The BusinessVoice Blog

A quick Twitter search turns up countless complaints about the amount of time people are forced to wait “on hold.”  Here are just a few examples:

nancia: I’ve been on hold for 11 minutes. It feels like 11 days. 10 minutes ago from web

jordangreen: Bloody useless 360 support line! Never even got to speak to anyone. was on hold for 15 mins!!! 24 minutes ago from Tweetie 

Theworkingdad: i really hate being on hold for godaddy support for 10+ minutes… 31 minutes ago from TweetDeck

 jgoorchenko: Back on hold with Wachovia…20 min so far. Friday was 55 minutes with no answer! 42 minutes ago from twhirl 

djrocco72: 20 mins on hold. Pick up already!!!!! about 1 hour ago from Twittelator

Twitter and other social media tools can expose your company’s weaknesses to a tremendous number of people faster than ever before. But they also provide you with a great opportunity to get honest feedback from your customers.

So, if long hold times, specifically, are common at your company, take steps to fix the problem before you earn an indelible reputation for disregarding your customers’ pain.

-  Hire an answering service to take calls during busy periods.

-  Add in-house staff to handle incoming calls quicker.

-  Invest in hardware and/or software that gives callers the option to receive a call back rather than waiting on hold. 

Think you can’t afford those solutions? Then ask yourself if you CAN afford to convert loyal customers into online brand assassins.
 
Another fix: make sure your On Hold Marketing (OHM) is providing valuable information to your callers. If you dare to use your OHM to brag about your company while leaving callers on hold for 10 or 15 minutes, you’re asking for Twitter trouble! 

Your content should always be focused on your CALLERS’ wants, needs, and questions. Give them information they can really use so their time on hold is time well spent…and nothing to complain about!

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So everyone’s telling you to get started marketing with Twitter. Easier said than done, right? Actually, it is easy when you use the 13-step approach offered here courtesy of  Debra Ellis and her MarketingProfs.Com article on how to Use Twitter to Attract Prospects and Engage Customers:

1. Create 50-100 tweets that fit your brand and objective. Keep them to approximately 120 characters so they can be easily retweeted (re-posted by others). In the case of the gardening example, tweets could range from planting times to frost warnings.

2. Open your user account with your business name as your user ID. Complete the profile, including the bio, and include the names of all those who post. People connect with people best. You want a personal connection. (Don’t panic. This doesn’t mean that you will be having tea with your followers… unless you want to.)

3. Add an avatar. Some choose to use their corporate logo, whereas others use their own photo. Choose what feels right to you and fits your brand.

4. Create a unique background that represents your company. There are services available to do this, but you can do it in-house. You want it to have the same look and feel as your corporate website. Make sure that the background-text details are visible on different types of monitors. Not everyone has the latest and greatest technology.

5. Determine the best days to tweet. These would be the days that your customers or prospects are most likely to be online. Select a scheduler to post your tweets. Remember that the world is open 24/7. As Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett remind us, it’s five o’clock somewhere. Running the tweets for an 8-12-hour cycle and then repeating them expands your coverage.

6. Make sure that some of your tweets have links back to your website. Make it easy for people to find you. Don’t expect them to go to your profile for your link, and don’t overdo it. If every tweet has a link, people resist following you.

7. Start the Twitter test. Consistently tweet for a minimum of 30 days (90 is better). Watch your traffic and sales to ensure that you’re receiving a return on your investment. At the end of the trial period, decide whether to continue or quit.

8. Don’t be a hit-and-run tweeter. Check in periodically on the days that your messages appear for comments, retweets, and new followers. Respond when appropriate. The idea is engagement, not blasting.

9. Resist becoming addicted to Twitter. Your objective is to create and enhance relationships, not be tethered to an electronic device.

10. Always remember that your tweets are a reflection on your brand, and they are permanent. Twitter has a delete option, but the tweets still show up in a search.

11. Don’t worry about the number of people following you. Think about the quality. When I first started acquiring followers, most were “get rich quick, let me tell you how for the low price of” marketers. I noticed that if I didn’t respond to their tweets, they stopped following me within a week. I’m sure that those who follow me will always include similar folks, but my focus is on the people who read my tweets and connect with me.

12. Have fun. You are meeting new people, broadening your horizons, and hopefully gaining new customers. If that isn’t fun, you are in the wrong business.

13. Ask for help if you are unsure how to proceed. There are people available to guide you.

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Remember the movie Field Of Dreams and the famous line, “If you build it, they will come?” Some people think that’s true about business web sites — just build a great one and they’ll come. But to keep them coming, you need to begin renovations immediately.

Keeping your web site fresh is vital for everyone and every thing that is visiting. People like to see new content and features, and so do the search engine robots that sample your web site looking for updates to your pages. But what should this content be? Scott Randolph of 7xo Media has some sound advice in this area:

You need to craft all your content with an eye for the ultimate goal - conversion.  You need to come up with a schedule and stick to it (this is much harder than it sounds).  You will need to create content that is interesting and useful for someone, even if they aren’t your customer.  You need to give options to share your content (social bookmarking buttons, email this buttons, etc…) - and encourage people to use them.

A web site upgrade doesn’t have to be a huge task if you’re freshening your content on a regular basis. You can create customer tips and produce mini case studies. Add testimonials or begin a blog that lets you comment on industry trends and pass along great ideas.  Open a Twitter account for your business and include a listing of your Twitter posts on your web site. Piece by piece, you can build a better business web site by never finishing the job.

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How many times have you said, “I’d like to start a blog,” or, “I should get with this Twitter thing,” only to be intimidated by the fear of not being able to do it well enough?

True story: I’ve owned my own domain name for years but never used it to create a web presence. It’s the perfectionist in me; the voice inside my head that says, “It has to be the best.”  I guess I’m not alone, because blogger Mark Ivey had the same problem. His advice? Try The Seven Habits Of  The “Just Good Enough” Marketer.

Ivey’s list is based on a simple premise — the explosion of social media has changed the rules about how we should craft our communications with customers and prospects. He says:

Every day I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect blog, create the polished video, craft the right message.

They often find out the hard way that this is not what blogging and social media is about. It’s more about conveying compelling ideas and connecting with audiences in authentic ways, not just writing beautiful prose or top-down marketing approaches.

Speed is more critical too. There’s not enough time to go through two rounds of approvals on every blog. Slick videos are meanwhile seen as advertising — they don’t ring true.

The new style — conversational, open, engaging, and fluid — just doesn’t mix with traditional marketing and communications.

Ivey admits that these are hard habits to break, but doing this can get you off the sidelines and into social media faster, and that’s the whole idea. By the way, that web domain of mine that gathered dust for years? It’s now hosting a personal blog that I created and launched in just a few days last week. It’s far from perfect and I still struggle with the urge to do too many re-writes, but I’m learning that “Just Good Enough” is better than “Nothing.’ In fact, it might  be the best way to enter the new world of social media.

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OK, let’s start with a confession — the owner of my company is Twitter-phobic. Just last week he said he’s afraid that all this social media is taking time away from getting REAL work done. That’s a fair concern for someone who signs the paychecks, but how do I get him to embrace the power of Twitter to grow our brand and connect with clients and prospects?

Mike Volpe at HubSpot has the answer that just might work for my boss and yours. Twitter is all about brevity — hey, it’s just 140 characters! That means it’s not a lot of time commitment to post a Tweet. So for busy bosses, it’s much easier than crafting a blog post, or even writing an email. As Mike says:

It’s all about short thoughts and comments.  If your CEO can send a text message, they can use Twitter from anywhere in the world as a marketing and PR tool.  Twitter is actually perfect for CEO or founder who is always on the road meeting with people and who has some interesting opinions on your market.

My boss loves to find new techniques to improve sales and marketing. A lot of that searching and discovery happens on the web. And there are plenty of free tools available that make it quick and easy to manage your Tweets and create a post instantly from the web page you’re viewing. Twitter is the fast way to share ideas with followers far and wide, while building the credibility of your brand. And for busy bosses, that’s a formula for success.

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