Customer Service Case Study: Jimmy John’s

(UPDATE: 10:22 a.m. 4/1/13 below)

Yes, I have a food blog, and yes, that means I love to cook at home a lot.

But sometimes I’m tired and worn out and just want a quick meal without work. So I rely on a few nearby restaurants.

Jimmy John’s is one of them. And, after the service they gave us when we ordered from them last week, they won’t be included any more.

Freaky fail

The bad service started when my wife called our order in. The employee did not ask her how she wanted to pay. My wife had to call back to pay by credit card. The employee did not say “Thank you” or “Bye”; she simply hung up.

We have called this particular Jimmy John’s location to place an order before, and sometimes we have our food within 10 or 15 minutes. Freaky fast, indeed.

A long, long wait

But this time was different. In fact, my wife placed the order just before an NCAA March Madness game tipped off. By the time the game had reached halftime (20 minutes of game time plus multiple play stoppages), we still did not have our food.

After waiting for 45 minutes for our food, my wife went to call back Jimmy John’s to complain. Just as she was placing the call, the delivery driver called to inquire about directions. He was close but on the wrong side of a main road. And, for some reason, he thought he was delivering to a business.

We thought this was odd considering we have ordered before and had no hiccups in delivery service.

After we pointed the driver in the correct direction, he arrived about 10 to 15 minutes later. Considering where he said he was when he called, it should not have taken more than 5.

The trouble with money

When the driver arrived, the receipt said $3.62 instead of $11.50, which is what our order cost. We thought that was Jimmy John’s giving us a discount for their service.

My wife signed the receipt and sent the driver on his way.

No sooner had she set the food on the counter when the doorbell rang again.

It was the driver, and he said that the order had been rung up incorrectly and that we owed more money. After a bit of back and forth, my wife signed the receipt for $11.50.

If a restaurant undercharges a customer by accident, and the customer signs the receipt, shouldn’t the business should absorb the undercharged amount? We think so, yet the driver insisted we pay the full $11.50.

Managing expectations?

After all of this, my wife called the store and spoke with the manager. He said the service was not good because he had new employees, and he would speak with them about their performance.

What we expected was for the manager to say he would charge us just the $3.62 or some other similar recompense.

She also emailed a complaint to the corporate email account. We have not heard back yet, but I will update this post if we do.

(UPDATE 1): Jimmy John’s called my wife in regards to her corporate complaint and will be sending us a $15 gift card and said the service we received was not on par with what they strive to achieve. We appreciate that.

Sound off: Have you ever had customer service so bad that you stopped buying from that business?

Can Users Still Trust Other Google Products?

Creative Commons photo by Irish Typepad

As I sit here, most of my Twitter stream and lots of people I am connected with on other networks are complaining about the impending death of Google Reader.

I’m right with them, in spirit at least.

Google has not shown as much support for it as it has for its other products. And it’s become clear after a petition to save Reader that the product has a big and devoted audience.

So it stands to reason: Can users continue to trust other Google products?

Google stalwarts

Make no mistake: There are some products that users can continue to use. Gmail, Google+, Analytics, AdWords and YouTube should all be safe. They’re among the best products or have no true competitors.

But what of others? Blogger, Calendar, Drive. They’re all products I use on a daily basis, but they are certainly other options out there if I lost faith in Google.

Consider in addition that Google ceased AdWords functionality in Feedburner in the past year.

All hail Google+

That Google has pulled support for Reader based on what others perceive as it being in competition with G+ demonstrates to users that Google is not afraid to pull its products, even if the user base is there.

Certainly it is not what it used to be, but based on petitions to save Reader, it’s safe to assume there are lots of people, like me, who use it every day.

How do you feel? Will you continue to use other Google products?

My Social Media Wish List for 2013

Instagram and Twitter: Please get along nicely! Creative Commons photo courtesy of HighTechDad.

If you use social media tools every day like I do, then you’re bound to find a hoop here or a hole there that you have to jump through.

Sometimes it would be easier if that wasn’t the case. Sometimes you find yourself wishing for something that would make your life easier.

These are the things I hope happen. This is my wish list for social media for this year.

Engaging content

Too often do brands or bloggers or whoever post content on social sites that is, frankly, not good. Too often do they do the gimmicky thing and post something that isn’t necessarily relevant to them just to garner likes or comments.

Let’s stop this.

Let’s start posting content that is better than that, content that is relevant to the brand and its customers, content that unique.

Networks playing nicely together

Be honest: You, too, got sick of the bickering among networks last year. Most recently, Instgram and Twitter having a tiff over not showing photos in tweets. But there are certainly more examples.

Social media users are tired of it. We just want to use the networks we want and for them to get along. (Yes, I know this is a pie-in-the-sky wish and that it will not happen. Still …)

Mulitple managers for Facebook interest lists

Here’s a more tangible wish. I love Facebook interest lists, and it’s how I navigate the network now.

But I would love to be able to share managing duties of a list with another Facebook user. Already I have encountered a handful of situations where I had a list but a friend made their own because they could not add to mine. Make it happen, Facebook.

What do you wish to see in social media this year?

5 Key Thoughts from the PR + Social Media Summit, #prsms

Photo courtesy of Gee Ekachai via Instagram

Last week the 4th Annual PR + Social Media Summit was held, and if you weren’t there, well, you were probably following along from home (read: work) at the #prsms hashtag.

Right? Right.

Just in case you didn’t go and weren’t listening on Wednesday, here’s a rundown of 5 key thoughts to take away from the summit.

1. Not Everything is a Social Media Crisis

Augie Ray in his keynote burst some social media bubbles and at the forefront were crises. Not everything that appears as though it’s a crisis will turn out to be one.

As an example, NBC took a lot of heat for its Olympics coverage this summer. The tape delays were probably the most known one, but there were several other public outrages, too.

But NBC ended up garnering its highest ratings for the Olympics, and the network, which forecast itself to lose $200 million in the process, ended up breaking even.

2. Tell Your Story Visually

Gee Ekachai, whose Instagram photo is featured in this post, presented about that social network at the summit.

The main takeaway from her presentation? That visual storytelling is growing and so popular because it can cross language barriers.

(As an aside, I share a lot of pictures of my dogs on Instagram. I was happy to learn that the first photo on that network was of a dog.)

3. “Not Everyone Is Going to Be a Fan of Your Brand.”

I tweeted this quote, but forgot to give credit to its author. And now I can’t remember.

Regardless, it’s an important reminder. As much as anyone involved in social media is fixated on growing a brand, getting new likes and followers, it’s important to remember this.

Some people won’t be swayed and that’s OK. Instead, try to recognize those who love your brand, and give them content and interactions that will continually solidify that feeling.

4. Listening is of the Utmost Importance

“Brands who pay attention, get paid with attention,” said Molly McKenna Jandrain during her breakout session on “Sharing Your Brand Story.”

To me it seems like social listening is not talked about as much as other parts of social media like humanizing, tools to use or metrics to track.

But listening is half of social media — by definition, social media takes two partners, and you have to listen to the other partner to keep the interaction going. If you’re not listening — and even if you are — take time out to see how you can improve in this area.

5. Be an Industry Leader

No, those aren’t words that Nick Symmonds uttered about himself, but he might as well have done so. He’s an industry leader for Olympic athletes.

Nick seized an opportunity this year and sold a space for a tattoo on his shoulder through eBay. Summit sponsor Hanson Dodge Creative won the auction, and the two have a mutually beneficial relationship because of it.

The auction started because Olympic track athletes can show only one logo when running in races, and Nick wanted to bring attention to that and get it changed. He has brought a lot of attention to the issue, and he has found opportunity where none existed, by partnering with Hanson Dodge and growing his personal brand.

That’s what happens when you’re an industry leader.

Read more about the summit

You can read some of my curated recaps on Storify:

• “Sharing Your Brand Story” by Molly McKenna Jandrain
• “A Human Web Touch” by Mary Henige
• “How Instagram’s Become a New Social Media Superstar” by Gee Ekachai
• “Bursting Social Media Bubbles” by Augie Ray

And if you still want to read more, I recommend this recap — 3 Takeaways from #PRSMS — from my Twitter friend Abi.

Twitter’s Newest Problem: Hashtag Spam

Twitter hashtag spam of #smcmke. Photo courtesy of @carrieatthill.

No one likes spam. Get rid of that filthy flim-flam.

No matter whether it’s email, social media or snail mail, you can hear someone’s eyes roll when they encounter the nasty trash.

Social media sites have been battling it for a while. Twitter has had an up-and-down relationship keeping spam accounts at bay.

A growing problem

But the trend on Twitter has been for spammers to target hashtags. And during this past week, I saw that firsthand quite a few times.

It’s time for Twitter to make this priority No. 1.

Why it’s top priority

Users can block and report spam accounts, but it’s disruptive when hashtags are targeted.

Normally, users are having conversations or chats on those hashtags, so spammers block the flow of those conversations. And the time it would take to block and report all those spam accounts while in the middle of a chat? No thanks.

Room for complaints?

One argument I’ve seen often is that Twitter, like other social media sites, is free, so we shouldn’t have to worry about complaining. Remember: It’s free.

To a point, I agree. But the amount of spam that I saw in hashtags in the past week speak against that point.

Some complaints need to be aired.

#smbmad Go through the bride’s striptis with Usain Bolt, assess. x.co/mtjw

— Stephanie Myers (@Stephan52776784) August 15, 2012

#smcmke Haha : He published almost everythingbit.ly/ReZ4pQ

— Meghan Carden (@MeghanCarden1) August 15, 2012

Do you think hashtag spam is Twitter’s top problem right now?

Self-Dishonesty and Brand Loyalty

I just finished reading “The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves” by Dan Ariely.

The book was quite good in the level of detail the author included about experiments and how the results of those experiments show that people lie to other people and to themselves more frequently than they might think.

But the takeaway of one study was one that I found intriguing:

These results suggest that once someone (or some organization) does us a favor, we become partial to anything related to the giving party — and that the magnitude of this bias increases as the magnitude of the initial favor (in this case the amount of payment) increases.”

It is interesting that I was reading this book at just about the same time that I was writing the draft for my Cabot Cheese social media case study post in which Cabot sent me free cheese. I ended up using the cheese as ingredients for recipes posted on my food blog and then posted about my overall experience with the brand here.

It’s not too surprising, I think, to read the above quote.

Dishonest with yourself

The dishonesty part came about because, in the experiment, people underwent fMRI scans while seeing a painting and a logo of a gallery. Each participant was informed that one gallery provided payment for the experiment.

Participants were asked to like or dislike paintings, and the results showed they liked ones from the gallery that paid for the experiment. But when asked, participants said the logo had no effect on their choice.

Clearly, self-deception was at work.

Brand loyalty

It should not be a shock that when a brand does something nice or offers a free product or service that there will be a little bit of loyalty. The loyalty does not have to last a lifetime, either.

I recognize that I’ve had these types of feelings toward other brands when they have been kind or done nice things to me. I tell myself that I feel no need to reciprocate the brand’s kind gestures.

But, really, there’s nothing wrong with reciprocating, so long as you’re honest with yourself.

How willing are you to reciprocate exposure or other gestures to brands when they do so to you?

Social Media Case Study: Cabot Cheese

This is what we received from Cabot Cheese.

It all started on Pinterest.

I was doing what I do most of the time on the social site — pinning recipes — when an employee of Cabot Cheese interacted with me on one of the posts.

That interaction led to her offering to send free samples of their cheese.

In February, she emailed me with a few facts about Cabot Cheese and asked for my address to send me some cheese to compare with Wisconsin cheese. (Cabot is a dairy cooperative in New England, with headquarters in Vermont.)

The key takeaway

Here’s the most important thing that this Cabot employee did (or, rather, didn’t do). They did not ask me to mention Cabot in any way in social spaces. That is, they gave me the cheese without asking for publicity in return.

I don’t know how you feel, but I feel more obliged to mention someone and give them free publicity when they don’t ask for it. And that’s what happened in this case.

What we did

With the cheese, my wife and I made several dishes on our food blog — Tex-Mex Taco Mac and Cheese, Taco Salad Pizza, Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Horseradish Cheddar and Southwest Turkey Sliders — and distributed our blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. And that doesn’t include other recipes that we used the cheeses in but didn’t write about on our food blog. (And, of course, I ended up writing this post.)

In addition, we took pictures of food using Cabot and distributed those photos on social networks.

While I’ll still be buying Wisconsin cheese when I can — I am a proud Eat Local proponent — I will be buying Cabot when I cannot because their products and their social business acumen are spot on.

Customer Service Case Study: Natural Balance

Creative Commons photo courtesy of smiteme

If you are a dog owner, you’re probably aware of the massive dog food recall that has been going on for the past couple of weeks.

We feed our dogs Natural Balance, both their food and their treats products¹.

Dog food from various brands were recalled after a salmonella-tainted batch of food was made in a South Carolina plant.

The dog food recall has not affected Natural Balance, but they participated in a voluntary recall of their products and even posted a video from their president.

We had just bought a large 25-pound bag of dog food before news of the voluntary recall came out. We wondered what we should do with the food we had just purchased.

So my wife emailed Natural Balance and asked just that.

In response, we got an apology and a coupon for a free bag of dog food. We didn’t ask for it. But they sent it anyway.

As always, good customer service can enhance brand loyalty. That’s the lesson I’m taking away from our customer service with Natural Balance.

^{1 As proponents of the buy local philosophy, we had our dogs on Fromm Family Foods, a Wisconsin company, but switched back to Natural Balance because the food was too rich for one of our dogs. (He has a sensitive stomach.)}

Why Tumblr Needs Lists

Tumblr is a great micro-blogging site, a great way to find, share and spread interesting content. (I have an arts + photography blog, Cyclic Artocity, there.)

I use the site to follow content from other Milwaukee-area bloggers and from Internet meme producers as well as various other people.

And as I’ve been following more tumblogs, I have realized that it’s difficult to navigate through the ones I want to see when I want to see them. That’s when it became clear to me that Tumblr needs lists.

I would love to catch up on Cheers! Milwaukee, Fuck Yeah Milwaukee or Wisconsin Humane Society without having to sort through updates from blogs published more frequently. And on the other hand, it would be great to get a laugh from meme blogs with one simple click.

Why this problem is not limited to Tumblr

As my friends Shelby Sapusek and Jim Raffel recently debated, social media fatigue will be easier to reach. Because of this, it’s easier for users of social media networks to compartmentalize how they take in those social sites.

Twitter and Facebook lists and Google+ circles are a great example of this. Sometimes you don’t want to see what is in your entire stream; perhaps you’re looking for updates from a specific subset of users.

Every social network should think ahead and ponder how users will be able to divide their contacts on that social site. If there’s no opportunity to do so, think again.

A solution for Tumblr?

Will Tumblr come out with a solution? It’s possible. So far this year Tumblr has announced plans for Fan Mail, a feature that allows Tumblr users to contact one another privately.

That is a feature a lot of users have craved. And it could signal that Tumblr is pursuing other solutions for how users use the service.

I certainly hope so.

Recommendations: Want to follow some meme blogs? Here’s a few of my favorites: Literally Unbelievable, Awkward Stock Photos, Fuck Yeah Cilantro and Dear Photograph.

GetGlue and the Importance of Social Media Listening

A tweet can be a powerful thing — if the right people are listening.

Such was the case months ago for me after I had an idea for a painting. But a bit of background first.

What is GetGlue?

GetGlue is an entertainment-based social network that allows you to check in to TV shows, movies, books and more. Some entertainment suppliers have teamed up to offer users stickers for certain checkins.

After you unlock 20 stickers, you can have them shipped to you. But only 20 can ship at a time because of postage issues.

I wanted to use those stickers as a medium for a painting. The problem? I didn’t have nearly enough, so I posted on Twitter asking followers if they had any unused ones.

Are you a @GetGlue user? If you have unwanted stickers, I'd love to have them for a project I'm working on.—
Dan Polley (@polleydan) June 20, 2011

 

Listening and customer service

@polleydan whats the project? —
Alex Iskold (@alexiskold) June 20, 2011

By listening to Twitter mentions, Alex Iskold, GetGlue’s founder and CEO, was able to see my tweet and respond. He responded promptly, listened to what I was trying to do and then assisted in customer service — a unique one in this situation.

As a result, GetGlue send me a few hundred stickers that was I able to use for the painting.

Listening helped firm up customer loyalty and brought on publicity, in the form of this post detailing the conversation. GetGlue didn’t ask me to write this blog post; I did so because it’s a great example of social media listening.

The outcome

So what was the outcome of my request? View the finished painting just below. As a result of my request, I had leftover stickers after finishing this painting. That means another painting is in the works — an added bonus for GetGlue, since I’ll be tweeting about it.