5 Customer Service Lessons From Yahoo’s Missteps

5 Customer Service Lessons From Yahoo’s Missteps
Ebooks Growth is Up, Both Traditional and Self-Published
“Valuable Content Marketing” Offers Digital Marketing Insights

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:00 PM PDT

customer service lessons

In the past eight months, I've had my Yahoo email account hacked four different times. Considering that I'm a pretty savvy internet user who knows about basic security practices, that's pretty pitiful on Yahoo's part.

Apparently, I'm not alone. Thousands of Yahoo account users have reported that their accounts have been compromised – even public figures such as Sarah Palin have had issues with their Yahoo accounts. Despite the fact that these matters have persisted for several months, Yahoo has been slow to address and fix them.

Could this be the reason Yahoo currently has 12.2 percent of the market share compared to 66.7 percent for Google? Is this part of the reason Yahoo's traffic is dropping at an alarming rate?

Customer service is one of the many backbones of any business, and unfortunately Yahoo has failed to deliver theirs. Brands seeking to grow their place in the market would benefit from a lesson on Yahoo's customer service missteps and, hopefully, Yahoo can recover.

5 Customer Service Lessons From Yahoo's Missteps

Over Communicate

Yahoo has had a problem with email security since January 2013, so why has it taken them so long to address the issue?

The online world evolves at a breathtaking pace and online consumers similarly expect fast communication. Your online customer service should be quick and effective.

Make it Personal

One of the reasons Marissa Mayer was an exceptional choice as Yahoo's CEO went beyond her qualifications – it's her personality. She's personable, a woman and she took a CEO job while pregnant. Unlike your typical CEO figure, Mayer is expected to breath new personality into Yahoo, and that excited investors.

Likewise, your customer service shouldn't simply aim to solve and prevent consumer problems. Instead, target their emotions and a personal connection with them.

Broadcast Efficiently

When news broke of widespread email security breaches, why wasn't Yahoo on the frontline warning users about the issue? Sure, they were probably trying to avoid negative publicity. But couldn't they have at least warned us that something was going on?

For most of us, we didn't realize that anything was amiss until our own accounts were compromised.

Ask for Feedback

Utilizing consumer information is a powerful tool and strategy that any brand can incorporate. Yahoo could have asked for customer feedback concerning their response to the hackings or whether or not their account was safe.

Unfortunately, Yahoo seemed pretty uptight about the whole situation and didn't communicate or offer a solution. Hopefully other users had a different experience.

Focus on the Details

When a customer has an issue, they don't care about your marketing strategy, apologies or about how great your brand is. They simply want the issue fixed. When you rectify a negative situation, the customer remembers the good experience and will do business with you again.

While Yahoo didn't fix their email security immediately, they can rely on the power of their name and the history of their brand to retain users. Not all businesses have that luxury, so focusing on a customer's problems immediately is crucial.

Concerned Emoticon Photo via Shutterstock

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Ebooks Growth is Up, Both Traditional and Self-Published

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 10:46 AM PDT

In book news, a recent report shows that book publishers received nearly 23% of their revenues from sales of ebooks (versus paper books) during 2012. That’s up from 17% the year before. That comes from full-year data by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The AAP includes 350 publishers, including large ones such as Simon & Schuster, Hachette and Harper Collins, as well as independents like Sourcebooks.

Self-published ebooks growth is strong

The above numbers would not include self-published ebooks. For that data, look to Bowker research. According to a study released last October, the number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287% since 2006. As between print and electronic, self-published ebooks had the strongest percentage growth.

One thing we have noticed from the Small Business Book Awards is the fast-growing number of ebook-only submissions of business books. Many are self-published using one of the many new-form publishing platforms such as Smashwords and CreateSpace.

People still read print, but ebooks growth hard to ignore

According to the APP survey, overall book sales (print and electronic) for 2012 are up over 6%.

What you can take from this is that despite predictions of the death of books in the Internet age, books are still much in demand — both print and ebooks.

However, according to a Pew Internet study from December, ebook reading is increasing while print-book reading is declining. And it’s no wonder, given the advantages of ebooks. You don’t have to have shelf space to store electronic books as you do with paper books. It’s fast and easy to buy ebooks – a purchase can be done from the comfort of your home or office in minutes, rather than hours or days to buy/order print books. Ebooks often provide a richer experience, in the sense of being able to provide you with direct links to electronic resources, better searchability and annotation features, and links to dictionaries and Wikipedia to look things up. And in many cases, the ebook version is cheaper.

Today, though, ebooks’ growth is still hindered by the “walled garden” aspect of many ebook readers. It’s difficult — in some cases impossible — to transfer electronic books purchased in one place, into an ebook reader of another retailer. Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google Books reader — all are set up to make it easy to purchase and read books from THEIR stores, but not from others. Each retailer wants 100% of your book-buying purchases. They don’t want to encourage you to purchase just anywhere. Some determined book lovers do manage to transfer ebooks across some device/app platforms. But it still takes extra steps and sometimes requires special conversion software or syncing.

In the end, however, consumers will vote with their wallets. They are already doing that according to Bowker. Consumers are showing a growing interest in reading with multi-purpose tablets, versus dedicated e-reader devices.

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“Valuable Content Marketing” Offers Digital Marketing Insights

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 06:00 AM PDT

Valuable Content Marketing Content marketing is certainly among the hot social media trends today. It’s become so popular that one could say it’s the "new black" for marketing. But how should businesses deploy their content effectively?

Sonja Jefferson and Sharon Tanton note the ins and outs of content marketing with their book “Valuable Content Marketing; How to Make Quality Content the Key to Your Business Success.” Jefferson is the founder of UK marketing communication firm, Valuable Content. Tanton is a successful content creator. Both ladies gathered the best ideas that speak not only to the United Kingdom market, but to American small businesses as well.

I discovered the book on NetGalley and felt that its specific treatment of content marketing can teach businesses how to improve their effectiveness using that medium.

The data represented in Valuable Content Marketing supports many social media trends occurring in the UK. Jefferson and Tanton confirm industry sentiment: Many people are responding to the sharing aspects of digital marketing rather than to solely traditional methodologies.

"People are far happier to pass on something useful or compelling they've read or seen (it makes them look and feel good) than to hand over a business card you gave them (in fact, they've probably lost that already)."

To show how marketing has changed, as asserted in the opening chapter, Valuable Content Marketing offers an overview for each content marketing perspective.

The authors do not spend a lot of time comparing content marketing against the different channels within social media. Yet they do successfully explain how to get past the “what do I say” question that arises from social media. That makes the book a value to those who have just set up their Twitter profile, but are not sure what they should say online. For example, check out a thought starter on extending the shelf life of a white paper:

"Once you've put the time and resources in longer pieces of content there is a lot you can do with them…One white paper or ebook can become 10 blogs, 50 short tips on Twitter, a short series of guides…"

Chapters 9 and 10 get into media formats, detailing the right content to create an ebook or white paper. You'll also read the pros and cons on content management decisions such as gating or not gating content.

I also found chapter 12 to be helpful. It focuses on sales, adjusting tactics to get to "the ask" instead of creating brochures for the sake of sales only. The book notes,

"Brochures are still useful, but for professional firms they are purely a credibility tool not a door opener."

You'll learn the right mix of tools to use, such as incorporating a content calendar to maintain the effort. A chapter on search engine optimization (SEO) is short, but chapter 7 offers an outstanding explanation of the differences between a "brochure-style" website and a "valuable lead-generating website." The terms may not be universal language among Web designers, but the diagrams will help business owners to know what site improvements to seek without having to understand HTML code. The book ends with a content checklist and questions for a case study.

The arrangement of material reminded me of Digital Impact, with quotes from additional sources. U.K. businesses are highlighted, such as Scottish firms Inkster and SwimTrek, and global names such as Intel are mentioned. But this book introduces American readers to excellent global campaigns to study, such as the highlight of Coke's Global 2020 campaign that emphasizes "content excellence." U.S. small businesses will also want to pay attention to the independent firms highlighted.

One detail that left me a bit wanting was the “value tips” sprinkled throughout the book. Some were just too general to provide meaningful guidance. But I found the further reading suggestions helpful, as well as the “take action” questions. Both appear at the end of the chapters.

When well executed, content marketing provides solid branding, augments search engine optimization when paired with a blog and enhances a business presence across numerous social media platforms. The book Valuable Content Marketing will work wonders to help your business achieve those benefits.

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