Category: Business and Marketing

Why I’m Rude on the Telephone

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Life, ThinkingLeave a comment

I’ve been working hard to be more courteous when speaking by telephone with customer representatives. As part of that effort, I’ve been reflecting on what drives me to be rude and sarcastic.

One important factor is that I rarely call up some large company for a happy purpose — it’s almost always a problem. Whatever has happened — a billing error, a product failure, a problem with an order — 90 percent of the time, it’s the company’s screw-up.

So, when I have to call customer support, it’s an interruption to my work, and I’m already primed for conflict. The pressure to respond with asperity mounts to the extent that the customer-service experience stinks — having to navigate through phone-menu options none of which apply, having to wait on hold, encountering a representative who can’t help me with the problem or is poorly trained or is not empowered by the company to do the right thing for the customer.

Fortunately, I’m usually able to maintain enough perspective to recognize that the customer representative is usually as much a victim of the company’s abysmal approach to customer experience as I am. Like most of us, the rep is just a poor soul trying to make a living within the limits of the reality they are presented with. Unless the rep is as incompetent or uninterested in the customer as their employer is — in such case, the individual might warrant some castigation.

I often take the opportunity of the interaction to ask the representative to pass along my feedback about what is wrong with their company’s customer relations. Like throwing a stone into the ocean, but who knows, someone might listen.

I would have to say that most of the time my experience with telephone customer service is negative, but normally that doesn’t justify mistreating the human being who is trying to help me.

ARB — 6 April 2012

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Infographic Shows US Solar Industry’s $1.9B Net Export Surplus

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Economics, Environment, Technology2 Comments

I thought this was an interesting and useful infographic highlighting the growing U.S. solar manufacturing business. Right now, it shows a $5.6 billion industry that imports $3.75 billion, for a $1.9 billion trade surplus.

I wrote something about the growth of the solar industry recently for ThomasNet Green & Clean — see “How Will U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Affect Expansion of Solar Energy?”

Infographic shows US solar industry trade surplus

AB — 15 September 2011

 

Infographic Maps Physicians’ Use of Online Communities

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Creativity, Health Care and Public Health, Infographics, InternetLeave a comment

Here’s an interesting infographic from Publicis Healthware International, a healthcare-focused communication firm based in Italy. I think this is interesting and potentially useful for marketers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and products and services directed at physicians — it gives some idea of how physicians are using social/professional media and identifies some of the trusted communities where they might be reached.

In an accompanying article, Publicis writes that

The proliferation of small and large communities is the result of physicians’ increasing need to share ideas and discuss clinical cases with colleagues in every part of the world.

The article categorizes physicians’ online social media (although “social” doesn’t necessarily express the purpose of these communities) in three ways:

  1. Specialty — focused on physician specialties and special interests — Publicis calls this “the long tail of physician communities”
  2. Location — country- or language-specific communities
  3. Trusted provider — communities that enjoy high confidence among physicians, such as those organized by professional societies
Following is the map/infographic. This image is reduced — you can click on it to link through to the full-sized original:

World map showing physicians' use of online communities

AB — 7 September 2011

Bad Economy – While They’re Moping Around, You Can Be Mopping Up

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, EconomicsLeave a comment

What I keep hearing is that businesses don’t want to expand, take risks, or hire new people because they don’t know what direction the economy’s going to go. Supposedly this fear turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, because most businesses are thinking the same way and nobody’s willing to get moving to generate more business in the economy.

I have to think that this represents an opportunity for businesses large and small that are willing to get off their butts and start doing something. While the competition is busy wringing their hands, you can be out gaining market share.

While the competition is skimping on their marketing budget, you can expand yours and gain more visibility in the marketplace.

While the competition is afraid to take risks and try new things, you can invest in some product development and market testing to get a new product out on the market at a discount rate.

Since the competition is afraid to hire new employees, you are in a position to hire someone good at a reasonable rate. What about taking on a part-timer? A paid intern? A promising young person with little hard experience? A bright, creative, diligent worker who only has a high-school degree? An older person who might appear “over-qualified” on paper but would love to have a great job working for you?

AB — 2 September 2011

Green Malls, SUVs, and Mansions? What’s Up With That?

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Environment, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

Tracey Schelmetic at ThomasNet Green & Clean today throws some much-needed cold water in the face of affluent consumers who think they are helping the environment by driving a hybrid SUV or building a 5,000-square-foot “green” house:

The Ford Escape Hybrid, considered the most fuel efficient hybrid SUV on the market, gets about 32 mpg combined. This is about the same as a Toyota Yaris with a traditional engine, and far below the efficiency of a Honda Civic Hybrid, which gets 42 mpg combined.

She also takes a swipe at Whole Foods, along with some comments that will please Trader Joe’s fans:

Sitting in opposition to Whole Foods is more environmentally minded chain Trader Joe’s, a company preferred by many eco-minded shoppers. Keeping an eye on the most important factor in a green business – building size – Trader Joe’s operates out of far smaller buildings. Stores tend to average between 8,000 and 12,000 square feet, compared to Whole Foods average store size of 50,000 to 80,000 square feet. Trader Joe’s also pledged to eliminate all GM foods from its shelves in 2001, and by next year will sell no seafood products that are not sustainably sourced.

AB — 2 August 2011

How to Talk About Climate Change

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Environment, Language and Linguistics, Thinking, World AffairsLeave a comment

The aspect of the climate change controversy (and other issues in public discourse) that intrigues me most of all is the ability of people on opposite sides to talk past each other. I say it intrigues me, but it also saddens me in a sense, as I value dialogue, engagement, and listening.

Partisan rhetoric seems designed to paint the other side as extremist and wicked. The rhetor seems willing to present an argument in a one-sided, deceptive manner so as to influence public sentiment and achieve a political agenda.

In the wrangling over climate change, the parties throw around terms like “anti-science,” “hoax,” “deniers,” “pseudo-science,” junk science,” and “anti-business,” trigger words that demonize the other side.

So I enjoyed reading Will J. Grant and Rod Lamberts’ post today over at The Conversation, “Who’s afraid of big, bad coal? Al Gore’s ‘climate reality’ is a pointless fairytale.” Grant and Lamberts’ post is a commentary on Gore’s new Climate Reality Project. They acknowledge that Gore’s project is “the kind of campaign that will do a lot for those who want to do something about climate change,” but feel that it will do “little for anyone else.” Their question is, “Where is the mechanism here that will finally get the unconverted or the hostile to agree with the need to take action on climate change?”

What most interested me was their criticism of Gore’s promotional video, in which he accuses “Big Oil” and “Big Coal” of evil manipulations. This is ridiculous, Grant and Lamberts write:

Those who got into the coal and oil industries did so for the simple goal of making a profit by providing us with the energy we need for the modern economy. They didn’t do it to be evil. They don’t want to destroy the world. They are not the nefarious oligarchs that so many would have you believe.

Yes, we now know that the carbon pollution produced by the coal and oil industries is a big problem for society. We all need to wean ourselves off such carbon intensive energy.

But we’re not going to do it by misrepresenting people’s intentions and calling them names. We’re not going to do it by punishing people who acted in good faith.

We’re only going to convince people to change by lining up their profit motive with everyone’s need for a low-carbon economy.

Seems like the kind of open, refreshing approach that can lead to actual dialogue over critical issues.

AB — 19 July 2011

When Green Gets Silly — Solar Bikinis and Eco-Bottles

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Environment, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

Solar bikiniA long time ago, I stopped telling people that I write about “green” issues (now I say “environmental”), because of just the sort of silliness David Sims highlights in today’s article at ThomasNet Green & Clean, “Green Products We Don’t Need — Solar Bikinis? Eco-Plastic Bottles?”

Sims writes,

Somehow we don’t think surveying a garbage dump’s worth of Poland Spring plastic water bottles with 30 percent less plastic and paper warms the hearts of diehard greenies. It’s a bit like marketing Big Macs to vegetarians by saying they’re now 30 percent soybean and only 70 percent meat.

AB — 1 July 2011

Are Speculative Bubbles Ever a Good Thing?

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Creativity, Economics, Innovation, TechnologyLeave a comment

Over at Bubbleconomics, I wrote recently about the effect of speculative bubbles on innovation — see “Speculative Bubbles: Good for Innovation?”

For a long time, I’ve thought that the so-called “Internet Bubble” from the 1990s was actually a good thing in many ways in that it sparked technology and business-model innovation and trained a generation in a new way of thinking about business and communication. Networking pioneer Bob Metcalfe agrees with me, as he says in a 2011 presentation:

We saw from the many Internet Era bubbles that investment, speculation, inflation, competition, and collapse are tools of innovators against the status quo. Bubbles accelerate technological innovation.

AB — 6 June 2011

The Coming Energy Internet

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Innovation, Technology, ThinkingLeave a comment

Over at ThomasNet Green & Clean, I’ve posted “Is an ‘Energy Internet’ Emerging?” I’ve included some insights from networking pioneer Bob Metcalfe, also Thomas L. Friedman and Jeremy Rifkin, as well as my own thinking about the increasingly networked energy grid.

In an email conversation, Metcalfe acknowledged to me that “energy can be viewed as a thermodynamics problem or a government policy problem,” but he thinks that ultimately  “it’s best instead to view energy as a networking problem.”

In a presentation, he gives a bit of history:

“While building Internet 1.0, the Arpanet,” during the 1970s, Metcalfe says in his presentation, “I remember this clearly, we did not say that our goal was YouTube.” And yet, “video is most of what the Internet now carries.”

So, he asks,

What will be energy’s YouTubes?

AB — 5 June 2011

SEO Angst: The Secret of Search Engine Optimization

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Human-Computer InteractionLeave a comment

Many who manage web sites invest great effort and expense in search engine optimization (SEO), the practice of optimizing the content and format of a site and its pages so as to attract the most search engine traffic.

SEO is important to online businesses, because qualified web traffic can translate into eyeballs (if a site sells advertising) or sales (if it’s an e-commerce site) or potential clients (if the site is run by, say, a consulting firm).

I’ve been around the practice of SEO for about 15 years (before it was even called SEO), and I’ve come to believe in a central truth about it:

If you want search engine traffic, the first thing you have to do is deserve it.

This means providing honest, substantive content.

This also means offering well-executed services and a customer experience that serves the visitor well.

This concept is approximately equivalent to customer-centeredness in marketing or user-centered design in software development. A business has to make a profit, try to grow, strive for market share — but business success in the long term is hard to come by without a strong customer focus, or user focus in the case of web traffic.

By all means, optimize your site for search engine traffic, but be aware that few businesses make it for very long by tricking Google.

Do what you can to direct web traffic to your site, but make sure you deserve it.

AB — 5 May 2011