heartharmony.com.au

Following on from our post in relation to can your customers deal with crowds, how many of you have tried mystery shopping your “help desk” (and yes, I am talking to you Telstra hiding over there in the corner with your hands in your ears).

Telstra is one of the main providers of internet and phone services in Australia, and have a history of, shall we say, less than stellar service. Recently they have been moving all small businesses over to small business internet plans with the lure of 24/7 service and faster speeds (and before you say anything – where I live you get Telstra or Telstra for ADSL 2+ internet – there’s no other options for our street).

Last Friday I woke to a dead internet, which in my business is also termed a disaster. At 5am I tried ringing the 24/7 help desk. It rang out. I tried again at 6am and gave up after I had cooked and eaten toast and made and devoured a capuccino, while still being on hold listening to bad music and ads.

At 7am I decided to stay the distance suitably fortified by another coffee. This time the phone rang through to the Business internet help desk. I heard people typing and talking – but couldn’t get their attention. Faulty connection I thought, so I tried again. Same story – except this time I did what my grandmother told me never to do (sorry Grandma) and yelled as loud as I could into the phone. I heard a scrabbling of a headset as it was being placed on someone’s head.

A human!  And a mature aged Australian female. I thought my luck was in until I described the problem. I was told to turn off the machine and turn it back on and when I told her that I already had, was told “that is all I know what to do” . “But … but … but … aren’t you the help desk” I asked in confusion? “I had the same problem a few months ago and the help desk on Bigpond talked me through what to do”. “Well Bigpond has different help desk information, all I know how to do is tell you to turn your computer off and on. I will have to escalate your problem to a senior technician and they will call you back before lunch”.

We then proceeded to have a very bizarre conversation where she kept on demanding my URL – www.heartharmony.com.au I said.  A few minutes of very slow typing noises – “Can you spell it” “w-w-w.h-e-a-r-t-h-a-r-m-o-n-y-.-c-o-m-.-a-u”  A few more minutes of typing noises. “Still no good. Do you have other URLs”. I proceeded to list all the URL’s I own – accompanied by more typing and gradually getting ruder – “No! I need your URL”.

A lightbulb went off above my head – “do you mean the address where people send me emails?” I said suspiciously. “Yes – your URL” she said.

I then proceeded to educate the business internet help desk person on the difference between a URL and an email address and how asking for the right thing may make her job a bit easier. Her comment “Yes, well I am really bad at computers”.

I waited for the Radio station to say it was a gotcha call as the comment was so bizarre … but it didn’t come.

Luckily the senior help desk did know what he was doing (even if he didn’t know what day it was and booked the wrong day for the linesperson to fix the line), so by Tuesday lunchtime everything was back to normal.

But I couldn’t help but wonder – who hired someone who was not good at computers for an IT business help desk? That made me think further – how many businesses actually mystery shop their own help desks to see what sort of service their clients get?

I know it is easy to laugh at Telstra, but I suspect there are many more less than helpful help desks in the world. Want to share your help desk horror stories?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Yesterday in Australia was a public holiday. Like most public holidays many of the shops shut, with only the major supermarkets and chain stores opening their doors to make the most of shoppers with time on their hands. This is not a new public holiday – one that has been happening since 1927, so you would think we have the idea down pat by now. Our local Coles at Arana Hills obviously hadn’t thought much about what a public holiday means in terms of shopping.

Decades ago, when I was a retail HR Manager, we would plan our rosters based on sales patterns for the relevant day. We would take into account new trends from other public holidays from the past 12 months, and we would staff accordingly. Public holidays generally meant bumper sales and most checkouts open to cope with the influx. To give you context, one of my stores had a bank of 49 checkouts and turned over $1million on opening day alone (and this was 30 years ago) – so I know a bit about planning and rostering to cope with crowds.

Yesterday, the local Coles had less than half of their checkouts staffed. They were hit with the inevitable holiday crowd, so they pulled all of the team members they could from the speciality areas to pack groceries and operate registers if they knew the technology (most didn’t). It didn’t make a dint in the crowds. So then all of the duty managers jumped on registers. Great concept – except this left no-one to organise price checks, get change, or act as traffic control to the rapidly hostile turning crowd which now snaked their way around the store and down into the frozen aisles.

Customers were yelling abuse at each other, as they jostled trolleys. One customer organised the people into a single queue to fill the checkouts in a turn turnabout way, but as soon as her groceries were processed, the queue failed and people cut in on each other again. Kids were screaming and crying in the bustle and it took over half an hour for any single person to go from the end of the queue through to the register. There were at least 10 abandoned full trolleys in the aisles – full of dairy, frozen and deli foods slowly spoiling (and money disappearing out the door). It was like the ultimate peak hour traffic experience gone wrong.

In all of this melee, the managers doggedly kept their heads down and processed individual customers at their register. When I suggested that they pull one of the packers (or managers) off the register to co-ordinate the crowd, I was met with blank stares and “we are too busy to stop”.

Only one young check out operator (would have been about 14) apologised to each customer about the delay. She was chirpy and full of life – and at her register you could feel each customer relax as they went through.

I suspect the manager on duty in the store was a junior one and had never had to deal with crowds before. She also hadn’t learnt that during a crisis, the role of the manager is to marshall the troops, remain calm and manage the crowds.

So what did I do in these situations? I used to keep a stock of free coffee vouchers on hand, as well as remove a box of Tim Tams from the shelves. I had one manager controlling the queues, apologising to customers, lightening the mood where possible and dispensing coffee vouchers and the odd Tim Tam to the crowd to keep things moving along. We would change the store musac to one a more calming – and not the usual full of energy pieces of music played at lunch time. Yes, one checkout may not have had a packer, but the goodwill and calm generated by having someone visibly in control made all the difference to the shopping experience for people.

The question is – what would your team do in an emergency? How would they cope if things in your business suddenly go wrong? Would they know how to cope, or what to do? If they didn’t know – would they know to call for advice? Most emergencies can be considered and planned for, then all it takes is to put your plan in action. Obviously the Coles Manager yesterday hadn’t experienced this process … yet.

What about you? Any team disasters or successes you want to share?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Most businesses have a great range of products or services … and yet most of their clients don’t know the full range on offer. It is one of those truisms that it is harder to get a new client than a repeat one, so why not educate your clients about your full range of offerings. This can be as simple as the sliver of cookie in front of a cake shop, or as complex as direct mail pieces.

For example, a natural health clinic I know runs regular workshops and seminars that look at a wide variety of health issues … and happen to include mention of different treatments and exposure to the full range of their services at the workshop.  Another online business sends out regular newsletters promoting one different product a month combined with useful tips and ideas on how to use their products.

The trick here is to give enough of a taste to whet the appetite, and not enough to fill people up. I mean, how many cookies would be sold in a bakery if the baker let people eat as many as they needed?

The other thing is if you do happen to offer a great product or service, make it easy for people to find it and access it. The anti-example is Australia Post. You can buy postpaks from their post offices – all clearly labeled with signs Padded Bag 1 etc. But I defy you to find out how to calculate postage for their products. You are left measuring in both mm and cm (different calculators use different measures) and fumbling around. If you are like me, after an hour of frustration,  you end up just sticking a King’s ransom of stamps on the thing, crossing your fingers and hoping. Make calculators obvious and linked to your products.

Make it clear where people can sign up to your newsletter – buried on page 40 of your website is not helpful. It should be on your front page as well as many other pages on your website.

Finally, make it easy to get in touch with you.  Today I spent another fruitless half hour trying to find a phone number to contact a business from their website – it didn’t exist as the person prefers to communicate via email. I communicated that they had unfortunately lost our business.

What do you think? Any good examples of businesses making it easy to buy from them?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Following on from our post about business cards, the next most common piece of business writing is your email signature. When you write an email, you want to save a signature file into your email program that automatically completes certain information on the bottom of each of your emails (included forwarded and reply emails). So how should you go about creating email signatures?

1. Your close. You can go traditional with “regards” or “yours sincerely”. If you want a more chatty close, then “cheers” is popular (but in my mind it always sounds as if you are about to clink a glass of cheap red against the computer monitor). You can also go creative in your close, for example my close is “exuberantly yours”. The reason I chose those words were that clients often commented on my exuberance. Have fun choosing  a creative close that matches your personality or your business.
2. Your name. You decide whether you want your full name, or just your first name – but make sure it is included in your signature.
3. A point about graphics. Many people put all of their signature information into a graphic. This looks great but has problems with being displayed on some computers – so you may end up with a lovely box with a red cross through it instead of your image. It also means people can’t copy and paste your details into their contact log.  One way around it is to have a combination of graphics and regular text, to cover all computer eventualities.
4. Your company. If you are a business, then having your name in close alignment with your company name or logo helps to build brand awareness.
5. Contact details. The same rules as for business cards apply here – only keep the contact essentials in your signature file.
6. Key link. This is where you include a link to your blog and/or website … and a reason for people to follow that link. Make it worth their while to click on the link and your mailing list will grow.
7. Social media links. Some people go overboard here, and end up with 10+ social media links. I go with the minimalist approach and recommend including the one or two sites you are most active on if you want people to connect with you via that medium.

A few more things to think about before you create email signatures:

• You may need to check the rules in your particular country in relation to signatures, for example some countries require businesses to include their company registration details in their emails.
• Adding your details as a contact card is great the first time you correspond – but after that it becomes annoying and adds to the size of your emails. To be blunt, most people don’t know how to use or save .vcf contact cards so you may want to rethink using them.
• Legal stuff – if you have to add in clauses in relation to confidentiality, intended recipients only to read etc etc etc, remember that long legal clauses are generally met with glazed eyes and the sudden desire to get a cup of coffee to wake you up. Keep the legal stuff to the bare minimum your lawyer can be talked into.
• Cute quotes & soapbox rants. Many people end with a motivational quote or a “think of the trees before printing this email”.  These may work depending on your audience (and the quote you use).  I am not convinced that an email environmental notice for the bottom of email signatures actually stops people printing your email if they need to – even if it makes you feel good to include it.
• Assorted “stuff” – if you use free virus software, spam check software or any other form of free software, often you get to included a free plug for them at the end of each of your emails. These make you look cheap and as if your business can’t afford the $50 for the paid version. Do you really want to say you are that broke? You want professional email signatures that show the success of your business and build confidence in your offering.

One last thing – make sure you proofread (and have someone else  double check) your cool email signatures as well as your email name (the one you put in when you first set up your email address). You would be surprised at the number of people who make typos of their names, phone numbers or link to incorrect places in their signature file.

So, what are your email horror stories or gold stars?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

A few of my clients have been asking me what to put on their business cards.  You see,  you go into business and everyone tells you that you have to have one.  What I tell them is before you race off to your printing store or graphic designer, take a breath and ask yourself a few questions.

1. What do you need it for? Sounds simple, but will you mainly be giving it to people at networking events, to confirm appointments, in case they have a problem with one of your products or some other reason.  Many people find that they have a couple of different ways they hand out their cards. Fantastic! Get different cards for different purposes – there’s no rule that says you can only have one type of card.
2. What do you want people to do with it when they get it? This sounds bizarre, but do you want people to file it in their card file (then make sure it fits into card files and is not a strange “creative” shape), stick it on their fridge (perhaps a magnet is what you are looking for instead of a card), scan it using a business card reader (be careful of the fonts you use if you want your card to be clear in scanners) or what?
3. If you want to send people back to your website - make it worth their while to go there. Use the back of the card to include an enticing offer or giveaway.
4. If you use them for networking or at conferences – then maybe you need a photo instead of a logo on your card so people can put a face to a name.
5. What is the minimum contact information you can get away with? Many people try and cram an encyclopedia onto their cards. By the time you add in phone, mobile, fax, switch, email, website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc etc – it is starting to get silly. Take pruning shears to your contact information and keep it to the essentials.
6. If your graphic designer insists 6 pt font is stylish and modern, belt them severely around the head with your bifocals. As people age we need bigger font so we can preserve our vanity and not have to bring out the magnifying glass to look at your card. Keep the essential details – your name and your main phone number – in a decent sized font.
7. Work out if your brand is cheap or you want to inspire a perception of quality. Cheap business cards look precisely that – cheap. You are your business card – what do you want it to say about who you are?

So that is my deadly seven. What do you think about business cards? What do you like, not like on cards that you have seen?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Over the past month my path has crossed with many fantastic people. Some who I consider to be true experts in their field, yet no one knows about them. Others I have met hold themselves up to be experts in the field, and have large followings behind them cheering them on. In some cases, the public experts have the goods in terms of personal knowledge, in others -  well …

Talking with these public and private experts is an eye-opening experience. Most of the private experts know they have some knowledge, but underestimate how much they know. Often a self esteem issue holds them back, and they feel that shadowy “other people” are better than them. The public experts have their own demons. Some have a scared little voice inside their head – telling them that they are going to be “found out” one day. Others have bullet-plated self esteem, where they feel they are the best there is (whether or not that is the case).

So what is the real difference? From what I can see, the public experts have taken the time to document what they know (or have someone write it on the behalf), and hoist their flag over the parapet. It stands to reason that the person who stands up and is counted for their knowledge will be the one getting the kudos and the money, compared to the person who has the knowledge inside their head and only letting it come out to play over a dinner party or with select clients.

If you want to be a thought leader, you need to first start by documenting your intellectual property. Yes, part of doing that is finding what is unique in your approach or thoughts, but the first stage is to get it down on paper.

Once you have it clarified, then tell everyone about what you know through sharing your expertise, systems and processes. People then give you feedback on your knowledge through testimonials and case studies and your reputation as an expert builds.

The hard part is most of us don’t take the time to stop and document what we know. So, to all you silent experts out there I issue you a challenge. Get writing! The worst that can happen is you will realise how much you really do know.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Writer

I love this blog post on Roger von Oech’s blog by Michael Michalo. Roger von Oech is the creator of the brilliant “Whack on the Side of the Head” card set – and I was stoked to see that you can now get them in an i-phone app called the Creative Whack Pack. In my opinion, his tools are brilliant ways to give your creative juices a charge on the days you are feeling flat.

But back to the blog post … in it Michael looks at the paradoxes of creativity. In his view:

To create, a person must

• Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
• See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
• Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
• Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
• Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
• Desire success but learn how to fail;
• Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
• Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

I would add that a person needs insatiable curiosity but be totally focussed.

What would you add?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

My dad is 80, and has lived a very full and successful life as a scientist and University Lecturer. But like many kids, until recently I had not had much conversation with my dad about his hopes and dreams for his life when he was growing up. It is funny how we assume our parents spring fully grown and are happy with their lot in life.

Last week while we were waiting for dad to head in for another round of heart surgery, we spent a few quiet hours in conversation. This time we talked about what he had dreamed he would be when he grew up – a journalist it turns out. And why he didn’t follow his dream, and moved into science instead. We talked about what his experience of school was like – not particularly a great experience thanks to some very abusive Christian Brothers.  We also talked about his relationships – what worked and what didn’t.

Dad is a brilliant story teller, and many was the moment when I had tears in my eyes from laughing at tales of Claude the lab lion who used to tackle dad around the ankles as he walked past; and his university pranks that these days would put him behind bars. I also learnt of the untold story of how my grandfather, who was head of one of the RAAF Airforce bases, thought they were sinking a midget sub off the coast of NSW during the war – only to discover they had sunk a very surprised whale.

But the questions were not all one way. The biggest question he asked was if we had our time over again, knowing what we know now, what job would we do now? What career would we follow? What would we do differently?

These are brilliant questions, and ones we forget to ask ourselves as we travel through life. Life passes so swiftly – in a blink of an eye it is gone.  We need to make sure that we live every moment to the maximum – that we are following the paths of our heart.

Dad is due for another round of more complex heart surgery in 5 weeks time and you can be sure that there will be many more questions and quiet discussions in the interim.  I am truly valuing his insights and wisdom (and humour).

So what would you answer? Would you choose the same job? What would you do differently if you had another go at life? What would it take for you to do this now?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

Staying with our theme of no blood and gore road safety campaigns, Vic Roads has just released a series of ads with the tagline “Don’t be a Dickhead”.  The tagline has copped a fair amount of flak, but the ads themselves are also gaining few friends.

Ad lines include “If you don’t wear your seatsbelt we will turn off Facebook” shown with a man smashing a computer with a hammer.  “Every time you talk on your mobile phone while driving, a redhead gets his wings”,and this one.

Yes, these ads get a laugh (when they are not offending people), but will they change driving behaviour – my guess is they won’t. There is not enough social influence in there to dramatically change how people think or act.

If you want to have a look at the full series of ads check out the VicRoads You Tube Channel.

What do you think?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter