Conner's Blog

The Uhaul saga has come to an end. Thanks to Lacy, who happens to occasionally handle their Twitter account, Uhaul has at least partially appeased me. They got the truck being checked in on the wrong day issue resolved, and even refunded my parents half the rental fee. Overall they came through in the end to try and make things right. They didn’t quite go to the extent I would have liked for the amount of frustration they caused, but I’m dropping it, after this post.

I thought I would do something other than complain about the service I received, and throw out some ideas and suggestions that would have led to a quicker and happier resolution to the complaints. I copied the time line from my previous post and noted what I think should have happened under each event.

• Monday, my mother calls and reserves a 17′ truck from Uhaul in Belgrade, MT.
• 1 or 2 days later they call and ask if we would accept a 26′ truck. My mom says yes because they were going to give it to us for the same price.

They should have known at this moment that they were going to be very busy and might not have a truck available. Why not allow incoming renters to pay a deposit to hold the truck? That way if they don’t show you at least get something out of it. Just let them cancel 24 hours prior to the time they are scheduled to pick it to get the deposit refunded. If they are later than that they lose their deposit. Again, make it optional, but then you can guarantee the rental.

• Friday, my mom stops by to verify that a truck is reserved, she was told no trucks were available. But, they stated they would let Bozeman know they had messed up and they would give us a deal.

My mother should not have had to stop by to find out we didn’t have a truck. The second there wasn’t a truck available we should have received a phone call letting us know. It’s terrible service to promise something and not deliver. It’s even worse when you don’t deliver without a warning. I still don’t know what my parents would have done had we not been able to move out the day we did. They had renters moving in the next day and had to be out of the house.

• We call Bozeman’s Uhaul. They offer us a 17′ truck at the normal daily price price and mileage at 1/2 price. With one caveat, we have to bring it back to Bozeman.

Don’t pretend you’re giving someone a deal when you aren’t. 1/2 of the mileage with twice the miles to drive does not equal a discount. It’s insulting to your customers to pretend it is.

• I heard this and said, “No!” that meant we were paying the same price for the truck but someone was spending 3 hours(Bozeman is 100 miles from Helena) driving a truck back.

Again, I shouldn’t need to call you to raise a stink to get a deal to remedy your mistake. We didn’t fail to reserve a truck, Uhaul failed to keep it’s promise.

• I tweeted about Uhaul, they responded saying they would be in touch.

This was a comedy of errors in social media. First they should have followed me the second they contacted me so I could direct message them if I wanted to. Second, they continually asked for my phone number to be emailed to them. They should have given me a choice of how I wanted to communicate, especially once their phones went down the afternoon I first got a response.

• I talked to the GM at the Uhaul in Bozeman and told him we would pay 3/4 of the price initially quoted plus they needed to pay for the gas we used. They came back with a quote that I was ok with.

Again, I shouldn’t need to negotiate an acceptable rate due to your mistake.

• Uhaul on Twitter asks me to send them an email with my phone number, I did this.

I realized a few days later that this email got stuck in my outbox. My mistake, but still their was no follow up after this until I tweeted again. They should have contacted me 12 hour later to check why I didn’t email them.

• We pick up the truck. It’s been 24 hours and I haven’t heard from Uhaul so I tweeted again, they responded asking me to email my phone number again. I got busy and forgot

Again, my mistake on thinking I had emailed them, still as mentioned above, they should have followed up with me.

• We use the truck, bring it back on Sunday and dropped it off.
• Tuesday morning my mom gets a text message saying the truck was overdue. I immediately found the email address which was sent on Twitter and sent my phone number, Tweeted about it, and my mother called the Uhaul store who said someone would be calling us in 2-3 hours.

Here is where things went from bad to terrible. They are claiming we still have a very expensive truck and instead of showing a sense of urgency they make us wait.

• 24 hours later we had received no phone calls. I hunted down and called Uhaul’s customer service line. Spoke to a nice girl named Lacy, she said she had let someone named Donna (I believe I was told this was the regional manager) know about our problem and I would receive a phone call in 2-3 hours. Apparently the store had checked in part of the truck but not everything on Monday.

Again, why was it my responsibility to follow up? I understand the local store was very busy, but when a customer thinks you lost a truck that they dropped off two days ago, it’s a pretty big deal. This had some large financial repercussions if they continued to argue we didn’t drop it off when we actually did.

• 5 hours later I had received no phone call from anyone at Uhaul.

And again, no follow up. I didn’t call Donna the next day, which I meant to do. It took me sending out another tweet, getting that message retweeted by four other people until Lacy called me. To be honest she seemed to be the only one working for Uhaul that I spoke to that cared one bit about the situation. And though she was very polite and took action immediately after our phone call, she did make excuses for the local store during most of our conversation. Being busy is not an excuse for the service we received throughout the entire life of this rental.

I was really hoping, once Uhaul responded to my first tweet, that this story would be about a company leveraging social media to provide great customer service. Instead it became a story of a company in dire need of a customer service overhaul regardless of the platform.

So I’m posting it today because I want to post something. Here is the response I wrote to Womfire after they responded to the email I wrote to Chili’s marketing department.

Thanks Howard,
I wasn’t really concerned about my email address, my biggest concern was the grammar skills shown by your representative. Additionally, as someone who is passionate about social media I had a hard time with your campaign. It didn’t feel genuine to me at all. Plus, as most of the comments pointed out, free chips are kind of funny considering you get free chips at every Mexican eatery other than Chili’s.

One last thing that I wanted to point out. Though I appreciate you enjoying my blog, I’m definitely not your target market. My blog is full of posts and links about local, sustainable, and healthy food. Your client, Chili’s, is one of the last places I would ever choose to eat. As someone who is passionate about social media, blogging, and marketing, I would hope that if you are doing a campaign like this you would be doing a quick search for “food” in blogs you want to contact. It wouldn’t have taken much time to see that I was more likely to make fun of Chili’s than promote them.

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond to me. I’ll post a comment on the post noting that you responded genuinely and addressed most of my concerns. I do wish you success in your campaign with Chili’s.

They addressed my concern about my email address, they had found it on my blog. They also apologized and advised they wouldn’t contact me again. I’m considering the issue closed.

Dear Businesses:

This is a quick note to thank you for existing. Without you I would be forced to do everything myself. Make my own soap, spin my own thread, and bury my own Internet cable. So thanks.

However, I have a gripe; many of you seem to be entering a world I’ve existed in for quite some time. It’s sometimes referred to as social media, but in reality it’s just another place where conversations can happen. It’s a virtual water cooler that is full of whatever beverage happens to be sitting near at hand.

Some of you get it, and by get it I mean you don’t make me want to throw whale blood on your storefront. The rest of you need to step back and think about what you are doing (or what your consulting company is doing). So here are three questions you should ask yourself one week after launching your social media strategy.

1. Have you engaged with anyone in a multi-reply conversation?
2. Are you targeting the right people?
3. Why are you doing this?

Question 1 addresses whether you are engaging with your audience in a meaningful manner. Anyone can send out messages, good social media should make your customers your conversation partners.

Question 2 might use the word targeting, but it’s a good one to think about. In the last few months I’ve been followed by coffee shops from St. Cloud, businesses from Chicago, and in one case every store that a certain company has regardless of where they were located. Geography is just a part of this of course; just remember that just because it’s free to follow someone doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Question 3 is one you should have asked before you launched. Even if you did, on day seven you should ask it again. Is it to broadcast your message? Then make it obvious you aren’t there to engage. There is nothing wrong with broadcasting your daily specials (though it’s less effective), but make it clear you aren’t there to answer your costumer’s complaints. If you are engaging, are you engaging as the business or as an individual? This is an important things to consider and something to decide on right now. It’s annoying when businesses suddenly change their manner on a social media platform for no apparent reason.

There is a lot more to this of course. Even the best planned strategy can fall on it’s face. Still, if you catch things quickly, whether you are doing it in house or paying a so-called expert. You can avoid irritating an influential customer base.

Sincerely, Conner

If you don’t know what Foursquare is, or you do and are one of those people who hate it for whatever reason, this post isn’t for you. If you do use Foursquare or happen to run an establishment that may have a place on Foursquare, I’ll invite you to read this post.

I have a problem with Foursquare mayorship offers. As Foursquare slowly becomes a driving force among location based apps, more and more businesses are utilizing Foursquare to increase customer loyalty. The initial way that they leveraged it was to offer deals to mayors. Users can earn mayor status at each vendor on Foursquare by checking in the most frequently over a given time span. Offering deals to them seems like a great idea, it rewards your most loyal customer and makes it a challenge to see who can keep the mayorship.

The problem I have with them is that it excludes other customers who use Foursquare. Especially as the application becomes ubiquitous, limiting your offer to one person is a way to dishearten some of your loyal customers. Some people will go have a drink at their favorite bar every night just to keep the mayorship. They may not spend a lot; they might just take the time to walk in so they can check in and keep that deal. Second, offering a deal to the mayor allows them to walk into the establishment and spend less, and they can do this day after day (of course you can cap the deal, but that is somewhat lame). On the other hand, you might have a couple who comes into your restaurant every Saturday morning for brunch. They don’t come in every day so they don’t earn the mayorship but they are loyal. If they use Foursquare, it could get frustrating being a regular diner yet being excluded from using that orange “Deal Here” button on the app.

What do I think business should offer? I think using Foursquare as a supplement to a loyalty program is a great idea. One local business that excels at this is The Wedge Co-op, instead of giving you a special discount or complimentary beverage; they allow you to enter a weekly drawing every time you check-in. This is a great way to reward all visitors yet keep things from being exclusive to your most frequent visitors. Another idea for a deal could be to offer a discount or complimentary item based on the number of check-ins a person has.

The point is to not reward your most loyal Foursquare customer, but to reward loyalty regardless of status. If someone comes in five times a month to a restaurant they are a loyal customer, and offering specials that reward everyone can keep new customers coming back to get the perks ever if there isn’t a chance they can dethrone the current mayor.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will state that I have received mayor deals. Once at Barrio I happened to earn the mayorship and was actually the first person to use the deal. I’ve since lost that mayorship. I was also a long time mayor of the Chef Shack and am still treated extremely well by Carrie and Lisa even though I lost my mayorship this spring. Additional, I currently am not a mayor of any venue in Minneapolis. If that makes this post less genuine, then so be it.

After a brief hiatus due to me being extremely lazy after getting the School Night Badge on Foursquare, Friday Five is back. This week contains a bit of humor, some music, one excellent writeup about social media “experts” and a comic about arguing. Enjoy

• Have you seen Dessa’s new video? If you haven’t you should check it out, immediately.
• Minus Manhattan catches a glimpse a bundled up teddy bear. Proof that even stuffed animals aren’t made to live in this crazy weather.
• MN Headhunter calls out the many social media experts. He has ruined my dream of putting “social media expert” in my twitter bio and making six figures.
• Rachel is losing control of her pillow.
• Instructions on how to make your point in an argument.

Finally, I’m posting this even though it’s heartbreaking, but read about Monkey, and then go hug your pet.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone, stay warm and enjoy the end of the first month of 2010.

It is no secret that I love social media and the Internet.  Twitter and this blog are my playgrounds, with a few dashes to Facebook added for seasoning.  One thing that amazes me is the fact that people still think social media is going to ruin interpersonal communication in the real world.  This makes me cringe every time because the exact opposite has happened to me.

My love of social media really began during the political conventions leading up to the November 4, 2008 elections.  I didn’t have any friends at the time that would watch the speeches with me, so I logged onto Twitter and was suddenly bombarded by hundreds of people talking about what was happening.  The best part was that not only was I interacting with others watching from afar, but also getting first hand accounts from convention goers.  At the time, I had no idea how much of an impact Twitter would have on me, I just was having fun bashing politicians and discussing the issues with real people scattered all over the globe.

I believe it was sometime in January or February when Art and I had a conversation on Twitter and made a decision to meet at the Herkimer for happy hour.  Art was the first person I met who I had known exclusively through Twitter before meeting in real life.  Though he was not the first person I had met through the Internet, (I had joined a few meetup.com groups previously) he was the first person I met through an online social network.  Since then we have remained good friends.

Of course Art was just the beginning, in the last year or so, I’ve met a lot of people because of Twitter.  Some I met because they knew someone I met on Twitter, others I met only because they were on Twitter.  In fact, at last count, my In Real Life list has 89 members.  Some of these have only been meetings in passing, but many of them have involved fun times, great conversations, and a few have become close friends. Add at least a dozen people I’ve met who aren’t actually on Twitter and my social circle has been expanded by over 100 people just because of a little box saying “What are you doing?”

What I’m trying to say is, if anyone says our Internet connected networks are going to ruin our personal lives, destroy our ability to communicate, or stop us from meeting new people, well, they are crazy. Unless you are already an introvert and do not enjoy meeting new people, interacting online is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media.

I’m starting to understand why those who don’t get social media don’t get social media.  Just check out all these reasons to avoid it.

• Why would you want to connect with a ton of people from all over the country and world?
• Why would you want to engage with people in your industry who might one day be a connection to a job or a potential positive addition to your company?
• It’s an awful thing to walk into a restaurant alone at lunch time and find out that someone you’ve been talking to for weeks about politics, sports, your interests, or current events is sitting in the corner table without a lunch partner.
• That first real life meetings is always awkward, sometimes these people are actually just as smart/funny/interesting in real life as they are online.
• Getting tickets to a show through a new friend who happens to know you love the band because you won’t shut up about it the weeks leading up to the sold out show feels almost like cheating.
• Getting a chance to meet an old media rock star who happens to also be a new media rock star in person and then have that person get the bar to sing you happy birthday because the mayor of Minneapolis declared your birthday the rock star’s day, well that’s embarrassing. (but really freaking cool)
• It’s always better to watch sports without forty other fans to provide commentary, the television announcers are always more intelligent.
• Raising money for charities was so much easier when you only had to cold call or knock on doors.
• Restaurant critics who work for a paper always know what they are talking about, a hundred people just like you providing instant feedback is completely unnecessary.
• Without social media you can still go see the new comedy that came out on Thursday on Saturday without knowing it is in fact, awful.
• Journalists are the best fact checkers, and having numerous trustworthy sources to tell you someone is full of crap is unnecessary.
• I’m too busy watching reality television to talk to real people online.
• Email isn’t social, it’s communication, and totally different.
• Social media is clogging the tubes and I won’t be able to watch my funny cat videos on Youtube.
• It’s easy to find the best restaurants in new cities, why ask your friends?
• This Internet thing is a fad and once it goes away you’ll lose all those friends anyway.

See there are countless reasons to stay away from social media, stop trying to convince everyone it’s cool.

As most of you probably knew, yesterday was Jason DeRusha Day.  Some of you may have also known it was my birthday.  I had not planned on really celebrating yesterday, as I had went out on Saturday but yesterday turned into one of my best birthdays.

• I got chocolate chip cookies at work
• One of the customers I met with is a board member of Two Rivers Choral and I had a chance to talk to her about running a music organization that does not charge admission.  She said that one of the members had used the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra as an example of a group that does this right.  If you didn’t know, I’m a board member of the orchestra so it was great to hear this.
• My mom and dad both called me since my dad is currently out of town for work.  Usually I just get one call from them.
• I got to visit OM, a new Indian restaurant in town and enjoyed it.
• I met a ton of Twitter users who I have followed for quite a while.
• I not only got to meet Jason DeRusha, but he also had the crowd sing me Happy Birthday.
• Had great conversations with Doniree, Aaron Landry, Jason DeRusha, and others about social media and how it’s changing the way we interact with everyone, from newscasters to our elected representatives.

Overall a rock solid day, birthday or not.

Dear Star Tribune,

Welcome to Twitter, it has been fun having you in our playground.  It is great having people with connections giving us some insight and some breaking news once in a while.  In fact I’ve really enjoyed following the Favre, Rubio, and the Twin’s collapse sagas over the last few weeks.

But here is the thing, you’re doing it wrong.  It’s great that you are with us, but, with the way you are currently doing things it’s not going to work.  Here are a few of the reasons.

• The number one reason you’re doomed to fail is your avatars.  You’re a media company and as much as I know you hate to think it, to succeed you need people to want to listen to your people.  No one really trusts the Star Tribune, yeah you have some cred, but most people are likely to take the word of Lavelle E. Neal, Judd Zulgad, or Sid Hartman over the faceless paper.  So having them tweeting is great, and yeah I can look at their names and know whom I’m reading.  However, I don’t use Twitter like that, and I bet 90% of those who follow you don’t either.  We look at the avatars to see who is tweeting, currently all I see is Star Tribune, and this just doesn’t excite me.  Let me know who is tweeting without wasting my time by making me read the name.  Let your writers put their face up.  You could even use a Star Tribune badge in the corner of their photo so your branding is still there.  I guarantee we would all appreciate it.
• Second, your use of hash tags is a problem.  Hash tags are great; they give context to tweets and make searching quite a bit easier.  But your insistence of putting “strib” in front of whatever your tweeting about is accomplishing nothing.  When your readers tweet about the Twins we hashtag it #twins, you have your writers hash tag it #stribtwins.  Now what happens if I search for the #twins, well your writer’s tweets don’t show up, and if I search for #stribtwins other tweets don’t show up.  Kind of a pointless endeavor, you would be better off avoiding hash tags all together.
• You should also try and have your writers interact with the public a bit more. A quick review of four of your writer’s last page of tweets showed only seven tweets with @ mentions.  Most of those go back to their fellow writers.  Most readers understand writers aren’t going to be able to interact with all followers, but giving it a try will help develop a relationship that you can capitalize on later.
• Finally, you should make it easier for readers to find your writes twitter feeds.  I spent a few minutes looking for this information on your site and it wasn’t easy to find.  If nothing else, a link to their Twitter page should be included on their profile page right next to their email address.

I hope that you take a few of these ideas and try to improve your use of Twitter.  I’ll be the first one to say Twitter isn’t going to solve all your problems and you also can use it how you want But, if you are going to use a tool, at least use it well.

P.S.  I have noticed you are using hashtags without the strib added to them.  Keep that up; we appreciate it.

Dear Facebook,  your suggest a friend feature is the most worthless thing ever.

Here is the deal, when I first joined Facebook, which was quite a while ago, I was friended by some random girl in Memphis.  At the time I wasn’t picky about who I accepted friend requests from, so I accepted her request and we have been friends ever sense.  Occasionally I consider removing her as a friend, but really I see no reason to. She doesn’t interact with me, and doesn’t post annoying things so I just let it be.

Recently though, being friends with her has given me some insight.  Basically it is that Facebook’s suggest a friend feature is worthless.  For some reason Facebook insists on showing me people that she is friends with.  This makes no sense.  For one thing, I have no mutual friends with her.  Wouldn’t that put her pretty low on the list of people whose friends I know.  Additionally, she isn’t geographically close to me, we’ve never interacted, never lived within 100 miles of each other, and never attended the same schools. If you were going to choose someone on my friend list to use for that feature, she would be the last one on the list.

So Facebook, here is my challenge to you, write a decent algorithm that keeps stupidity like this from happening.  You try hard to sell yourself as a valuable platform, but nonsense like this doesn’t help your sales pitch.