I LOVE My Agent!

Tagged "Word Of Mouth"

I LOVE My Agent!

Blog by Karin Hanna

Tucson, Arizona

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I LOVE My Agent!

Satisfied Customers Do Not Equal Referrals

Sep. 24, 2008

Categorized in: Building A Recommendation Bank

Tagged with: feedback, ilovemyagentorg, karin hanna, recommendations, referrals, word of mouth

Businesses everyone often measure Customer Satisfaction and use it as a number to be proud of. But guess what Customer Satisfaction does not equal Referrals or Recommendations.

In todays business world Satisfaction is the absolute minimum level to stay in business for any length of time, it is an entry level for being in business. It is not a measurement that reflects who will recommend you to their friends or what past clients are saying about you to their friends and colleagues.

To only strive for satisfaction with your customers means a lifetime of cold prospecting, endless letter box drops, phones hung up in your ear. This also leads to endless hard work winning the trust of future clients, a very frustrating way to operate any business in this day and age.

Start measuring the new numbers that matter in business today. Numbers that consumers care about and you should too. How many customers given the benefit of hindsight would rehire you? How many would recommend you to their friends? And how many would not?

These are the true measurements of how you are really doing and the true numbers you need to measure if you want to build a fun, uplifting business you love working in everyday..

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Review Sites - Do They Hurt You or Help You?

Sep. 2, 2008

Categorized in: Building A Recommendation Bank

Tagged with: feedback, i love my agent, ilovemyagentorg, karin hanna, online reputations, proactive, review sites, transparency, word of mouth

Are you scared of this new Web 2.0 world? Or do you find it exciting, and empowering?

We now live in a world where review sites are rampant. A world where consumers have the power to voice their views about you, me or any other business or product to potentially millions of others consumers.

A world where consumers ask the Web powerhouses like Google and Yahoo! to check in before they make purchasing decisions and show them what they should be doing, who they should be hiring, and who they should be avoiding. Web 2.0 has taken transparency to a whole new level with self publishing made easy. The most popular sites today are those like YouTube and My Space.

People have embraced self expression, blogging is growing in popularity, and social networks are growing everywhere. People are "friending" each other all over the place, and sharing their personal opinions. No longer is word of mouth limited to a few friends and work mates. RSS feeds a bad experience that infuriates a consumer can now easily be transmitted to multiple networks and potentially millions of consumers.

The Power of Word of Mouth Online is Staggering. And it can can be used to empower or destroy? The key as i see it is participation, not perfection. Learning to invite honest feedback from your customers, setting that up from the beginning of your relationship. Learning to really listen during your client/business relationship and opening up the lines of communication is what transparency is all about. Success in a Web 2.0 World is not about control but about true communication between businesses and customers, and learning to respond to feedback promptly and use it to help you build a better product or service , using it so that your customers will rave about you because they loved you and want to help their networks and friends find you amongst the masses.

So how do you stop being scared and start feeling empowered? How do you kick start this revolution to empower you and make it easier for other consumers to know, like and trust you? And more importantly find you?

Well start by accepting you can always get better? And decide you want to , and invite and welcome feedback from your customers as a starting point.

Secondly realize the most important measure of how you are doing is what your customers are saying during and post their transaction with you. You need to start asking them and listening even if its not quite what you wanted to hear- with the view of continual improvement.

You need to let them know from the beginning your intention is not only to do everything in your power as a professional to get them the result they want but also to be recommendation worthy. To let them know from the beginning of your relationship that you will be asking for feedback from them and that it matters to you as much if not more than the final transaction.

Your customers are talking about you whether you like it or not, and they always have. But now its more important than ever to tap in and use these conversations to learn and help grow your business. It's time to be proactive about enlisting your customers and learning to transform them into powerful advocates for you. Are you ready to join in and start the conversations rather than running scared and waiting for damage control?

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WAKE UP, BARBARA CORCORAN! Buyers (your customers) are not LIARS!

Aug. 15, 2008

Categorized in: Building A Recommendation Bank

Tagged with: barbara corcoran, cnbc, customer service is your secret weapon, donny deutsch, i love my agent, karin hanna, online reviews, reputation, the big idea, word of mouth

I love to watch “The Big Idea” on CNBC with Donny Deutsch. Last week aired “Customer Service is Your Secret Weapon ...”

One comment made by a recent panellist, real estate diva Barbara Corcoran infuriated me and made me realize that a wake-up call is needed.

WAKE UP, BARBARA! WAKE UP, AMERICA! This is your chance to learn something valuable and increasingly important to business profitability and bottom lines … BUYERS (Your Customers, your Employees) ARE NOT LIARS! And you need us more than we need you!

Barbara Corcoran and many more people just like her are at the helm of big business and they still don’t get it!

Do we think BUYERS ARE LIARS! NO!

We think Advertisers ARE LIARS! TRADITIONAL MARKETING LIES and BIG BUSINESS LIES … because guess what? They have a track record of spinning things to suit themselves. They have proven through their actions that they don’t really care about us. The most important thing to big business is PROFIT! Not us, we Buyers are Liars, an inconvenience that must be endured in the all important pursuit of money.

Comments like Barbara’s, “Buyers are liars” and others like them, (Buyer Beware) promote and feed an underlying misconception that business is war, an us (buyers) against them (businesses) mentality. And there is still a huge amount of money being spent on training today that continues to feed this rampant misbelief.

Barbara has carved a very successful profit and lifestyle in real estate dealing with people’s hopes and dreams of home ownership, investments and careers. Her buyers are all the people who have bought into the dreams, products, and services she has sold very successfully. Are they liars too, Barbara?

We are a world of Consumers (Buyers), we love to spend and yet we hate being sold to! The world is changing and becoming increasingly transparent as Web 2.0 technologies grow. Consumers (BUYERS) harness the power of publishing and mass communication and use their voice to influence who and where we spend our dollar, and show us the companies we will love partnering our talents. When we are ready to buy, do we readily believe what we are told by advertisers and controlled marketing? Not anymore.

Now we are turning to other buyers just like us and finding them on social networking sites and review sites. We Google people to find real comments about them -- from others just like us, we start and participate in discussion boards and we are asking more and more questions both on and offline to help us decide where we want to spend our hard earned dollars and who we want to work with. We want to do business with people we KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST!

We look for people who are just like us, who have been where we are considering a purchase, and we can see the outcome of their decisions. We want to know if they could go back with the benefit of hindsight, would they make the same decision again or go elsewhere.

Would they recommend that business or do they wish they had chosen differently?

We value Honesty and Transparency and we know we aren’t getting it from Big Business and Advertisers, who are always looking for the next angle; the next way they can spin things to their benefit and who think like Barbara that we (buyers) are liars. We are sick and tired of businesses and corporate heads that talk Customer Service but don’t deliver it!

Wake up and smell the roses, the power is shifting ... you don’t have it anymore; it’s in the hands of us LIARS!

So, Barbara and Corporate America, it’s time to change and get with the program, stop wasting time and money trying to control transparency, realize we are not LIARS, recognize we are your most important partners, that our feedback is your most important measure of future viability and continued success.

Keep your promises, listen to us, learn about what we want from you, meet our needs and if you can - exceed them! If you make a mistake, apologize and thank us for the lesson and learn from it, make us feel important, and leave us better off for having taken the risk of getting to know you and help us want to do business with you and tell our friends about how wonderful you are.

We are not the enemy; we want to believe you, to know you, like you and to trust you! We want to recommend you and be your biggest fans.

Some corporations do get it and are already operating this way and are reaping the rewards and loyalty of consumers. Just look at Maxine Clark (CEO, Build a Bear) another guest panelist on “The Big Idea” who said, “I could never understand when you wouldn’t want a customer coming back” For the record, I love Build A Bear and Maxine and send everyone with children there, If you want an education in customer experience, go to a Build a Bear store anywhere, and buy a bear or doll. You will love it, your kids will love it, and your kids’ friends will love it! Even the company’s online experience is fabulous, and filled with fun games for your children www.buildabear.com

I stumbled upon Build A Bear for the first time late in 2007 and have been a huge advocate ever since and a big customer! Smiley (our bear) even has his own pawsport (passport in non build a bear talk) and been travelling the world with us and collecting stamps in his pawsport as we do.

It’s time to stop thinking and believing that Buyers are liars. Start embracing a culture of trust and advocacy within your team and with all consumers. I believe it was Einstein who once said the most important question we can all answer is, “Do we believe the world is friendly or not?” I know it really is, so embrace this abundant mentality and lose the scarcity and fear mindset once and for all. We are all in this together, it is not an us-and-them situation.

We are all at some time buyers and sellers, we are all people, we all have needs, wants and challenges, we want to spend, we want to trust, we want to grow, we want to be respected and valued, we want to help, we want to work in great companies and to have fun and to smile every day . We are people just like you and we are now VOCAL. Listen to us and learn.

Luvyaa,

Karin Hanna

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