Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Dental plaque and corporate misdemeanors

There's no place to hide your less-than-perfect brand behaviour.

(This not-especially-original insight was reinforced for me this morning as I sat in the dentist's chair, listening to the hygienist scrape away the accumulated plaque from my teeth. The consequences of my less-than-perfect flossing over the past six months were right there for her to see – and for me to feel guilty about.)

When a company or brand slips up, you can expect the news to travel fast, thanks to zealous reporters, bloggers and the everyday chatter heard around watercoolers or at holiday parties.

So more than ever, it's important to be clear what your company stands for, and make sure everyone on your team understands and lives by your values. Then, if you do mess up, be sure to fess up before others do it for you!

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Bell tolled for Ted Rogers

A few years ago, I was a fervent supporter of Bell Canada for my cell-phone and internet needs, believing all the talk that Rogers was impossible to deal with. But partly as a result of some inferior technical capabilities and sloppy customer service from Bell, I've since switched most of my business to Rogers.

Without question, the complexity of delivering flawless, uninterrupted service across various high-tech platforms makes it nearly impossible to achieve complete customer satisfaction, but overall, I've been impressed by the friendliness of Rogers' call centre folks, the clarity of their messaging... and I have to say, i ADORE my iPhone!

One factor that caused me to reconsider Rogers was Ted Rogers's inductee acceptance speech at the 2007 Marketing Hall of Legends (www.marketinghalloflegends.ca) gala. At the close of the evening, Ted stood at his chair in the audience and enthralled us with the story of how, in the early days, he managed his clamouring creditors by drawing invoices out of a hat on Friday nights! That night, we saw a side of Ted that I suspect many of us didn't know.

I recently purchased the audio version of Ted's autobiography, Relentless, and have been really enjoying his stories about the struggles to build his company, his candour about his strengths and weaknesses, and his entrepreneurial advice.

Not surprisingly, the obituaries published earlier this week have been less flattering than his own book, but nonetheless, it's hard not to admire the ambition, patriotism and foresight of this Canadian legend. It makes me a bit more proud to be a Rogers customer.