fastcompany: Knowing what your clients think about you is a key part of keeping them happy.  Every business leader knows that success is built upon excellent client relationships…In fact, our research has shown that account owners tend to dramatically overestimate the quality of their weakest relationships and underestimate the quality of their best ones. Put simply, companies aren’t asking enough from their best clients, and their weakest clients could be at risk of defecting. Both situations lead to lost revenue. Growing companies can gain a huge competitive advantage simply by getting a more accurate view of their current clients.  Here are four ways that you can do just that: 1. Make an effort to ask. If you’re serious about improving your business, then implementing surveys or a regular feedback system is a surefire way to stay in close contact with your clients’ wants and needs, which are likely to change over time. 2. Assess what they’re saying. Instead, work to get to know your clients on an individual level so you can anticipate future challenges. Be prepared to drop everything when they need your help, and better yet, offer your services before they ask. 3. Determine their level of engagement. Relationships are a two-way street, and if the client isn’t engaged, find ways for them to invest in the relationship. Give your client their preferred degree of ownership in new projects or initiatives, and recognize them when the team is successful. 4. Get the first call. Receiving the first call is an indicator that your client sees you and your team as the sole, valued partner and most important resource, putting you one step closer to keeping and growing their business. The next time your client needs something, you can bet they’ll remember when you went above and beyond.  [Image: Flickr user Miuenski Miuenski] Word.
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fastcompany:

Knowing what your clients think about you is a key part of keeping them happy. 

Every business leader knows that success is built upon excellent client relationships…In fact, our research has shown that account owners tend to dramatically overestimate the quality of their weakest relationships and underestimate the quality of their best ones.

Put simply, companies aren’t asking enough from their best clients, and their weakest clients could be at risk of defecting. Both situations lead to lost revenue.

Growing companies can gain a huge competitive advantage simply by getting a more accurate view of their current clients. 

Here are four ways that you can do just that:

1. Make an effort to ask.

If you’re serious about improving your business, then implementing surveys or a regular feedback system is a surefire way to stay in close contact with your clients’ wants and needs, which are likely to change over time.

2. Assess what they’re saying.

Instead, work to get to know your clients on an individual level so you can anticipate future challenges. Be prepared to drop everything when they need your help, and better yet, offer your services before they ask.

3. Determine their level of engagement.

Relationships are a two-way street, and if the client isn’t engaged, find ways for them to invest in the relationship.

Give your client their preferred degree of ownership in new projects or initiatives, and recognize them when the team is successful.

4. Get the first call.

Receiving the first call is an indicator that your client sees you and your team as the sole, valued partner and most important resource, putting you one step closer to keeping and growing their business. The next time your client needs something, you can bet they’ll remember when you went above and beyond. 

[Image: Flickr user Miuenski Miuenski]

Word.

The Best Thing to Ever Happen to Product Placement

As 30 Rock is now over, let’s take a brief look at how well 30 Rock handled product placement. 

30 Rock changed the game of product placement. Prior, it was the advertisement that every plot writer hated. It limited their creativity as they were forced by deep pockets to write-in random brands and make it seem natural. But then enter 30 Rock. Product placement didn’t limit these writers because they found a new way to write them in. Make fun of them, mention them while deliberately staring into the camera, and even go as far as to bite the Kabletown hand that feeds you. 

They took a risk. The companies paying for placement could have easily been offended and NBC would have lost millions of ad revenue. Instead, the opposite happened and the line for placement got longer. 30 Rock truly changed the game for ads; companies loved it, and the viewers stood next to the writers rejoicing in the mockery. Despite what you read about 30 Rock never fully catching, those who did watch the show came to love the shamelessly obvious product plugs. The question is, with 30 Rock gone, will we see more of this type of placement in other shows, or will TV become a boring land of awful plugs once more? 

The real reason I wanted to write this post was to commend 30 Rock on a job very, very well done in Episode 8 of this last season, “My Whole Life is Thunder”. 

Seven or so minutes in, there’s a moment when Kenneth speaks about what he’d change on TV if he were in control. “I’d get rid of those ads that pop up in the middle of your TV shows”. What happens next? An ad pops up in the middle of my TV show! I thought it was brilliant, and it really goes to show 30 Rock’s shamelessness. The best part is that it made me laugh. When was the last time you’ve laughed at a product placement in any show other than 30 Rock? Exactly.

We will miss you, 30 Rock. 

3 Pre-“Big Game” Ads, Roundup

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Earlier this week, AdWeek posted 10 commercials for this year’s Super Bowl (Crazy, right? Before the actual game!) And so here it is, 20 minutes out from kick off and I wanted to share my first couple of thoughts on spots that I loved.

1) Audi “Prom” (http://youtu.be/ANhmS6QLd5Q)

This one starts off slow, the Mom’s line “Look at you, sooooo dashing” sounds really forced. But have no fear, the ad really starts to kick it up: Boy goes to prom without date, little sister makes fun of him, boy’s self-esteem already blown and then BAM, Dad to the rescue. Here son, take the keys to the Audi and have fun tonight.

Here’s where it is awesome. Boy speeds into parking lot, parks in Principal’s spot, busts into school, see’s prom queen, approaches prom queen and plants a big kiss on her right in the center of prom for all to see. Is this not the fantasy of any high school misfit? To say YOLO and get the dream girl just for a kiss. It made me say YOU GO KID as the prom king came in to make his presence known. The ad then cuts to the misfit at the driver’s wheel with a black eye and a big, big ole grin on his face with roaring engine sounds in the background. When you watch this, you’ll see why I loved it, despite it seeming more than a bit cliche. 

Makes you think Audi is for rebels. Definitely an ad directed at gaining a younger demographic of Audi lovers. (Guys, it’s working)

2) Kia “Space Babies” (http://youtu.be/t535BjVmXq8)

Yes, I put Kia on this list. And after watching the spot, it may surprise you that I did so. If the Audi commercial was cliche, then this was plain painful. It follows a well overdone story line in Super Bowl ads thanks to E-Trade. It’s all about babies. Then to make it more run of the mill, it starts off with the classic kid question “Where do babies come from”. 

As a result, you are not expecting much from this one, but it does get kind of cool. The Dad’s voice epically describes a space launch of mini baby heroes as they descend onto our planet from above, jam-packed with action and adventure. At the very least, it was great CGI and editing. 

But what I liked most about it was the very ending. David&Goliath, the agency responsible for the spot, cleverly made a plug for Kia’s voice-command that made me grin with a giggle. It wasn’t the expected ending I saw coming since moments before a parachuting baby circled over the sunroof. Instead it ended with a quick we-need-to-change-the-subject response from Dad when the kid questioned the credibility of his  story. It took a moment after the commercial ended to realize that it was the perfect set-up to showcase Kia’s new voice-command, but when I arrived at the “I see what you did there” moment, it made me love them for it. Hopefully it makes you love them too. 

3) VW “Get Happy” (http://youtu.be/9H0xPWAtaa8)

I must ask, VW, what are you doing? Trying to hop on the Coke happiness bandwagon? (Or Volkswagen?) It seems like an interesting approach given that Coke’s campaign is so widely known. It really felt like VW was simply copying a successful (albeit nausea inducing) campaign. However, I do think that happiness from a car makes a lot more sense that happiness from an aluminum can. 

Did I like this one? Not a whole lot. I listed it simply to draw the comparison between VW and Coke. It’ll be interesting to see the Coke commercials later today to see how it all compares. Mad respect for the man’s Jamaican accent, though.

I will admit I see two good things in this ad despite its drawbacks. The first is that VW must be attempting to attract men to it’s infamously female car of the 2000s. The new sporty design overhaul made last year does draw my attention to the car a lot more than before. And if it comes with the accent, I may just have to knab one. The second aspect done well corresponds with the first in how it communicates the repositioning of the Bug. It uses a human truth, which is effective in any campaign, to make its point: people receive a great deal of self-worth from the car they drive with their ultimate goal being permanent satisfaction and ultimate happiness. VW aced this. 

Now it’s your turn to judge the ads. Grab your favorite 7 layer dip and pull up to the screen! 

 

Why Instagram is not GREAT, but could be

I can’t say Instagram isn’t good. Because it is. It’s a good photo sharing application with social capabilities. The problem is how limited those social capabilities are. You can follow people, like photos, and search tags. But that’s it.

With over 100 million users, there’s at least one crucial element missing. Currently, when you post a photo it’s visible by only your followers and anyone who searches the hashtags you associated with it. When 100 million people are also posting and hashtagging photos, your photo doesn’t last that long on the search page. This is unfortunate because really the only way within Instagram to find new people worth following is by searching for a tag and stumbling upon a brilliant ‘grammer. It’s slightly cumbersome and it’s definitely not easy to find the people worth following.

Instagram isn’t just a friends follow friends medium like Facebook. It allows for great anonymity, thereby inducing people to follow non-friends purely for the sake of admiring great photos. As a result, it’s vital for Instagram to give ‘gramers a way to easily find people worth following. 

Solution: Let ‘gramers share other people’s photos with their followers. I know, this sounds a lot like Tumblr, but that’s the point. Do we need another button at the bottom of the app? Nope. We can solve this by tinkering with the Following/News page. It currently displays what your friends have liked, but I believe there is a fundamental difference between “liking” the photo and wanting to share it with your followers. Liking is a bit more private, whereas sharing is something more. It’s putting your seal of approval on it and wanting to put that preference on display. Liking and desire to share definitely overlap at times, but not always. Maybe it’s a picture someone else took of your engagement. Bet you wanna share that one! Right now, if you like it, it’ll only stay on the feed for a few hours depending on how active your followers and their followers are. So how can we make shared photos last longer? How can we give them greater permanency? To follow Tumblr rules, we can make likes private and shares public. Then, all shared photos can be aggregated into one place for each ‘gramer. It’d be like visiting a Facebook profile to see all of someone’s updates in one place. Hm, that does sound a lot like Tumblr. 

Solution Redux: Since Facebook owns Instagram, I think we can all expect the two to be spliced together sometime in the future. And my bet is that it will address this issue by providing a better way to share, feature, follow, promote and like. 

To ponder:

-Curating a list of great people to follow is a time-intensive task for any individual. So how can we cut down the time it takes for ‘gramers to find people worth following?

-Corporate Instagram pages probably want to like all of the photos people submit to them in order to build goodwill, but might not want the world to see them. They’d want to show their appreciation and thank each person sharing individually, but who says all the photos will be of the brand image they want to promote?

Your turn. Thoughts on how to improve Instagram for companies?