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A little random fact about myself, I am a strong believer and a big fan of loyalty.  I believe loyalty plays an important part in my life each and everyday.  I am loyal to my wife, my friends, my coworkers, my clients and yes I am loyal to specific companies.  I believe that when a company delivers an exceptional product or service, they deserve my loyalty.  That loyalty consists of me continuing to work with them year after year and recommend them to my friends and peers. This kind of customer evangelism is even more important today as the web has made the world so much smaller and allowed users to communicate and share their opinions effortlessly.

In marketing, there is nothing so sweet than a customer evangalist.  This person has absolutely no hidden agenda. All they want to do is freely share their happiness with a company or product.  They do this because they believe in it strongly and want others to feel as good as they do.  And when a customer evangelist has a poor experience with the company they have spent years promoting and recommending, it can be a blow to the system.

This is where I am at the moment.  I sit here perplexed with what has happened with Verizon Wireless and myself over the last 6 months.  I have been a Verizon customer for more than 10 years.  In those ten years, I have lived in 5 different states and with each move, my trusted Verizon phone and service came with me.  I am also an early adopter.  When the new hot tech phone comes out, I am usually there to buy one.  This is exactly what happened months ago when Verizon released the Blackberry Storm.  The first week it came out, I went and purchased two of them for my wife and I. 

Now I am not going to go into detail about all the problems that the Storm has had.  Let’s just say that if you do a search on Google for “Blackberry Storm Sucks“, there are 376,000 web pages willing to go into more detail.  Unfortunately, I also had my problems with the Storm which forced me to speak with Verizon’s customer service more than a dozen times.  They tried to fix things, but bottom line is Verizon and Blackberry put out a product that was not ready to be released. It was a half baked product that was rushed to market and both Verizon and Blackberry should be held accountable.

I use my phone for work.  The Storm just does not allow me to do everything i need to do in the time I need to get it done.  Fast foward to this week when Verizon releases the new Blackberry Tour.  I called Verizon and they proceeded to tell me that since I signed a new contract when I bought my Storm, I am not eligible for the $199 deal they were offering on the Tour.  I would have to pay more than $300! 

To be honest after all the problems I have had, I believe that Verizon should just give me the Tour for free and beg for my forgiveness.  Though I doubt that is going to happen.  But I actually thought they might give me the same deal they are offering to new customers since I have been paying customer for more than a decade? 

I have reached the point where this is really not about the money.  It is now the principle.  Doesn’t loyalty work both ways?  Haven’t I built up enough loyalty with Verizon to deserve to be treated better or am I being totally naive? Am I asking too much?  And if I am asking too much, what do I do now?  I believe that the only logical next step is for my wife and I to take our business elsewhere.  Though will I get the exact same poor service with AT&T?

Posted via web from Cord Silverstein

Posted via web from cord’s posterous

Did you ever see the movie Crazy People?  It came out in the early 90’s and starred Dudley Moore and Darryl Hannah.  The premise of the movie was Dudley Moore was an ad executive who reached his breaking point because he had to lie everyday in his work.  He eventually found himself in a mental hospital and began working with other mental patients on ads that only told the truth.  The movie was not the best movie, but it popped in my head recently when I watched a number of Sprint television commercials.  I am sure you have seen them, they have Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse walking down several New York City streets talking about the digital revolution and how “cool” these new cell phones are.  He ends the commercials asking us to join him in the digital revolution.

Now for the last what couple of years Sprint has been hemoraging customers.  If you take five minutes and do a few searches on the web, you would quickly realize that many of the customers left because they believed Sprint had atrocious customer service.  Give it a shot, do a Google search for “Sprint sucks”.  Now I don’t know anything about Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse and I have not been a Sprint customer for many years, but instead of spending millions of dollars on commercials that talk about the “digital revolution” wouldn’t that time and money be spent more wisely talking about how Sprint has heard the complaints and feedback and is taking steps to change?

Am I nuts or would a commercial with Dan Hesse sitting in a diner saying, “We have made mistakes in the past.  We have listened to our past and present customers’ feedback and we realized that without great customer service our cool phones and great plans mean nothing.  That is why Sprint has made the following changes….  Yada yada yada..”

I think a commercial like that would raise more attention and deliver a greater ROI than their present, “You can update your Facebook status from our phones, how cool” commercials.  Though if Dan Hesse Sprint CEO would ask me, I would say cut down your TV media buy considerably and put that money into engaging with your present and potential customers online.  Though now I am just plain talking crazy.

For anyone in the Triangle area, I am participating in a Social Media Panel discussion this Thursday November 8th hosted by Business Wire. You can learn more about it here. I guess I am still being listed as “more to be announced”.

Anyhow, it should be a pretty low key event. There will be no Powerpoint presentations just an open discussion between the panelists and the audience. Hope to see you there.

Thursday November 8th
JK’s Restaurant
4381 Lassiter @ North Hills Ave., A100
Raleigh, NC 27609
919-781-3913

5:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Registration & Networking
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm: Presentations and Audience Q&A

$10 fee for non-members

Blogging is all about community. This blog gives me the opportunity to share my thoughts and opinions as well as being able to read and hear other people’s opinions and experiences. The people who come to this web site and grant me precious minutes of their day should absolutely be recognized and thanked! Because without them, I would just be sitting around talking to myself and to be honest, I do too much of that already.

Any and all legitimate comments posted on Marketing Hipster will have a follow tag so the people commenting can share in the link love. If there are any questions regarding commenting on this blog, please read Marketing Hipster’s Commenting Policy. Again, thank you to all who comment and read Marketing Hipster.

Best,

Cord

As I do most days, today I was sitting here at my desk over lunch enjoying some nice soup while I check out my usual news haunts to catch up on what is going on in the world. I stumbled onto this little gem of a story from CNN.

Overall, a high school in Galesburg, Illinois is withholding the diplomas of five students who were graduating high school because at the graduation ceremony, people cheered when their names were called… I know, you might need to let that sink in for a second or two, so your brain can process the utter stupidity involved with this. These five students are all females and several of them are graduating with honors and now are being punished because people in the stands, not them, cheered when their names were called.

Now I know you won’t believe me when I say that we still have not reached the top of this ridiculous story. The schools administration met with these 5 woman and their families and STILL refused to give them their diplomas until they apologize…. APOLOGIZE?!?!?! So people in the stands cheer and it is their fault and now they need to apologize.

I like to officially nominate all the administration from Galesburg High School to be added to the newly formed, STUPIDEST PEOPLE ON THE PLANET HALL OF FAME. Ground breaking is expected to start early next year and I would like to officially nominate these administrators as the first official candidates to be entered.

But I would be remiss if I did not introduce you to the leader of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight…

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, here is the principle of Galesburg High School, Mr. Tom Chiles. In his spare time when he is not torturing the lives of young people, he enjoys continually banging his head against the wall. When asked why he does this, he responded, “Cause it feels so good when I stop.”

So do I get a second on my nomination?

Technorati Tags: CNN, Galesburg, Illinois, Galesburg High School, Tom Chiles

This Saturday night, I got home around 10:30 pm (I know, am I a party animal or what?) and turned on the television. I stumbled upon the movie Gladiator playing on TNT or TBS. I just turned it on when one of my favorite scenes came on. Just like TV always does, they cut right in the middle of a great scene for a commercial break. I was a little peeved that they went to a commercial right then when I remembered that I actually owned Gladiator on DVD! Who needs sticking commercials, I will go right to the DVD.

I immediately jumped out of bed and sprung towards my DVD case where an never opened DVD of Gladiator sat on my shelf. I got it as a Christmas present and just had never opened it till now. I had the lights turned off in my room so the only light was coming from the TV. I began taking the shrink rap off the DVD and then proceeded to take that tape they put on the top and sides off the DVD off as well. I was getting pumped to watch the movie when I ran into a problem. I could not get the DVD case open. I pulled and pulled on the thing, but it would not open for me.

So eventually in the dark, I got frustrated and just pulled the DVD case with all my might and I busted the thing wide open and the DVD came flying out of its case. At the time I did not care about the case and just grabbed the DVD from the floor and enjoyed an unedited commercial free viewing of Gladiator.

“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”

The next morning I found my busted DVD case on the floor and now that it was light out I was able to examine the case and saw what the whole issue was. The DVD case came with these two little latches that had to be opened to actually open up the DVD case. Now I do not know if this is standard these days, I have to be honest I download everything so I have not purchased a DVD in a while. But I need to ask why? Why would anyone add these latches to a DVD case?

Did people have issues with opening and closing DVD cases before? Were there actually people out there who just could not get the “snap” technique down? I just have never heard of any protests or rallies shouting, “Give me latches or give me death!” Who decided to add these latches to the DVD case and what was the reasoning behind it? It seems to be absolutely counter productive. By adding those latches, it must cost more to create these cases than it did before and how did it help?

My point on all this is that did someone add latches just so they can say they did something? They added something? Something new to sell? Or is there a legitimate reason behind this? If you have some answers or thoughts, please share because to me this looks like an absolute waste of time and money.

Technorati Tags: Gladiator, DVD

This morning I walked into a fury of articles and information regarding Kathy Sierra’s distressing post about her getting death threats and resigning from the blogosphere. At first, I really had a hard time believing this was real and initially thought it might be some kind of an early April fools joke, but it definitely seems to be on the level.

Overall, Kathy is pointing fingers at Chris Locke aka Rageboy. He has a post speaking specifically to this here. There are posts flying left and right including Scoble taking a break from posting because of this? Other stories can be found here and here.

Technorati Tags: death threats

I was thinking of starting a new series of articles called What Would You Change? I thought what might be interesting is each post choose a specific company and we could discuss what we would change if we were leading these companies. Who knows maybe one of the companies will actually take some of our advice. I am not holding my breath on that though.

So why don’t we start with the RIAA. This is the much maligned group of record companies who have seen their profits drop faster than Enron stock. They have tried everything up to and including suing companies, universities and individuals who were caught stealing licensed music. They just won the “Worst Company of America” award as voted on The Consumerist.

We might as well start at the bottom and work our way up so what would you change if you headed up the RIAA?

I would do the following:

1. Stop all lawsuits now.. For every person I sue, there are hundreds if not thousands who still are stealing music in ways that the RIAA cannot catch. If someone wants something, they are going to do it whether it is against the law or not. Might I remind everyone of this country’s fabulous unsuccessful war on drugs.

2. Realize that even though technology has considerably changed our business model, I still have a product people want. Good music will always be needed, but we need to devise new ways on how we can deliver that music because the day of going to buy CD’s in a store are over.

The focus needs to be to offer something that people will see the value in paying for instead of stealing. Let’s start with these ideas:

1. Each record company open up their entire library to be able to buy online whether that is through iTunes or their own web site.
2. Offer a higher sound quality through our online stores. If the CD is recorded in 192 kbps, double it online. The best sound quality possible is one click away through our online store.
3. Offer outtakes, videos, etc. when buying online, something they cannot get in the stores and cannot get by stealing. The reason why they cannot get it through stealing is we integrate these extras with our web site. A user will have to register and that person only will be able to get these add-ons. Very similar to how iTunes works.
4. Integrate the music with other offerings as well. For instance, buying directly from the publisher gives a buyer VIP access to the artists blog. They can chat live with the artists, get information before anyone else, etc. etc.
5. Partner up with social sites like MySpace where we can offer online concerts, live web chats, etc. Get our fans involved on their terms not ours!

3. Begin the healing process and all the bad blood that exists between us and our customers by truly reaching out to them. Start giving them a voice on what they like, what they don’t like and we will respond to their suggestions through communication and actions.

4. Take our lumps, admit we might of been a bit drastic by suing most of North America and that we are looking for ways to meet our customers wants and needs.

5. Begin educating users about how stealing music impacts a lot of American jobs and not just the artists. Many people feel that the artists make millions so it does not hurt them. Whether that is true or not is up to debate. What isn’t is a lot of workers behind the scenes that are losing their jobs because the record industry can’t afford to pay them.

6. Finally, a drastic initial statement is needed to show how serious we are. Have every CEO of the major labels reduce their salary to one dollar for a period of time to show how dedicated they are in finding a solution and not just being apart of the problem.

So what do you think? Any good ideas in there or are they crap? It’s your turn… You have just been promoted the CEO, the big cheese, the head honcho of the RIAA. What do you do? Put your thoughts and suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: What Would You Change, Worst Company of America, RIAA