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Meanwhile, Back on the Customer Service Hobby Horse
Hello restaurant owners. Look at your business. Now back to me. Now back at your business. Now back to me.
Sadly, a professional is not running your restaurant. But, if you started doing the following things, it could look like it.
Look down, now back up. Where are you? You’re in the lobby, with the woman your business could feed.
What’s in your hand. Back at me. I have it! It’s a blog post with a list of things customers love.
Look again. The list is now cash.
Anything is possible when your business does what the customer wants.
I’m on a hobby-horse.
Fix the coffee machine
Don’t tell me the coffee machine’s broken. I. Don’t. Care. Fix it.
Have the manager ring me
I’m trying to organise a room booking, with catering. Suggest that you will take my details and have the manager ring me. Don’t make me squeeze it out of you!
Clean the joint
My house/car/dog’s den is cleaner that your mangy little establishment. I will never again darken its door. Think!
Would you eat there? Cleanliness is next to profitableness.
Employ enough staff
I’ve been recently told by a supplier that they’d have to bring in more staff to deal with my booking. This is correct.
Doing something out of the ordinary normally requires effort. (This particular discussion involved a frustrating chat over whether someone was willing to open a little earlier than normal. The income, from previous meetings was £100 for half an hour’s work, plus double that on top, if people stayed to order more. The person would cost £8 to bring in for that half hour.)
Conduct a brief cost-benefit analysis, before you turn down regular income.
Learn what a croissant is
I’m standing in a hotel. You do 5-course meals. You do luxury accommodation. You do conferences and weddings.
I’m only asking for a miserly accompaniment to my cup of tea. (Second thoughts, I’m off down the road to a larger, national chain. Are you worried!? Nah.)
Take responsibility
If something is wrong, I suggest that you pick up that sword of responsibility and wield it to crush my problem.
A nice Earl Grey and brownie will suffice – while I wait.
Behaviour That Leaves Money on the Table
- Ignoring me as I stand at the door, waiting to be served. This tells me that my custom is not wanted, and my time is less important than yours. My internal 50 second buzzer is ticking…
- Supplying double the amount to make up for its awfulness. Second prize, one pathetic, shop-bought scone, with squirty cream. (Incidentally, they were lifted from the uncovered basket with bare hands. The milk jug wasn’t clean either…) First prize, two pathetic, shop-bought… (you get the drift)
- Responding to my complaint, without apologising. This tells me you’ve acknowledged receipt of my complaint, but you’re not embarrassed by the fallout. Make contact, apologise, and offer a refund.
We’ve blogged about Northern Ireland customer service on many occasions. As a service provider, what are you doing to make things better? We’d love to hear how you turned your business around, by implementing some simple customer service principles.
Places Worth a Second Visit
- TGI Fridays – table attendants introduce themselves before serving you with an American-style cheerfulness
- The Parlour Bar – the staff were impressively welcoming, offering a tour and discussion for catering options
- The Galley Cafe – the food is tasty and well-presented, uniquely situated
Read additional reviews with customer service comments.
If you own a customer-facing food business, and you want to increase sales, via a tailored Customer Experience Management programme, get in touch.
Image credit: kankan.
PowerPoint, Politics and Profit
According to BBC news, “There’s a new political party in Switzerland and its sole aim is to have the PowerPoint presentation outlawed.”
Actually, no, it isn’t. Its real aim is to make “a bit of money” from it.
According to Anti PowerPoint Party’s website, the nefarious MS presentation software costs the Swiss economy $2.5 billion (US) annually in wasted time and miscommunication. So from this perspective the party’s political cause is one of economic efficiency and business development.
But there is more to it that that. The Anti PowerPoint Party’s founder and president – Matthias Poehm – is a public speaking trainer with a business and a book on the subject to promote. Forming his party has gained him international publicity on his specialist subject. And all for the relatively minor cost of registering his party with the relevant authorities. Once the word was out, those kindly media people did the rest. Nice.
I like to think of this as The Die Hard Strategy – using politics for the sake of business. In the first and third films of the same name, two brothers posed as political terrorists while they tried to steal vast amounts of money for supposedly idealistic reasons. In fact, the political posturing was bogus. They just wanted the cash, thanks very much. Who wouldn’t?
The inner evil genius in me appreciates this tactic. It constitutes a fresh twist and turnaround in the usual plot-line, the real-life one where politicians use the economy to further their own personal and party power-base. But, as my favorite films critic Mark Kermode would put it, “here’s the thing”.
Politics does not produce or create value. Business does that. They need us more than we need them. They exist for us, not us for them. So let’s use them for what they can do for us. Let’s employ politics as part of our marketing strategy. Maybe then politics can find a sufficient reason to exist.
So ask yourself this. If you had to form a single-issue political party in order to promote your business interests, what would it be?
Here at Sensei, one of our services is to provide training is business writing as well as write, edit and proofread all types of business documentation. We’re so passionate about good writing that we have even formed our own professional writer’s network called ScribeTribe. We support the Clear English Campaign and hate jargon.
So maybe we could form a party called the Anti Business Speak Party (or the Anti BS Party!). After all, according to the BBC again, spelling mistakes cost millions in lost online sales. Workplace jargon ‘isolates staff’ according to Investors in People. There are many good reasons to avoid business jargon and acronyms in communications.
So come on, comrades. Put on your cloth caps and think of how you could use politics to advance the cause of your beloved business.
Image credit: geetesh.
Pecha Kucha Night Belfast
Allen and I attended Pecha Kucha Night Belfast tonight, as part of Belfast Book Festival.
The Storytelling theme attracted our attention.
What is it?
The formula was a new one on me. This is taken from the PechaKucha website:
PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.
It was indeed a fast-moving series of fascinating, sometimes confusing, rambling, varied presentations loosely based around the theme. Some shared information; most told stories or shared ideas, opinions, passions on book format, design, font, imagery, sculpture, art, thoughts, childhood, business and more…
I liked it.
Find a Way or Make One
Hannibal, a 3BC military leader, when faced with an apparently insurmountable problem – the Alps – said:
In his mind, the answer to an obstacle in the path and the lack of means to overcome it was not to retreat, surrender, or wail. How can we imbibe some of his grit?
- Quit moaning and do something productive toward your goal instead.
- Stop agonising over the negative comments of idiots.
- Spend less time with those whose vocabularly is frequented by can’t.
- Avoid following others. Become an inventor. And, get the news out there.
- Don’t give up at the first failure.
- Take advice from experienced people, but don’t be afraid to ignore it.
- Trust your gut.
I’m a fan of jumping in at the deep end.
Image credit: antmoose.
Business-Speak at The Apprentice #1
Following hot on the heels of The 10 Worst Business Phrases of All Time and The 8 Worst Written Business Phrases of All Time, we begin a new series on The Apprentice, focusing mainly on the contenders’ communication skills.
Series 7 is under way. The first episode on the current series was shown on 10 May. Catch up on the first two episodes of The Apprentice. Then, come back and join the debate here.
Allegedly, the Alan Sugar’s apprentices have been selected from the country’s top minds and sharpest entrepreneurial figures. And, what do we get? Read on.
Spoiler Alert: the first two episodes, including who got fired, are discussed below. And, you can read more on BBC – The Apprentice.
Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit, when there are footsteps on the moon.
Surely, we think, they’re joking. I think the less drivel-spouting contestants may be able to survive the barrage of drivel by adopting some of Sarcastics Anonymous. It’s a simple strategy (oh no, there’s another buzz-word!).
Either that, or I volunteer to run a five-minute workshop, to help contestants understand the concept of a metaphor.
Edward, who was fired in episode 1, seemed a likeable-enough guy, yet his mouth seemed to run away with him. I counted three instances of the following phrase, within as many minutes.
You’ve just got to roll with the punches.
And, in defence of his action throughout that week’s task…
Not only am I the youngest in the team, I’m the shortest…
The others up for firing in the episode remained strangely controlled, revealing only the briefest of smirks.
His failure? It came down to an inability to express himself clearly or succinctly. Lord Sugar is known for curtailing pontificators, mercilessly.
Alex was fired in episode 2. I blame the Welsh sideburns – that’s all I have to say on the matter.
Most bizarre moment
Edna’s gloves distracted from what she was trying to say throughout her pitch.
Star of the show so far: Jim Eastwood
At Sensei Towers, our money is on the man from Cookstown, Jim Eastwood. He’s referred to variously on the hilarious Apprentice Twitter streams as SoupMan, or as Allen prefers, JediJim. Follow the brutal – but entertaining – live tweeting on The Apprentice.
Noobs may find the following useful:
PM Project manager.
“Group hug!” Let’s indulge in some corporate bonding for the cameras.
OK, guys, let’s strategise We need to figure out what the heck we’re doing before the car reaches the market stall. Oh, we’re here.
Roll with the punches. Keep your chin up, even when you know you’ve in way over your head.
Are you following? If so, have you formed any opinions yet on who might win? Or, who might be fired next? Answers on a comment below.
Image credit: jamescronin.
12 Great Online Locations to Promote Your Event
The following list is compiled from ways in which we have used online tools to help promote events. (Don’t forget the offline stuff too. Blog post in the making…)
It makes sense that if you’re using Twitter already, you tweet information and links to events you’re running or helping to promote.
- Tweet often. People who are online at 07:30am may not be online at 3pm, or 10pm. Experiment, to see which times get the best results. You can measure this in simple ways, by engagament (i.e. Replies, Mentions and Retweets) or by using a URL shortener for example, such as Ow.ly (an URL shortener and link visit tracker).
- Experiment with different phrases. As people expand the number of Twitter users they follow, things become unmanagable. This is where tools such as Tweetkdeck and Hootsuite play a role in helping users filter tweets for keywords. As you might expect, not everyone follows the same keywords as may be obvious to you.
- If you’re not already on Twitter and open an account solely to promote a single event, don’t expect too many bookings. People like to get to know you first.
Also, take a tour of Twitter for Business, to learn about other promotional tools.
Your Own Website
There is no better place to promote an event than your own website.
- Twitter aside (in our case), it is probably the source of the majority of visitors to your event booking page.
- Remember to use Google Analytics, or some other website statistics package, to record the source of all visits.
We’ve already blogged How to Use Facebook to Promote an Event, but there’s no harm mentioning this again. (Remember to come back once you’ve read this post.)
Eventbrite
The three best things about Eventbrite are:
Event invitation, booking, payment, reminder and notifcation management
OK, that’s five. 
But, this (almost free) application is worth its weight in handbags. See Eventbrite pricing for further details.
- Automate sending of invitations, notifcations and reminders (including complimentary tickets) to a pre-existing list of contacts
- Take bookings – with multiple payment options – online
Tracking links
- Would you like to be able to see which online marketing effforts are sending most links to your booking page?
- Would you like to identify which affiliates are sharing your links more effectively than others?
- Would it help focus future marketing events if you could see which tracked links were ineffective?
Customisation
There are buckets of customisation options in Eventbrite. One of my favourites is the facility to create ticket forms, widgets like this one, calendars and links to promote your event with a clean, professional look.
WhatsOnNI
Register and add your event (free) to WhatsOnNI.com. Events are uploaded along with an image and approved on the same day.
Email Newsletter
Using a legitimate email contact list, sign up to Mailchimp today. I’ve surveyed the best of the rest, and this is the one that was consistently easy to use and written with non-tecchies in mind.
Advantage NI
Advantage shares Northern Ireland news and events and has a Business Directory that you can add your details to. Register with Advantage NI to being making use of the website’s promotional facilities.
InvestNI
NI Business Info is an InvestNI webiste where you can read crucial business information and view business events in Northern Ireland. Register with NI Business Info, to begin accessing information and sharing events.
SyncNI
SyncNI publishes a Northern Ireland business calendar listing varying types of events, though its focus is business, technology, science and innovation. Register with SyncNI (for free) to list business events, post news, share press releases and blog posts.
Addictive Creatives
Addictive Creatives lists news and Northern Ireland creative events. Contact Addictive Creatives with details of your event.
LinkedIn Events
You can add LinkedIn Events as long as you already have a LinkedIn profile. Like Facebook, you, attendees and other interested parties can add their name to the list. You can also send invitations to anyone in your contact list.
Business Events Hub
The Business Events Hub Facebook page is added to regularly by business people sharing and promoting events. As long as you already have a Facebook profile, you can Like the Page, then share links to events.
Limitless Movie Review
So I saw Bradley ‘Faceman’ Cooper’s new movie Limitless on Saturday night. It’s about a washed-up writer dude who gets a cutting-edge pill that multiplies his IQ into a four digit figure… with dark consequences. “I wonder what you made of it?”, I hear you think. Well, wonder no more.
First, the movie. Bradley Cooper was funny in The Hangover, or rather the movie was funny around him. He just did his pretty-boy thang, but at least he was prepared to send himself up a little. Then comes The A-Team, with more pretty-boy antics, too much Cooper and not enough Sharlto Copley, and the sweet cologne of typecasting lingering in every frame.
In Limitless, Copper raises his game. Apparently, he can act after all. The transformations between him without the pill and on the pill are impressive, backed up by sharp dialogue and the mere presence of Bobby De Niro on set. More fundamentally, I can’t think of a film that shares a similar premise (except possibly The Lawnmower Man). I deeply appreciate this fact – most of the movies I’ve seen recently seem ripoffs or hybrids of other movies ’til I want to scream.
Next, the idea. Is it possible to radically increase your brainpower in the way the film shows?
Apart from dubious ‘brain training’ type activities, there are three advanced ways to enhance human nature: genetic engineering, neural implants, or performance enhancing drugs. The drugs aren’t just limited to the physical realm. When applied to mental capacities – like memory, motivation, and attention – they are known as nootropics.
The net is already alive with debate about whether Limitless provides a glimpse of our future. Some pharmaceutical companies seem to be using the film to raise awareness of products they already have on offer. While some offer ethical or scientific objections to this scenario, my questions are practical.
OK, so suppose you can boost some dude’s IQ from average to genius. Fact – that won’t make him successful.
As Malcolm Gladwell shows in Outliers, someone – Chris Langan to be exact – can possess an IQ off the charts but still not have the breaks/and or inter-personal skills to climb the greasy ladder of success. EQ trumps IQ as a success factor every time, once IQ has reached a mildly-above-average 120. And EQ can be raised; IQ is stagnant.
Again, suppose you can give a dude a ‘photographic memory’. Is that an advantage?
Again, not really. Properly called ‘eidetic memory‘, a photographic memory may be linked to conditions like autism and synesthesia. Famous sufferers – like Solomon Shereshevsky – have found it more of a curse than a blessing. It might help you pass fact-based exams or remember people’s names; it will not help you interpret those facts or get on well with those people.
So the drugs don’t work, even if they did exist. If you want to become limitless, to really grow your mind, to increase the synaptic connections within your brain, here are my suggestions:
Become a dedicated and deliberate lifelong learner.
Open yourself to new ideas, place yourself in new situations, learn new skills, meet new people, attend new courses, read new books. You get the idea.
Speaking of books, if you really want to expand your mind, join a book club, or try reading:
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Mindfulness by Ellen Langer
- Mindset by Carol Dweck
- A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
And no, you can’t borrow mine. Get your own stash.
Image credit: kroszka.
How to Import Chrome Bookmarks to Firefox 4
Especially for Andrew…
- From the Google Chrome toolbar, click the wrench icon, and select Bookmark Manager.
- From the Organise menu, click Export Bookmarks, and save the file. (It saves automatically in .html format.)
- From Firefox, from the Bookmarks menu, select Show All Bookmarks. The Library opens.
- Click Import and Backup and select Import HTML. The Wizard opens. Use the Wizard to locate and open the backup file. Bookmarks from Chrome are merged with Firefox bookmarks.
It’s hassle free!
Also, see below Jim‘s Firefox addons tips.
Book Review: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
On the 8th of this month we had our first BookCamp event. BookCamp is a business book-club designed to aid skills development, idea generation and networking among local entrepreneurs, professionals and businesspeople. We studied Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, and enjoyed some different perspectives on its usefulness and impact. Take a look at my Amazon review (duplicated below) entitled, “Very pretty. But, can it fight?”
Next book: Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. Get reading now!
Register for April’s BookCamp here.
Perhaps the main problem with the book is its use of the word ‘outliers’ to refer to exceptional people, individuals who achieve so much more than others. It should instead refer to the exceptional circumstances that allowed them their meteoric rise to success. These factors – such as year and era of birth, family background, race and place of education – contain the quirks of fate that allow the merely talented to achieve the successes that lie so far outside the norm. This is Gladwell’s major thesis.
Gladwell’s target is the traditional American story of success: rugged individuals, by dint of hard work and raw talent – perspiration and inspiration – achieve those magnificent success levels that elude others. Instead, Gladwell wants to show the place of circumstances and situation in this story. He wants to give success a context beyond that of one man and his willpower. Fair enough.
In order to do this, Gladwell tells some stories of his own. Lots of them, in fact.
The book is one, big collection of counter-cultural stories about the nature of specifically American success. (By ‘counter-cultural’ I mean contrary to the ‘rugged individual’ myth described above.) This story-method is Gladwell’s greatest strength or weakness, depending of what you’re looking for. Me, I wanted to read something fascinating, provocative, and launch-pad like. That’s exactly what I got.
Most of Gladwell’s detractors find his method of extreme induction – “Here’s one case so that means there’s a pattern” – infuriating. I find in fun. When I read a Gladwell book, I’m not on the lookout for rigorous sampling methods or objective self-criticism. Let’s leave that to university textbooks, can’t we? Gladwell does pop journalism with ideas and trends. He’s a beginning, a warm-up guy, a threshold-guardian of atypical info. You don’t need to take him more seriously than that.
That said, my lingering sense after finishing the book was one of anticlimax. OK, so now we know that as well as talent and effort, success also requires of us a massive amount of good fortune and opportunity. So what exactly can I do about it? Beyond vague pleas for someone – Big government? The education system? – to take this wider context into account, there’s not much we as individuals can do about it.
Or maybe there there is. Throughout the book Gladwell does flag up a couple of possibilities. He just doesn’t do too much with them, that’s all. That’s what frustrated me the most with the book.
For instance, Gladwell spends some time taking the IQ industry to task. He points out some examples of people with incredibly high IQ levels who haven’t made been successful. So far, so trite. Gladwell sexes up this observation by juicy piece of compare and contrast (chapter 4). In one corner, entre Chris Langan, in IQ terms a genius, but in success terms a flop. In the other corner, there’s J Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and director of the Manhattan Project. The difference? Oppenheimer had charm, excellent communication skills, and `social knowledge’. And where did this come from? His comfortable, suburban, upper-middle class background.
It’s here that I want to scream. My mind is shouting, “Write about emotional intelligence!
Tell them that social skills and communication can be learned! Mention Howard Gardner, or at least Daniel Goleman at least!” But no. Instead, we get one footnote, two sentences, about the work of Robert Sternberg (p. 290). Way to go, Malcolm. Not. Here’s a prime chance to sow the seeds of personal development, but instead you pour on the cement of social conditioning and class consciousness. Again, nothing for us to do.
Another example is Gladwell’s handling of the 10,000 hour rule (chapter 2), formulated by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson. According to this rule, 10,000 hours is the amount of practise required before a human being can lay claim to mastery or expertise in an activity. Even if you’re a genius like Mozart, you still have to pump in those hours. Gladwell illustrates this rule with the Beatles (performing together) and Bill Gates (programming).
Only problem is, he then goes on to describe how a very specific and unique set of circumstances allowed them to notch up those hours, factors that Joe Bloggs public – that’s you and me, folks – just couldn’t contrive. Still, it made me wonder whether I’ve chalked up anything near 10,000 hours honing a particular skill. The best I could come up with was reading. Does that count?
Anyway, I give the book three out of five stars for entertainment value, quality of journalism, mental stimulation, and idea-gathering. For my taste, there’s a little too much, ‘me, me, me’ in Outliers; Gladwell needs to untangle his brain from his own hype. But his main problem is that the book is discouraging, leavening us little to do beyond wonder if we were born on the wrong time and place to achieve a level of success that lies outside the mean.
Outliers is a book of pretty analysis, that’s for sure. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. And for a book about success, that’s a pretty tragic flaw.
How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Event
Before you begin, you may wish to read Profiles and Pages on Facebook: The Difference. You will also need the event description, an image and a booking link ready to go.
Add the Facebook Events app to your business page
Facebook Events is a Facebook application (tool) that will add a tab to your Page for adding and sharing events.
- Navigate to https://www.facebook.com/apps/directory.php.
- Type Events into the Search box (top left), and press Return.
- From the results, click Events by Facebook.
- Click Add to my Page (bottom left).
Add Facebook Events to your business page
You can get images from Flickr. Ensure you read the rules before using anything available there.
- You can create a booking page from EventBrite (our recommendation) or EventElephant. EventBrite allows for recurring events, multiple (automated) payment options and provides an excellent system for reminding and contacting attendees and tracking event links. It truly is a one-stop-shop. Pay close attention to EventBrite’s link tracking options; this will help you identify where the views and bookings come from. You may find, for example, that sharing links on Twitter is the best place for views on your page, whereas Facebook is the best place for bookings.
To add an event:
- Navigate to your Facebook Page.
- Click Events on the left side of your page.
- Click Create an Event (top right).
- Click Add Event Photo, then Choose File and insert an appropriate photograph.
- Enter the date and time of the event.
- Enter the title of the event.
- Enter the venue.
- In the More Info field, paste a brief event description, including a booking or registration link, and contact information. Posting a Facebook event without a booking link agitates many online users; people expect to be able to find and event, read more information and book (all online). Don’t be insanely inefficient, by asking them to print out and sign a booking form, enclosing a cheque!
- Keep the guest list and non-admins options selected (our recommendation), and click Create Event.
- The full details of the event are displayed. Click I’m Attending (if appropriate).
- Click Edit Event if any of the details are incorrect. (This can be done at a later date.)
- Click Update Fans of, to send a message to fans to let them know about the event. (This can also be done at a later date.) If you are Using Facebook As [Your Business Name], Facebook will prompt you to Continue as [Your Name]. Click this option and proceed. (This can also be done at a later date.) Fill in a brief Subject and Message and click Attend. Fans will receive a message to their Facebook Inbox, informing them of the event and providing them with a link to the event on Facebook, where they can also click I’m Attending, Maybe, or No.
Promoting Your Event
It is important to share the event after you have created it. Remember, not everyone will see your link as soon as you post it. Statistics show that the best times to share information like this are 6-8am; 11am; 3pm; 8pm onwards. Feel free to share your link in multiple locations online.
- Navigate to the event page and copy the URL (website address). This may look like this: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148869141844430.
- Paste this URL anywhere you’d like to share the event. It can be used in a Facebook status update (first click the link option), an email, a website or a document. Don’t depend on Facebook for event promotion. It is only one of many tools that can help spread the word quickly.
If you have any queries, let me know. We’d also be delighted if you’d comment with your recommendations for event promotion via Facebook.
