Revisiting the Need For SMART Goals

The Very Chic: Chic and Town Hotel in Rome. Customer Service At Its Best

As I continue to travel both locally here in Australia and Overseas for Business it never ceases to amaze each and every time how excellent customer service is a powerful, meaningful and sustainable differentiator between one product or service and another rival product or service.  In fact for any business the most important question needs to remain how can we provide additional value to our target market audience regardless of the market or product offering.

To answer this, it is wise to consider that real value is a function of both price and quality. Now let us take as an example the very competitive market place that is the Roman Hotel market in Italy.

Obviously with Rome being such a  perennially important tourist and business destination the demand for rooms will always be high which puts a lot of pricing pressure on hotel managers and owners to provide fair and reasonable pricing for their rooms. This is understood by most businesses and it does not in itself, differentiate that business from others. However exceptional customer service does exactly that.

When recently traveling in Italy, I had the good fortune to stay with my wife Sharon at the renowned Chic and Town Hotel  (www.ChicTown.it ), in the heart of Rome at: 31 Via Dei Due Macelli, Rome just a stones throw away from the iconic Spanish steps.

It is beautifully appointed, centrally located and fairly priced which presented a genuine level of customer value, matched against its many rivals. But what really puts this business over the top is its exceptional and unfailing level of customer service that aims to exceed customer expectations and provides true, wow factor for all to see. A simple formula but a winning one that makes the Chic and Town and similar businesses in every market the best value for the customers dollar.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Facebook Has a Bet Each Way On Its' New Dislike Button

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

So if you've ever wondered what having your cake and eating it to looked like in the digital space try Facebook's latest effort in introducing a quasi Dislike button.



This week  Facebook allowed its users to show some form of disapproval in content by putting in a button that that allows users called a 'Downvote Button".  

This will give users scope and option to flag and hide comments on given posts but not the posts themselves that are made on public pages. This feature to date has only been available to a small test group of US members. 

Reporting to Facebook

Additionally this new feature also provides options to report a comment as either:
offensive, misleading, or off-topic, which then acts to hide the associated content.

It's no secret that Facebook has resisted the strong desire of the Facebook community to have a genuine Dislike button.  Facebook will  argue to that it has resisted as it's trying to unite everyone, but perhaps  the real reason for this partial retreat is that the first real cracks are starting to appear in the popularity of Facebook to competitors.  Hmm. If that trend continues, who knows we may get an actual dislike button in the not too distant future.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.
 

Recent Data Showing How Much People Like and Dislike Key Social Media Sites

Large Sample

Recent polling data from a Harris Poll with over one hundred and eighty three million Americans and Canadians has provided some keen insights into how popular or unpopular each of the key social media platforms are.

Specifically the sample provides data on both how many users want the respective sites to continue as well as how many would like to see it stop operating. Additionally the poll also provided information on what percentage did not know about each platform.

For example Twitter has 330 million monthly active users, but 46% of the people surveyed would prefer to 'kill it and hope it dies', as the poll puts it. The level of dissatisfaction lessens with other key social media sites with Facebook coming in at 32% who hope the site disappears, whereas Pinterest  had only 26% of respondents who wished for it to cease. 

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that for some of these sites, over 70% of the polled audience did not know who they were.  This is both a real issue for these sites yet concurrently a huge marketing opportunity to raise awareness among users.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.