  |
   |
|
    
Sterne Measures |
|
Full Sterne Aheadby Jim Sterne
August, 2000 Full Sterne Ahead contains the mostly monthly musings of Jim Sterne, author, speaker, and Web marketing consultant to business and industry. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- This month I marvel at Big Business with its eyes closed in When Will They Ever Learn?, learn about customer service in Resource of Note, run into James Bond in London While I Was Out, spot the news and entertainment stars of the future in the Crystal Ball, am dumbfounded by Toyota In My In-Box, get a really weird feeling in The Big Idea, lament Web forms in You Can Do It, get threatened with blacklisting in Don't Try This at Home, and get a really decent apology in Classic Comment. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN? -------------------------- Bristol-Myers Squibb is not a small company by any means. They make Clairol and Excedrin for starters. So why then, had they not assigned anybody to keep an eye on their home page at www.bms.com? I went there one afternoon and found - well - nothing. There was a white page. No text, no graphics. Nothing. But that wasn't all - the page continued to reload, over and over and over again. Curiosity took over and I viewed the source. There was the code to turn the page white - and there was the code to redirect the surfer to the same page - and there was ... nothing else there. I immediately sent a message to webmaster@bms.com alerting themto the problem. (Yes, I *do* report leaking fire hydrants, how did you know?) I received this reply: Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: Recipient address: webmaster@bms.com Reason: Not found in directory [sigh] ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- RESOURCE OF NOTE ---------------- If you're interested in customer service and the customer experience and customer relationship management and all that jazz, take a look at www.eCustomerServiceWorld.com Products, jobs, books, speakers, events, research, articles - it's portal time. If customers are part of your purview, this site is worth a perusal. Oh - and they have a sense of humor, too. How else can you explain their Company Ovreview? Believing in the efuture, a highly neurotic team of customer service fanatics was ... formed to evolve the company into cyberspace as eCustomerServiceWorld.com. Chief Customer Champion is Phil Dourado, who edited Customer Service Management magazine for 3 years, including launching and editing the US version of the magazine before moving into cyberspace (we haven't seen him since, but he's virtually 'out there' somewhere). And then there's the Mission Statement... ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- WHILE I WAS OUT --------------- I was standing in the lobby of the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London with a couple of dozen other travelers scattered about the place when a mobile phone rang. The tune was unmistakable: the theme from James Bond. None of us had heard it on a phone before but we all knew it by heart. Dah-Dah De Dahhh De Dut-Dut. All conversation stopped and all movement ceased. We all craned our necks to spot the owner, who was turning the most wonderful shade of crimson. Then we all looked at our own reactions and the lobby was instantly filled with laughter. Aren't humans wonderful? But I was left wondering how long it would be until some enterprising marketeer started handing out free phones that sing out "GE - We bring good things to life," the tune for Kit Kat Bars, or that instantly recognizable four notes that let the world know that there's an Intel inside. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- THE CRYSTAL BALL ---------------- I see dead people. OK - not really dead *people* so much as cyber-beings who were never alive to start with. Ananova www.ananova.com Webbie Tookay www.illusion2k.com Chase Walker www.flashcommerce.com/articles/00/05/03/225718590.htm Who are these 'people'? They are the stars of tomorrow. The entertainment stars? Well, sure - we proved that in 1928 when Mickey Mouse first appeared as Steamboat Willie. But more important: the industrial/customer relations stars. I would give me eye teeth to be able to 'talk' to the phone company through an animated individual who had infinite patience, was available 24x7x365, had immediate knowledge of all my phone lines and transactions and needs. It could even make collaboratively filtered suggestions. Sign me up. But let's not lose our sense of perspective: www.satirewire.com/features/satire-jeevesinterview.html ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- MY IN-BOX --------- I was curious about Toyota's new Prius - their half gas/half electric car. So I went to www.toyota.com to check it out and looked all over for the Test Drive button. The only thing that came close was Request To Purchase Your Prius. I was intrigued. After divulging the appropriate vital statistics I hit the Submit button. "Thank you for your interest in our Prius!" You're welcome I'm sure thought I, but where's the beef? The beef showed up about ten minutes later as follows: From: "Toyota Prius" To: Subject: Prius Online Purchase Request Notification Thank you for submitting your purchase request for the Prius. Please remember you are required to finalize the transaction with the dealer before the request is processed. Thank You. (Customer Information) Jim Sterne 1130 Arbolado Road Santa Barbara 931032040 805-965-3184 jsterne@targeting.com P.R.# 9937698185 __________________________________ * This is an automated response. Please do not reply to this email address. Translation: Thank you for wasting your time on out Web site. Please don't come back. And don't even *think* about sending us an e-mail - this one didn't really come from us anyway - it's from PeopleSupport. And don't go to www.peoplesupport.com unless you really like a Flash music video of words wandering all over the screen. (They know it's a waste of time - the only two choices on the home page are "Make it Shut Up!" or "Makes it Stop!" ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- THE BIG IDEA ------------ Just feel this fine, smooth Corinthian leather... Logitech is now offering up the iFeel MouseMan www.Logitech.com/cf/about/pressRelease.cfm/220 It's their second try at force-feedback and it raises some droll possibilities. Rather than diving straight into the obvious but over-blown field of teledildonics, I'm thinking about tactile navigation. Links to major site sections could feel solid while links to other sites have a disturbing buzz to them. Navigational pages might feel slick while datasheets feel rough. All sorts of standard tangible clues could work in conjunction with standard Windows sounds. It seems like such a large, unused datastream that it's a shoe-in. Anybody want to come up with some de facto, tactile standards? ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- YOU CAN DO IT ------------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 19:15:44 +0800 From: Daniel Tay Organization: RNE Computer Solutions To: jsterne@targeting.com Subject: Symantec! Jim, I'm one of the Internet Billionaire Home Study Program participant. It's very lucky to know you in this way. Definitely, you got my vote for the most excellent, content-pack, presentation. Aw, shucks Daniel - Thanks! (The Billion Dollar program was the result of a Jay Abraham seminar at which I presented.) I could not disagree with you on the rude attitude of huge American corporate who try to get away from their customer. If you conduct a real world business with telephone & fax, you must conduct the web business with an e-mail. Don't they know about this? Recently, I've a very bad experience with Symantec. Although they have a feedback link, I'm reluctant to use it because I sense it's a trap. As such, I tried to find the contact us button but do not find one. Since I do not see one, I have to go on with the feedback link. I've been writing more than 20 sentences in it. To my surprise, after about 5 minutes, an auto feedback come back and saying they'll not answer any e-mail from the feedback column. They offer an alternative link. I tried it out but it's no better than a pure rubbish. What really upset me is that my original message was not attached in the email. As such, I've lost my message. This clearly showed their effort in trying to avoid their customer. And what actually happened is I'm trying to contact them about bulk purchase of PcAnywhere. Maybe, they don't need my purchase. And I'll not recommend their Norton Antivirus to anyone either. They forgot people like us have a big influence on my customer. Thank you for your attention. What you can do: Customers want a record or their communications. Web forms don't provide that record. Offer up an e-mail address -the customers you offend might just be resellers. Thanks, Daniel! ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME ---------------------- I got my first extortion e-mail the other day. It was from Marty Roth You are sending Unsolicited Commercial E-mail via a mismanaged mailing list. Your current policies allow forged subscriptions and require people to opt-out of mailing lists that they never requested. This is not acceptable in today's internet environment and is cause for listing in the MAPS-RBL. Please see www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/candidacy.htmlfor more information. Correctly managed mailing lists use a process of confirmed, closed loop opt-in which requires a positive response by the owner of the e-mail address which was subscribed, in order for that address to be included on the mailing list. Please see www.mail-abuse.org/rbl/manage.html for correct mailing list management policies. Now I admit that I had, indeed, configured the listserver I employ to accept e-mail addresses without a confirmation. But I also admit that I was a little miffed at having somebody send me a quasi-spam to lecture me on netiquette. He was right, of course. One shouldn't allow others to inflict pain on others though one's newsletter. But then Marty got under my skin. If you do not respond with a valid plan and timetable for correcting the current problems with your mailing list within the next 24 hours, I will have no recourse but to submit an RBL Nomination for some or all of the following addresses: The RBL is the Realtime Blackhole List which ISPs subscribe to in order to cut down on spam. If an IP address is listed there, ISPs can block all e-mail traffic from that site. This is the service that AOL used to block an e-mail surveys going from Harris Interactive (as in Harris Poll) to their opt-in members resulting in Harris suing AOL. Marty then listed the IP address of my ISP, several DNS servers they use, and the specific machine my site is hosted on (along with countless others). Marty threw down the gauntlet and gave me 24 hours before he was going to take action that would result in the black listing and therefore cessation of my e-mail, the e-mail of the sites hosted on the same server, and the e-mail of thousands of people who use the same ISP. What if, as I've experienced several times, I were traveling and unable to read Marty's message for several days? Fortunately, I was home to receive his extraordinary, make that extortionary message. So I popped over to Sparklist.com, click a couple of buttons, and it was done. I wrote Marty back telling him that my timetable was: already fixed. Marty wrote back: Jim, I went and subscribed today to your list and it is NOT fixed: >Dear Marty, >Welcome to the Scientific Marketing Ezine! ---------- Jim, I really want you to work with mail-abuse.org to cleanup your list, and I need a timetable from you of when and how this is going to happen. I rather see you fix your list than have to nominate your IP's to the rbl, but I will if I don't see evidence to correct this. Can I count on you? Marty Roth Incon Research Abuse I've never heard of the Scientific Marketing Ezine. And that, my friends, is why vigilantism is dangerous. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- CLASSIC COMMENT --------------- After receiving an e-mail from a conference organizer that contained "Dear Jim Sterne," "Yours Sincerely," (they're British) and a complete signature, I notified the guilty party. In reply: Now, be gentle with us. This is particularly hard to admit to someone you really admire for their technical knowledge and cutting sense of humour (Have seen you talk several times) but - bear with me - this will be a good one - it seems our database took a particular liking to you and decided to send you a rogue email. It has obviously recognised you as a man of authority and learning (Am I digging myself out of this at all?). We're looking into this, once we've found the particular microchip responsible we promise we'll take it out and flog it. The lesson? Be up front. Take responsibility. Be obsequious. Use humor! Pour on the flattery!! ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- SHAMELESS PLUG --------------- Where in the world is Jim Sterne? What day is it? On Tuesday, the 29th I'll be at DCI's Customer Relationship Management conference, New York, talking about Building Web Sites for Your Customers for an hour. On Tuesday, September 5, I'll be online doing an iWebshop for Hewlett-Packard, on Advanced Web Metrics. On Tuesday, September 12, you can find me in Atlanta at the ICD Online Marketing International Summit, where I'll spend an hour presenting my thoughts on how Your eMail is Your Brand. And, just to prove that I'm can be coaxed into presenting on a day *other* than Tuesday, I'll be joining Met Genesis on Monday, September 18, in Denver, Tuesday in Seattle, and Wednesday in San Jose, CA for a half-day seminar on E-Metrics. Thursday, September 21 will find me in Cleveland at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute conference. On Friday, September 29, I'll join my friends at Qualiclick in Basil, Switzerland for a full-day seminar entitled "Internet Marketing At It's Best. And if you happen to be a Siemens employee, (and last time I looked there were more than a dozen of you), you should know that I'll be back in Munich on Monday & Tuesday, October 9 & 10, for another two-day workshop called "World Wide Web Marketing". Tell your Kollegen! For a further look ahead, there's always: www.targeting.com/upcoming.html ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- How about you? I'm interested in what is on *your* mind. What issues are you facing these days? Drop me a line. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- This newsletter is going to be better if it reaches more people. You can help. The Net is a powerful word-of-mouth mechanism, so if you know somebody who might like to be on the receiving end, please point them to www.targeting.com And I'll bet you know what will happen if you send a message to unsubscribe@targeting.com. ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- Full Sterne Ahead contains the mostly monthly musings of Jim Sterne, author, speaker, and Web marketing consultant to business and industry. |
Target Marketing
211 E. Victoria St., Suite E
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
+1 (805) 965-3184 phone
+1 (805) 965-8687 fax
www.targeting.com
Consulting |
Public Speaking |
Books |
Articles |
Profile |
Contact Us |
Site Map
© 1994-2008 Target Marketing of Santa Barbara