E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

IBM Connect 2013 – Pardon The Interruption, Are You Ready?

On January 20th 1997, while I was holidaying in The Netherlands, I started my adventure into the corporate world with a new job at IBM, as a Customer Support Representative for the Mainframe. 16 years later that adventure continues, and big time!, still having just as much fun as I did in Day One. So much so that later on this week I will begin tasting the Joy of Business Travelling, once again, and that this year is going to take me to a good number of countries and continents I haven’t visited just yet, for which I am really excited about, as you can imagine. But, for now, I’m starting to get things ready for IBM Connect 2013, which kicks off on January 27th till the 31st, and which surely promises to be one of those events difficult to forget around the space of Social Business. Are you ready? 

Well, before you answer that question, and while you may want to go ahead and check out the superb agenda put in place, I would like to ask you to go and have a look into the wonderful short article put together by the one and only, Seth Godin, on the topic of “When a conference works (and doesn’t)“. What a delightful read packed up with plenty of helpful tips on how to build, perhaps, a new strategy, in case you haven’t done so in the past, when attending face to face conference events, like I am about to do later on this month. 

I thought perhaps for today’s blog post I would go ahead and highlight a couple of those tips that I thought would be worth while sharing across and which match, somewhat, some of my own experiences attending face to face conference events in the recent past. As a starting point:

“[…] someone is going to say or do something that might just change everything. Something that happens in the moment and can’t possibly be the same if you hear about it later […] In the digital age, if I can get the notes or the video later, I will“

Indeed, this is what I have been telling folks over and over again. Focus on the face to face conversations, the networking aspects of the event, specially, with those folks who 1. You may not know just yet, so you can keep expanding your network beyond your usual suspects or echo chamber(s) and 2. You may not be able to see them F2F again throughout the remaining of the year. Think of it as your last chance in the year to catch up with them F2F. Don’t waste that opportunity. Seize it and make the most out of it. The notes, and video streaming, indeed, you can always get them later. No doubt. The conversations, you won’t.

“[…] If there’s vulnerability and openness and connection […]“

This is something that I am going to be trying it out myself quite a bit in numerous other conference events this year, but certainly going to kick if off at IBM Connect 2013. Actually, not just me, but two of my co-presenters and myself, when on Tuesday 29th at 5:30pm local time, we will go up on stage to kick off our session on “Pardon the Interruption at IBM Connect 2013” around Social Business, Adoption Techniques, Enablement, Collaboration, Online Communities and Social Networking for Business in general. Perhaps even a bit on Open Business as well, why not? 

Yes, that will be the time when “The Three Louie” (Louis Richardson, Luis Benitez and yours truly) will throw themselves into the lions living through that vulnerability, openness and connection in chunks of 3 minutes at a time with whatever the question folks in the audience may well have around all of these topics related to social networking for business. We are currently gathering questions over in Twitter under #ptisocialbiz so if you happen to attend IBM Connect 2013 as well and have got a burning question you would want to share with us, drop it over there and we will grab it for the session. If not, take them with you and ask them live while we are all there. Perhaps even more fun to show how vulnerable we may all well be with the unexpected! After all, what are the chances for you to see The Three Louie on stage at any given conference event? It’s a rare occasion, I can tell you that, since it will be the first time we are all three on stage on the same session. That promises to be plenty of really good fun, I can guarantee you that! Even more if you look into the time of the day for our slot and what we may be bringing up with us along the way …

Following further along on Seth’s reflections about face to face events and how to get the most benefits from them, here’s one of my favourite quotes from the entire post: 

“(At most events, competitiveness born from insecurity trumps mutual support)“

And you know why that happens in most cases? At least, in my own opinion? Well, mostly because, due to that competitiveness flair going around, people who attend face to face conferences don’t have a tendency to be generous on the information, knowledge and experiences they share. Quite the opposite. They are always a little bit reluctant to share openly what drives their passion, their interests and their motivation to attend the event, just because they feel they need to protect something: their selves. Well, not really. This is pretty much what I have been saying for years around the well known mantra of “Knowledge is power“. Yes, it is, of course, it always has been and always will be. But make it square, please! It’s “Knowledge SHARED is power”.

Indeed, the more you share generously about what you are doing, what you know, what you are good at demonstrating your thought leadership, the much more powerful you become, because it’s that visibility at conference events that clearly highlights how you will continue to build those strong personal business relationships. So get out of your comfort zone a little bit. Throw yourself into the lions, once again, of those who are thirsty for your knowledge and share it across generously. What’s the worst thing that can happen? That they now possess your knowledge? So what? You are the one who knows the most about that piece of knowledge or information in the first place and you would just need to remember that we, human beings, are just so bad in documenting and transferring our knowledge across through oral or written forms that no matter how much you share openly you would still be the one who knows the most about that particular subject. Always. Do remember the brilliant KM principles from my good friend Dave Snowden on Rendering Knowledge that would still apply and very much so. Don’t forget that tidbit that most people seem to ignore time and time again since they decide to go the easy way out: hoarding their knowledge. Don’t! Share it generously. For your own benefit and for the benefit of your networks. They will remember you for that. 

As Seth mentions in a rather smart and succinct manner on his blog post, you will become their hero because you have finally realised, at long last, you don’t have much to lose, but a lot to win. 

[Really looking forward to seeing everyone at IBM Connect 2013 and, please, don't be shy. If we bump into each other, say "Hi!". It's the greeting that kicks off the magic of serendipitous knowledge discoveries from conversations you may have with  your networks and other people!] 

Great Products Don’t Need Customer Service – “La Bicha”

As you may have noticed from my social networking activities from last week, I decided to take a few days off, with the summer holidays, and head over to mainland Spain, to visit my family in León, where I was born and raised many moons ago. Although I’m from a small town nearby, this time around I decided to stay during that week in the capital, León, to do what every good tourist would do: enjoy the city. And I surely did, as you can see from the bunch of pictures I have already shared on my Google Plus profile.

This time around something really interesting happened though that I wasn’t expecting, but that it had plenty to do with Social Business and Customer Service. Yes, you know, that number #1 use case for social networking for business, basically, delighting your customers to no end with a far superiour customer experience. Regardless. In fact, while that scenario was taking place I just couldn’t help thinking about the good number of highly enlightening and educational conversations that I have been having with my good friend Esteban Kolsky on this topic, which pretty much comes to a single, rather powerful conclusion: great products, and great customer experiences, do not need customer service, nor customer support.

Indeed, while I was there in León for a few days I was capable of confirming that statement several times and I thought I would put together this blog entry over here today to relate what it was like. It all happened at Barrio Húmedo, which is a relatively small area of the old part of the city that specialises on having a bunch of rather small, or relatively small bars, where they keep serving drinks and free tapas, like in the good old days, centuries ago. A stunning place on its own, worth while a visit, for sure, if you would want to enjoy quite a differentiating experience of food & drink with a unique purpose: enjoy it to the fullest! And I am 100% certain that you would always be capable of doing that. The range of options, the wide variety of tapas, drinks and atmospheres, along with different clienteles makes up for a wonderfully immersive experience that would certainly take you back in time. Highly recommended walking out and about several times! Each of them would be even more worth it than the previous one. 

However, right in the centre of Barrio Húmedo, there is this absolutely gorgeous place called “La Bicha“, which is a rather small bar, at St. Martin’s Square, number 4, that specialises on serving one of the most delicious black puddings (or black sausages) you can taste in the city, if not in the whole of Spain. World famous, for sure, judging by the huge amount of people who kept popping in and out, waiting in massively huge queues, under an excruciating heat, for a succulent slice of home baked bread with that black pudding spread all over it. Mouthwatering altogether, to say the least. Even, right as we speak!, as I keep writing this blog post. (Excuse me for a minute while I wipe out my mouth with a hankie …)

Interestingly enough, if you look into a good number of different online spaces where plenty of people have been registering and sharing their reviews of “La Bicha” (In Spanish though, most of them), you would notice how their views and customer feedback is less than desirable for a business. In fact, some of the commentary verges on the vicious attack of what you should probably not do if you are the owner of such a business. Yes, indeed, some of the reviews are incredibly negative talking about the lack of hygiene, about the rudeness of the owner of the place, about how tiny it is, about how uncanny some of the verbiage of the owner is altogether and the list goes on and on and on.

I tell you, if I were the owner of “La Bicha”, I would be extremely worried, at best, at having such incredibly negative feedback about my place and my products. And I would be trying to do my utmost to engage with those clients to learn how I could improve the overall customer experience. Yet, if you look into those online resources, you won’t see a single reaction trying to engage on that online customer service experience. I am sure by now you may be wondering why, right? Well, in my opinion, because of a single reason that we keep taking for granted in most places and for most products: if you have got an incredibly good quality product that helps enhance the overall customer experience you don’t need anything else. Simple.

Indeed, I actually went to that bar several times during the course of just one week, all in all to taste the absolutely stunning black puddings. And I noticed how the place was, indeed, very crowded to the point where, a couple of times, people had to wait outside of the bar for over half an hour just to enter the place and then for another 20 minutes to get their drinks and blood sausages. I noticed as well how the owner is, indeed, rather peculiar, verging on acting rather rude at times, although some other folks would consider that he’s rather comical. We surely had lots of good fun with the live, public entertainment. The service just doesn’t exist. It just happens when it feels like it is your turn. It sounds all very chaotic and everything, but the thing is that everyone is hanging out there, because they know they are going to get some of the best blood sausages from León itself, if not the entire country. So clients, basically, put up with all of that knowing the reward is going to be totally worth it. Eventually, their client experience will convert itself into a delightful one when they get to taste the goods. I can certainly guarantee you that, since I was one of them, several times, and had to make use of plenty of my patience to stick around. At least, on the first time, the others, knowing what the game was, was much better to endure, but then again, the end-result was a superiour customer experience tasting some of the most delicious black puddings I have ever tried in my life. 

See? That’s where it really hit me. That’s when I realise that customer service, customer support, as some of the most popular use cases for Social Business would be a complete waste of time, resources, energy and effort if your product is of a superiour quality. You basically just don’t need it anymore. And I suspect that’s exactly what the owner of the bar knows from all along. If I have got the best blood sausages around, I probably can’t care less about what the customer service would be. You just come to enjoy the food, get a drink or two, move on. That’s exactly how it works and how despite having received such consistent negative feedback online over the course of the last couple of years, the place is packed every single day of the week for hours. Much to ponder and muse about for all of us, don’t you think?

While I was in León I just couldn’t help thinking about how there is one other business out there that I can think of that has taken the overall customer experience with their products to an obsession difficult to match by others, resulting in such a successful strategy that there is basically no competition. Yes, of course, I am talking about Apple and its wonderful products. Who would have told me that 6 years after I got my first MacBook Pro, I would be raving about a superb customer experience where their social interactions are just non-existent, and ironically enough, I don’t miss them at all. I just know that when buying one of those products I’m probably getting the best there is out there! Just like La Bicha’s black puddings.

Now we all know where Apple is at this stage, and I think the owner of La Bicha knows where his business is, probably one of the most profitable out there on that location. But what I think is also the most important lesson from these stories, at least, for me, is that social business may well not be *the* best, and only!, solution to each and every single product that aims at delighting their clients. In most cases, I have come to terms with the conclusion that if you excel with an incredibly good quality product and an imperious overall customer experience there is a probably a good reason why you may not even need to become a successful social business in the first place. Your great products will speak out for you to your customers. So do Apple’s and I am sure that if you ever drop by León’s Barrio Húmedo and check out “La Bicha” you would be probably agreeing with me that it’s *the* best blood sausage out there and you don’t need Social to taste it. You just basically go ahead and enjoy the experience, just as much as I did multiple times! 

Have a good one and cheers!

PS. Oh, you may have noticed how these pictures are not even mine. I know, very weird, because over the course of the years I have developed that habit of becoming a #foodie with a camera (My iPhone 4S) every food place I go. Yet, at La Bicha I guess I was just enchanted and didn’t feel the urge to take any snap shots. Just enjoyed the experience for what it was. Unique and very very yummy!

Social Business Is People to People Business – The Movistar Story

In the past you may remember how time and time again I have mentioned how one of the main use cases from a successful Social Business would eventually be that one of customer service and customer support, although over the course of time you may have noticed how my experiences have been very lacking in this regard. So, instead of giving up on it altogether a long while ago I decided to keep pushing for it, because I knew it that at some point it would click and that would be the day where we may be witnessing that tipping point for that use case to become a reality. Well, I think that day has arrived. Today. And that company that has finally understood what a social business is all about is one that I never expected that it would be coming around, as seen on this blog a few times already. That social business with a success story on providing excellent customer service and support is Movistar. Yes, you are reading it right. Movistar!

I have always been saying that the day both telcos and airlines, along with government, amongst a couple of others, start embracing social networking for business that may well be the day where we can consider it a historic moment. A day of no return. A day that will mark a before and an after difficult to back out from. And while we are waiting for airlines and governments to make that jump, it looks like telcos, at least, one of the largest ones out there at the moment, Movistar, has just made that jump. At least, again, with yours truly, because after years of trying and persevering, it looks like things are paying off. At long last!!

See? It’s all about personal experiences, it’s about putting your customers right at the centre, it’s about understanding how that customer centric approach is going to make you much more successful and profitable at large. It’s about understanding how as important and paramount as corporate brands are (Specially, in the context of B2B), it’s actually people the ones who make business. So if your business is starting to make that transition into becoming a social business you may need to start changing, or adapting, the traditional B2B and B2C perspectives into what some of us have been saying all along is the one that will function as the main core engine of how business gets done nowadays: P2P. People to People. 

Indeed, that’s just what’s happened to me in the last few hours and as much as I have been blogging, and on a regular basis, every time that customer support and customer service are lacking for whatever business that claims to be a social business, I am also determined to share the success stories from those same social businesses whenever they come to deliver and, specially, if it has happened in a big way! So the following blog post is a story of what customer service and customer support should be all about in the world of digital and social networking for business in general…

It all started with yours truly being embarked on his last business trip for the summer, to Madrid, then to Seville, to participate on a couple of internal workshops on living social (in Madrid itself) and a summer course at the University of Pablo de Olavide, in Carmona, Seville, on the topic of “La Empresa y la Administración Pública en la Era de las Redes Sociales“. While on the first leg of the business trip, I decided to give it a go, once more, and see if I could finally get my problem fixed with my 3G USB Novatel MC996D modem, provided by my current employer, since it was driving me a bit crazy that I have been having it working for a good couple of years, but in the last few days it stopped working, all of a sudden, and since I’m on the road on a regular basis it was starting to cripple my ability to remain productive while on the move. So I tweeted this, after another couple of tweets of being ignored, but that I cannot longer find since Twitter ate them up, as usual, thanks to its wonderfully, and utterly useless search engine: 

.@movistar_es Hola chic@s, parece ser que .movistarpro_es no responde(n), algún teléfono al que llamar para solucionar pb con 3G modem? Thx!

— Luis Suarez (@elsua) July 14, 2012

Notice how I already knew where to direct that tweet, since I have been trying multiple times in the past to receive some other customer support, but to no avail. This time around though, since it is a company issued 3G USB modem I was re-directed to @movistarpro_es as a focused group working on these issues for knowledge workers. And, once again, I was ignored… I didn’t receive a single response from that corporate brand handle and I was eventually back again to square one. Or so I thought…, because, shortly after, I bumped into this particular tweet from Manuel Richter:

@elsua no has cambiado nada? Actulizado algún sw? @movistar_es

— Manuel Richter(@manuelrichter) July 14, 2012

Which may have alerted then Emilio Rodríguez (Movistar’s external Community Manager) at the same time, for that matter. Because, shortly after that tweet I got this other one from Emilio himself: 

@elsua @manuelrichter @movistar_es ¿q modem es Luis? la SIM funciona en otro terminal?, si no puedes solucionarlo, envíame por DM tu numero

— Emilio Rodriguez (@emirodmen) July 14, 2012

So we got together, followed each other and we embarked on a rather interesting and fascinating DM exchange, which I am going to keep just that, private, to respect Emilio and our interactions as such. I guess I could ask him to make the exchange public, but I don’t think it would be necessary, since, you know, some things in life should remain just that: private.

The great news is that, after I mentioned to him how I needed to aim for a speedy fix for the problem, since I would be needing the 3G USB modem connection tomorrow in Carmona, Seville, he passed on all of the details to the folks from Movistar’s technical support and a couple of hours later, while I was having dinner, on a Saturday evening (Important to note this as well!), I got a phone call from one of his colleagues who wanted to figure out what was happening and what the problem may well be and how we could fix it. So we spent about one hour trying to do some extended problem determination and having worked myself over 4 years in technical customer service I do know and fully appreciate the extended patience, understanding and perseverance from Emilio’s colleague to help out. Alas, we couldn’t solve the problem, for whatever the reason. And he mentioned he would note down the reference number and have someone call me in the morning to confirm whether it was a problem with the modem or the phone card itself. I confirmed with him to get a call at around 10:00 am and lo and behold, right on time, I got that phone call. 

And this time around, another technical support representative, José, as his first name, spent another 45 minutes doing some extensive problem determination for the second time, following up further on where his colleague left it the night before, and, finally, after having him confirmed with me how the 3G USB modem I am using is *not*  compatible with Mac OS X (v. 10.7.2 and above – I am using v 10.7.4), not sure just yet what happened but he managed to make it connect to the Internet and ever since I have been a happy camper, once more! 

Now, I know that at this point in time I may need to have the modem replaced, if I would want to have full support from Movistar, if I run into problems again, but this time around José’s dedication, patience, wit and smarts, resilience and politeness got me going, and really happy, because not only did he help me get connected, he also confirmed with his support and phone calls how online customer service and customer support, that is, Manuel’s and Emilio’s efforts paid off and big time! 

Indeed, they did plenty of active listening out there on the social streams, they reached out, they engaged in a very professional and polite manner (Just like we are all entitled to, even if it were through the phone!) trying to understand what the problem was and how we could fix it. They provided extended value and additional feedback connecting the dots with the right folks from technical support and instead of having to go through the lifeless corporate brand, here I was interacting people to people with those folks who could help me and who eventually did successfully. Absolutely brilliant!

I do fully realise that this is just one single instance on excellence and brilliant customer support, from beginning to end, from active listening, to eventually address the problem, take ownership of it from me, and do their outmost to fix it, which they did eventually! But I am hopeful it won’t be the last one. People are people. And once you do business with them as people that’s all what remains. As a result, of course, though the corporate brand benefits, but I can honestly tell you that right now, Movistar is very lucky to have folks like Emilio, José and extended their contacts, because they came along big time proving it’s possible to make that shift from Business to Business into People to People. 

And that’s just the beginning of becoming a Socially Integrated Enterprise. The dream come true for any other business out there who may have embarked on this journey of embracing Social Business. Movistar is just one giant leap closer to it and I am, for once, very excited to share out there with the world something I never thought I would say: I’m a happy customer of Movistar. 

(And that will show even more next time I drop by the Movistar local shop to upgrade my paid services with them)