Online Reputation Management - This Isn't High School Any Longer...

Remember in high school when all you cared about was what other people thought about you? You wanted to make sure you wore the right clothes, had the right shoes, hung out with the right crowd, etc... Back then it seemed like what other people thought about you was the most important thing in the world.

Fast forward to present day. You’re a business owner (or at least someone that’s responsible to a certain degree in your business’ success). Are the opinions of others as important today as they were back in high school? While your clothing choices are not as big of a deal as they once were, I’m going to say YES, and probably even more so thanks to the Internet.

If someone wants to talk about your business and has an “ax to grind”, the power of the Internet gives even the smallest customer a global voice and s/he can have a significant impact, especially if you're not aware of what's being said about you online. This is much more powerful than back in high school when the worst that could happen is the gossip makes it to the lunch room. No, what's said goes everywhere and lasts forever.

So, what are YOU doing to either help ensure that your happy customers have a voice and can get the word out to the rest of the world? Or, and maybe more importantly, what are you doing to monitor what’s being said about your business (good or bad)? You may not be able to get rid of any bad reviews, but you CAN help to ensure that your happy customers know how to post a review and hopefully you can get more good than bad ones online (no, you can't "ask for good reivews", but you can make it easier for them).

Image via WikipediaI’ve talked before about one of WSI’s newest partners, Customer Lobby, when it comes to managing customer testimonials and reputation management. The service provides businesses an opportunity to help their customers share thoughts and testimonials. Because the reviews exist on a third party site, the credibility goes up and is easy to share and show off. But one of the great thing that I like about Customer Lobby is it makes the review process quick and easy for your customers. As an example, you can check out my Customer Lobby page and see some of my reviews.

While sites like Customer Lobby will help you ensure that reviews are getting created, there are also some sites out there businesses can use to help keep an eye on what’s being said already, both good and bad.

Image via CrunchBase 

The first is Google Alerts, which scours the web and Googles indexing for key phrases and search terms that you pick. The system can send you updates on several different intervals and is a great way to keep track of your business, your competition, key employees, your market trends, etc…

Another tool similar to Google Alerts is Social Mention. While you can also check for many of the similar types of phrases (such as your own business, competition, etc…), this service tends to search more in the social sphere and looks into blogs, social media sites and related “non-traditional” web properties.

Finally, one tool that I like to use is good ‘ole Twitter Search. While many people discount Twitter because they feel they just don’t have time to keep up with the quick pace of posting by many, the real-time information stream of Twitter can provide you with an instant look at what’s being talked about online.

I suggest you hop over to any of these sites and put in some of your keywords to see what comes back. Try your business name, industry trends, major competitors and even your personal name. You may need to play with some of the search techniques to "tweak" your results and consider using things like quotes around words you want together and you can use the plus sign to add other terms.

For example searching for eric cook will bring back results that have eric or cook in the results. But when searched as "eric cook" you get those two words next to one another, and the results are much more fine-tuned. Add "eric cook" + wsi and you get any search with my name and my company in the search result. These are much more focused and can really help you get some meaningful results in your search efforts.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of ways to help manage your reputation online. But hopefully a few of these items have piqued your interest in learning more about how to position yourself to better know what’s being said about you and your business online. If you’ve got other tools you’ve used to manage the online chatter about your business let me know. I’d love to hear what you have to say about this. And, if you need some help just give me a ring (269-841-5007) and I'd be happy to help.

Could This Be My Next Phone...? HTC Thunderbolt - Pretty Impressive!

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time prepping you for this video, but wanted to share this as further evidence of just how far mobile devices have come. This looks like it's going to be an amazing phone and just may have to make it to my short list for things that I just "gotta have". What do you think...? Enjoy, I know I did!

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What Do We Really Need A Compuer For?

Image via WikipediaOk, full disclosure before we get started. I AM typing this post on my 17" Macbook Pro so the question posed in the title may be a bit premature. But, this past week on Free Webinar Wednesdays we talked about mobile marketing and how the growing popularity of the "third screen" is giving consumers an easy (and "always on") way to receive, consume and distribute information from the palm of their hand. Combine this with the growing popularity of tablet devices like the iPad and coming Android devices, one has to wonder will the need for a "traditional" computer go the way of the DoDo Bird?

I read a majority of my e-mail now on my Droid, not on my computer. I've migrated my business to Google Apps, so from most any Internet-enabled device I can keep connected, manage my business and stay in touch with my customers. Using cloud-based services like Dropbox or Box.net, one can even move documents off my computer (or at least keep a copy of them online), reducing hard drive storage requirements and making it easy to have access (and a backup) to almost any resource you can think of.

Of course there will always be certain activities where we'll likely need to have the processing power, storage capacity and local file management capabilities of a traditional computer. But the real question is... Where is the "tipping point" in all of this? As you make purchase decisions in the future as it relates to technology, will these factors have an impact on what devices you buy and embrace moving forward? I look forward to your thoughts...

~Eric

Using a Partner to Help wth Vendor Contract Negotiations - Can You Save Money and Time?

Image by wjr via FlickrTo start, I want to ensure those of you reading this post that it's not intended to have any "sales" motive behind it. I'm merely interested in getting your take on the viability of this concept since many of you are involved with your vendor agreements, particularly when it comes to core processing and other "large dollar" investments. As a former banker myself, I know first-hand that these account for a majority expense for many data processors, spending thousands of dollars every month. With the "number crunch" underway at most institutions, I suspect that any ways to save money are being given consideration...

Some of you may have experience with vendors that will work with your organization and do "audits" of cost and agreements. I've been through these before when it comes to telephone and Internet service (since many of us miss the subtle elements that unknowingly cost us more money and can be cut - or at least re-negotiated to save money in the future). But I've recently been contacted by a former vendor (and friend) that left one of the major core processors to start a business that can come in to a financial institution and help with this function as it relates to the "big" contracts. I'm wondering, after sharing some of what they have told me are key differentiators of theirs, what your take is and if this strategy holds water.

Key Factors:

• No Risk: They work on a contingency basis and only are paid a percentage of money saved. This protects the institution from having someone come in, charge money and then deliver minimal results that don't justify the cost. I'm told if there is not an opportunity to save a client at least $100k or more, they will walk away.
• Former Vendors: They believe this is important since they know where the "skeletons" can be in contracts and can act as an advocate on behalf of their clients. While the initial reaction (if you are a vendor) may be negative to this, they also understand the value of extending contracts when the time is right and how to leverage this for the mutual benefit of the institution and the vendor (signing a 5 or 7 year deal can result in some significant savings for the institution and a longer-term customer for the vendor).
• Maintain Existing Relationships: While some in this space focus on helping an institution generate an RFP and shop out the service to get a competitive bid and present cost savings this way, these guys realize that switching vendors (unless there is a good reason), ranks right up there with root canals. Their focus (as referenced above) is working with the incumbent to help achieve a cost savings through product combinations, contract terms and areas for savings that preserves the relationship and helps keep internal operational disruption to a minimum.
• Time Savings: You're busy enough these days, right? Rather than you take the time to comb through agreements looking for things that may (or may not) be able to save you money, they take the burden off your shoulders and do it for you.
• Proven Results: It's nice to know, that while I'd still consider them a "startup" they have been able to save some clients money in their short time of operation. They have been doing this for almost two years and their average savings over a five-year period (most standard contract terms) is around $750k with an average institution size in the $500MM asset range. I'm sure as with anything else, performance and savings will be a factor (to a degree) based on asset size, but would even a few hundred thousand dollars be worth it (that's what I'm asking)?
• Vendor Respect: They have received actual testimonials from some of the major core processors for their work, which seems counter intuitive since they work for the customer and seek to save them money. But, I suspect due to their past "vendor lives" they are able to bridge the gap here and ensure that both sides walk away happy, since the institution and vendor are the ones that have to "live together" once the negotiations are over.

I think that gives you the gist of their business model. Since I'm no longer in a position to take advantage of a service like this, but have a great deal of respect for the folks that are starting this up, I'm curious to see what your thoughts are. What are your questions? What are your concerns? Have you tried this before (and did it work or fail)? How much in savings would make it worthwhile to engage a service like this? What else would you want to know before giving something like this a try in your institution?

Looking forward to your comments and getting some ideas. In the sense of keeping this informational and NOT sales related, I'm not sharing the name of the company or any of the individual names. Only if you are interested in learning more about the actual service will I share this and ask that you contact me directly so as to not turn this into something that would not be appropriate for this type of forum.

Thanks,
Eric
eric (at) poweredbywsi.com

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Is the Digitizatioin of Society a Good or Bad Thing?

As consumers shift their offline lives to an online world, the concept of "digitization" has many meanings, depending on your perspective. From a big picture, we are interacting with friends, family and co-workers more electronically than face-to-face. Communication is via e-mail, text messages, Facebook and other online means that in many cases are not only more convenient, but give you the ability to reach out and touch several people at the same time with your message.

Check out the following video and see just some of the examples of how business is changing. After you watch it, keep scrolling for some thoughts/observations.

So, it appears that the digitization of business (maybe even our society as a whole) is inevitable, but is that a good or bad thing? What does this mean for your personal relationships? While I'm happily married (13 years, thank you!), I had a conversation with one of my single friends who said that dating now is a completely different experience than it was a few years ago. The temptation is to "Google" for information on your date, check out their Facebook profile, snoop around their LinkedIn information, etc... Think about it, you could show up for that traditionally "awkward" first date knowing more about the person sitting across from you than some couples married 15 or 20 years ago knew about each other before saying their "I DOs". Is this a good thing?

From a business perspective, even the smallest mistake or customer service slip can spread across the 'net in an instant. That means someone on your team having a "bad day" can do more damage now than ever - but most businesses don't even have a strategy to monitor (and address) when something like this happens.

What do you think? Is this digital shift a good or bad thing for society? Not that we can keep it from happening (that would be like trying to keep the sun from coming up in the morning), but if we KNOW what's going on, we can develop strategies to address the changes the challenges facing us today.

Looking forward to your thoughts...
~Eric