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Are you in the market for a new car?

Good luck - you may have trouble finding a dealership wanting to sell you one.  Bear with me - this isn’t a post about cars, but about customer service.

This year, the UK’s retail motor industry welcomed, with outstretched arms, a new word into its lexicon - “scrappage”. In the middle of a thumping recession, the Government-funded scheme has helped the car business boost sales with a £2k sweetener for buyers agreeing to scrap their 10-year-old vehicle when buying a new one. Without it, the world of the motor trader in 2009 would have been a very different one.

A world without scrappage was depicted in a recent speech by Joe Greenwell, Ford’s UK chairman and president of the Society of Manufacturers and Motor Traders at its recent annual dinner. He said: “Without scrappage, this year’s total registrations would have been less than 1.7m. Against a high of nearly 2.6 million units in 2003, current expectations are for car registrations to fall to 1.8m in 2010. There is no doubt that..underlying demand remains weak.”

And this is the point. At a time like now, every customer counts.

It was Chris Brogan’s recent blog post on frustration with bricks and mortar retail that came to mind on a weekend trip to several high end car dealerships from which I came away convinced that some dealerships don’t want to sell cars.

First up - VW: we entered an empty showroom where the only person keen to talk was the receptionist. A salesman just about managed to grab some brochures but the car we wanted to see was “being used by a colleague over the weekend”. That’s fine, but did he want to arrange a viewing? No.

Next, BMW: we were sitting ducks, asking to be sold the benefits of a particular model. The salesman - not looking terribly busy - said: “I’ll get you a brochure. It’s all in there.” What about the boot space? The car battery was flat so the boot wouldn’t open. Now there was a veritable crowd of customers awaiting the grand boot opening. Eventually the lid was lifted and off the salesman skipped: “Leave it up, won’t you,” he chirped.

Lastly, Mercedes: best of the lot, but not great. We did get invited to sit down, but for a rather lacklustre chat about the car in question and promises about the great vehicles coming out of that manufacturer in the next couple of years.

For an industry facing a steep incline next year with a spluttering engine, it’s a worrying picture of customer interaction.

One man who knows a bit about car sales is one Derek Clements (disclosure: my father) who spent more than 50 years in the car business and ended his career training dealership staff in customer care. He said: “Getting new customer enquiries is expensive and dealers have to make the most of every one. It’s vital that sales staff make people truly welcome, comfortable and unthreatened before talking to them about what the customer wants or needs and matching that with the features and benefits of a car.

“In other words, make the customer feel important, listen to what they’re saying and start to build their confidence in dealing with you.”

With all this in mind, I asked Letty - a woman of advancing years and 10 years on the local Tesco checkout - what she felt customer service was all about and she said: “It’s just about being friendly. People seem so detached from each other these days and it costs nothing to smile.”

Listen to Letty - you could do much worse.

Today’s guest blog comes from Kirsten Mortensen, a marketing communications strategist based in Rochester, N.Y. who - in the cause of investigating social media best practice - has found herself in the pub…

Many businesses today are wondering whether to invest in social media.

Others are pretty sure they need social media-but haven’t quite figured out how to do it.

And then you have people like Joe McBane, who have taken to social media so naturally it’s become a seamless extension of his business.

Granted, McBane is in the hospitality industry-and if any industry is ready-made for social media, this would be it.

McBane owns the Tap & Mallet, a two-year-old pub in Rochester, New York.

Rochester, if you’re unfamiliar, is a community in the United States “rust belt” best known as the hometown of the iconic film company, Eastman Kodak. McBane himself, however, isn’t a Rochester native. He’s a Sheffield, UK transplant who first put down roots as bar manager at The Old Toad, Rochester’s studied version of the authentic British pub. His Tap & Mallet is something altogether different, however: more an American-style neighborhood bar-but with a decidedly upscale and 21^st century focus on craft beers.

McBane’s pub also happens to appeal to a demographic perfectly suited to a social media-based marketing strategy. His customers are students and young professionals-exactly the people who tend to have Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, who follow blogs and reach for Google, not the phone book, when they’re planning their weekends.

And McBane is a natural marketer. He loves his business and loves telling people about it.

These caveats notwithstanding, McBane’s experience proves that social media can pay off richly for business owners who take the time to use it.

His strategy is multi-pronged. He has a website, where he publishes his beer and food menus. Because Tap & Mallet’s selection of draft beers changes continually, the site gives customers an easy way to check what’s on tap.

His website also hosts a blog, where McBane posts short articles on the pub and on any topic that strikes his fancy-any topic, that is, that relates back to beer. The blog serves two purposes. It lets customers stay in touch with McBane and his pub. And it serves up a growing collection of beer-related content. That, in turn, contributes to Tap & Mallet’s respectable Google rank: if you search for “beer + Rochester New York”, the pub’s home page appears within the first five or six results.

But it’s Twitter where McBane most clearly demonstrates the power of social media. A year after opening his Twitter account, McBane has cultivated over 500 followers. He’s also recently launched a Tap & Mallet iPhone app that followers can use to check the pub’s menu and even place orders if they want.

Sometimes his tweets are links to web articles about craft beers. (He uses hash tags on terms like “craft beer” and “Rochester” to help people find his tweets via the software’s search function.)

For the majority of his tweets, however, McBane has one goal in mind: give followers an excuse to drop by for a pint. His selection of draft beers is continually rotating, for instance. So McBane tweets when new beers go on tap. He tweets updates when he’s holding an event-a beer social or a pig roast or a tasting. And he tweets Twitter-only specials.

“People like the exclusivity,” he says.

McBane, for his part, likes the fact that it’s marketing with a clear and tangible effect. He’ll broadcast a secret word that customers can use to get a special price-and within an hour or two, fifteen or twenty people will show up.

It’s marketing with measurable results.

But there’s more to it than that. Social media allows McBane to extend Tap & Mallet into the virtual world. “We’re a beer and food community,” he says-and adds that it’s also a business where you “live or die” on your regulars. By making it easy to stay in touch with his customers, social media helps ensure Tap & Mallet regulars return. Regularly.

And it costs McBane pennies-a couple minutes of phone time, his web hosting fees. Nor does he invest huge amounts of time-maybe 20 minutes a day, on average. Convenience, in fact, is a priority. He recently installed a Facebook app so he can update his Facebook page from his phone. His website beer menu doubles as his on-site beer menu-when he needs new copies of the print menu, he prints them out from the site. That way he only needs to update the menu in one place.

McBane hasn’t abandoned conventional marketing altogether. He generally has one print ad running at any given time in one of Rochester’s local weeklies. That, no doubt, helps him reach people who wouldn’t find him on Twitter or Facebook.

But print is a static media, and McBane understands the lure of variety. Even outside the sphere of social media, he gravitates toward marketing ideas that build on the same kind of novelty afforded by a constantly changing beer menu. His pub doubles as a gallery space for local artists, for instance. This generates good will in the local arts community (most artists sell at least one or two pieces per show). It gives customers something to talk about. But equally important, it ensures that the pub walls are periodically refreshed. “You hang pictures on your wall in your house, and after awhile, you don’t see them any more,” he says. “It’s the same here, for our regulars.” Swapping out the art every few months injects a bit of proverbial spice into the pub’s atmosphere.

McBane also recently purchased a 1956 Austin Princess limousine on EBay. (You can see pictures of him towing it to Rochester from New Hampshire ) “It needs some mechanical work and a re-spray,” he says-a paint job that will include adding the Tap & Mallet logo. “I’ll have it on the road next summer.”

At first glance, using an antique car as a marketing tool might seem a world apart from Twitter.

But it’s not. For McBane, a cool old car is all about personality-or perhaps more precisely personableness: a means of connecting, on a personal level, with customers.

And it works. “We grew our business during a recession,” he says. How much? “I would have been happy with this rate of growth in any economy.”

Yes, social media takes a bit of creative flair. And yes, it helps when your target market is social media-savvy. But as Joe McBane has found, for a relatively small investment of time and money, tools like blogging and Twitter and Facebook can seed genuine word-of-mouth-and deliver a measurable benefit to a business’ bottom line.

The World Wide Web has radically shaped the way we do business, in particular that of the fashion retail sector.

Estimated to be worth over £4.1bn by the end of 2009*, the sector is booming, with no self respecting high street retailer now without a transactional website. 

The savvy aren’t, however, solely using the web as a sales platform.

Responding to the rise in popularity of social media, a new culture is emerging, labelled by industry leaders as “democratic consumerism”.

Pioneering the move towards the new culture is Asda Chief Executive, Andy Bond, who recently announced plans to open up the workings of the business to scrutiny from customers in a move to build greater trust and long-term loyalty amongst shoppers. 

Among the range of initiatives to be introduced by the retailer is Asda’s new blog, http://www.aislespyblog.com/, which invites customers to participate in the buying process - voting on their favourite styles and colour ways.

Still in its infancy, the blog is already enjoying a positive response.  Speaking on it its launch Beth Somi, George Marketing and PR Manager, said: “http://www.aislespyblog.com/ is a great way for our customers to understand more about what goes on behind the scenes at Asda and to know more about our colleagues who work here.

“I enjoy talking to people about my job, so this is a great opportunity to do it while I’m at work. There is so much to talk about, we have new ranges launching in store every week so there is always something going on. The tough decision is knowing what to blog about so that I don’t bore everyone!

“I love the fact that I can ask for feedback on my blog and that the readers respond in such a positive way. It’s a great way for us to get instant ideas on our new ranges. As I speak to the teams here at George House, they are excited about what we can ask for comments on in the future.”

An example of an entirely web-based retailer epitomising democratic fashion is http://www.styleshake.com/.  Possibly one of the most ingenious fashion websites to launch in recent years, StyleShake.com puts the customer at the heart of the proposition, allowing the user to design a garment from scratch choosing fabric, colour style and trim.

The site goes against the typical nature of the fashion industry with trends that ‘trickle-down’ from the catwalk to the high street, asking the user to vote and design exactly what they want to wear.

It is also a fashion community with users rating and commenting on one another’s designs. Recent celebrity fans include Duffy and Holly Branson.

Not only good news for fashion addicts looking to create an individual look, StyleShake.com is a pretty good business model.  The retailer only produces what its users order so there is never over-supply; good for the environment and for the businesses overheads.

Chief Executive Officer of StyleShake.com, Iris Ben-David, comments: “StyleShake is all about empowering the user, providing them with the means to express themselves and celebrate their creativity. We are delighted to offer new ways of collaboration”.

The retailer’s vision is to become a leading online resource that revolutionises the way we consume fashion by making it much more personal and individual. 

A design obsessive from a tender age and regularly frustrated shopper, I personally, am delighted by what looks to be a customer-empowered future.  But what does democratic consumerism mean for the future of retail?

Its potential to impact on the overall business model is huge.  Armed with increased customer insight, the risk of costly, unpopular bulk buys will undoubtedly be lessened, reducing retailers’ need to discount and perhaps marking the beginning of the end of the January sale.  The retailer/supplier relationship will also inevitably see a change.   The potential for collections to be further tailored by store in response to regional demand an increasing reality.

Democratic consumerism, it’s an interesting one to watch, one I will certainly be following with a close eye.  

* Taken from Mintel’s Fashion Online report, August 2009

A recent tweet from journalist and blogger, Sally Whittle, went like this: “Dear PR: I’m not sure it’s a viral campaign if you have to send a press release telling me it’s viral…”

In other words, something has either the quintessence of being viral or it doesn’t; no amount of trying to talk it up or publicise it as viral will make it so. 

Not only did it make me laugh, it seemed to sum up what Starbucks is trying to do to reverse its coffee retailing fortunes.

As the Independent reports, Starbucks wants its outlets to look “less corporate” and give each one something more “locally relevant”.

Well, a shop is either local or it’s not. And like the problem with viral, trying to dress it up as something it isn’t will be immediately obvious. And with 750 stores in the UK under the familar brand name and identity of Starbucks, how authentic is any attempt at being “local” going to be? That’s the territory independent coffee shops should inhabit, and embody much better than Starbucks ever could.

What this Guardian report refers to as the “carefully selected authenticity cues” Starbucks plans to deploy makes it sound even worse. It’s either authentic, or it’s fake.

And if Costa Coffee, with more outlets than Starbucks, and Caffe Nero, with fewer, don’t see the need to tamper with their identity, what is Starbucks thinking?

Rather than trying to be something it’s not, shouldn’t the company face up to the fact that it’s no longer the province of a few cool people in Seattle? It is a corporate entity and there’s a customer base out there that’s quite happy with that: something the coffee customer can readily recognise and rely on to deliver exactly the same product wherever they go.

Perhaps the focus should fall on the core product: the coffee. As this ex-Starbucks employee comments, the coffee still beats most of what you’ll find on the high street, and the company prides itself on the quality of the java on offer.

Leave being local to the locals. And being a “local shop for local people” isn’t always something to shout about. 

Update: More - this time from Nielsen - on how retailers can benefit from recognising and engaging with social media - or, a new phrase, Consumer Generated Media.

UK high street retail veteran, Debenhams, came over all social yesterday with its Twitter assistants “experiment”.

The idea was to ensure its staff gave “top notch service” for the launch of its new season stock by giving customers the chance to tweet their queries to @DebenhamsRetail, whereby six assistants in its Oxford Street store would spring into action, either in person or - obviously - via the Twitterverse.

Was it simply a PR gimmick, as Socially Minded questions, or a giant step forward in customer service? Why would a shopper browsing in the store tweet an assistant for help rather than just tapping one on the shoulder?

Well, the Debenhams Twitter team, clearly still buzzing from their Tweet-fest, sent me this message within minutes of being asked how it all went:

But social media, and particularly Twitter, for retailers - while no longer new - is a strategy worth looking at:

Chris Lake over at Econsultancy has taken the time to collate the “27 varieties of tweet used by retailers” (I think he should’ve found 57, just for cringe value) which demonstrate that just pumping out offers is a legitimate, but far from being the only, reason to be a retailer active on Twitter. With this Twitter “to-do” list, a retailer should never be short of something to tweet. And Lake makes the point that using Twitter for customer service is a good way of demonstrating openness and willingness to help while displaying that in an open, online forum.

Asda is one retailer that has grasped Twitter, to the point where it has different Twitter feeds for different purposes: @asda is a place for its “Rollback” offers, getting sneak previews of new TV ads and seeing retweets of media coverage and complimentary comments. @asdajobs speaks for itself, while @asdaserviceteam is monitoring Twitter for customer upset and providing a response and @GeorgePRGirl is talking up new products, picking up quirky media mentions (Allister Darling saying he preferred George suits to Armani) and bringing some personality and humour to the brand.

Clearly, Twitter is not a cure-all for retailers’ marketing communications and customer service ambitions and issues. But as part of a social media engagement programme, it is becoming another effective tool in the box.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an interview with the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey and his plans to bring a health revolution to the organic superstore. Yesterday, we learnt that Whole Foods sells a bunch of junk.

Admitting that your company sells junk is clearly a massive blunder and a bad choice of words on John Mackey’s part, but the whole strategy and confusing messages makes the already murky water around organic even murkier- last week, the FSA released a study which found that organic food is no healthier than conventional, stirring up a heated debate.

Where does that leave PR professionals trying to promote organic products? At the moment brands have been very quiet - in fact, I know a couple of companies who have refused to comment on the subject altogether.

The term itself has been heavily overused and the current developments are leaving even more customers perplexed. As there are more specific buzz words available, such as ‘pesticide-free’ and ‘sustainable’, are the days of ‘organic’ numbered?

Historically signifying good times and economic stability, this year, during one of the worst ever recessions, a new type of Baby Boom is emerging.   

No I’m not talking about an increase in the number of babies being born (although it could be suggested we’re all burying ourselves under the covers), but the down-turn defying sales in the infant sector. 

Maternity retailers Mothercare and JoJo Maman Bebe have both reported particularly strong results this year, with JoJo Maman Bebe recording a positive 11 per cent hike in like-for-like sales.  Speaking to Retail Week, the founder and managing director of the successful retailer, Laura Tenison, said: “we have never suffered from the recession; our sales have been consistently good.” 

And it’s not just the babywear sector that’s happily gurgling through the bad times but the food sector too. Research commissioned by Mintel revealed that families are set to spend £491 million on baby food this year - 50 per cent more than the amount spent in 2004. 

The staggering figure is largely driven by the organic baby food sector, accounting for one fifth of all baby food sold. The reason behind the sector’s continuing success is, I’m told, “guilt purchasing”, the title given by parents to their physical inability to buy anything less than the best for their little ones, even when money is tight. One parent told me they’d rather live on jam sandwiches than deny their child his daily helpings of organic spinach, salmon and wild risotto dinners.

Speaking to the Scotsman, Susie Willis, a former chef and mother of three who launched Plum Baby in 2006 and now has 5% of the UK baby food market, supports the theory and said: “Mums may be tightening their purse strings for the rest of the household, but baby food remains number one when it comes to giving them the best food.”

So, when we’re all looking for a way out of the recession, maybe there are worse things we could do than to duck for the covers - nine months from now and we could be contributing to a booming and blooming economic climate.

Saying sorry is very much back in fashion.

How much it will help him and his party’s election hopes is another matter, but Gordon Brown has now apologised “on behalf of all politicians” for the current expenses scandal engulfing Parliament.

And last week, M&S took the step of advertising its apology to more ample women who were having to pay extra for the retailer’s larger sized bras. The issue had spawned a Facebook Group, Busts 4 Justice - set up by Brighton’s Beckie Williams (pictured above) with more than 17,000 members at time of writing - and national media interest.  Meanwhile, rival retailer, Asda, joined the fray by introducing a “one price fits all” bra.

But the point is, M&S did just the thing that companies find hard to swallow: to admit publicly it was wrong, change policy and offer customers a discount sweetener. It also reflects two truisms; one old as the hills, the other a more recent phenomenon.

The first is about crisis management. If you’ve upset your public, then recognise it and respond. As Alison Theaker says in The Public Relations Handbook, “Tell it first, tell it fast”.

The second is about the growth of online people power. Busts 4 Justice not only reflected the views of women - all potential underwear customers - but the support it generated got noticed in the mainstream media, so multiplying awareness of the issue.

M&S - with its response to the D cup storm - managed to meet the two essential elements of human interaction described by The Conversation Agent’s Valeria Maltoni as 1. Do you care? and 2. Can I trust you?

Who knows - maybe Elton John will have to abandon singing “Sorry seems to be the hardest word” altogether, as it no longer is.

There is something very fishy about about the news that Sainsbury’s is to rebrand the pollack as ‘colin’ (that’s with a heavily accented French pronunciation by the way).  Apparently their shoppers are fighting shy of asking for a “pair of fresh pollacks” at the fish counter.  

The story has made quite a splash today but much of it doesn’t hold water.  Firstly the French for pollack is lieu jaune and ‘colin’ is a hake.  Secondly we are very close to April Fool’s day (that’s Poisson D’Avril in French).  Is this an April Fool idea that Sainsbury’s thought would grow legs and get more coverage?  If so they weren’t wrong.    

There is also new ‘Colin’ packaging designed by Wayne Hemingway and based on the work of Jackson Pollock (please note not ‘Jackson Colin’).  Furthermore this initiative is also only being taken in 10 stores - so what of the blushes of the myriad of bashful fish fanciers in the other 750+ Sainsbury’s outlets?   Is this an old fashioned bit of PR puffery?  Will we see that after a trial period the ten stores get their pollacks back? 

Has the media fallen for this hook, line and sinker? (OK that’s enough puns….Ed.)

Maybe it’s the relentless onslaught of appalling economic news that makes us long for something lighter; maybe it really is important. So why is the world jumping like beans for the launch of a Starbucks brand of instant coffee, Via Ready Brew?

Well, for those who like their lattes skinny or fat, it’s a big deal that such an iconic global chain of coffee shops is venturing into a product that most Americans hate (statistics here claim only 7% of the US population drink the stuff, against 81% of Britons).

Harvard Business School professor, John Quelch, sees Starbucks’ move as showing “great commercial courage” and “innovation”  in a section of the coffee business that has been “an unspeakable wasteland” (boy, the Yanks really do hate instant coffee!). John Moore at Brand Autopsy begs to differ, viewing Via as a “distraction” that won’t help the company save its core business of selling upmarket coffee in easy-chair surroundings.

And that grump over at The Guardian, Zoe Williams, just can’t stand it.

But the word on the Tweet street shows how Starbucks has harnessed the good will spring within social media. Following Twitter users’ comments over the past couple of days reveals the naysayers you’d expect, but also a stream of encouragement for the coffee king’s new departure. Having its own regularly updated Twitter feed and real people responding to Tweets positions Starbucks well with its existing customers as well as potential converts.

Initial taste testers on Twitter are suggesting ”It’s not that bad”, which is a veritable declaration of love from a nation so averse to water soluble java. Requests for free samples are coming in from other countries and even clarifications that the new product is Kosher (it is).

Twitter has also proven itself a useful viral channel for spreading the word and uptake of free Via samples, now allegedly sold out due to demand.

Will it work? Who knows. And the riskiness of Starbucks’ gamble is summed up neatly in a tweet this morning from @space_needle: “I will try this instant coffee #Via. I’m a big coffee snob. YOU started that, by the way.”