Hey Hey, My My (SEO Can Never Die)

For all of those who think SEO is dead, here's a song for you ...

Sung to the tune of  "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)"  as performed by Neil Young (Amazon Affiliate Link) - with appropriate apologies

Hey hey, my my
SEO can never die
There's more to the searchin' than meets they eye

Hey hey, my my
My my, hey hey
SEO is here to stay
As long as folks are searchin'
We'll make a way
My my, hey hey

Out of the blue, and into the black
You paid for links and that got you banned
And once you're gone, it's hard to come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black

The King is gone, but he's not forgotten
This is the story of Alta Vista
It's better to burn out, Google never sleeps
The King is gone, but he's not forgotten

Hey hey, my my
SEO can never die
Long as there is searchin'
We're lookin' for eyes

What Is Best Buy's Real Problem?

Are the prices too high or is the customer service just too bad?

Best Buy (and many other brick and mortars) often blame online stores like Amazon for their problems. The chief complaint centers on how online stores compete unfairly because they don't have to collect sales tax.

But is that the real reason? I don't think so, and neither do many of those I've spoken with on the topic this past week. Those conversations were prompted by an article on Forbes.com by Larry Downes, "Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually." He puts some numbers with his poor experiences at Best Buy and comes to the conclusion that it's customer service which really makes the difference - not price.

At the risk of "piling on," I present two experiences I had with Best Buy this past year which I think prove Mr. Downes' point quite well:

Experience The First - Buying Mom a New Computer
Whenever I head up to Michigan to visit Mom, I usually get hooked into doing pro forma tech support. I don't mind, though, because her being online and tech savvy helps us to communicate better. When we were there this Summer, she said it was time replace her outdated desktop. So, we headed over to the local Best Buy to see what we could find.

Mom had a specific budget and certain things she needed her new machine to do. I wanted to get her a powerful enough computer to last a few years from a brand with decent tech support - in case I wasn't available to help her over the phone.

We walked into the store and straight back to the computer section. Of course, we were immediately approached by a salesperson. I explained that I would let him know when we'd made a selection, but that we really didn't need any help. He hovered around (way too close, I might add) for several minutes.

In the meantime, I pulled out my iPhone and started looking at the models they had on display, checking details, specs and user ratings from various sites. Much the opposite of Best Buy's complaint that people use them as a showroom then later go purchase from Amazon, I often go to Amazon for ratings because they usually have good ones. I also check NewEgg and search Google and Bing on the model numbers to catch any ratings I might miss. That was when the salesperson disappeared.

Once we narrowed down our choices to two, I had a specific question about one of them. Once we hunted down the sales person, he had no idea what I was even asking. More googling came up with the answer and we had our choice. Then we had to hunt the guy down again to get the item so we could pay for it. Of course, we were asked a half-dozen times if we wanted to purchase the extended warranty. After declining the first time, I wished they'd quit asking.

This experience wasn't too terrible, of course. Pretty typical for Best Buy and many other stores.

Experience The Second - The Missed Pickup
My wife and I recently decided to replace our malfunctioning home theatre unit.  She did most of the research, narrowing the myriad of selections down to two. We decided on one and checked prices online. We found that Best Buy had the best price, beating Amazon - even including the sales tax and $10 in-store pickup delivery charge. (Why is there a delivery charge to pick up an item already at the store? That really puzzled me.) I ordered the item from Best Buy's web site and opted for the in-store pickup.

The next day, we went to our local Best Buy to pick up the item and purchase a new HDMI cable. The pick up line is situated next to the returns line, with a shared POS terminal between them. The people working didn't have my item immediately ready even though I got an email indicating it would be so. No big deal, though, since someone very quickly went to the shelf and grabbed one for us. But, I had to get into the returns line to pay for the HDMI cable. Again, no big deal since they put me ahead of others already in line (which probably didn't make them happy).

We went home and set up our new sound system. It is very nice. My wife is playing Skyrim right now and the sound is excellent. We are quite happy with the purchase.

The day after I picked up our item, I got an email from Best Buy reminding me to pick up my purchase. I was a little puzzled, but just deleted the email. My initial thought was, "The in-store system hasn't synced with the main system, yet."

I got another email the next day, and the next. For ten days, each morning, I received an email reminding me that my purchase was ready for pickup. I remember even tweeting once something like, "@BestBuy, why are you spamming me to pick up an item I already picked up?" I thought it rather humorous. The last email warned that if I didn't pick my item up, they would cancel my order. Cancel? On an order for an item I already picked up? Nonsense!

Oh, but they were serious. The next day I received an email letting me know that my order had been cancelled and my card credited the amount of the purchase. A quick check of my bank account verified that they had, indeed, refunded my money. Now I laughed out loud.

I wanted to let Best Buy know about this so they could get their money; that was only fair. I called the number on my email receipt and hit zero until I got a real person. I explained to the lady I spoke with what happened in detail. She was surprised and said she'd transfer me to the correct department immediately.

I sat on hold for half an hour. After wasting enough of my monthly allotted cell minutes on this, I decided to try to email. After all, this was their error - why should I waste my minutes.

I pulled up my email receipt again and hit reply. I wrote a very detailed message describing what happened and asked them to respond so we could work out how to make this right. After all, I wanted to get them the money they were legitimately due for my purchase.

My message received an auto response:

This is an automated response. Please do not reply to this email.
If you need assistance, please contact our Customer Care, http://www.bestbuy.com/ or call 1-800-BESTBUY.

I hate auto responses like that.

Companies Note: Never bounce an email from a customer telling them you don't monitor a specific email address. MONITOR ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES you send email from. Don't waste your customers' time.

I clicked on the link in the response, which lead to Best Buy's customer service contact form. I copied the text from my bounced email and pasted into the message box on the form and made sure to enter my order number in the appropriate place. At this point, I was starting to get a little perturbed, having wasted almost an hour trying to give them their money. In the message box I wrote that this was the third and final time I was going to try to contact them regarding this matter. If they wanted their money, they should email or call.

Another auto response was the last message I heard from them:

Best Buy Customer,
This message was automatically generated in an attempt to answer your question as quickly as possible. If you are contacting us to cancel, or modify your BestBuy.com order, please call us at 1-888-BEST BUY. (1-888-237-8289)
Thank You.
Best Buy Customer Care

I didn't want to cancel or modify my order, and I certainly didn't want to spend another 30-plus minutes on hold.

It's been nearly a month since this transpired and I still haven't heard anything. Those I have related this story to feel I did more than most people would have to get them their money and that I should consider the home theatre unit a Christmas gift. Perhaps they are right.

The Bottom Line
There have been many surveys done in the past several years where consumers have indicated they'd be willing to pay extra for better customer service (examples here, here and here), and many people willingly pay a little extra for more service than standard offerings. I've experienced exceptional customer service for which I probably payed a little more on several occasions. I didn't mind a bit.

I'm really very surprised Best Buy didn't beat a path to my door to collect their money. If they had at least acknowledged my efforts to contact them I would be telling quite a different story here. Instead, I'm commenting on an article which offers up what I think is an apt analysis of Best Buy's self-inflicted woes based on my own experience with them.

I wonder if their leadership will take notice and try to change course. If they don't I suspect it won't be too long before they meet a similar fate as so many of their former competitors.

What say you? What do you think about Mr. Downes' take on Best Buy's situation? What do you think about my experiences with them? Do you think I did enough due diligence in trying to right their error? Please feel free to tell us what you think in the comments.

Oh, and Best Buy: If you do decide you want your money please give me a call or email me. You have my contact information.

Lastly: Just as I was finishing this up, I caught a response to the Forbes.com story by Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn on their blog. Check out the comments, too.

Book Review: "Winning The Zero Moment of Truth" by Jim Lecinski

Back in the day (and not to long ago, either) we were taught that the sales process (or purchase process, depending on which side of the transaction you were on) went through a process shaped like a funnel. It was more or less a linear process. It may not have actually been so, but it was a nice model and likely fit many transaction processes.

Now, with the internet and all of the information resources it makes available to consumers, the sales process is no longer linear at all. Often, by the time a customer walks into a store, he has researched features, brands, prices, warranties, and any other information available and knows exactly what he wants. If research wasn't done ahead of time, it can be done in the store with a smart device. The world, literally, is in each customer's hand.

This is where the idea of the "Zero Moment of Truth" (ZMOT) comes in. It's no longer easy to predict where or when a customer will make her purchase decision. It could be any where at any time. The information which goes into her decision process can come to here from traditional advertisements to banner ads, reviews, videos from other customers on YouTube. Many times another customer's "Second Moment of Truth" (experience with a product or service) can very well become another person's ZMOT. If you can find a way to get the right information to a person at the critical time, you can win at ZMOT.

Here are some quotes from the work which got me thinking:

Kim Kadlec, Worldwide Vice President, Global Marketing Group, Johnson & Johnson describes the change in mental models this way: "We're entering an era of reciprocity. We now have to engage people in a way that's useful or helpful to their lives. The consumer is looking to satisfy their needs, and we have to be there to help them with that. To put it another way: How can we exchange value instead of just sending a message?

Companies who are winning in this area are already on their way to becoming information resources. Rather like Santa Claus in "Miracle on 34th Street," they are becoming helpful to their customers, sometimes even at the expense of their immediate bottom line. They are looking to invest in the long-term success of their customers. Last year I wrote about Gun Dog Supply and how they turned themselves into an information resource for those interested training hunting dogs. By doing this, they made themselves an invaluable resource which helped their sales in a huge way.
How can you help your company do this?

Let me make another point about ratings and reviews online: They're a tremendous resource for customers, but they're also a tremendous resource for businesses. 

"A focus group is artificial. People are paid to be there. They know that there are agency people behind the glass watching them ... . The only thing that's pure and authentic in terms of what's actually happening in the marketplace is how people talk to each other."

Think about this: You have a great opportunity to learn what you're doing well and where you need to improve. This is a tremendous asset to the business person who realizes it's there and takes advantage of the knowledge available to make positive changes to their product or service.

Beth Comstock, the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of General Electric ... says:  

"Maybe if you make locomotives, or the software that automates production lines, you think: Why should I have videos or web content out there, who's going to use that?
But one day at our marketing council we did YouTube searches for just those kinds of things. And you know what? Up came hundreds of videos, including videos from our competitors on things like intelligent thinking for product line automation. It was a great eye-opener."

This really can apply to any product or service. People want to know what's out there, what's available and what might best solve their problems. If you can build out content (and not just videos) you can really hit a home run when it comes to attracting good attention. National Instruments has an excellent community full of content on how to use their products. I'm willing to bet all that great content gives them a big advantage over their competitors.

If I'm having this conversation privately with a CMO, this is the first question I ask: "Who's in charge of ZMOT for you?"  

Because if it's nobody's job, it's not going to get done. If I ask you, "Who runs your TV department" or "Who's in charge of your in-store marketing for FMOT?" or "Who makes sure your green beans reach the shelf on time?", you'll give me one person's name. You should also be able to give me one person's name for ZMOT.

And that's because of no one owns it, it won't get taken care of. I wrote about this regarding web marketing in a guest post on the PubCon Speakers blog. If you're going to take ZMOT (or anything else) seriously, someone has to own it.

If you're a marketer, I hope you're encouraging your customers to make videos about your product that others can find at that Zero Moment of Truth. Never forget that your customers are ahead of you, and that're ready to contribute right back to ZMOT in real time.

I sometimes get into conversations about creating content. Here's an idea: if you can't make enough content, crowdsource it. If people are delighted with your product or service, they'll likely be happy to share that knowledge with their friends. Sometimes all they need is a little encouragement.

Check out Winning The Zero Moment of Truth by Jim Lecinski. The Kindle version is free. It's a quick read filled with great information including quite a bit from Google's research. It only took me a little over an hour to read it and watch the videos; very well worth the time.

You can also get more information by visiting the web site: www.zeromomentoftruth.com

A Story of Shenanigans

Normally, I save stories of shenanigans for my other blog, Musings of Řehoř. I hope you'll indulge me while I share of a bunch of 20-something people with a lot of youthful exuberance.

There were sometimes disagreements between the shops at the place I wrote about in that article. They were mostly between the front shop (where I worked) and the back shop. Many times those disagreements stemmed from differing interpretations of guidance from the home office. At other times we might be in dispute over the exact wording of a Monty Python quote or rivalries between sports teams. No matter the reason, we occasionally found ourselves at odds with "those guys."

One time, during a stretch of midnight shifts, we decided to declare war against the back office. It's hard to remember what the disagreement was, but no doubt our honor was besmirched in some way or another. The fact that midnight shifts were sometimes boring and filled with idle time probably didn't help matters much, either.

Don't Try This At Home, Kids - We Were Trained Professionals
One of our team, Jerry if I remember correctly, devised a way to make a paper wad launcher. The office in which we worked was a computer room with an elevated floor. In a corner behind some spare equipment he found some brackets which were designed to hold the floor tiles together. He also rounded up some plastic "zip" wire ties, rubber bands, binder clips and butterfly-style paper clips.
The binder clip was attached to the bracket with a wire tie, and this served as the trigger and firing mechanism. He reshaped the butterfly paper clip into a piece resembling a sling shot which was attached to the front of the bracket. To that he attached the rubber band. Viola - he created a very serviceable paper wad launcher. We found some paper towel cores to use as a stock for the butt end to finish off the weapons.

Another of our group declared himself "commander" of our skirmishers. He gathered an army consisting of ten of members of our team. Plans were made to march to the other office in two ranks of five. We would stop in formation in front of our "enemy" and engage them Revolutionary War style. Upon the command to fire, the first rank would fire, then immediately kneel to reload. While the first rank members reloaded their paper wad shooters, the second rank would fire over their heads.

While we carefully crafted our weapons and paper ammunition under Jerry's tutelage, our ersatz commander drafted a formal declaration of war against the back shop. It was quite flowery, written in what we thought was appropriate colonial style wording. It was dispatched by messenger to a no doubt quite befuddled group in that office.

Just after the time indicated in our declaration of war for the commencement of hostilities, we assembled in ranks and marched down the long hallway to the other shop. We must have been quite a site to the "noncombatants" going to a fro in and out of the other offices conducting  their business.
The entrance to the back shop's office was a double door, which was just wide enough for us to march through in our formation. When we got into position our "commander" shouted the order for the first rank to load and fire. The looks on the faces of the "enemy" soldiers was absolutely precious. They stood there with their eyes wide open and their mouths hanging open at the spectacle of us launching our volley of paper wads at them.

Each rank completed three volleys of fire before the "commander" shouted out the orders which guided us to march back to our office area. As we left, the workers of the back shop yelled various insults at us and threw paper wads in our direction. It didn't matter, the field was ours and we carried the day.

We made incursions into their office at random times over the next few nights. It didn't take long for them to start building paper wad launchers of their own, either. Eventually, though, someone a little more mature than us put a stop to our war, declaring a permanent cease fire. There was talk about it being fun until someone had an eye put out.

One of the highlights of this whole time was the mortar my friend Scott made with the cardboard tube left over from the paper roll for a plotter printer. He rigged it with a number of very large rubber bands which made it capable of launching a toilet plunger into the air towards an enemy formation some 20 feet away. It was quite ingenious.

I still laugh when I think about this event. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed the retelling.

Leadership Genius from Marty Weintraub

I've heard Marty Weintraub of aimClear speak a number of times on web marketing topics. His energetic style and expertise are very enlightening, entertaining and inspiring. He's a very smart guy and well worth paying attention to.

That he was also someone to admire for his leadership philosophy went unnoticed by me until last week when he published an article on the aimClear blog entitled "Manage Like You’re Dying: A Humbled Entrepreneur’s Reflections." Go check it out, it is well worth reading.

I've long been an advocate of servant leadership. I believe in building a cohesive team and equipping the members of the team to do great things. Marty espouses this belief quite nicely in his post. It dovetails quite nicely with the methods Dave Ramsey teaches in his EntreLeadership training.
Note that just about every item in Marty's list is about developing people and culture and not about formulas, procedures nor policies. If you spend time hiring and developing the right people, those other things will take care of themselves. Good people will do the right thing whether there's a policy in place or not.

When I was a young man in the Army a very wise First Sergeant, Lonnie Bagwell, used to constantly drill into us: "An Noncommissioned Officer's job is to take care of soldiers. If you don't want to take care of soldiers then you need to find another line of work."

His was a team-building concept built upon the fact that without a good team, missions would not be fulfilled and one's life could ultimately be in jeopardy. That's not to say there was no fooling around and joking around in our day to day activities. When it comes to wartime, however, things can get, quite literally, deadly serious.

We were taught that it was imperative we train those in our charge to take our place. This was not only important in battle, but in peacetime, too, since we often transferred after 2-3 years at a duty station. Someone needed to be ready to take over when necessary. We were also encouraged to find those young soldiers who showed leadership potential and start delegating things to them.

Developing leaders was key to a successful unit and the overall success of the Army.

In business, things aren't normally so life and death. Still, building a great team can mean the difference between having a good or great organization and even between success or failure. I think Marty's wisdom on this topic is well worth keeping in mind for any leader.

What about you? What do you think of Marty's ideas? Do you have anything you would add or take away? Instead of commenting here, please comment and add to the discussion already happening on Marty's post page.