The People Business - Highly Profitable

"Things change. People don´t"
"Companies don´t do business with other companies. People do business with people"
Two phrases that have stuck with me for years.

As human beings we have our personalities and our values. Those are difficult things to change.
Meanwhile we see the world as we know it, change around us every second. New apps, tools, ways of doing business pop up around us as we speak and we´ll pick them up, try them out, see what works...

Our basic values that most of us share, haven´t changed...and will not change. Things like wanting to be treated well, appreciating good customer service, wanting to be loved, smiling when somebody presents us a great deal.
But what have changed and even more - will KEEP ON changing is the environment, the place where we spend time, the places where we do business, the platforms we use, the approach we take.
Companies and businesses that don´t adapt these changes will lose, period. Companies that don´t understand the value of changing to meet the customers needs will go out of business.

As a customer I now have more choices where to spend my money than ever before. I can pick in between 100 types of cereals in the food market, 10 places to buy my cocktail dress, 20 different gyms to do my spinning lessons and hundreds of restaurants to have dinner on a Friday night.
Each of them can set up a Facebook page or a blog in a matter of minutes, but not each of them will show me that they care and that they are willing to step up for me as a customer. Far from all of them know how to change the way they do business to fit the customers needs.


It´s true that the customers are more in power than ever before, but we are still human beings with feelings and empathy. That said if a company surprises me and gives me something extra to do business with them I DO feel like I owe them a little bit of my time or money. It´s an opening to give me a first sweet taste of that the company is about, what´s their mentality, are they NICE PEOPLE?
Behind that desk is there a person doing her job just because of the monthly paycheck or is there harmony and love in this house?
That guy in the super market yesterday, who helped me find exactly what I was looking for, I simply COULD NOT walk out without buying something, even though my initial intention was to just have a look. He really wanted to help me find what I was looking for.

I got a free invitation to try out a new gym (DIR Tusets) the other day and not just that, the nice girl at the reception called me up and said I could come back and try it out for free again, anytime I wanted to!

On the other hand I bought a pair of 200 eur headphones (Beats By Dre) 2 weeks ago and signed a 3 year insurance with FNAC (where I bought the headphones).
A small accessory part that probably costs 5-10 eur (the ear hooks) broke in the moment of putting them on and neither the FNAC or the brand (MONSTER) offered any type of help. Makes it highly UNLIKELY I will recommend this brand or the store to anyone I know. Makes it LIKELY I will feel the need to spread the word to warn other customers by tweeting or posting on Facebook about it, remembering every time I pass the store "This place does not deserve my time or my money".

Think about the small cost for them to get my blessings and loyalty and the massive damage this treatment can cost them if they pass on me.
The gym will get my sweet words, a blog post and possibly a new customer.

The customers are in charge and we want basic things in a complex and technological environment.
The trick for businesses is to figure out that environment and combine it with the voice and atmosphere of people.

This is a mentality that businesses have to adapt.
It´s about the details, the small things, the points that make the business human. Because people do business with people.Tweet

L´Oreal Social Media Fail

There is this nail-polish that I always buy in Sweden and yesterday I decided that it´s ridiculous of me to have to buy it in Sweden when the brand is L´oreal which I should easily be able to find in a metropolitan city as Barcelona.
Let´s quickly examine how I did this, from the point of view of any typical customer. Oh well, the average customer may not blog about it but he/she would probably do what I did at first. 


1. Go to the web page


Guys is it just me or does this web page have the most ancient look ever. Check out the small boxes on the right side, awful. http://www.loreal.es
I try to find my nail polish but it´s nowhere to be found.
Nowhere on this web page exists any type of CONTACT tab. But all of a sudden I notice the Twitter icon at the button. Great I think, this means they are active on Twitter so I will be able to buy my nail polish as soon as tonight (cus everyone knows that a corporate Twitter account can not wait more than maximum 3 hours to answer a customer request).


2. I click on the Twitter icon and what pops up is the L´oreal Press account. Huuuhh? I think, Ok not what I expected but a Tweet account is always a Tweet account. I tweet them and they answer 12 hours later.
They tell me: We will answer any questions or doubts via this email address.
Here I get a bit put off and I´m thinking, Yeeez couldn't they just have answered me right there on Twitter. After all what I´m asking for is a store in Barcelona who sells L´oreal products. It´s not brain surgery.


3. I send an email to the email address and get an answer 2 hours later. Saying: Thanks for your email, we would love to answer your questions but it requires you to call a number and speak to us personally. Let´s reflect here for a second. Wouldn´t it be much cheaper and easier for them to just answer me with less than 140 letters in the form of a tweet. Sending out a personal letter? Who knows, maybe I will receive a paper letter too?

I´ll pass on this and I´ll move over to another brand. Simplicity folks, is what counts. We live in a society that moves fast. You have my attention for a quick moment. Catch me don´t lose me!

Tweet

It´s the CLIENTS world!

These are no news for you social savvy americans who have been first with all of this looong time ago but in Spain NOW is when the climate is starting to shift. Now is when the power is starting to go to the client, Now is when the companies here are starting to realize what this new world means. And they are terrified. They are hiring "social media managers" and "community managers" from the streets, people who claim to know what the hell they´re talking about just because they´ve been working at a media agency for 35 years.

The reason why I´m writing this post today is because I have 3 interesting case studies that have happened to me recently.
I bought an iMac about a year ago and it broke down 3 months later. I was frustrated when the Apple store didn't help me properly and when they ignored my delicate situation. I thought that 3 weeks in service was too long, I thought they should have supplied me with a computer during that time of waiting, I thought they should have explained better the Office package that I bought and that wasn't adequate for me. I thought many things, and I tweeted about it. ALOT.
It took the head quarters 3 days or so to realize they had an angry customer telling everyone to not buy things from K-tuin.
They called me up, apologized and almost rolled out a red carpet for me when I returned to the store to pick up my computer.

Next case.
A week ago my Sennheiser headphones stopped working, FOR THE 4TH TIME!
I have no problem paying good money for quality. I also understand that things break. Further more I do understand that I cant swim with my headphones so I´m not mistreating them in any way.
So after having returned the 100 eur headphones 3 times to the store I was fed up. FED UP with capital letters. Not only is the service place located on the other side of Barcelona, but a part from that I dont own a moto and I dont have time to go there, simple.
So I posted an angry post on their Facebook page. It took exactly 3 hours for Sennheiser North America to answer and 48 hours for the local Sennheiser service center in Barcelona to send me a new pair.

Next case.

We recently moved to a new apartment. I am 100% dependent on internet to do my job well. Therefore the first thing we did was ordering internet and telephone services, from Orange.
One week passed and we called them, "Hey, is someone going to contact us so we can get this installed?" "Oh Sir, it can take up to 2 weeks" Hm, ok...Oh well we kept waiting.
One week later we called again, "Seriously, when is someone going to come to install the phone line and internet??" "Oh Sir, it can take up to 20 more days" SAY WHAT?!!??? 20 MORE days are you kidding me??? Thats like 2 months including the weekends if we calculate from the day we ordered it. Should it really have to take that long?! Dont they WANT to earn money? A new customer, asking to pay them for their services and they sit on their asses and wait? NO WONDER THIS COUNTRY IS IN CRISIS. People just dont wanna work.

So what do you think I did? Yes you´re right, I tweeted about it. It took Orange less than 60 seconds to detect my tweet from their Tweetdeck app and they answered me. Lets see if we can have some internet at home soon.

So, conclusion folks? Its a clients market. We have the option to say what we want and pick what we want. This is the way it should be but in countries like Spain it hasn't been that way. Here to get in touch with a company you would have to call, sit in line for 3 hours, call back since after 3 hours you would find out the person in charge is out having a coffee, then wait 2 weeks since there would be some stupid public holiday in the mix that would make it more difficult.

YES I am a bit fed up.
Cheers people.Tweet