So why in this day and age of proactive outspoken consumers, would a company not listen to their customer?  So many great things can happen when you listen and obey as a business owner (ask Dell who is finally getting it!):  loyalty, happiness which leads to viral marketing and therefore more customers, repeat business, better processes that lead to better time management which saves money…do I need to go on?

I have recently interfaced with 2 companies, one large and one local, that are so into their own existence that they forgot the customer matters.  For example, have you been to a Verizon store lately?  You walk in and speak to someone who punches your name into a computer so everyone in the store knows who you are…the manager and the sales reps don’t care but all of the customers now know who you are (maybe I should have given them Creative Concepts instead of Valorie Luther).  Then in my most recent experience in trying to make some slight admin changes, I got a customer service agent who tried to promise the world but forgot to write it in the account notes, I got a manager whose hands were tied and claimed he needed to fire the cust. svc rep for making undeliverable promises, I then went to another Verizon store who had “better management” where I got help from a woman who bared a little too much skin for the daytime.  Her big claim to fame was that basically the phones were all the same and the only difference was the rebates they get from the companies who produce the phones…are you kidding me??  Would David Pogue agree that all the phones are the same?  Needless to say I still haven’t gotten a new phone, can anyone help me?

Now on a more local note, my daughter signed up for Jazz Tap dance class at D’Valda & Sirico Dance and Music Centre in Fairfield.  A couple of facts: they make you sign up for a year, my daughter is 6…guess what, she hates Jazz Tap now.  A company that cares about repeat business would understand that it would be hard for a 6 year old to commit to a year of the unknown…a nice local business would understand the dilemma of the parent and give a rebate or refund…not these guys…the only thing said was, “did you read the fine print on the contract?”  NO REBATES!  Wow how lovely….I can only wish them the best because they aren’t going to see me again and I will for sure use the power of viral marketing and tell everyone I know to not go there.  Did I mention they do a big performance at the end of each year that costs $$ for each little precious star?  Did I tell you that they quit teaching the kids new dances so they can practice for months the few steps they have been taught so their parents think they are dancing geniuses?  Did I tell you that a 5 year old, after spending hours waiting for her limited time on stage, was let go into a the lobby only to find hordes of adults where none of them were her parents (much crying ensued as you can imagine)? 

I think that customer service has been left behind or never thought of for many businesses both big and small so maybe top management can think of customer service as a marketing tool to be used to bring in more customers and more money…do you think if “the customer always comes first” is portrayed as “please the customer on all levels and you wil never have to worry about your business profits again” that will get some attention?  Just curious!!

 

Just returned from the Techcrunch Meetup. Jeanne, the event organizer, and Jennifer, the Techcrunch business manager, were awesome to work with! The event was a hit, the sponsors happy (especially HitTail), and the party smooth. Mike Arrington wasn’t used to a loud New York crowd and didn’t want to take the elevator but he made his way just fine anyway.

In case people don’t know who Creative Concepts is, we are an East Coast based PR and Marketing firm working with the  social media tools (check out the Bigelow Tea blog in its infancy), so if you are a tech startup anywhere and you want to reach out to our coast, we can help you. If you want to reach out to the corporate sector, we can help you do it with the Business Smart Tools Conference.

Sorry Mike Dunn that you missed it, but Greg Verdino, John Boehmer and Elizabeth Tarbell, it was great to see you and thanks Erin and Michelle for a job well done!

Pictures tomorrow.

This is a day that is truly exciting in the PR and Marketing arena!

Heading down to Greenwich shortly to the Greenwich Chamber’s Redman Hall to hear Jim Zebora speak. He is the Business Editor for The Advocate/Greenwich Time newspapers. I have pitched everything from blogging to a new business featuring a Greenwich resident who provides a community calendar for the area, Vivapop.com, and he seemed interested but the stories never took off. I was grateful though when he sent a reporter to our Business Smart Tools Conference in Stamford. In person “meetups” are always good and so I am heading in his direction to shake his hand.

Speaking of “meetups”…after Greenwich I am then heading into NYC to BEDNY for the Techcrunch Meetup where we are one of the sponsors and event managers. This party is the first of its kind in New York! It is a wild scene with people scratching and clawing to get in any which way they can…one AOL employee had to complain on Vallyewag in order to get attention from the infamous Mike Arrington.

For those who will make it up the elevator and past the check in desk, they will encounter very cool sponsors, live demos, food and drink, videos and music, a speech or two, and lots of networking…see you all there and look for the scoop tomorrow!

Being in the middle of setting up corporate blogs has afforded me some interesting experiences.  So far this week I have had to temporarily bring down a site because of hosting issues, I have had to meet with an IT department who were a joy, I had to fend off a designer who is young, easy to anger, and very unprofessional, and I met two new clients who want a blog and don’t know where to begin.  My conclusion?  Blogging has hit the maintstream and now it seems that it is business as usual (doesn’t everyone deal with issues like these every day?).

Went to OMMA today and was pleasantly surprised.  Heard from Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo (what a smart and funny guy with lots of common sense), Ross Levinsohn, President, Fox Interactive Media who I had read about…was impressed then and impressed now by his gut instincts and his ability to move quickly and smartly into the digital age.  We all broke out into mini sessions where my favorite moment of the day came during the “Creative that makes friends with Social networks” where Henry Copeland, CEO, Blogads moderated…smart comments came from Sandy Marks on political campaigns online (she made statements like “you can create a sexy ad with click throughs but once the viewer has clicked are they finding what they are truly looking for or was the image/copy a ruse to get some fleeting attention from the viewer that in the long run doesn’t make sense (or get business or votes) for the client”) and Frank Radice, SVP The NBC Agency (the inhouse agency for NBC) said that less copy, more images and video makes for a strong presense on the web and can drive online users to TV which is a new equation for many to think about.

So the cool thing that I have concluded on my own especially after today is that this social media new digital age has leveled the playing field which is something to take advantage of.  All ages have entered the race and all backgrounds, men and women….it takes passion, thinking out of the box and flexibility to make something happen.  The truly creative, the truly hard working and the great listeners of the world will be able to make something of this new media.  It is very cool to be a part of this change in media and communications!!

So, over August life was too crazy to blog on a regular basis. Between proposals (yes, new media proposals) and vacation with the family, I couldn’t find the time to blog worthwhile entries….so I let it go.

An unexpected experiment took place. I figured that the ones who do follow my blog would disappear into the wild blue yonder never to return. Quite the contrary happened. As I was checking in on my performancing metrics, I noticed that I had more visitors than in the past much to my amazement. I was stunned and happy at the same time for I had discovered something else about blogging.

Here is my conclusion to my experiment (that took place by accident): if you write entries that are filled with interesting subjects and facts, the blog is timeless. Despite dates and times being posted everywhere, general thoughts and conclusions on all kinds of subject matter are searched for and found whether they were written yesterday or 6 months ago. People want information, people are looking for experts on all kinds of subject matter, people want to know things from other people!

Now for those who report on the latest discoveries like Techcrunch, up to date blogging is essential but for blogs like Shel Israel’s Naked Conversations where he investigates, reports and makes conclusions about marketing, pr, new media and more, Shel’s entries are invaluable and timeless…I can almost bet that what he has to say today could teach me a thing or two a year from now.

“Yet another calendar” is what I am seeing from many in the blogosphere who aren’t taking the time to look at Vivapop closely…not having to search the web for info about your favorite organizations is a time saver because it is all within Vivapop for the beta city of Greenwich, CT (and nationwide before too long)…being able to download specific info into my calendar (my daughter takes ballet on Tuesdays at 4 or I want to see the ballet on 10/14 in NYC) is huge, being able to share this calendar with the rest of the family or friends is advatageous, sync and phone access help too….and for a premier advertiser who has something truly special to offer:  interested eyeballs…and for business people who need to market themselves/products/services, again, have interested eyeballs searching for info on insurance companies, banks, financial advisors or whatever within the merchant calendars…come on, the Vivapop list of features is growing and it comes from the founder and developer Elizabeth Tarbell living a busy life with family and career…this is useful and good stuff!

Hello all…haven’t blogged in quite some time because some new and wonderful clients are keeping all of us at Creative Concepts busy.  One new vivacious client I will reveal next week after it debuts on the web on various sites but before then let me not hold back by announcing that R C Bigelow Inc has decided to surf and ride the new media wave.  Bravo to them. 

They have hired Creative Concepts to help them navigate through the emerging media stream of potential and while we are introducing new options, we are also very mindful of protecting their hard earned solid reputation.  I say this not because the options out there don’t offer tons of opportunity but more because some bottom feeders are skimming the surface to find their prey (Bigelow Tea was approached by a game company who wanted to make a very shady deal (and yet they presented themselves so nicely)). 

How is a company to know about such things unless they have a consultantcy on board like Creative Concepts?  Well they may not have the resources to know so good for Bigelow for expanding their outreach and protecting their assets at the same time!

Look for more from Bigelow in the not so distant future…until then, welcome aboard!

 

Got a mailer yesterday which I found interesting because it falls into the same category as my last entry which is, in my words, the power of the internet is unleashing the dregs of the earth and the con artists. 

This flyer said “Valorie gets a free conference invitation to learn how to earn income by attending the internet training conference.”  They have logos from ebay, yahoo, google and msn. 

At first you think wow here is something that could be interesting but when you look closer and see that the only contact is an 800# (with no website to check them out…hey wait, I thought they were internet based!) and that the confernece is at a Holiday Inn (sorry holiday inn) and that you get a free business organizer that has actual hard copy pages in it, then you must know it is a scam.

Does ebay know about them?  Does google know about them?  Does yahoo know about them?  How about MSN?  I don’t think so!

For a legitimate learning experience, you can attend the Business Smart Tools Conference where legit companies come and speak on how they are using the internet to gain more exposure and to bring on more clients.  GE, Hearst, BusinessWeek to name a few are supporters of this conference.  Xeorx is speaking next year.

You can also call Creative Concepts directly to learn more about social media and public relations and how you can leverage the internet to futher your business goals.

My team and I, Valorie Luther, will work with you to not only investigate all of the opportunities existing for you but we will also work hard to preserve your hard earned reputation by making the right choices for your firm.

Call 203.259.4202 or email info@creative-conceptsllc.com.  We are in Fairfield, Ct but can work with you wherever you are…we are virtual and international!

Ran into a PR firm who tried to play the social media game…they used buzz words in their client plan like “blog” and “viral marketing” without fully understanding the meaning or approach (look up the words at least so you know the definition)…ran into a company (many times) who says they have social media tools like video emails but all they want to do is create a pyramid scheme so they can make money off of your selling their product vs. their product being the answer to a business dilemma (Joe, you are loosing the quality race and in time will feel the affects of signing on the helpless and naive).

I have 2 points to make:  Social Media has now hit a new level of power and success because the bottom feeders, as my associate David Parmet calls them, are rising to the surface and trying to make money. 

My second point is why do so many PR people have to bullshit their way through the door….if they know something (please, anything at all), then stick to that or go out and learn a thing or two, practice it and then bring it to the customer. 

One of my goals is that Creative Concepts will change the face of PR!  The client will pay for actual work completed vs. paying for lots of empty words that amount to nothing.  CC isn’t going to lie and say we know how to do something if we have no idea.  If we have no idea about a topic or business direction, then we go out and educate ourselves to the point of becoming experts so we can pass on the knowledge so we can support our clients and vendors which always leads to a strong partnership!

There are so many PR firms out there who have frustrated and annoyed clients (did you know that your clients were feeling this way?  Did you ask?).  Creative Concepts will create positive buzz about the PR industry one client at a time.

On a side bar, I saw a study done by BzzAgent who says that word of mouth (for the above PR firm mentioned by me, this is “viral marketing”) hinges on quality not novelty.  Thank god, I always hope for the best to rise above!  People move towards the best of anything instinctively (the best movies, the best clothes, the best cars… have longer staying power) and so when you have a superior product, it is only a matter of time before the word gets out and stays out!

Quality always wins the race no matter how long that race can take.  Creative Concepts is here to stay!!