton
SVP Global Brand and Creative – Liz Matthews
Director Brand Strategy and Advertising – Rachael Henke
Brand Strategy and Advertising- Valerie Daubert

Ad Agency: Y&R
Global Executive Creative Director – Christian Carl
Global Creative Director – Thomas Shim
Copywriter, Creative Director – Justin Ebert
Executive Producer – Bobby Jacques
Content Producer – Nicole Lederman
Sr Business Manager- Maggie Diaz
President, Global Technology & Business Practice – Joe Rivas
Account Director- Heather Hosey
Group Account Director – Rachel Krouse
Account Executive- George Rainaldi
Strategic Planning Director – Jenna Rounds

Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Tom Hooper
Co Founder: Brian Carmody
Executive Producer: Shannon Jones
DP: Justin Brown
Line Producer: Alex Lisee

Edit House: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor (It’s Not Magic): Adam Pertofsky
Editor (GE, Columbia, Chitale): Ted Guard
Executive Producer: Eve Kornblum
Producer: Jenny Greenfield

VFX: Framestore NY
Dez Macleod-Veilleux – Executive Producer
Maura Hurley – Senior Producer
David Mellor – Creative Director
Gigi Ng – Senior Flame Artist / VFX Supervisor
Georgios Cherouvim – Senior CG Lead
Dan Soloman – Senior Designer
Karch Coom – Senior Compositor
Callum McKeveny – Concept Designer / Senior Matte Painter

Color: Company 3
Colorist: Tim Masick

Sound: Sound Lounge
Mixer/Sound Designer – Tom Jucarone

Projection Mapping: Go2 Productions

Music: duotone audio group
Executive Producer: Ross Hopman
Creative Director: Jack Livesey
Producer: Gio Lobato

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Gents creates an Alpro brand momentum with the brand’s new campaign. The Ghent based communications boutique put together a smart campaign puzzle that consists of a series of recognisable and interchangeable lifestyle moments.

The brand’s multifaceted slices-of-life campaign claims a spot inside people’s hearts and eating habits through authentic and universal storytelling that centres around Alpro’s tasty variety of plant-based ingredients. No matter what kind of breakfast person you are, Alpro’s plant-based products made from nature’s most tasty ingredients offer everyone a pleasurable way to pursue a healthy lifestyle, starting at breakfast.

Gents creates a natural and green world made of plant-based ingredients such as coconut, almond, oat and soy, and underscores Alpro’s role in changing breakfast routines through inspiring and recognisable micro-moments. Gents produced a multitude of combinations with different micro-moments that showcase the many ways in which Alpro can fit everyone’s healthy lifestyle.

Alpro’s beloved cute and quirky brand characters reflect both the functional and emotional aspects of the Alpro brand. Each character represents one of Alpro’s unique plant-based ingredients: the active monkey represents coconut, the cheeky squirrel stands for almond, the strong deer for oat and the little smart owl represents soy. In their role of little helpers they facilitate tasty breakfast moments and reflect the vast variety of products.

“The brand campaign truly embodies the joy in the brand’s tagline ‘Enjoy Plant Power’. Alpro’s variety of tasty plant-based products have the power to excite and change consumers’ breakfast routines into smart, healthy and absolutely delicious new ways of eating”, says marketing director EMEA Gaëtan Van de Populiere who established a renewed focus on the delicious and natural taste of the plant-based products in this latest brand effort.

The new brand campaign also marks the birth of Alpro’s new audio branding. Gents conceptualised a crisp and lighthearted pop-song that tells the story of breaking with routines and getting ready for something new.

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Client— Alpro
VP Marketing & Innovation— Séverine Distave
Marketing Director EMEA—Gaëtan Van de Populiere
Senior International Communication Manager— Karlien Mestdagh
Agency— Gents
Creative Director— Tim Helsen
Creative Strategist— Sander Vanermen, Vincent Daenen
Account Director— Leen Van der Mijnsbrugge
Account Manager— Julie Bataillie
Production— The Breakfast Club
Postproduction, 3D & compositing— Nozon
Audio production— Audiothèque

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TMW Unlimited has created a candid digital campaign for Lynx about what it means to be a man in 2017.
The ‘Men In Progress’ campaign comprises of nine videos featuring a cross-section of British men talking honestly about a range of personal topics, from the last time they cried to how they feel about their body and even their relationships with their fathers.

The stripped-back, monochrome films put the viewer’s attention squarely on the men, their opinions and their stories.
The final film in the series, called ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, features professional boxer Anthony Joshua and footballer Bobby Petta. The film sees men talking about the last time they cried.

The 9-month long campaign has run across digital and social media platforms.
David Titman, Marketing Manager, Lynx, Unilever, said: “’Men In Progress’ was created to highlight what it means to be a guy living in the UK in 2017 and is designed to challenge labels that prevent men from expressing themselves.”

Jeff Bowerman, Creative Director at TMW Unlimited, said: “We’re proud to have created a space where men can talk freely about the pressures they feel to conform to a certain idea of masculinity, and to help debunk some of the myths around what it means to really be a man.”

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Creative Director Jeff Bowerman
Account Director Kathryn Bryan
Agency Producer Tracy Woodford
Director/ Production Co David Stoddart/Dark Energy
Media planning/buying Mindshare

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Trends Across Emerging Markets: Three To Watch In 2017 Emerging market economies pack a serious economic punch, but will they fire on all cylinders in 2017? At my research organization, The Conference Board, we project emerging markets to grow at a dismal 3.6% in 2017. Just above half the long-term average growth rate they achieved […]

By Sally Falkow The 2016 Aon Global Risk Management Survey that polled CEOs, CFOs and risk managers ranked damage to brand and reputation as a top concern, displacing the financial and economic risks that have traditionally dominated this survey in the past.  KPMG’s 2017 On the Board’s Agenda report also has crisis and reputation management […]

At a time when consumers continue to assume that brands will simply provide more, it may seem strange to suggest that brands should be more generous. And yet the case for brands delivering greater profits by bringing greater joy makes complete sense.

The concept of giving in order to receive was first raised here on Branding Strategy Insider several years ago. Reena Amos Dyes observed that as times become more difficult, people seek out care, empathy, sympathy and generosity. The writer suggested eight ways that organizations could do more to signal kindness and caring:

1. They could be more socially responsible, co-donating to causes that their customers also cared about;
2. They could make changes to their ways of working that actually boosted the environment instead of just limiting damage;
3. They could give things away;
4. They could help customers make better use of products;
5. They could offering new style perks that rewarded consumers in new ways;
6. They could offer more ways for customers to trial products before making purchase decisions;
7. They could engage in random acts of kindness; and
8. They could be warmer and more human in the ways they interact with people.

It’s a sign of just how quickly things change in marketing, and the extraordinary impacts of social media on customer interactions generally, that many of Dyes’ suggestions are now commonplace. In updating what the concept means today, Paige Lansing Valle has suggested that generosity is a powerful way of building bonds with consumers who now value authenticity and the contributions that brands are making to a better world.

Valle suggests that generosity today stems from purpose, uses social media to channel giving and creates a social halo where those that buy from brands that are seen as generous are in turn perceived as generous themselves. Furthermore, brands that engage in these ways to instigate change in the world take that push for change out into the world by building giving-communities that help people work together to achieve mutual goals.

There’s little doubt that social consciousness is emerging as a powerful purchase consideration factor, particularly among younger consumers. The challenge for brands today is to channel that commitment towards a better and more generous world without looking like they are taking advantage of shoppers’ idealism.

In a presentation to Retail’s Big Show earlier this year, Fitch Group’s Tim Greenhalgh pointed out that generosity encompasses more than giving away things. Generosity, he suggested, extends not just to things but also behaviors and experiences. Marketers’ earlier attempts at generosity were bait-and-switch. They talked to people’s love of a bargain, but what they lacked was the fundamental ability to move people emotionally. Today, experiences are the new currency of brands, and companies need to recognize that the generous provision of experiences is now elemental to brand building. What’s more, says Greenhalgh, brands that create experiences that customers judge to be extraordinary achieve financial returns that are more than double the market. Do this, he suggests, in four ways:

• Stand for something unique
• Deliver on your most important needs
• Have better digital services and truly engaging content
• Strive to make people’s lives better

For me, the take-away from these three viewpoints is that generosity is not something you get to judge and quantify as a brand. Generosity truly is in the eye of the receiver and in the community that the receiver is part of, because only they can decide whether what they are getting exceeds both what they expect and what others are prepared to give. And it’s not about largesse. The most generous doesn’t always win – especially if that gift is perceived to come with fish-hooks.

If you’re looking to infuse generosity into your brands in order to bring your customers closer, here are six ways to provide more in order to profit more:

1. Give your customers something to contribute to through buying from you. That contribution might be literal (like it is with TOMS) or it may be more abstract (in that it is linked to the support of an idea). Either way, it should deliver your customers a feel-good, do-good premium that uplifts them.

2. Bring customers together by instigating and supporting a community for good that enables people to celebrate what they are doing to change the world through your brand. That’s about more than having a Facebook page. It’s about proving real progress and engaging people to share what difference that progress is making for them.

3. Treat experiences as gifts rather than as gimmicks or promotions. Give because you want people to be happy through you – but, quid pro quo, tie your brand strongly to the distinctive emotion that the experience provides and appeal to that through your marketing. Too many marketers simply provide experiences that they haven’t linked back to their brand emotionally.

4. Meet a powerful need, powerfully and consistently. Too many brands pull on the heartstrings to attract interest, but then fail to carry that through into the long-term relationship. As a result, consumers feel they have met a brand that feels right to them, only to discover as they continue to interact, that the brand hasn’t translated that idea past that initial touchpoint.

5. Remind people of the difference you have made together. This isn’t about bragging or self-congratulations. It’s about quantifying what has happened in ways that consumers will react to with warmth and belief. Show how you are being a force for good in the world, and remind your customers that the more they do with you, the closer they get to a world they want to be part of.

6. Frame your generosity within commercial parameters. Brands that keep on giving simply change the expectations of their consumers, meaning generosity becomes the new everyday. To avoid this, understand where your business is going to be generous and how that will contribute to your bottom-line. But at the same time, know your limits.

Don’t Let The Future Leave Your Brand Behind. Join Us At The Un-Conference – Marketing’s Only Problem Solving Event. May 1st – 3rd, 2017 West Hollywood, California

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