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Reward and encourage enthusiasm, not just long service

A recent stay in hospital gave me a first person lesson in the difference between enthusiasm, professionalism and downright hostility.

During the 4 days I was there I and my ward-mates were looked after by a number of nurses of differing skill levels and ages. The student nurses were the most enthusiastic, friendly and generally interested in talking to us patients. They needed guidance from time to time, but hey, that’s why they’re students. The recently qualified were similar, efficient, and very personable. Those who had been in the job more than a few years were professional, thoughtful and helpful, though they’d seen it all before so getting into involved chats with patients wasn’t their thing.

The ones that stuck out like a sore thumb (pun intended) were the ones that must have been pretty close to retirement. It was clear that they viewed patients as an imposition on their TV time, they coughed on patients, ignored requests (from a guy confined to his bed!) for as long as they could, passing the buck onto the other. It was clear that they’d become jaded with the job, so bored that they seem to have turned it into a game with points going to the one who can treat patient the worst.

What does this have to do with marketing? Simple: It’s all about ‘guest experience’. Take a look at the people in your organisation. Have any of them become jaded, phoning in (or worse) their effort? Have customers become an inconvenience to them? Does giving anything more than the bare minimum seem like needless over-achieving?

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Your cat will love outdoor advertising

EuroAWK have a fun campaign at the moment, mashing up fake ads to create amusing, attention grabbing posters like this.

Why I’m buying an iPad

I’ve decided that I’m going to buy an iPad at the first opportunity I get, so here are my reasons:

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Hello, Park 458

Many years ago that’s how people used to answer the phone, confirming the number the caller had dialled. The reason for this? Phones were less personal and misdials were more common. Some people still do it, at home. Mostly it’s a waste of time, the percentage of misdialed calls is dropping as more people call from a phone that confirms the number dialled. In any case people answering company phone lines don’t quote the number back, they state the name of their company.

You may wonder why I’m mentioning this. It’s because I’ve noticed a fair number of websites recently using content management systems set up with no thought whatsoever to the SEO value AND usability benefit of having a well crafted title tag. Repeating the domain name is a waste of time – it’s already in the location bar of the browser anyway. Imagine calling Hertz and the phone being answered by someone parroting the number you’d just dialled: “Hertz, 08455 19 15 36″, completely pointless.

Take a few moments to check through your site. Your title tags should be:

1. Keyword rich
2. Non-repetitive
3. Written for humans, not used as a replacement for the meta keywords tag
4. Devoid of your domain name. Please.

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Elementary Advertising

Sometimes an opportunity comes along that’s just too good to pass up. This Czech car security company put an active or passive device in your car that makes finding it much more likely (98% success rate, and they list the cars they’ve recovered, to prove it works). They’re called Sherlog and they’ve been running ads like this all over town, coinciding with the cinema release of the Sherlock Holmes movie. I’ve no idea as to the backstory here – whether Sherlog are paying for all the ad placement costs or splitting it, but it’s a fun tie-in. The slogans are “Nothing escapes them” and “Nothing escapes us” respectively. Well done Sherlog!