How many people still get excited about getting mail delivered to their home?

I remember waiting for the mailman to pull up to the mailbox as a kid and running to see what came. Was there something for Me? A new flyer from my favorite store? A card from Grandma? It is something that stays with you as an adult and gets passed down generations. My son is 4 and gets very excited when the mail truck pulls up in front of the house and he can’t wait to go see what came.

Is this the next thing in our technological society that will cease to exist with the invention of email and the internet? Could be….for the postmaster general of the United States, John E. Potter, has gone to Congress and officially asked for permission to do away with Saturday mail.

According to Bob Greene, CNN writer, he states “His reasoning is hard to argue with. In the e-mail age, usage of the U.S. Postal Service is plummeting. Just about everyone claims to love the look and feel of a handwritten letter, the giddy anticipation of seeing the mail carrier strolling up the sidewalk and wondering what he has inside his bag for you, the orderly, set-your-watch-by-it routine of mail delivery to your home every day of the week except Sunday.” Potter goes on to say stopping mail delivery on Saturdays could save more than $3 billion a year.

In 1957, because of budgetary reasons, the postmaster decided to end Saturday deliveries. This lasted only one Saturday for the public was outraged and forced Dwight D. Eisenhower to sign a bill to provide more funding.

As our society continues to remove the human element from the way we communicate, will we hunger for it even more, and I wonder if we are doing that right now but fail to realize it? We know the importance of the human element and continue to blog and present the importance of the customer experience because we understand that it is needed and is crucial for businesses.

Joseph Campbell, one of my favorite authors and great mythologists states in his book, The Power of Myth, “It’s important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor.”

As we continue down the road of the “e-world” it will be interesting to see if our society does in fact remove all human elements, imagination, mythology and all the wonderful places the human mind can go or will we realize there is something missing and long for it again.

Maybe the reason why loyalty and the customer experience is so effective is that is gives the customer “good feelings” that email and text messages cannot. Please join in for this discussion with your own thoughts.

Here are some questions I would love to hear your thoughts on:

• Do you like to receive hard mail and does it make you feel good when you get something in the mail such as a greeting card?
• Would you care if Saturday mail is stopped?
• Will the Gen Y and Millennials miss the human element or do they not understand this?

Editor’s note: Reading Brian’s post here got the adrenaline flowing. The irony of retail is that the lowest paid associates, also the ones with the highest turnover rate, are the primary interface for the customer. How ironic….spend millions on branding, advertising, merchandising, fashion consulting…..and then leave your fate in the hands of people who are the least empowered in your organization. There is an opportunity for success for retailers willing to invest in training, motivation, incentive, and application of a higher standard of care – both for their associates and the end customers. Call me naive, but it can be done. Brian shares two good tales and I have many more as I am sure you do as well. Please send your comments with a memorable interaction.

Can it be overlooked that the very employee who interacts with the customer the most fails to get the necessary training to help them deal with different circumstances? I am amazed how often this occurs, and want to share a few personal experiences to demonstrate how detrimental poor customer service can be to a business.

Case #1 – “Teed Off”

Every late Tuesday afternoon we head to a local golf course to play 9 holes.  It is a great way to interact with various departments and talk shop. In the beginning of the year we choose a course and plan an entire season of play. We have done this for years and it was our second year at this particular golf course.  We agreed with the course owners that we would have 3 to 4 foursomes on a weekly basis, but on occasion less due to business travel that can’t be easily predicted.

One afternoon four of us showed up and headed to the pro shop to sign in and pay. The young gentleman at the counter proceeded to tell us we had “been bumped” because there was a tournament going on. We simply could not go out!  He had no emotional sincerity and could care less that we were weekly league customers. We tried to reason with him as there was no one on the tee, and we could easily work into the flow of play.  When that didn’t have any effect, we threatened to take our weekly business elsewhere, suggesting this was outrageous considering they didn’t even call us to tell us we couldn’t play that day. Once again, he could care less about our feelings, and worse, our business.

The next day we sent over a nice letter to the pro stating what happened and that we would no longer patronize the course. He was very apologetic, saying that the associate behind the counter had no idea what he was doing, and offered us a free round to keep our business. We appreciated the efforts of the pro, but question why the counter person didn’t have any idea what he was doing? He is the person who interacts with all the golfers on a daily basis and is the face of the course!  The very next week my co-worker and I showed up for our free round. There was the same kid behind the counter and an older woman in front of us arguing about the way he gave them handicap scores. He dealt with this woman for 20 minutes as we stood there in line, never acknowledging us once! I finally asked to pay before our tee time passed us by.  This kind of service can ruin a business.

Case #2 – “Dead Air”

Have you ever called into to a call center and reached a representative who said “this will take a second”, whether it was to type, or fire up that computer that was not working? Most times, and I see it in my own center as I monitor calls, they either talk to themselves, say nothing at all, and the customer has to ask if they are still there?

I call it the GAP, which can be a very advantageous place to start building a relationship. There should never be “dead air” time during a customer service call. It is a great opportunity to tell the customer about your rewards program, or anything else that could be a nice benefit to them. If you run a call center as I do, listen to the amount of dead air time and prance on the opportunity to build an encounter with the customer. It will do wonders for the experience!

In the end, it all comes down to proper training and making  sure that the employees who interact with the customers, especially if it is face to face, have the necessary training in place to accommodate all situations. Most companies focus on the product or service information, and don’t focus on customer experience training. I am currently working with our curriculum writers to create an entire training for customer experience.

Why not review the  training materials at your company as a good starting point to see where you can improve?

Editor’s note: Reading Brian’s post here got the adrenaline flowing. The irony of retail is that the lowest paid associates, also the ones with the highest turnover rate, are the primary interface for the customer. How ironic….spend millions on branding, advertising, merchandising, fashion consulting…..and then leave your fate in the hands of people who are the least empowered in your organization. There is an opportunity for success for retailers willing to invest in training, motivation, incentive, and application of a higher standard of care – both for their associates and the end customers. Call me naive, but it can be done. Brian shares two good tales and I have many more as I am sure you do as well. Please send your comments with a memorable interaction.

Can it be overlooked that the very employee who interacts with the customer the most fails to get the necessary training to help them deal with different circumstances? I am amazed how often this occurs, and want to share a few personal experiences to demonstrate how detrimental poor customer service can be to a business.

Case #1 – “Teed Off”

Every late Tuesday afternoon we head to a local golf course to play 9 holes.  It is a great way to interact with various departments and talk shop. In the beginning of the year we choose a course and plan an entire season of play. We have done this for years and it was our second year at this particular golf course.  We agreed with the course owners that we would have 3 to 4 foursomes on a weekly basis, but on occasion less due to business travel that can’t be easily predicted.

One afternoon four of us showed up and headed to the pro shop to sign in and pay. The young gentleman at the counter proceeded to tell us we had “been bumped” because there was a tournament going on. We simply could not go out!  He had no emotional sincerity and could care less that we were weekly league customers. We tried to reason with him as there was no one on the tee, and we could easily work into the flow of play.  When that didn’t have any effect, we threatened to take our weekly business elsewhere, suggesting this was outrageous considering they didn’t even call us to tell us we couldn’t play that day. Once again, he could care less about our feelings, and worse, our business.

The next day we sent over a nice letter to the pro stating what happened and that we would no longer patronize the course. He was very apologetic, saying that the associate behind the counter had no idea what he was doing, and offered us a free round to keep our business. We appreciated the efforts of the pro, but question why the counter person didn’t have any idea what he was doing? He is the person who interacts with all the golfers on a daily basis and is the face of the course!  The very next week my co-worker and I showed up for our free round. There was the same kid behind the counter and an older woman in front of us arguing about the way he gave them handicap scores. He dealt with this woman for 20 minutes as we stood there in line, never acknowledging us once! I finally asked to pay before our tee time passed us by.  This kind of service can ruin a business.

Case #2 – “Dead Air”

Have you ever called into to a call center and reached a representative who said “this will take a second”, whether it was to type, or fire up that computer that was not working? Most times, and I see it in my own center as I monitor calls, they either talk to themselves, say nothing at all, and the customer has to ask if they are still there?

I call it the GAP, which can be a very advantageous place to start building a relationship. There should never be “dead air” time during a customer service call. It is a great opportunity to tell the customer about your rewards program, or anything else that could be a nice benefit to them. If you run a call center as I do, listen to the amount of dead air time and prance on the opportunity to build an encounter with the customer. It will do wonders for the experience!

In the end, it all comes down to proper training and making  sure that the employees who interact with the customers, especially if it is face to face, have the necessary training in place to accommodate all situations. Most companies focus on the product or service information, and don’t focus on customer experience training. I am currently working with our curriculum writers to create an entire training for customer experience.

Why not review the  training materials at your company as a good starting point to see where you can improve?

Editor’s note: I was fortunate to moderate a panel at  Loyalty Expo 2009 this week titled Building Engagement with Millennials. The panelists were rich in expertise engaging and building brand with Generation Y as well as using email and social media as tools for communications. Bjorn Larsen Founder & CEO Edhance,  Atle Skalleberg VP Marketing Student Universe, and Ragy Thomas Co-Founder & CEO Aiti Solutions took part.

One of my fascinations with extending the Loyalty Marketing model beyond its traditional borders is in working through resistance and dissenting opinions. I partnered with Loyalty 360 to use Twitter during the conference with mixed results and learned that not everyone shares the same view on what it will take to build loyalty among Millennials or if it can be done at all.  Contributing Author Brian Kryzanski offers his view on GenY with this post “Generation crY”

Click here to see the connection between Generation crY and “You’ll Get Nothing and Like It”

Let the debate begin!

Generation crY

I want everything now, for free. I want to be treated with respect and don’t try to outsmart me, because you can’t. I want to come right out of college into the CEO chair because I know everything and always win. Simply put, I do not fail! Welcome to Generation crY- a generation of spoiled brats who were brought up in Never Never Land and told by their parents that they are no less than perfect. A trophy for everyone, no losers, no wrong doing, completely invincible, and everybody plays! What have the Boomers and X-generation created?

When I was growing up, and it wasn’t long ago, I was taught that hard work and determination is rewarded. I didn’t get trophies for simply showing up, and didn’t make the team if I wasn’t great or at very least showed 100% passion and effort. I was taught it was ok to fail, to lose, and it was just one step closer towards winning. My high school baseball coach use to say “second place is no place”, and if you were not first or the best, you were told you stink and no one sugar-coated it. You practiced harder, played tougher, studied more, and still were not guaranteed success. If you did bear fruit from your efforts, you then truly know what it is to be a winner, or successful, and appreciate the process.

Athletes are great examples of exactly what I am talking about. Pitchers pitched 9 innings and threw over 120 pitches “back in the day”. People played when they had bruises and bumps, and there were no such things as Social Anxiety Disorders. Why do we have that? Simple, when they get to the “bigs” and are not stellar, they cannot comprehend it. Rookie quarterbacks demanding multi-million dollar contracts before taking a snap in the NFL, or crying it’s not their team of choice – our fault!

We have made Never Never Land a reality! A place where our upcoming consumers are never fooled! The days of hard work and sweat equity are over, and we have created an environment that we are not only responsible for, but challenged as Loyalty or any other genre of marketers to succeed in.

We are told that we are too old and don’t understand the space they play in. Ah, but are fools being fooled? After all, we created Never Land and Tinker Bell has been hard at work creating a new Never Land called My Space, Facebook, and Twitter!

Are the Boomers and GenX marketers really worried, or are they simply still playing the game that they started years ago? We will continue to tell them how good they are as long as they continue to drink the cool aid. Maybe when the responsibilities of GenY increase they will realize that Facebook cannot warm the baby bottles and they actually have to get up and put it in the microwave! Don’t underestimate the X-Factor. We have built the technology and societies you play in, and hold the pixie dust that has been sprinkled among your communities. If all it takes is pizza and beer to hear how good our tactics are working, then we get off cheap.

Editor’s note: I was fortunate to moderate a panel at  Loyalty Expo 2009 this week titled Building Engagement with Millennials. The panelists were rich in expertise engaging and building brand with Generation Y as well as using email and social media as tools for communications. Bjorn Larsen Founder & CEO Edhance,  Atle Skalleberg VP Marketing Student Universe, and Ragy Thomas Co-Founder & CEO Aiti Solutions took part.

One of my fascinations with extending the Loyalty Marketing model beyond its traditional borders is in working through resistance and dissenting opinions. I partnered with Loyalty 360 to use Twitter during the conference with mixed results and learned that not everyone shares the same view on what it will take to build loyalty among Millennials or if it can be done at all.  Contributing Author Brian Kryzanski offers his view on GenY with this post “Generation crY”

Click here to see the connection between Generation crY and “You’ll Get Nothing and Like It”

Let the debate begin!

Generation crY

I want everything now, for free. I want to be treated with respect and don’t try to outsmart me, because you can’t. I want to come right out of college into the CEO chair because I know everything and always win. Simply put, I do not fail! Welcome to Generation crY- a generation of spoiled brats who were brought up in Never Never Land and told by their parents that they are no less than perfect. A trophy for everyone, no losers, no wrong doing, completely invincible, and everybody plays! What have the Boomers and X-generation created?

When I was growing up, and it wasn’t long ago, I was taught that hard work and determination is rewarded. I didn’t get trophies for simply showing up, and didn’t make the team if I wasn’t great or at very least showed 100% passion and effort. I was taught it was ok to fail, to lose, and it was just one step closer towards winning. My high school baseball coach use to say “second place is no place”, and if you were not first or the best, you were told you stink and no one sugar-coated it. You practiced harder, played tougher, studied more, and still were not guaranteed success. If you did bear fruit from your efforts, you then truly know what it is to be a winner, or successful, and appreciate the process.

Athletes are great examples of exactly what I am talking about. Pitchers pitched 9 innings and threw over 120 pitches “back in the day”. People played when they had bruises and bumps, and there were no such things as Social Anxiety Disorders. Why do we have that? Simple, when they get to the “bigs” and are not stellar, they cannot comprehend it. Rookie quarterbacks demanding multi-million dollar contracts before taking a snap in the NFL, or crying it’s not their team of choice – our fault!

We have made Never Never Land a reality! A place where our upcoming consumers are never fooled! The days of hard work and sweat equity are over, and we have created an environment that we are not only responsible for, but challenged as Loyalty or any other genre of marketers to succeed in.

We are told that we are too old and don’t understand the space they play in. Ah, but are fools being fooled? After all, we created Never Land and Tinker Bell has been hard at work creating a new Never Land called My Space, Facebook, and Twitter!

Are the Boomers and GenX marketers really worried, or are they simply still playing the game that they started years ago? We will continue to tell them how good they are as long as they continue to drink the cool aid. Maybe when the responsibilities of GenY increase they will realize that Facebook cannot warm the baby bottles and they actually have to get up and put it in the microwave! Don’t underestimate the X-Factor. We have built the technology and societies you play in, and hold the pixie dust that has been sprinkled among your communities. If all it takes is pizza and beer to hear how good our tactics are working, then we get off cheap.

Editor’s Note: Brian Kryzanski is one of the visionary leaders in the Loyalty Marketing industry and we are proud to introduce him to you as our newest Contributing Author at Loyalty Truth. Brian broke new ground while leading the launch of “Live It With Charter”, the new loyalty initiative at Charter Communications.  I hope you enjoy Brian’s insightful article on what it takes to gain traction for Loyalty programs in the Executive suite and at the Board level of major companies. Brian can be reached via Brian.Kryzanski@chartercom.com

The Art of Selling Customer Loyalty

Over the past five years customer loyalty has become a high priority for many businesses, but a low one when it comes to pulling the trigger on the financial investment and overall commitment that is needed to be successful. The bad economy has been top of mind for many businesses as they look to tighten their belts on their budgets and many times loyalty doesn’t make the cut.

Why is this? Most companies want to see an immediate return on their investment and lack the vision needed to see the benefits of building strong relationships with their customers over an extended period of time.

Companies that have loyalty programs are relying on them heavily as a retention tool as marketing dollars diminish. We all know it is much cheaper to retain a customer then to get new ones. Loyalty programs not only build stronger relationships with current customers, they increase share of wallet as well.  In tough economic times it is important to remember that the consumers are belt tightening as well, and have more choices today in how they do business than ever before.

If you are the one spearheading the charge in gathering the facts for your company in regards to the benefits of a loyalty program, assume your audience has minimal knowledge. When pleading your case, most executives want to see hard core numbers, ROI, and what results it will generate in the next 6 months.  Loyalty marketing is based on emotional stimulus, which can be complicated to measure and explain. It would be like telling your spouse you love them and then having to prove it on paper through analysis. It can be done, but you must set the expectations up front.

When I started “Live It With Charter” the new loyalty program at Charter Communications, we put a compelling proposal together backed up by a pilot program that proved its effectiveness. Be sure to understand your executive audience and show them what is needed to prove your case. Many times when they hear “loyalty programs” one assumes it comes with spending a lot of money on awards and prizes in hopes to retain customers. It is crucial to explain the back end analytics at work and how easy it is to gather valuable data from loyalty program members. The goal is to enable 1:1 marketing utilizing customer insights that lead to better response rates through email, direct mail and telemarketing in your acquisition efforts.

It is very important to remember that loyalty programs are not a magic bullet. The concept needs to be embraced by the entire organization, and excellent customer service needs to be at the forefront. Loyalty is just a piece of the overall customer experience and many consumers want to feel like they are getting something for doing business with you.

As we transition to the new era of loyalty marketing, it is important to be as educated as possible. I was grilled from all members of the organization, and the more I was able to answer questions and back them up, the more comfortable they became. Loyalty is a very “loose” term as it means different things to different people.  Building Loyalty requires a long term investment, and companies cannot make the mistake of sticking their toe in the water instead of jumping in. The results are not immediate, but will sure pay off long term.