Could it be...a good example of a QR code? I'm as shocked as you are.

I'm normally pretty skeptical of QR codes. It's one of those digital fads which seems to have come out of nowhere, yet been embraced over-enthusiasticly by any company that wishes to appear cool and up-to-date.

The problem is, most companies don't seem to have grasped the basic requirements:

1. People need to be able to scan them with a phone
2. People will need internet access to connect to the page you are sending them to

This makes them wholly unsuitable for, say, an advert on the underground which regularly disappears behind a train, or a motorway hoarding. Some uses just seem absurd. There's no way I'm getting my phone out to scan a bananna (more of these ones on wtfqrcodes.com)!

The QR code above, however, makes a bit more sense. The bit of card which allows me to remove a tabag already has a practical use, is branded on the other side, and therefore has a small square space which would otherwise be blank. Whilst you could try to write something on there, or stick a URL or Twitter handle, I think a QR code isn't a bad call really. If making a cuppa at home, you probably have time to investigate or if you have a takeaway tea like I did from Waitrose, it's an interesting 2 minute activity while drinking it (yes I still did feel a little silly scanning my tea, but pretended I was texting and hoped no-one noticed!).

The link goes through to a page about their tea selection, which is fine, but for me it would have been more appealing if it had some sort of gamification element, such as an offer, or hidden page that only the teabag QR code took me to. Nevertheless, I think Twinings should still be applauded as a case study for a good practical use of the QR code, where so many others are failing miserably to do so.

Don't 'get' social media yet? Next!

As the consumer becomes more trusting of online purchases they also become more demanding of brands in the online sphere. It's no longer enough just to have a Facebook page - you have to maintain it and make it interesting. You can't just tweet out marketing messages, you have to engage and entertain. So when a brand hits a duff note with their social media interactions - bad service, lack of professionalism, whatever -  it's no surprise that customers react badly, and being social media they do so publicly.

Many brands are afraid of social media as they fear the reprisals of unhappy customers. There is an argument that you have to sort out your service before you 'go social' but however good you are, there will always be someone who has been on the unfortunate end of a human error and has cause to complain.

The social media 'secret' here is not to avoid it - but apologise, genuinely, and offer to make ammends. All this should be done publicly and may result not only in a happy customer but in an audience who admire your customer service. Turn the situation around to your advantage.

This is clearly something Next's social media experts weren't keen on recently though, or perhaps their digital agency's weekend cover isn't that strong. Whatever the reason, it wasn't advisable for Next to post the following, when a customer swore about their delivery service:

The user's original tweet said "Fucking Next wankers! It's a pissing Sunday you bastards & I've wasted four fecking hours for a delivery you forgot to tell me isn't coming." - admittedly not the most eloquent of complaints, and some people may well have been offended. Notice though that she doesn't use their handle or even a hashtag. It's really unlikely anyone except her followers will have seen it, well until Next tweeted about it that is. She also tweeted at them that she was "pissed off" and perhaps this was what they objected to - but it's hardly a hanging offence and I might be using that level of profanity if I'd been made to wait 4 hours on a Sunday for nothing.

What Next don't seem to realise is that they can't control the Twitter channel any more than they control an individual's chat with friends. @Ox_bex was just tweeting to her followers - telling her friends how she felt, and Next had no more right to ask her to stop than management could interrupt a conversation she was having in a pub.

The Twittersphere reacted badly. Word spread about the response, there was a big online backlash   and various media marketing and tech blogs wrote about it. Some felt the request was tantamount to censorship and the worst kind of brand protectionism, others thought it was just terrible customer service.

I would be more sympathetic if it as a small company or family business - when you are personally invested in a brand it can be heartbreaking to see it besmirched online, even if you were to blame for the bad experience. But a brand as big as Next should know better (or should employ people that know better) than to coerce people into keeping quiet about an issue. Why not try to solve it? An apology, an offer or even a bit of humour can go a long way to appease a disgruntled customer. Clearly this High Street retailer has yet to realise this. Until they do...well...next please!

What will happen to the Pope's Twitter account?

Pope Benedict XVI shocked the Catholic world on 13th of February with his resignation announcement, but the Catholics weren't the only ones left wondering.

A mere couple of months earlier, the Pope had joined Twitter, and gained over 70,000 vast amount of followers in mere hours, even before he had started tweeting. @pontifex, as the account is called, tweets religious statements and reflections and has posted 36 tweets to date.

But what made the Pope decide to join Twitter in the first place? Was it pressure from some sort of Catholic PR machine? A statement from the Vatican said

'The Pope's presence on Twitter is a concrete expression of his conviction that the Church must be present in the digital arena'

so perhaps the initiative was driven by his holiness afterall. The Pope's resignation, however, has been markedly absent from his feed and he has posted tweets about Lent since the announcement.

But the big question is - as with all temporary offices - what will happen to the Twitter account when he has left? Although the law may be yet to fully catch up with this, Twitter accounts are generally regarded as the property of the person that is named in the handle and whose email address is linked to it. If it is an official account run on behalf of a company it is the property of the organisation who employs the individual.

Some companies are become more and more savvy about this, with contractual clauses governing the retention of the accounts - meaning that any followers accrued are the 'contacts' of the company and cannot be 'poached' (or taken with) an individual when they leave.

In politics this can cause issues, for example the @MayorOfLondon account, and all it's 630,000+ Boris fans will all become property of the next mayor if Boris loses an election, as he has a role-related handle rather than a personal one.

For the Pope I suspect that the same will be the case. @pontifex (and also the 8 different language versions of the account) refers to his role rather than Pope Benedict as an individual, so it belongs to the Vatican and eventually the next Pope. Not that Benedict will mind I'm sure (some reckon it was Social Media that made him feel too old for the post in the first place!), but will the next Pope want to continue the tweeting?

A new Pope will undoubtedly be younger, as the Vatican will seek to prevent any more resignations and stay 'in touch' with the younger church, so I'd predict he will want to carry on tweeting. Watch this (140 character) space! 

MeatPack 'Hijack' campaign - location-based win, or near miss?

So (as per tradition) I've resolved to blog more in 2013 - setting up Seeningreenwich last year meant Digilance has suffered a little!

First post of the 2013 is inspired by this article on Econsultancy, which spotted a location-based campaign by a Guatemalan shoe store Meat Pack. The idea behind it is that you download an add-on to its existing loyalty app called ‘Hijack’ which then rewards customers by giving them an innovative way to earn a discount.



As the Econsultacy write up puts it:

"Every time one of the ‘Sneakerheads’ entered competitor store the GPS function showed them a countdown timer and an offer for money off shoes.

The discount started at 99% off and reduced by 1% for every second that passed. The timer stopped when the user reached a Meat Pack store.

More than 600 shoppers were hijacked from the competitors within a week, with one of them getting 89% off his new trainers." 

Brilliant idea. Tempt customers away at the point of purchase, with a better offer from your rival store. The countdown timer not only means there's a sense of urgency, but introduces gamification, making the experience fun.

But there's one big problem. The app is an add-on for people who already have the loyalty app. This means they are already loyal shoppers and would have bought from Meat Pack anyway. What's to say that he die-hard "sneakerheads" have not got wind of this discount and gone to a rival store purely so they can then race back to meat pack and get a discount? (If you can't imagine this happening, just picture the scene if apple had run a similar promotion - half the offices in Old Street would be empty as employees raced between Currys and the Apple store, anxiously looking at thier iPhones...).

Ideally for maximum 'conversion', Meat Pack should instead try to target people who are not already loyal customers. There's not an obvious way to do this - even push notifications would require an app - but perhaps if they created an app that less obviously branded and just for the 'Sneaker Fan' it would be a way to get the all-important new customer. Check-ins are another opportunity and if they could somehow harness the Facebook or Foursquare check-in and run the promotion to target these, I think they'd be on to a winner. In conclusion - great idea but not quite there yet!

Digital technologies in retail: House of Fraser 'online concept store'

Retail is always keen to harness new technologies in order to sell more. While for some companies this just means an e-commerce branch of their real-world shop, the real cutting edge innovations are occurring where retailers try to combine the two.

Tesco made the headlines last year for it's innovative tube station virtual shop in Korea, where customers could scan images of products on a giant billboard using their smartphones and add them to an online shopping list. As well as being a media grabbing gimmick, the idea also appeals to the time-poor communter who wants to make use of the frustrating time spent waiting on the platform (although something gives me the impression that train services are pretty regular in Korea!).

Although we are clearly light-years behind this level of innovation in the uk - widespread wifi on the underground would be a start - there ars till some companies who are looking to merge the physical store with the virtual. House of Fraser has been steering its attention towards digital, yet professes no desire to reduce the number of stores. Instead they have opened two 'concept stores' with display-only merchandise and portals from which to browse and buy online.

Image Courtesy of Harpers Bazaar

So, I'm sure you're asking, why would you bother to go out to a 'shop' if you can do the same activity at home on your PJ's with a mug of tea or glass of wine? Harper's Bazaar answers this with:

Here’s why; the store has been designed around a hotel concierge experience, so help with a lost order, a late delivery or an unsuitable item will be instant – and personal.
If something doesn’t suit, get a refund there and then, if an order hasn’t arrived, the store will take care of it. Plus there’s a complimentary coffee bar, which of course you won’t get at home.

I'm not quite sure I understand what they're offering here. If my order (that I've already placed elsewhere) is lost, late or unsuitable, I want to talk to customer services, not go to a room full of computers. The same with a refund. Finally, if an item hasn't arrived I'm not sure how they will "take care of it" if they don't house any physical stock.

The coffee bar sounds nice I must admit, but other than that it seems House of Fraser have created a bizarre hybrid between a customer services desk and an internet café!

However if, rather than a place for online shopping, what does emerge is a dedicated team that understand online orders, can track them and resolve any issues, and be an in-person point of call for online customers needing help, then that's a really positive development. This is something frustratingly absent from ecommerce as a whole - the only options are an email address, a call centre, or a Twitter account that will direct you back to either of the above in a friendly tone of voice. This usually just leads to elongated miscommunications and an ongoing saga of order numbers and non-returned calls.

When online orders go wrong there is all manner of heartache trying to to sort them out, but I for one would be very happy to incorporate speaking to a specialist e-commerce adviser into my next trip to the High Street and maybe even be supplied with the product which was absent from in my late/lost/missing delivery. We seem to be getting closer to this, but for now it will remain wishful thinking...
  

LinkedIn endorsements

Following on from my last post about LinkedIn endorsements, the other day I got email notifications out of the blue from LinkedIn saying a few people had endorsed me (thanks guys!) so this functionality must now be live in the U.K! Heading over to my profile I found the following box at the bottom with images of people who had recommended me, next to the expertise they agreed I had:



There was initially also a box featuring many of my contacts, and asking if I would 'endorse' certain skills for them, but this seems to have now gone. To endorse people now I can click the plus button at the side of thier professed skill when on their profile (this can apparently also be undone if necessary!).

It all seems very simple so far and because the skills are sorted from top to bottom by how many people have 'endorsed' them, it may be an attempt to counter the claims that many LinkedIn profiles are fabricated.

But does a one-click endorsement really have any value? There is the option to hover over the endorser to see their details and click through, but you can't see their relationship with the person they are endorsing.

From a first look I think it's a good way to highlight individual skills and abilities but it isn't as strong as a personal recommendation - there is no way to expand on the 'endorsement' and say why or how they are good at this skill or give any annecotes. It would also be a shame if strengths lay unrecognised at the bottom because no-one who has experienced your skills in that area is on LinkedIn for example, so we may see people working harder to gain endorsements for skills that are important to them.

What do you think? As a recruiter or employer would you trust an endorsement? Are you busy endorsing contacts?

LinkedIn Recommendations - online endorsement pitfalls

LinkedIn has announced the launch of 'Endorsements' in the U.S, a way to recommend someone with just one click. This isn't live in the U.K yet so I can't trial it, but it got me thinking about the various pitfalls of online professional recommendations. Certain issues should be considered and a 1-click endorsement may not always be a good thing!

When used properly, LinkedIn recommendations are a powerful tool for advancing your career but if you don't use them with care they can give a negative impression about you, your contacts and the company you work for. It's helpful to think of them as a 'reference' from a  previous or current employer, but they're not exactly the same, so below are some things to think about.

Consider carefully who you ask. Offline, a great reference might come from someone well respected within the industry and their endorsement of you would add something extra to your application. This is no different on LinkedIn - do not just ask your friends to do it! Before requesting a recommendation ask yourself the following questions of the individual:

- Does he/she have an established LinkedIn account with lots of connections? (it may be assumed that a new account is fake)
- Is it obvious that you know the individual in a professional capacity? (avoid anyone with the same surname for example!)
- Is this person your junior? (If you want to highlight your management skills, you may ask for a reference from someone who has previously worked under you. Note that a reference from someone currently working under you may have the opposite effect, as it shows you have put your junior in an awkward situation!)
- Have you already recommended this individual? Reciprocal recommendations do not look genuine!

You should also consider the impression this gives within your current position:
- Most HR teams and management are aware that individuals updating their LinkedIn profiles may well be looking to move
- Colleagues may wonder why you want a recommendation from them and it may indicate you feel insecure in your position.
- Business development roles can be the exception to the rule - if the company employs you to find new business through LinkedIn they won't be suspicious if you are trying to improve the credentials on your profile!

Even so, a good recommendation from the right person at the right time may well mean you are considered for a role, so follow the guidelines and don't be afraid to get recommended. I'll blog more about 'Endorsements' when they become available to U.K users - watch this space!