Service

Subscribe to Service

So if you’ve been hiding under a rock instead of reading my blog posts, you may not already know that my favorite session from LMA13 was "Delivering Happiness: Fresh Ideas for Service-Driven Brands Deploying Social Media Tactics, Seeking ROI" with Graham Kahr, Social Scientist for Zappos and Jayne Navarre of Law Gravity LLC. 

Rather than a typical session, Jayne and Graham let us know right away that it would be different when they introduced themselves in the third person. Their session took on the tone of more of a conversation, which also included those of us in the audience. 

They began their conversation by saying that they wouldn’t be talking about social media per se, but really focusing instead on creating experiences for clients (which is something we could all identify with). Graham said that Zappos doesn’t push their own brand stories – they want their customers to tell the brand story for them.Continue Reading “Delivering Happiness” – A Zappos Session Recap

A lesson I learned several years ago that has been invaluable to me is that of "identify, don’t compare." When you compare, you’re looking to match your situation exactly to that of someone else’s – and when we do that, we’re always going to come up different (and that can paralyze us).

But when we identify, we’re looking for those elements that run through a situation that are the same as ours – and this gives us the inspiration to keep moving forward, instead of giving up because we think we’ll never be the same. That lesson comes in handy when I’m sitting in a session like the Zappos one from the LMA Annual Conference.  Although it’s easy to try to compare Zappos to legal marketing and come up lacking because they’re a consumer-driven business, when I identify instead, I find many parallels which allow me to take the lessons that Graham was sharing with us and apply them to my own situation.Continue Reading Identify, Don’t Compare – Lessons from Zappos for the Legal Industry

In our final post of the series, we’ll cover the implications of the SCOTUS decision on health care industry sectors, including providers and service providers. 

Providers – Hospitals

Lynn suggested that the panelists start with the hospital industry first. Mark said that he thinks this is a segmented analysis also. For those systems that have already resolved to take steps to deal with value-based purchasing and accountable care environments with their governmental and commercial customers, the SCOTUS decision is likely to be seen as affirming the activities of their boards to date and their initial efforts. For individual hospitals that have not yet designed a strategic plan with value-based purchasing and other accountable-based assumptions baked into that plan, the decision is likely to propel them to get to work in designing such a plan. Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Implications for Healthcare Industry Sectors Part II

The final session that I attended during the LMA Conference this year was “Creating a Culture of Client Service Excellence” with Leonardo Inghilleri, the EVP and Managing Partner of West Paces Consulting.

I was a few minutes late to the session, and the energy in the room felt a bit low, so I was initially concerned I may have chosen the wrong session. But I was quickly proven wrong as Leonardo provided us with fabulous insight and an interesting perspective that proved most valuable.

As his bio on the LMA Conference website states:

"Leonardo Inghilleri is a recognized business expert and author, and an opinion leader in the area of organizational effectiveness and strategies, client service excellence, and business innovation. As one of the key architects behind the Ritz-Carlton’s two Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards, he has first-hand experience in creating a culture of client service excellence. During this session, you will learn about proven techniques that will help your firm improve the quality of the relationships with your clients. Leonardo will share the concepts and practices that will help to create and maintain the kind of client service environment that can produce strong bottom line results.”

Continue Reading Creating a Culture of Client Service Excellence – an LMA 2012 Re-cap

I’m back with another tip for Tuesday! 

Today’s tip is brought to you by a rather frustrating customer service experience I’m having, which is further impacted by social media.

The ILN normally gives a small gift to our delegates when they’re attending a conference, as a memento of the city that they’re visiting (we like to give them the warm fuzzies about our group!).  This morning, I’m attempting to order this memento for our next conference, and ran into the snag that they only allow you to order 15 of them.

It happens, so it’s not a big deal.

But here’s where it gets frustrating.  I first try to submit my request for assistance via their website. And I get an error telling me that the "page cannot be found." Okay…so did my request go through or not? I’m not sure.  

I next try to call them, but when I choose the option for customer service, I get an answering machine telling me that no one can help me right now.  They’re in New York, and it’s the middle of the work day, so what’s that about? Continue Reading Tip for Tuesday – Be Careful with Customer Service

Yesterday, one of my favorite Twitter people posted that her daughter had said "this is the best day of my life. We went to the park, we’re going to mcdonalds, I found a penny. The best day of my life."

She’s 5, but she’s already been through a lot, dealing with a very scary brain tumor last year.  And she got me thinking – the best days of my life really have been about the little things.  

Sure, graduating from college was exciting, buying my first house was exciting (well, more nerve-wracking and expensive than exciting), but were they the "best" days of my life? 

Nah.  

Those have been about the little things – the first time I heard my two-year old niece say my name. (Superbowl Sunday, if you’re wondering – she said "Okay Wizzy" – close enough).  Every time my dog comes racing over to see me like I’m his favorite person in the world (I am). My sister trusting me enough to be the first person to watch my niece overnight. An email from my best friend saying how much I mean to her. My niece wanting me to carry her in for ice cream, and squeezing me extra tight when my sister said "M loves her Aunt Lindsay."  Those are some of my best days.Continue Reading Best Day of Your Life?

If you love shoes like I do, you’re familiar with Zappos.com, the online shoe and clothing shop. Since it was founded in 1999, it has grown to be the largest online shoe store.  How did they do it? Largely, in thanks to their CEO, Tony Hsieh.  According to their website: 

In 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million.

He then joined us [Zappos] as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped us grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazines annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos.com, Inc. was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

 Not too shabby, huh?Continue Reading Lawyers: What Can We Learn From Zappos?

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend American Lawyer Media’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards conference as an ILN Marketing Partner.  As evidence of the popularity of the conference’s content, the room was almost standing room only by the end of the morning.  (For tweets from the conference, see the #LSMC hashtag results)

The first two sessions focused more on the "risks" portion of the conference, discussing a lot of concerns about social media.  The first speaker was Joel Reidenberg, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University School of Law. His presentation was "Beyond Terms of Use: From Handcuffs to Handshake?" 

Professor Reidenberg began by saying that it’s important to think about Terms of Service as an effort by social media sites to bring some certainty to their own environment where the law is lacking and vague. Terms of Service typically consist of two sets of documents:

  1. Basic user agreement
  2. Privacy Policy, which is normally incorporated by reference, so the two work hand in hand.

Continue Reading Conference Review: ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards – Beyond Terms of Use: From Handcuffs to Handshake?