An article in Business Week lets us in on the agency pitch process at MINI USA:

The first deviation from the norm came when McDowell organized a “boot camp” for the four finalists: a weekend immersion into all things MINI at a Rye Brook (N.Y.) hotel. There was plenty of face time and driving but the agencies were also required to perform in front of one another as each tried to impress the client-to-be, an unheard-of concept in the notoriously competitive ad world. “You don’t expect the client in these situations to be creative…that’s what they want us for,” says Scott Goodson, president of Strawberry Frog, one of the four contenders.

First, each team had to introduce themselves and create interesting name tags on the spot. The team from New York-based Mother put pictures of their actual mothers on tags. Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) of Sausalito, Calif., in a nod to socially correct recycling and frugality, they riffed, reused plain name tags from a meeting the previous week.

Then each team took turns answering questions that tested improv skills. “If Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for President, who should be his running mate?” went one game question. (Strawberry Frog’s team was divided between Sylvester Stallone and Papa Smurf.)

They also were sent out into nasty rainy weather to drive MINI Coopers and go on a kind of scavenger hunt for ideas and props to be used for a scrapbook. The book would tell a MINI story that the agencies and the client would all review over cocktails.

Maybe I’m just no fun, but I don’t see how these improv, quick on your feet, ‘oh-la-la lets show our creativity in 20 seconds’ - type contests prove that you’ll be even mediocre (at best) at solving genuine business problems. They sort of take me back to frosh week, which was a great time when I was eighteen and drunk. Now I just feel sort of nauseous thinking about competing for gainful work in the same (metaphorical) way that wet t-shirt contests are won.

Granted, the idea of spending lots and lots of time (weeks even) with a prospective client / agency is awesome - to really get to know each other’s strengths and challenges - actually courting each other, versus the speed dating (1 hour pitch) process which is the norm. But could we all just grow up a bit? I know, I know, I am just no fun.

McDonald’s has launched a blog. It’s actually pretty interesting, well written, and informative. It’s written by Bob Langert, Senior Director for Corporate Social Responsibility at McDonald’s. Here’s how he introduces the site:

I want to use this blog to introduce you to some of the people, programs, and projects that make corporate social responsibility a reality at McDonald’s–to take you along with me as I engage with some of our internal and external stakeholders in various parts of the world and to highlight our accomplishments, as well as the challenges we continue to face.

We want to hear from you because we are always learning and trying to improve. And you can’t learn–or improve–without listening. We live in a constantly changing world where the issues are complex and solutions anything but simple. With such complex issues, we may not always agree on the root causes or best solutions, but we can have a conversation.

Incredibly, comments are open and so far, are all supportive. I don’t know how closely the comments are being monitored (as monitoring comments in itself can be a full time job) but I am impressed with the (at least perceived) transparency. Of course the Terms & Conditions outline their thoughts on Comment ownership, censorship etcetera, but of course they would - I don’t fault them for this -it’s most definitely a corporate site. I’ll keep my eye on this blog to see its progress. It will be interesting to see what topics they tackle and how the blog is received. One to watch.

Wow - this is compelling. According to research by Gitte Lindgaard of Ottawa’s Carleton University, we make judgements about websites in the flash of an eye. And these snap judgements stand up to judgements made after longer scrutiny. So apparently we CAN judge a book (website) by its cover (home page).

Lindgaard and her team presented volunteers with the briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal. Even though the images flashed up for just 50 milliseconds, roughly the duration of a single frame of standard television footage, their verdicts tallied well with judgements made after a longer period of scrutiny.

Pretty interesting. The explanation of why this happens makes humans seem pretty fickle but no doubt it is true. We are fickle creatures.

Bottom line: Hire a designer if you’re serious about having a presence on the web.

And trust your designers - if they say that dancing bears (or flashing banners, crazy flash designs, or any other common web sin) won’t help to sell your product or service… trust them.

The headline says it all. If you are a high profile, consumer facing business, specifically Canada’s largest book seller, closing your call centre 2 days before Christmas so that your employees can take a holiday is just bizarre. So bizarre, that the CEO herself couldn’t believe it was true, even as it was happening.

On December 23rd, having long ago completed my Christmas shopping (mostly via online shopping, thank god) I planned to spend the snowy afternoon at home, happily sipping nog and wrapping gifts. I had done quite a bit of shopping at Chapters.Indigo.ca and had stashed all of the boxes, unopened in the closet. When I opened one of the boxes and discovered Sugar Cookie Floating Candles inside, I knew there was a problem. Who in their right mind orders Sugar Cookie Floating Candles? Not me. Not even my mother, a woman who has lots of Christmas kitsch, who the original ordered gift had been for, would want Sugar Cookie Floating Candles. There must have been a mistake - mistakes happen, I know this, and I wasn’t really concerned. But I wanted Chapter.Indigo.ca to know about the error and to find out how we were to correct it.

So I called the customer service number listed on the accompanying invoice (that also indicated that I had not ordered these Sugar Cookie Floating Candles) . “You have reached the customer service department of Chapters Indigo. We are currently closed due to the Statutory Holiday. We are open Monday through Friday……” Wait a second. This was Friday, December 23rd, 2 days before Christmas, at 2:30pm EST. What stat holiday were they talking about. I called again and again, thinking that perhaps the lines were just so busy that I had been routed into the wrong voice mail. Nope. They were indeed closed. I called one of the Retail Stores and spoke to a Manager who too was very surprised that Chapters Online customer service would be closed.

I started searching for a number to call at Head Office. My discontentment was now escalating towards slight anger - again, not that I had been sent the wrong gift but that I couldn’t reach anyone - no one seem to care that I was having a fulfillment issue, just 2 days before Christmas. I do online strategy, including search marketing for a living, so I am pretty good at searching on the Internet. The only Chapters Head Office telephone number I could find anywhere belonged to Sorya Gaulin, Vice President, Public Relations. I called Sorya but received her voice mail. Choosing not to leave a message, I emailed Sorya, and based on the format of her email address, guessed the email address of Heather Reisman, CEO and copied her on the email. See? I was getting angry and escalating the issue in a hurry.

Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Ms. Gaulin:

Perhaps as the Public Relations director, and the only human I can track down at Chapters Head Office (which is incredibly annoying though no doubt done on purpose to save you all from the customer) you can tell me why the Chapters Indigo Online customer service telephone line is CLOSED for “the statutory holiday” at 3pm just 2
days before Christmas? What stat holiday? Closed? Are you kidding me? Try to call the number (both the 1800 and 905 number) yourself and you’ll see what I am talking about.

Clearly I am annoyed. I received a shipment from Chapters a few days ago but didn’t open it. I just opened it, as I was preparing to wrap gifts, only to discover that it’s the completely wrong item - the invoice lists the right item but the box has something else entirely.

All of this is a drag, as we have now left the city, and were preparing to relax…… oh what fun it will be to explain to my mother just why I decided to buy her SUGAR COOKIE CANDLES?! Why this product even exists, let alone why I received it instead of the gift I ordered, is beyond me.

Happy holidays?!

I look forward to your response.

It’s from here that Chapters starts to shine. Almost immediately (less than 20 minutes) after sending this email, Heather Reisman emailed me back from her Blackberry saying, “I can’t imagine this line is closed. I will look into this immediately, Heather Reisman“. Clearly even the CEO was surprised that this customer service telephone line was closed! She copied several people within Chapters Indigo as well. And again, a couple of minutes later, I guess when she had spoken to her team and learned that yes, the line was closed, she emailed again, sending a longer email with the name of an Executive VP (Jonathan Ehrlich) who would “do all he can to make this right”. Momentarily, this EVP did email, telling me he “I can help”- note that he didn’t say “I may be able to help”, nor did he offer any excuses, but instead wrote that that he CAN help me. I sent him my tel number and before I had a chance to get up from my chair, he called.

Jonathan Ehrlich did not offer any excuses for the closed phone line, only agreeing that it was really dumb that the line was closed, just 2 days before Christmas. He did explain how the decision had been made to close the line (all of Chapters Indigo distributors were closed, and they wouldn’t be able to ship on that Friday to arrive by Christmas, so they closed - whoops, forgetting their customers….) but he agreed it was a bad decision. He immediately solved my problem of the error in shipment, allowing me to collect a loaded gift card in Ottawa.

An hour or so later, as the incident was being mulled over in my brain, Jonathan Ehrlich emailed me again - “FYI = phones are back on. Thanks for your patience and for alerting me. Crazy holiday!!! Hope you’ll give us another try.” So while some poor customer service representative is cursing the evil woman who made her come in on her holiday, I appreciated that Jonathan emailed me to let me know that not only had he solved my particular problem, but that the larger issue had been corrected.

As a final follow up, another PR representative called me back a few days later, following up on my original email to Sorya Gaulin, making sure that my issue had been solved. I assured her it had been, and that I was satisfied with the solution.

All in all, a very poor taste in my mouth very quickly turned into a positive experience, first by getting a reaction from the CEO, and then excellent follow up via Jonathan Ehrlich. While the situation should never have happened for so many reasons, it did, but it was resolved properly. Thank you to all.

In the last year, the agency I work for ran a contest for a National QSR (quick service restaurant) chain. I manned the email-based customer service ‘line’ and after my stint, I wrote a document for internal use called Managing Customer Feedback. The most important point from this document was to “Empower the Complaint Department”.

While in the case of Chapters.Indigo.ca, the complaint department itself was closed, I am thoroughly impressed with the commitment to the customer demonstrated from the top, when I finally figured out how to reach someone. While part of me is delighted that the braintrust of Canada’s largest online retailers screwed up (proving we all have stuff to learn) I am certain that next year, they won’t close their customer service telephone line 2 days before Christmas. Lesson learned I am sure.

I’ve been writing posts in my head for the better part of a year. In the past few months, while I’ve been on mat leave, I’ve had so many conversations with myself about needing to blog this, or blog that. But no blog. So here’s the blog. I’ll start with a few posts that have been brewing….

Happy new year.