1. Influencer program – every company needs to have one of them. It’s the smartest program you will develop to have your core advocates promote your product. Their program reads: “Our Influencer program is designed to connect us with you – core enthusiasts that embrace prAna’s company values. Our goals are to open a dialogue for product testing and development ideas; promote ideas of health, wellness and sustainability; and create a community for like-minded people to share their passions.” Create a community of like-minded individuals is exactly what every company needs to be working on.

2. Customer service – Superb! They understand how to treat their customers and make it their mission to have satisfied customers. Under promise and overdeliver is what great marketers do.

3. Products – Excellent quality, great fit and made to last. Everything I have ordered fits and looks great. Start with a remarkable product and you will build a strong customer base with word-of-mouth. Great marketers know that remarkable products get people talking.

4. Story – every company needs a story that people will remember them by. I like Prana’s. What is your story? Is it on your website?

5.  Website – clean design, friendly, well organized, light and encouraging dialogue yet built for the primary goal of selling clothes. Well done.

6. Design and branding – from their catalog, to their photos and logo design Prana has done a fantastic job of providing visually appealing images and collateral to their target market.

7. Customer engagement – Prana is currently looking for T-shirt designs from their customers. I like the name of their contest: How does PRANA look like to you?. An email went out to their influencers too, asking for submission of their favorite clothes. Upon sending your favorite item to Prana, you receive free shipping. Nice little incentive to gather valuable feedback from their most loyal customers.

8. Great causes – Prana is dedicated to support Natural Power Initiative. It fits perfectly with their values.

9. Social – Prana has an active blog, a very popular Facebook page, lots of views on their YouTube channel, and a decent Vimeo channel. I wonder what their social media strategy is but in terms of engaging their fans, Prana scores high in my eyes. One suggestion would be to implement a social purchase incentive, where if you recommend Prana product to friends at the time of purchase, you immediately receive percent off your purchase. Take a look at how Abe’s Market is doing it.

10. Ambassadors – I’m not sure how anyone can become an ambassador but I’m sure if you are interested, you will get a fast response from Prana.

Prana has passionate people who have created a great product and have figured out how to build legendary marketing.

Have you purchased any Prana clothes? Are you going to after this post? Do you have any favorite companies?

1. The Cause -  Special Olympics. Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

2. Special Olympics history – The concept for Special Olympics was born in the early 1960s when Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for people with developmental disabilities at her home in Rockville, Maryland. The first International Special Olympics Games were held in 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago with 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 26 states and Canada.

Mrs. Shriver’s vision has grown into one of the largest and most successful sports and volunteer organizations in the world. There are Chapters in every state of America and in more than 140 countries worldwide serving more than one-million Special Olympics athletes.

3. Special Olympics Northern California is proud to serve more than 13,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities.

4. Diamond Peak and Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe have been the proud sponsor for Special Olympics two years in a row. This event receives support from the community and many IVGID and Hyatt employees.

5. My pledge - My goal is to raise at least $5,500 for this organization and I’m counting on your support.

6. It’s a party! – On March 6th, come to the Hyatt pier and watch me jump in the freezing waters of Lake Tahoe. Temperature is around 40F (4C). Brrrrrrrr!!!!!! Bring your cameras! I will need your support.Even better, sign up to jump in with me.

7. Please, donate. Every little bit will help me reach my goal. You can donate online here.

8. Spread the word. We can do it together. Let’s use social media, online and personal networks and let’s raise some money. These kids need it. We can all help.

Are you in?

For those of you that are not aware of the situation described here, the original post is located here. After a few Tweets with the Chrysler Twitter team and the blog post, I was personally contacted by Chrysler’s Customer Service department which was definitely a step in the right direction.  A few emails and phone conversations with them later, they offered us to replace the truck, and expedited the build and the delivery. The end result is, we are back in a new Dodge truck we absolutely love and very, very satisfied with the way Chrysler handled the entire process from the initial phone call.

I would specially like to thank the Chrysler’s Twitter team and the Customer Service Department at Chrysler Corporation with one individual whose name should remain a secret for privacy issues. This person completely understands customer service and acts on customer’s behalf. Everyone we had contact with at Chrysler believes in the power of social media and how it could affect a company of their size.  I hope to be able to generate ten times more positive outreach for them than the original negative post I wrote.  Based on this personal experience, it’s clear to me that Chrysler is committed to delivering great customer service.

A few lessons learned from this:

1. Social Media has provided a new medium for people to voice their opinions and corporations now need to listen and respond accordingly in new places.

2. A company should be consistent across all channels when it comes to dealing with customers. Certainly, social media participants may expect a much faster response than a snail mail or telephone call but they should all receive the same customer service regardless of the channel used.

3. Only 2% of people will voice their opinions online. Perhaps there’s a need for more “citizen journalism” and people fighting for their rights as consumers which will put more pressure on companies to stay engaged online.

Thank you Chrysler! You kept us a loyal and happy customers. Well done!

1. If you are a consumer make sure to read the reviews on TripAdvisor prior to booking your trip. You may find insightful information about a place you would like to visit. I usually glance at the reviews before pulling out my credit card and committing to a reservation. You may not always see positive reviews about a place, but sometimes people just like to complain. Personally, if most reviews are good and there are a few bad reviews I would take them into account but put more emphasis on the positive. I like to think the glass is half full. Big points go to the property that has responded to a negative review. Seeing a response usually makes me smile as this means the property is actually monitoring their reviews and responding to complaints. When I see negative reviews and no response, this usually is enough for me to look elsewhere.
2. If you represent a travel brand (think hotels, restaurants, cruises, vacation properties and even airlines) you can use TripAdvisor to gather feedback and correspond with your customers who are reviewing your place while you are reading this. Here are a few tips for travel companies on how to use TripAdvisor to their advantage:

• Get your business listed on TripAdvisor and make sure you give as much information as possible about your property. Photos are KEY!
• Sign up to receive reviews by email and every time someone posts a new review you will be notified.
• Read the reviews and respond if necessary with a thank you or a comment. If the review is negative, proceed with caution. Sometimes an acknowledgment and stating the facts may be sufficient but be careful not to make an already angry person even angrier. It’s a very fine line what you say and how you say it.
• Encourage your guests to spread the word for you with signs at your property, links on your website and in your email newsletters.
• Track your performance and see how you rank against your competitors (this service is offered to accommodations only)

TripAdvisor offers excellent and free business owners resources online to help with getting more reviews, best practices including how to respond to reviews, links and badges for your website/email newsletter, and content ideas.

They recently added user generated lists and tours to their mobile application which will continue to increase TripAdvisor’s popularity with travelers.

Don’t ignore online reviews as part of your social media strategy. With a huge audience, TripAdvisor is a popular place for people to turn to when researching their trip. I know I do.

Do you use TripAdvisor as a consumer? Have you implemented it in your social media efforts for your company?

Dr. Seuss

Running your own business is complicated enough. How do you make sure your customers are happy and they bring you referrals and positive word-of-mouth? Here are 3 tips to follow:

1. Under promise and over deliver. Return their phone call, email, tweet, question within reasonable time.  If you are completely swamped then tell them you will get back to them upon review. Deliver on what you promised. Take it a step further – under promise and over deliver. Make sure you meet the deadline you suggested in the first place. Always go above and beyond to make sure you are over-delivering on their expectations. Just meeting their expectations doesn’t cut it anymore.

2. Be consistent. This means be consistent in everything you do – from your marketing to the way you answer emails. Again, this is based on creating expectations. People doing business with you get used to doing it a certain way. People don’t like change. If you are planning on improving anything, make sure to give people plenty of notice and allow them to opt out. An example is how Twitter and Facebook change their platforms. Twitter allows people to go back to the old version of the platform. Facebook makes the change whether you like it or not. People don’t like change. Be consistent and you have a better chance of making people happy. This doesn’t mean be consistent at under delivering, you will only create a complete failure.

3. Treat everyone with respect and give them special attention. Respect your customers and they will respect you back. People are all individuals an they deserve the utmost respect until proven otherwise. Everybody wants to feel special. You can make them feel special by finding out what they like and jotting it down in your computer. If you have some type of customer relationship program, record it there. Otherwise, attach it to their name somehow, electronically is the preferred method. Remember their birthdays. Remember little things they said in your every day conversation that could lead to a special recognition or gift. For example, if someone likes tea instead of coffee, get them a special tea set for the holidays with a hand written note from you. If you make them feel special, they will remember your business. Once they need your service, they will come back to you.

Happy people spread positive word of mouth – the most affordable marketing your small business can purchase.

Go ahead and make your promise. Just make sure you actually over deliver on it, be consistent and give them individual treatment.

What’s your best advice for small business owners?

This blog post is way overdue. It happened two winters ago and I just haven’t gotten around to write about it. It absolutely impressed me as a situation where clearly a company “Gets It”.

The company: The company is Ralph Lauren and more specifically their Polo Blue Cologne Fragrance. They created a brand new campaign to help launch their Red, White and Blue product line.

Photo Credit: JustBeMagazine.com

The Concept: A special edition under the Polo Blue franchise inspired by the Ralph Lauren Spirit and the icy invigoration of winter sports. Experience a fragrance celebration of exceptional athletic achievement. Come “push the boundaries” of BLUE.

The Promotion: Ralph Lauren teamed up with Warren Miller film tour and showed their product to 250,000+ moviegoers right before an incredible skiing and snowboarding footage from around the world. They created a 30 sec film combining the new fragrance with exciting skiing and snowboarding scenes. In addition, they had the product available for people to touch and smell prior to going in the movies. More promotions included YouTube video, Twitter contest, Facebook and newsletter promotions.

I participated in their Twitter contest initiated by @SkiingExaminer whom I have been following for a while and trust. I retweeted a short message from the company announcing the product in connection with the upcoming Warren Miller movie premiere.

The Results:

1. Established authenticity for winter sports positioning.

2. Sales increased 70% at Macy’s and 50% at other retailers for the week following the movie premiere.

3. Created excitement among youthful audience.

This so far looks like a well thought out and executed marketing campaign. Great product, good positioning and good tie in of traditional and new media.

What Impressed me?

Following the Twitter contest I was notified that I had won the product and it’s on its way. I completely forgot about it until 2-3 weeks later I received a package in the mail. Inside the package there was the new Ralph Lauren Red White and Blue Men fragrance. In addition, there was a ladies Red White and Blue fragrance bottle and a handwritten note from their Marketing Director. The note said: Dear Milena (Yes, that’s me) Thank you for participating and congratulations. We are including an extra fragrance bottle for you (they figured it out who they are sending the prize too; extra bonus). We hope you enjoy the new fragrance. Sincerely, Ralph Lauren Marketing Director. Did I mention it was a handwritten note? You bet it made me feel very special and appreciated. They way every company should make you feel if they want to keep you as a customer.

I was so impressed with the results that I tracked down the contact information for the Marketing Director from @SkiingExaminer and asked her to send me some information about the campaign to include in my blog. That’s how I know what the campaign generated in the Results section. She sent me an entire PowerPoint presentation with impressive slides, numbers and examples from the campaign some of which I have used in this post. This blog post is the least I can do to show my appreciation for a big brand that “Gets It” and tell you how a big company can actually be personable.

Ralph Lauren obviously gets what it takes to make people feel special. Do you do the same? Share some of your stories here in the comments section.

I’ve been seeing him for over 15 years now despite of changes in dental insurances and 45 min drive to the office one way. He’s one of these older, nice gentleman who can make you feel very comfortable.Even in the dentist chair.

What I like most about this dentist is his attitude towards his clients and his high and I mean really high standard for customer service.

Dr. Donald Orme (in Truckee, CA) by far wins my award for customer service for a local Lake Tahoe business. He knows how to treat his customers and by that I don’t mean keep their teeth healthy but treat them with respect. He understands what it takes to make them feel good, how to make things right and how to keep his clients happy.

He “gets” how word-of-mouth and referrals work and he practices it every day. I wished more Lake Tahoe small and large businesses would learn from Dr. Orme and apply his unwritten policy: Do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.

I wrote a review about him on DentistDig. If you end up going to see him, feel free to write your opinion as well.

Have you run into a good or bad customer service experience lately? Leave a comment on this blog.

In summary, I had to deal with a delayed plane, a sick passenger, a well deserved and expensive  shower, new clothes and a long delay at the airport, a lost bag for 7 days, a damaged suitcase and missing items from the bag and COUNTLESS hours emailing, talking to and collecting paperwork for Lufthansa.

Today I received a check from them for $1,732. This is the maximum amount they will issue for a lost bag. (Policy)

All and all, I’m OK with this. It certainly didn’t make up for the lost hours dealing with the company. It can’t make up for the inconvenience, the hassle, my niece’s disappointment when her new iPod was missing, etc.  At least, I feel like I have been somewhat compensated for the expenses.

Ultimately the question is – Did Lufthansa keep me as a customer?

Most likely they did. At the bottom of the pyramid.

During the entire process, I was contacted only once on this blog from someone in their “social media” department.

The worst part about Lufthansa as I discovered is that you cannot contact their customer department by phone. Only by email and by fax.  I suppose you can visit them personally in their office on the East Coast. It felt too much to me like they didn’t want to deal with customers.

Again, did they keep me as a customer? Probably so. Can they work on improving their customer service? Absolutely. Can they start to move people up the pyramid?Definitely so. It would have taken them very little to move me up. Maybe next time.

This concludes my Lufthansa story. Now, I’m ready for new travel adventures with happier experiences and better airline service.  Oh, and anyone from the customer service department of Lufthansa reading this blog, I can consult you on how to improve your customer service. Call me for a free conversation.

First, the plane was delayed from Philadelphia to Frankfurt.

Second, a passanger threw up on my in the plane. The most disgusting experience in my life.

Of course, I missed my connection flight to Sofia and had to sit in line for over 2 hours to rebook. With the vomit all over me. Horrible experience.

The next plane to Bulgaria wasn’t until 9 hours later. I managed to find a shower for $8 at the airport. Washed my clothes and walked around in wet clothes until I found a store to buy some new ones. That meant going through multiple check points and passport checks.

Finally, with new clothes (another expense of about $150) and 9 hours at Frankfurt airport (another expensive stay) I got to Sofia to find out that my bag didn’t make it. Now, 30 hours later, Lufthansa still can’t find my bag. It’s not available in the system. What kind of a shitty system is that?Where is my bag? Still in Philadelphia, in Frankfurt or somewhere else in the world????

I have contacted Lufthansa in the US and in Bulgaria. They can’t seem to help me. Their online form doesn’t work. What is one supposed to do? I need my bag. I need a refund on all purchases I have made for this trip so far.

I’m taking my complaint to the social media world and I will not stop until I have a resolution. All of you Lufthansa people if you are listening on the web here’s a shitty customer experience that will damage your brand. Jump on on it. FAST!

Photo Credit: Flickr.com by PatrickSmithPhotography

I recently returned from a short trip to San Francisco and I’d like to recommend a few places to stay and eat while in the city that you won’t be disappointed with.

1. The best place to stay in San Francisco is the Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf. You can see all of their reviews on TripAdvisor which confirm my recommendation for a top place to stay in the city. The location is excellent for both leisure and business. It’s close for a nice long walk by the water to the Ferry Building Marketplace, a fabulous place to explore Northern California local produce, breads, meats, seafood, oils, wines or grab a cup of nice coffee or taste some fresh oysters. Along the way, you will pass a few excellent options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Hyatt is also super close to a couple of cable car turns around and you can enjoy a beautiful sightseeing tour of the city. We enjoyed being able to walk just about anywhere in the city right from the hotel. It’s within a short walking distance from Ghirardelli Square, the Wharf, Pier 39,  North Beach, the Coit Tower, China Town and even Union Square. In addition to the excellent location, I love the modern and clean rooms and most of all the super comfortable bed. The staff is helpful and friendly and the stay is by all means very enjoyable. I haven’t found a better place in the city regardless of your trip purpose – it’s great for short or long visits to San Francisco or business trips.  The Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf wins my award for customer service – everyone I have met in their hotel understands what it means to provide superb customer service. With rooms rates starting at $149, this hotel is a definite winner if you are looking for a place to stay in San Francisco.

2. Nombe Restaurant – This restaurant came as a recommendation by a friend. We looked at each other in the taxi with questions in our eyes as we were approaching the location – in a most unassuming part of  San Francisco in the Mission District. From the outside, the place looked empty although we were told a reservation is necessary to get it. Once inside, the place opened up to a nice atmosphere, busy tables and a great dinner. They serve a big selection of sakes and a very interesting menu of tapas. By all means, get the chicken wings with honey and serrano chili sauce. They have some interesting dishes as well starting with different sashimi plates and ending with pork belly (done two different ways) and chicken gizzards and hearts. Reasonably priced, it all depends how much sake you drink. The staff is friendly. This restaurant just made the Top 100 restaurants in San Francisco. Check out their Yelp reviews.

3. Kokkari restaurant is by far the best Greek restaurant I have visited in the US. Again, via a recommendation from a friend we went there once and we’ll continue to return. The staff is super nice and on top of it, the food is superb, the atmosphere is great.  They have an extensive wine selection from the New World and from the Old World and scrumptious tapas and dinners. By all means, try their lamb – you can pick from lamb rib lets to shank, lamb organs and other delicious cuts. I would also recommend their whole fish and the grilled octupus. The Greek salad, fava beans and zucchinis are delicious too. I would love to return there with a large group of friends and take over their private room. Kokkari makes the perfect location for a special occasion or casual drink and some tapas at the bar. Check out their Yelp reviews and enjoy it. Make sure to make a reservation ahead of time.

Your turn. What places in San Francisco do you enjoy and recommend? Let me know what you think of these places if you visit them.