Customer Experience

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The 10 Words are embedded within the stories of the Lord delivering the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt and leading them into a land of promise. If we don’t read the commands within the story we may miss the rhythm. Within the actual commands, the Sabbath stands out as a command that has a story or two stories embedded within it. The Exodus 20:8-11Exodus 20:8-11
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: ¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.  

WP-Bible plugin version of the command alludes to the creation story: God creates for six days; at the end of the six days, He says, “Very Good!”; and then He sets aside the seventh day as a day of rest.

The Deuteronomy 5:12-15Deuteronomy 5:12-15
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
12 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. ¹³ Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: ¹⁴ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. ¹⁵ And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.  

WP-Bible plugin version of the command references the story of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Some call this story the redemption story. I tend to think to think of it as the re-creation story. Slavery strips a human of personal status: no name, no status, no self control. These non-persons are called out of the grave and into new life. They receive a name, a commission (the Torah), and a promise: the people who are not a people become a people, a new creation or a re-creation.

I’ve already teased out a few ideas related to Sabbath Recreation. So now I want to explore another nuance: the aspect of storying. For six days, Israel works hard for survival. While travelling across the wilderness and settling the land, their days are filled with all the typical chores of nomadic cultures and then agrarian cultures. In other words, their busy surviving. Bot one day they pause. They rest. They thank God for His faithfulness. They remember.

They remember the story of creation. They remember the story of re-creation. They remember their own history. They retell the story. This regular habit of pausing and retelling their story in Sabbath thanksgiving and in festival celebration, reveals an essential element of identity formation in everything from personhood to tribal or ethnic identity to brand management. Telling our story again and again and again imprints our identity on our minds, in our bodies and ultimately in our actions.

Many companies spend thousands of dollars to develop a brand identity program, focusing their energy on design. Design is important but pales in comparison to telling and retelling and retelling the story. Companies need to tell their story. But first they need to learn their stories. Many people participate in a companies’ stories, including their customers. If they don’t learn to listen to their stories as well, they may discover the customer stories may turn against the company story, and then they’ll spend lots of PR cash trying to regain their voice.

But let me think about storying on a personal level. If there is a story to tell, I would suggest there is a story to hear. Many conference speakers are master storytellers. Many great filmmakers are also amazing story tellers. But I would also suggest we need to cultivate the gift of storycollecting.

I come from a family of storytellers, but I sometimes think my greater gift is storycollecting. People need to tell their story and someone needs to listen. I suggesting storycollecting or story listening is a part of Sabbath Hospitality.

Today while I was drinking coffee and reflecting on the 10 Words, a man walked up and immediately started telling me his story. I stopped and listened. Obviously that what was the rhythm I needed to pay attention to.

He was wearing a cross and two chains. I asked about the chains. He explained that they were cheap fan chains (for ceiling fans). He wore these chains with the cross as a sign of devotion without being ostentatious. Then he proceeded to tell me stories of St. Francis and his vow of poverty and service. In a matter of minutes, I traveled all through church history listening to tidbits about the lives and saints and lives devoted to service and obedience to the call and pattern of Jesus. As he was leaving the man handed me a gift. A book on the “Rule of St. Benedict.”

Everywhere we go, we are surrounded by people with stories to tell. If we are willing to listen, people will tell us their stories. We give them a gift in listening, and they give us a gift in telling them. In Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker stories, there is a character named Taleswapper. He collects stories and then redistributes them. I think this is an interesting way of thinking about stories. We listen and trade. As we listen, we may learn the hidden wisdom of Hebrew storytelling.

Their story is told from varying perspective based on the current circumstance. By telling their story in new ways or through new angles, they speak wisdom to the current crisis, challenge or opportunity. If we learn to listen rightly, we may learn the rhythm of knowing when to tell a story and what story needs to be told. I would suggest that a world of storytellers may bring more peace and healing than a culture of would-be messiahs pointing fingers at all the devils around them.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Last spring I made a presentation at the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit about practical ideas for retailers in the social space. Looks like a quick summary of the presentation made it to their blog today. Thanks!

By naming the presentation “practical” I hoped to convey the idea of learning by practice. The best way to enter the social commerce space is not by reading books, blogs, and the latest banter online. It is simply to do it. We learn much more by doing than by thinking about doing.

G.K. Chesterton once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” What?

His inverted aphorism was written to turn conventional expectation on its head by pointing out the value of acting and not simply watching others act. We jump into the middle of fray. We make mistakes. We learn. We perfect. We get better.

Einstein follows a similar appeal by suggesting, “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.” While I am a great believer in market testing, I think we may sometimes drown in data while we could actually be throwing a lifeline to a drowning person. Knowledge and charts and graphs and profiles and ideas are not enough.

So enjoy the Bazaarvoice summary, but hopefully you also be willing to step out and trying some things. Who knows? You might even discover something the gurus haven’t stumbled on yet, and you might just create the future.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tapping into the willing spirit of passionate customers and dedicated online users, Get Satisfaction is a giant help forum for thousands of companies. Ask a question and get responses from thousands of customers. The idea is not new but the application of combining official company pages with employee and customer responses as well as tagging and sorting topics makes this a pretty cool tool for customers and companies.

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If you’re passing through the Bellaterra/Huntington Beach area in California, you might want to watch out for the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The Consumerist hits them with a downright horror show story in customer service denial.

Not sure if I can bear to even eat chocolate after that story.

Update: The COO of Rocky Mtn Chocolate Factory called and apologized to the lady. Rock on! And hand me another chocolate bar.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Last year I gave a presentation to group of businessmen on tagging and why it had the power to change the way we think about information, categories and even people. I suggested that we could have a tagging profile for members of congress the might paint a clearer picture than simple left/right divisions. In fact, I thought and still think that tagging could be an interesting tool for 360 profiles on how people (friends and co-workers) perceive us.

Looks like has got the ball rolling with their brand tagging tool. Brand tags is great for brand researchers and fun for the rest of us schmucks to brand the companies we don’t like with words like

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Don’t throw out your discarded Cell Phones and MP3 players. EMusic is offering cash, paypal and even charitable donation options. That charitable idea is great, and I’m glad they’re offering it!

Anybody who offers Larry Norman downloads is already rocking in my book!

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I wrote about the idea of integrity and integration earlier in the month. The divisions between our personal and public lives do not appeal to me. I want to live as a whole person whether in the workplace, the ministry, the home or even online. When working at Philips, I had the opportunity to use my interest in creativity and play to lead workshops among co-workers. This excited me because within the workforce, I found a way to integrate personal interests with work in a way the I believe benefited the company.

Another key interest in my life has been community/relationship building. That’s why I track social networks and trends in culture. I am interested in how these trends online and offline will impact the formation of relationships. I’ve had the privilege of bringing this interest in community building into several companies, but the focus has primarily been within a company not between the company and their outside stakeholders (customers, vendors, et al).

So I’ve tried to find connecting points between this interest and the company I’ve been working with most recently: Jewelry Television. We’re making some baby steps toward community/social networking. They recently gave approval for me to start a Jewelry Television blog. It’s very low radar right now. We’ve not promoted or mentioned it much at all.

This is still an ongoing experiment. While I want the blog to direct people to our site (so I post ads and videos from the site), I also want to blog to reveal the human side of the company and open the door for conversation with customers. Eventually, it is a step toward building a more socialnet based dialogue between JTV and customers as well as other folks online.

Take a look at it, if you have chance and give me any feedback. I’d appreciate it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Mark Hurst tells a powerful story of anti-consumer experience on his Good Experience blog.

Matthew Shinnick sold a pair a mountain bikes on Craigslist, but the check he received in the mail looked a bit suspicious. He mentioned this to the teller at San Francisco branch Bank of America. Moments later he was dragged from the bank in handcuffs and spent the next 12 hours in jail. The charges were dropped but Shinnick ended up spending over $14,000 in legal fees.

Bank of America’s response? We’re sorry this happened, and we understand your anger, but we don’t really have any liability. Wow! Now that is some customer service: we don’t owe you anything! Sounds like they’re really setting some “higher standards”–for customers that is! Consumer Advocate Clark Howard mentioned Matthew’s plight on his show and ended up starting a “BOA Meter” tracking how much money customers had removed from Bank of America by closing their accounts in response to the Shinnick crisis. It looks like it has topped over $50 million thus far.

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Send your text messages to the public display in the restaurant, bar or airport near you. Wiffiti makes messaging public. Not sure how they would handle inappropriate message in a public display. I tested the demo and several folks in my department watched with excitement. This could catch on.

Via Springwise

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With excited anticipation that Hollywood was responding to the customer centric worldview, I posted news about My Movie Muse last July. After three months, I am disappointed to say that so far this supposed panel of movie goers has had little opportunity to offer real opinions on the content of films or the current film-making industry.

Instead, this has primarily turned out to be My Copyright Muse, giving us lessons (disguised as surveys) about why downloading movies illegally is so naughty. Oh well, so much for thinking and communicating with real people from Hollywood. Their surveys are just as two dimensional as an old Western set.

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