Today, a very cold and icy day, I met my friend Loredana Pascal at a down town cafe I usually like a lot. Mostly because of the menu, not their service. I was so happy to finally see her as work, life and other minor details meddled in our plans and it had been a while. I got there first and as I was pretty much frozen, so my first thought way hot chocolate!

Hot chocolate, the right choice! Only I love white hot chocolate and not all cafes or coffee shops have it. The cafe in question has it most of the times, one of the reasons for me choosing them So I ordered it! By the time Loredana arrived, a couple of minutes later, I had drunk half of it. She wanted the same thing and ordered it. The waitress told her, not before giving me a look that said “You’re a total freak for drinking that!”, how the traditional hot chocolate is much better!  Loredana still went for the white one… Continue reading

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Guest post by Terra L. Fletcher

If you say you’re great, you’re bragging. If someone else says you’re great, it’s fact.

Testimonials have the power to overcome objections, reduce bias, and persuade prospects to buy. Business people should get in the habit of writing testimonials whenever they have a highly positive business experience. It fosters strong relationships, trust, and positions you as a reliable reference.

What is a testimonial? A testimonial should be a verbal or written before-and-after picture. It should clearly paint in the mind of readers or listeners why they might want to do business with the company you acclaim. Continue reading

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What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

There is no better way to start the week then reading last week’s best business, marketing and PR pieces! So let’s kick this week off with a few reading recommendations!

Guest blogger Lena West explores The Unfortunate Burden of Poor Social Media Examples on LipSticking, discussing how bad examples seem to weigh a lot more than the overwhelmingly numerous good examples of businesses using social media.

Do you know what the difference between reach, outreach and reaching out is? Liz Strauss explains it in a great piece, stressing the importance of reaching out and connecting with someone, building a valuable relationship.

Once again proving there are things to be learned and to be successfully applied to your business virtually anywhere, Karen Swim shares 5 Sweet Business Lessons from the Cake Boss. Continue reading

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Regardless of the line of business you’re in, you’re bound to run into a few customers who will put your patience and communication skills to test. Some need you to spend more time explaining what you’re doing than actually doing your job, others think they know your profession better than you do, some will take too long to respond when there’s an emergency at hand. But when it comes to public relations and nightmare customers, these are the ones we fear most.

1. The DIY customer

When something’s going on, why bother talking to the PR guy in your company or to the company you pay to handle such issues? Go ahead and make your own statements, release them and then have the people you initially ignored clean your mess. Think of the Cleavland Cavalier owner who decided a post attacking LeBron James was a good reaction to the player’s decision to choose another team. Continue reading

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People have the habit of complaining about products and services online. When the complaints are relevant and an apology is needed, company representatives often post them on the blog where the initial problem was revealed. While some are great and solve the problem while both gaining the support and admiration of the blogger in question, others fail. After looking into a few of these apologies and trying to understand where people most commonly go wrong, I have rediscovered the art of writing effective replies to people’s problems.

But before I start, if you’re wondering why you should apologize in the first place, it’s because news travels fast online, if the problem is significant, there are great chances more people will complain and all that negativity will pop up when potential customers look you up online. You shouldn’t apologize for nonsense and give credibility to shady bloggers and nonexistant issues, but when the problem is real, you need to solve it, apologize for the inconvenience and let people know it has all been taken care of.

Here are a few tips for writing apologies that will help your company and not worsen the situation instead:

1. Recognize the problem and give it due consideration

Some apologies fail because while they say the “I’m sorry”, they fail to focus on the problem and the discomfort experienced by the customer. Instead, they rush through the apology and the unpleasant situation and focus on what the customer should have done, the proper channels to report the problem and how they can solve future problems. This is all wrong because if you’re replying, it’s clear the online piece of posting has reached its goal of making the issue known. Writing an apology that says this is not the right way and you won’t do much about it makes you look bad! Continue reading

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