The things we make, make us – Jeep

We realized a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make – BMW

Think about it. That’s it.

I’ve been noticing a theme in television commercials. This theme transcends product. It plays on our yearning for heritage, many times specifically referencing ideas of Americana. Here are a few examples.

Miller High Life — Alternative Fuels from Michael Williams on Vimeo.

Can anyone think of any other good examples? Throw ‘em up into the comments section.

UPDATE:

Here are a few more. They carry less of the thread that unites the others, but perhaps still connected…

And I guess this is nothing new – The pride is back…

Foursquare is awesome. I love it. I use it virtually daily. For those unfamiliar, the platform describes itself thusly:

People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby.

I enjoy thinking about the connections between real-world items and their digital service/platform/network manifestations. What exactly am I referring to? A basic example might be a rolodex and the Contacts app on an iPhone. These real-world objects served as precursors to the programs that contrive our digital existence.

So anyway, I recently ran across analog Foursquare.  I was staying at a bed and breakfast in Virginia (yes, bed and breakfasts are cool and if I have anything to say about it they’ll be making a comeback among young people, but that’s for another post…).

Upon arrival to our private cottage, we found this kitschy guest book. It was littered with comments from previous visitors. Some relayed their thanks to the proprietors. Others left activity recommendations for the surrounding area.

In the foursquare world, you might say multiple people had ‘checked-in’ to this place, via the guest book. These people had left laundry list of tips and to-do’s.

That’s basically it. No earth shattering insights. Just something I found interesting.

Anyone else run into any real-world items that serve as the basis for favorite digital services?

On another note…
Analog4square is a name I thought up for my friend Ronan. Ronan lives in Bushwick, likes irony and was looking for a unique, cheeky way to participate with Foursquare (in a very indirect capacity) via his feature phone.

Apparently, Ronan frequents some less than classy establishments.

Note: This is simply Ronan employing a Foursquare-esque tweeting strategy.

Another great find by PSFK.

The personality infographic generator creates a data visualization of your individual personality and habits. Answering several questions (click the UK flag at the top right corner for English language interface) allows the tool to analyze unique characteristics of your personality and behavior – ranging from what you like to eat, to how long you’re online per day, to your preferred mode of transportation, as well as your online persona/s.

So check it out. Customization is minimal, but I still enjoyed it.  It produced no earth-shattering self-realizations or insights into my life, but not everything needs to be life changing. There’s value in a 2 minute distraction from an otherwise hectic and stressful day.

Here is mine below.

1. Click to enlarge.
2. Enjoy.
   

Why? Because life is awesome and this is an amazing time in which to be alive.

Short post, kids.

I told you so!

The five (5) people who read this blog may recall my last post, in which I said:

I predict that, America The Story of Us, will be the highest rated History Channel show EVER.

Hmmm. Somebody was right.

Check this out:

Airing Sunday night from 9 to 11 p.m., “America” averaged 5.7 million total viewers, becoming the most-watched special in network history.

It drew 2.7 million adults 25-54 and 2.6 million 18-49s, more than half of them men, an audience the network has been targeting for some years.

Clearly this wasn’t all because of Foursquare, but you can’t ignore all the ancillary press History Channel gained from simply deciding to embrace social media marketing strategies.

Anyway, I’m going to be brushing dirt off my shoulder for the next few days. Cheers.

I recently came across a post on the always interesting PSFK describing the creation of a visual coding system for London’s homeless population. These analog communications allow the homeless to relay information to one another.

Understanding the need to deliver information beyond the confines of the publication to a population with virtually no access to mobile technologies, in 2007 the Pavement enlisted the help of designer Emily Read. The end result was the development of a visual code – printed inside each issue – that anyone could use to communicate messages with their fellow community. By leaving simple, chalk symbols on the side of buildings and sidewalks, the ad hoc city guide informs a niche group of users about things like neighborhood safety, places to sleep and the availability of free food.

There’s nothing new about the homeless using symbols to pass along knowledge. How do I know this? I watch too much TV.

Read’s symbols immediately reminded me of the Mad Men episode The Hobo Code (and subsequently the comprehensive A Continuous Lean post on the actual hobo code as it existed in the US during the late 19th/early 20th century – worthwhile read to be sure).

Please note that I’m in no way trying to compare modern homelessness to the hobo/vagabond wanderers of yesteryear. That said, I think there’s a fascinating string that connects Pavement/Reed’s work with the Hobo code.

See for yourself -

Its telling how the concept of a hobo/homeless ideographic system has descended both time and space. This makes me think back to a course I took in college – Anthropology and Human Nature, in which we learned:

It is arguable that all creatures have culture, if culture is equated with environmentally acquired knowledge, or shared learning.

What distinguishes human culture from that of other creatures, and makes of culture the specialized adaptive niche of the primate Homo sapiens sapiens, is that human culture is mediated by symbols (symbol: a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed by those who use it), that is, by language.

Symbols have made possible the creation, accumulation and transmission of infinitely greater quantities of knowledge in the species as a whole than are found in other animals.

But symbols are not reality; they constitute the labels we confer on those aspects of reality of which we become or are made aware, as well as our sense of the relationships among those aspects.

- Dr. Ackerman

This post seems to be spiraling out of control, off-topic and into the nether-regions of my mind so I will abruptly end it. The End.

I recently conducted a small experiment. My company was attending the CTIA trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center last week. I was interested to see if I could successfully use a platform like Foursquare to drive traffic to a location within a location.

What does that mean? I added our booth as a location on Foursquare. Even though most people checking in would already be in the venue (the convention center), perhaps the mere fact that they saw our booth # as a nearby venue would pique their curiosity and have them stop by for a visit.

This didn’t really work, as we only had 3 total check-ins (even though I promoted this to my co-workers,  and gave instructions for sign-up and usage to those without Foursquare accounts ). I still need to check with the attendees to see if anyone mentioned it verbally at the booth and conduct a more formal assessment of what happened and what I might have done differently.

Failure aside, I think that with some more promotion and employee participation, this raw idea could actually develop into something more successful.

Let’s take a step back. I think its important that the focus not be on Foursquare but on the idea of “Location” as the next evolution of the web. Twitter has already incorporated geo-location into its platform and Facebook will likely follow suit.

SXSW
Foursquare wasn’t the only geo-locationservice on display at SXSWi. Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Burbn, MyTown, CauseWorld, and Hot Potato (among others) also factored into what people are referring to as the “Location Wars.” It seems as though location-services are in the same place social media was a decade ago. Each startup is fighting for the position of dominant platform.

Check-ins and point accumulation are nice features, but they’re simply the first phase of location. We’ll have a much better idea of what a location-centric web looks like when smartphones and data plans become ubiquitous (as laptops and internet are now).

Preparing for the future
Until that time, its important for companies to experiment with these services. See what sticks and remember, its okay to if your initial effort doesn’t find the success you hoped for. If we aren’t failing, we aren’t doing.

As for Foursquare, its possible that it may go the way of the buffalo, like Friendster before it (and in my opinion, the inevitable end of Myspace). But that’s a different conversation, and frankly one that I’m not interested in having.  As for location itself, its safe to say that its gone beyond buzz, and will eventually be the next iteration of the web.

My advice is to not be overly focused on the platform itself, but on the plumbing (the concept of location!). Figure out how to your outreach efforts could be adopted to geolocation. Platforms will come and go and its likely you’ll have to maintain a presence on multiple networks (e.g. Twitter and Facebook today).

Also remember that geo-location extends beyond these platforms. You could incorporate it into a branded app for example (e.g. A bank could add a “where’s my nearest ATM?” feature to its online banking app).  There are a great many possibilities for how you might want to incorporate the ability for a phone to determine someone’s location into your own marketing activities.

As we’ve seen with social media marketing, the key will be in finding an overarching location strategy that is not a means to itself, but an extension of your overall efforts.

Hello faithful readers (all 5 of you!). I wanted to give you a short update on how the ‘Nordstrom Credit Card‘ situation was resolved. Please note that I’m using the term ‘resolved’ for lack of a better harsher word.

After waiting a week for a call back, I once again called Nordstrom customer service to inquire about this issue and to see whether the fraudulent charge had been removed from my statement.

The representative looked up my account and sure enough, the charges had been removed.

I asked why I had not received a call from someone to apprise me of this resolution, as promised. She said that she didn’t know.

I asked her if she was able to tell me what happened. Why was this fraudulent charge reposted to my account? Was it human error? A technical glitch? Why should I continue to trust you, Nordstorm? There were no notes on the account. She had no answers. Disturbing correlation.

Useless.

The situation was successfully resolved in that the fraudulent charge had once again been removed from my statement. My experience with Nordstrom customer service left much to be desired. The only time during this process that I was able to speak to a helpful representative was when I ran my mouth on Twitter. Even she was unable to meet the expectations she herself had set (a call back to let me know she had resolved the issue and an explanation as to why this happened again).

The Alternative
Early this week I saw a friend’s Facebook status recounting a very positive customer service experience she had with a service named Groupon. I would post a link but can’t seem to locate one.

Anyway, when I inquired about Groupon and what made their customer service so great, she responded:

Check it, kid. It’s good stuff. Today, they *proactively* emailed to see if I was having problems with some spa Groupons — all because a few customers had complained about the spa. I replied, “Now that you mention it…” and ta da, instant refund. (Of a vast sum of money.)

This experience had been so positive for her that she was essentially engaging in social media/word of mouth marketing efforts on behalf of this company – up there on her Facebook wall, for all to see.

I, on the other-hand, still have nothing positive to say about Nordstrom customer service.

These parallel events with drastically different outcomes only serve to reenforce my belief that when handled properly, good customer service is the best form of marketing.

Let’s start in the middle of this story, which is to say the present. I just saw a wonderfully polite tweet from Nordstrom, who is both my favorite department store and the purveyor of one of my credit cards.

@bentannenbaum Sorry u were given incorrect info at first. That was r mistake & we appreciate u letting us know. It will help us get better.

So how did we get here?

Let me preface this story with some facts:

1. I have a Nordstrom Visa Credit Card. I signed up for this card because I shop often at Nordstrom. I have personally experienced their legendary tradition of customer service. It was this high level of service and satisfaction that promoted me to make the move to Nordstrom Visa. A credit card company providing that high a level of service? Sign me up.
2. I manage the social media properties for my company, MX Telecom. While I wouldn’t call myself a social media expert, I’ll simply say that I keep myself up to speed with what’s going on in the space, be it strategy, tools, etc. Let’s simply consider this an area in which I am knowledgeable.
3. In my first job out of college, I worked on the Customer Service Team for TheStreet.com. The biggest lesson I learned was that good customer service requires empathy. Every person calling has an issue unique to them. They may have seemed trivial or repetitive to me at times, but if I was going to be good at my job, I had to inject a minimun level of empathy into each call in order to leave the customer satisfied.
4. I believe that customer service is marketing. Tonight I actualized that belief.

The Incident

Last month, I found a fraudulent charge on my statement for my Nordstrom Visa (and the vendor just happened to be Nordstrom.com…). While I was very disconcerted at first, I called Nordstrom and the service rep was polite and knowledgeable. The charge was clearly fraudulent. She resolved the issue right then and there (10AM on a Saturday morning) and promptly sent me a new card. Great. Now this was done and I could move on with my life.

Well, not exactly. Being neurotic, I contacted each credit bureau and created an alert. In the interest of honesty, even though this was quickly resolved, I still felt rather victimized by the whole affair. This was a big deal and significantly impacted my life. This was no fault of Nordstrom, and if anything, their customer service made resolving the issue quite painless, or so I thought…

Leap ahead to this month. As I was reviewing my statement I see the removed charge. Perfect. Then below, I see the same amount was recharged, and the merchant… surprise, surprise; Nordstrom.com

I immediately called to see what this was all about. On this initial call, the representative told me it seemed there was a processing error. He couldn’t see why. I would need to talk to the fraud department, which was closed for the evening. I wasn’t able to get much more information, as each question was deflected back to the ‘closed’ fraud department. To this reps credit, he was at least very comprehensive with regards to taking my information and ensuring me someone would call me in the AM. Look, I get it buddy. You deal with these issues daily. This is standard procedure for you. Not so for the rest of us. When this happens its a big deal to me, even if you’ve taken 25 similar calls today.

Too bad. This is my life. This is something that could potentially affect my steller, superior credit rating.

I was left with many questions. What the hell is a processing error? Why would they repost a charge they themselves had already deemed fraudulent? I wanted resolution, but short of that I wanted answers and empathy.

I have a Twitter account and I was pissed off. And I was going to let Nordstrom know about it. I was dissatisfied with the initial answers I received. I found it suspicious that these charges were related to the Nordstrom e-commerce site. I questioned the logic of using a department store for a bank/credit card company.

I bitched. Loudly. Publicly. And you know what? I got a response.

So I DM them my number. But as far as I know, the fraud department is closed for the day so this isn’t getting resolved tonight.

An hour later I get a call from Avery at Nordstrom. She’d heard I’d been tweeting about how bad their service is and she wanted to help. I informed her that there was little she could do, as I was waiting until the fraud dept. opened up tomorrow.

Avery informed me she was a member of the fraud department and that they were open until 10:30PM (2 more hours from the time she called).

FAIL.

Okay, so the initial person lied to me? Was he misinformed? Did he just want to get the fuck off the phone? Seemed that way. Disconcerting. Unacceptable. This is not the Nordstrom I have come to love.

Avery was nice (but I got the feeling she was annoyed by my nasty tweets). She walked me through everything. Explained what happened, why it might have happened, and the steps that would need to be taken to resolve the issue. It should be resolved before the end of the week. Thanks Avery. If you’re out there, I really appreciated the call.

The Lessons

I’m not Kevin Smith. I only have 159 followers on Twitter. It took me 5 tweets over the course of 45 minutes to garner a response from the object of my rage.

Sure, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but this incident leaves me with some serious misgivings. The biggest issue I have is with the misinformation. Why are you going to tell me the department I need to speak with is closed when they aren’t? Unacceptable.

Beyond that though, where’s the empathy? I see a fraudulent charge for $1000, and you know what? That’s a big deal. ID theft is a no joke. So when I see the same fraudulent charge seemingly reinstated on my statement with no explanation, it does not sit well.

Clearly, I wanted this resolved tonight, instantly. That can’t always happen. I understand. However, I believe that in cases where issues cannot be immediately resolved, its the company’s (i.e the rep on the phone’s) responsibility to comprehensively walk through what happened and why. If they don’t know, they need to get me on the phone with someone who does. They need to explain the specific steps that will be taken in order to achieve resolution (which is not the same thing as saying, “Someone will call you tomorrow.”), which Avery did on when she reached-out.

Finally, exhibit some empathy. You’re sorry? Thanks. Don’t tell me that “these things happen from time to time and all I need to do is simply call and let you know.” They may happen from time to time for you, but this is the first time something like this has happened to me in 27 years. Maybe I’m just lucky.

I want you to explain to me that Nordstroms takes these ‘processing issues’ seriously and will do everything possible to resolve this in a timely and satisfactory manner. Tell me that my business is important to you. Indulge me, or I’ll do business with someone else who will.

I’m sure there were a lot of variables that factored into my situation including time of call, office locations and other things. Maybe that initial rep was having an off day. But when you have an incident, especially one involving credit, none of that matters at the time – not to the person being affected. If you aren’t going to resolve my issue on that initial call, you better do your best to make sure I hang up satisfied with the proposed next steps.

On the flip-side, I’m still not Kevin Smith. I now have 160 followers on Twitter. Yet it only took me 5 tweets over the course of 45 minutes to garner a response from Nordstrom.

I think its outstanding that Nordstrom was able use social media to locate me and assist me in a timely manner (i.e. get me to shut up). I was so impressed that I let them know about it.

I think there’s a natural synergy between social media and customer service. I’m also a big believer in customer service being a catalyst for word-of-mouth marketing, so this little incident really hit home for me.

The fact that they were able to use Twitter to enhance customer service was admirable. So much so that I almost (ALMOST) felt bad about my initial tweet-rant.

I’m genuinely happy Nordstrom took the steps that they did to address my issue. I really hope they read this and give my observations some serious consideration. I’ve always been an advocate of Nordstrom (not quite an evangelist) and am usually proud when I present my Nordstrom Visa because I know it represents a tradition of superior customer service. The fact that they’re employing social media strategies to maintain that tradition in the face of a changing consumer landscape is all the better.

Still, here’s a fine line between rectifying instances of poor customer service and preventing them from ever occurring in the first place.

At this point there’s still a mixed taste in my mouth. Will I continue to shop there? Will I continue to use my Nordstrom Visa? We’ll see how this issue is ultimately resolved.

Expect an update.

This is going to be a short one, folks. LL Bean will soon be releasing their new signature line. Learn more about it here.

I can’t recall where, but a few months back I read that they’d be releasing a waxed canvas Bean Boot. Ever since, I’ve been annoying Laurie from L.L. Bean PR every now and then for details. An image has finally been released, and in GQ no less. Way to go, Laurie… and team

Amazing. OMFG. <Insert dramatic exclamatory emotion here>.

They hit the streets in March, at which point they will immediately find their way on to my feet. I encourage you all to check out the slide show on the Signature website. There’s a lot to look forward to.

Side note: I have this sneaking suspicion that these boots are going to look very similar to my waxed canvas Billykirk no. 166 bag. This picture doesn’t do it justice. Its the best bag I have ever owned. Apologies Chris and Kirk, I’ll get something less fuzzy up there soon.