Now to the podcast:
Welcome to Business
Jazz….
With Paul O’Mahony and
Roger Overall….
The podcast on how to be
genuinely attractive in business today….
Paul: No,
what we haven't brought with us and what was a big feature of previous seasons.
. .
Roger: Oh… The alarm clock.
I think the alarm clock was ban from here.
Paul: Oh the alarm clock.
Roger: Yeah, I think it
was ban for being noisy.
Paul: I though we banned it?
Roger: No, I seem to
remember…
Paul: Did someone come and say...
Roger: There was a
comment, I can’t remember.
Paul: Did someone comment criticize our business?
Roger: Did somebody come
and criticize our business? Well, somebody criticize
the last episode of Business
Jazz. Welcome to Business Jazz by the way. I thought I get the
welcome in at the
beginning of this episode rather than the end the episode, like, last
week. Maybe that was why
we got that criticism? Anyway, welcome to welcome to
Business Jazz the
podcast about genuinely attractive business. My name is Roger
Overall and sitting here
with Paul O’Mahony as always.
Paul: Guess who has a green highlighter with him
to highlight points you make during the
podcast Roger?
Roger: Excellent. Well I see you got a blank page in
your notebook so nothing sensible has
been said yes. Paul,
tell people one thing about yourself, and one thing only.
Paul: Oh my goodness! I’ll tell you that…that
recently I have launched a new business. The
new business will never
make me any money. But the new business is is all about
providing a service
which will attract people to writing poetry.
Roger: Tell me more.
Paul: And this, this will be launched with the aid
of almost entirely on video. Because I’ve
been learning how to make short,
engaging . . .
Roger: I got to stop
you. I said one thing only. So, you launched a business on portray. That was
the one thing. The whole, the whole video thing. I have I have
to stop you there because
I have to introduce our special guest on the episode. Louis.
Paul: Hello Louis.
Roger: He’s sitting
there very calmly. So, face with the with the criticism we received from the
last episode. I thought we make this episode genially attractive
by having a dog. The
only thing that can make anything more attractive on social
media then a dog is possibly
a cat. In fact I should have brought a cat, you brought the dog
this episode would have
gone through the roof. This would have been viral! A cat and dog
episode of Business
Jazz.
Paul: Well certainly people have used photographs of
little kittens. And they have attached
those to I’m selling armchairs. At…
Roger: I
thought you were going to say, I’m selling arms, I’m selling weapons. Here are
the
kittens and I’m going to use them as a device to sell nuclear
weapons.
Paul: Look, look who would have thought that for
years the best way of selling a fancy motor
cars was to get woman in bathing suits to stretch themselves
across the bonnet. Who
would have thought that?
Roger: It’s
remarkable. Do you know what? Oh, Louis has wandered off, we’ll bring Louis back
Not once when I bought a car, have I been offered a lady to put
on the bonnet. Anyway,
we’re we’re we’re going off on a long tangent here. You’ve asked
a very good question,
about being criticized as a business. And of course the last
episode of Business Jazz
we’ll call it ‘The Game Of Thrones” episode,
came in for a huge amount of criticism. It was you were pointing out zero
percent on on Rotten Tomatoes?
Paul: No it got three.
Roger: Three percent.
Paul: Three percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Roger: The fans were
up in arms and basically saying that episode of Business Jazz
should be Rewritten, a petition has
been started, it should be re-recorded, the
storyline should be changed. It was it
was it got rotten reviews. It was
criticized! Bitterly! Oh my godness! I mean I’m still smarting. I don’t mind
saying. I’m practically in tears over
the feedback that we got back about this
episode. I’m distraught.
Paul:
Well thank goodness because I’m a
detached observer. And, when somebody criticizes
your business, the frontline person who’s been in the main
service position these are the
the customer. They feel incensed that this customer should complain and look here
we gave a wonderful serves! That person came in here and you know what do they
expect?
I've got to serve six people and they expect me only to serve them
and they expect me
to sell pizzas. We’re a blooming paint shop!
Roger: Oh, well I think there’s something probably
there that’s gone wrong in your marketing if
people are coming in to to buy painting or pizzas in your paint
shop. However, so there’s
a number of ways of looking at this, there’s a number of ways
looking at this.
Actually by the way if you have a an employee who gets so
passionate and riled about
negative feedback about your business well you should be so lucky
to have an
employee like that in a relationship.
Paul: Can we say that this episode Roger is going
to major on the effect that negative criticism
has on your business and we might even come up with one or two
ideas about how you
can turn such a negativity into positivity you
want.
Roger: I’m going to use, I’m going to bring Bite-Size
into this conversation because they are
brilliant when it comes to dealing with criticism about that
business. They are . . .
Paul: Tell us about Bite-Size. Are they a computer
company producing silicon chips?
Roger: BYTE-Size, that would be a very good name B Y T
E in very tiny silicon chips. No.
There a, there a cafe bakery they have two outlets. One
in Middleton one in Ballinacurra
lic and before you said I'll say this episode is not sponsored by
Bite-Size.ie. So there
they have cafes and their a bakery and they do cakes and online
ordering. Anyway, it
doesn't matter. The issue is of course they have lots of people
come into that cafes
every single day and sometimes these people get a less than
satisfactory experience
and sometimes they raise that. Sometimes they criticize or make a
point on social
media. Which is because Show & Tell Bite say it’s full
disclaimer is a chantel client and
we manage him and monitor their social media. So the first point
about that is. Is
somebody his cared enough to make a comment about your business.
So looking at the
criticism we received, about the last episode of Business Jazz, we
can immediately say
somebody has cared enough
to get in touch. Somebody feels so connected with the
podcast that they care enough to get in touch and say this is what
I thought about last
week's episode of podcast it was the worst ever!
criticism came from. Now will you have time to consider that? Let
us not debate it now
but carry on we got slated.
Roger: So that’s so that’s one thing. So the fact that
we got slated by somebody can also be
spun into such a way that we said we obviously managed to create a
relationship with
someone. The business of Business Jazz podcast manage to create a
relationship
strong enough with somebody that they cared enough to give us the
feedback.
Likewise with Bite-Size when somebody gives them negative
feedback it's I would say
embraced in a very particular way and I think I may have told a
story before but if I if I
have
apologies if I haven't it's new material. But so far in the three years that
I've been working with Bite-Size they’ve had two people criticize them publicly
on, no one was public on social media and one was via social media but through
on one of the back channels a DM. So it was…
Paul: Direct messaging
Roger: Direct messaging so it wasn't out in the
public. But in both interties the reaction the
mechanism was the same. I identify that there was a issue. First
of all acknowledge it.
Because that at least you can take a lot of sting out of the
situation. And that’s really all
you I can do on behalf of the business is a is a third party
consultant is acknowledge the
complaint and say thank you very much, and this will now be dealt
with. But what
happens than within Bite-Size is fascinating it's the owner of the
business the top
honcho, the top man who insists on then speaking to the person
whose complained. And
his whole philosophy is it doesn't matter what happened, it
doesn't matter who is to
blame, it doesn't matter how small or how big the complaint really
is or because of
course a lot of businesses attempt to say what are you complaining
about it’s only a tiny
thing. That doesn't matter his opinion is it was enough for them
to not had a good
experience regardless of what it is.
Roger: Regardless of
what it is and then two things happen goes off into tracks. One is,
what happened in the business on the
business side who was involved, what happened
how can we correct this? How we make changes we need to
make change? But, let's
find out what happened on our side.
Paul: And, is that communication to the
complainant?
Roger: Yes, it is. It
is. And then, the the owner insists on speaking personally on the phone to
the person who complains. Going through the
complaint with them. Finding out what
again from the point of view from the complaining what
could be done better? And
there’s always there's always a little token as well.
There's always a, here’s something to
make up for it. Here’s something a token of gratitude.
Thank you very much for for doing
this. Now I know you have very strong opinions on the
rebalancing. So maybe you could, cuz I know you you are very. . .
Paul: Well my, my view is that when people have what they regard as a bad
experience.
The probability is that they're not going to
come back. How do you and the business
wants them to come back. Now usually businesses give
anything from here’s a voucher
for another meal or coming in next next time, and we give
you a free drink. Or else as
you're leaving we won't charge you for the meal you've
had. We will charge it for all the
other people. And in my mind that isn’t half enough because all of
the other people. Let's
just imagine it's a restaurant or cafe the other people who have
witnessed you having a
bad experience have also had a bad experience. I went to a Italian
restaurant in Cork
that's on Princess Street and they burnt the bottom of my pizza so
it was uneatable. My
wife and child got their food at the same time, nothing wrong with
theirs. They took back
the pizza and brought me another one. This delayed and disrupted
the meal. It
dominated the experience and I left and I never been back since. I
left thinking another
pizza wasn't enough. What might have influence me was, today we
don't charge you for
the meal any of you and the next time you come back you have a
meal for free. Now
many people would say that's over-the-top, but remember I'm only
saying this if your
objective is to get the person to come back, and if your objective
is to improve your
reputation outside in society because I can tell you that if that
had been done I would
have told many people about it. There's a Nordstrom case, “The
Nordstrom Story,” that's
told by Tom Peters way back in the 1980s about the man who bought
a suit, costing him
a good deal of money or maybe it was a shirt and tie in Chicago.
He was delivering a
keynote speech in Texas. The following day he flew overnight went
into his bedroom
slept. In the morning a person arrived at his door as he was
getting dressed with his tie.
They had flown from Chicago to Texas, to bring him the tie that he
had left behind by
accident. That was so astonishing cuz you can imagine what it cost
to send a person by
plane.
Roger: Yup.
Paul: And, I presume UPS or one of these delivery
companies might not even have got it there
on time. So they may well have… and I remember Tom Peters
telling the story it was as
if the person flying down from Chicago to Texas had flown to a
blizzard to get there. Now
I'm going back to a passion for excellence in the 1980s, which had
a huge influence on
me. So, Rodger you said to me that I had things to say. We're just
scratching the
surface.
Roger: We we are just scratching the surface. I actually wanted to add to the conversation by
Giving a counterpoint. Because it's a yes and
you can you can say look this is fantastic we have somebody who cares enough
about the podcast if he feels connected enough with the podcast to give us this
feedback. Which is very much appreciated. There is there is an issue in a way
because and I am going to draw the analogy I did refer to it because there is
this petition among fans of Game of Thrones to actually refilm the entire last
season. I think this is complete nonsense, and it actually winds me up and
makes me very angry. And, the reason is, as a creative you create something,
and you put your heart, and soul into something, and therefore if somebody
doesn't like a piece of creative work well then should you take that criticism
on board? Should critics of film critics art critics literary critics, should
they be given any heat whatsoever because quite frankly all they are, are
hating on books and films and artworks. So, there there comes a point where…
and you as the creative should you pay any attention to them? Because if you
were going to stop paying attention to what the critics say about your work,
well then you might as well give up because you will never going to be able to
express yourself in the way this is going to satisfy everybody. May not even be
able to be in a way that will satisfy the minority. It may not be in a way that
will satisfy anybody.
Paul: Let me amplify your point. Let's assume, well not assume we know
that the final season
of Game of Thrones I haven't seen a person say it's good
yet on the few places I’ve
seen commentary. So…
Roger: I will defend it
but let not go down that road.
Paul: Yeah, yeah you may be only you may be a
outlier or something like that. However
however, how many of the Star Wars Trilogies were
criticized? Not trilogy. Seven or
eight?
Roger: How many, is that
all?
Paul: Lucas was absolute… Many films…, I think of
Water World, which I think was Kevin
Costner?
Roger: Yes.
Paul: A number of films that were slated when they
came out, ten years later classics utter
classics! Greatest film this director ever made! I'm not
make a stand on any particular
film but public sentiment about something operates I
think also unfortunately as
lemming’s. And, some people say it's dreadful and other
people want to be on the right
side so they also say it's dreadful. Now, I have no
opinion about it but however the point
is back to your original point is, it shows how important
Game of Thrones is as a whole is
how much Game of Thrones has succeeded that they could
piss so many people off by
the way they do in the last episode. Because every person
has their own idea because it
isn’t written in a book. There’s no ending of the series
in the book, everyone has their
own imagination of this is what's going to happen. Now ok
there’s sophisticated critics
who say that the script doesn’t matter. That they left a
lot of endings undone. But my
point is really that fashion has to be taken into account
and criticism of artistic work we’ll
say and I do regard Game of Thrones as artistic but any
artistic work. Criticism of the
Walt Whitman's poetry it was victory of the…of the
impressions. You know there is
criticism of the man who did the formaldehyde cow.
Roger: Oh Damien Hirst,
yes.
Paul: Damien Hirst. And I could go on and you
could put… Now look. You said that two
positive things about attracting criticism.
One is that it proves that people care enough
to comment. Secondly it shows you've achieved something
you've achieved a
relationship. Thirdly I think it shows that people have
confidence. Some people are
confident that their criticism will make a difference. In other
words that you wouldn't do
something. If you think for example that there's no point in
criticizing Apple because we
all know that Apple doesn't listen to any criticism. Well Apple is
not going to attract much
criticism. Apple probably dose attract quite a lot of criticism
because people do care
enough and people they do have a relationship. But there’s loads
of organization to
complain about. Often or whatever
they are. So there's a third one you have
confidence that something will happen. But tell
me, you then said that in
Bite-Size you’ve then acknowledge the complaint.
Now a lot of people are used
to getting thank you very much for your comments
about our service and you
know very well that they're not saying thank you
very much for your comments
about our service and all their doing is fabbing
you off.
Roger:
Yes but there is a a second follow up. There is a bit that says look, thank you
acknowledging this, and something is now
happening. This has caused… there’s
been an effect, this has set something in
motion. Because your right yeah people
will say thank you very much for your
interest in our affairs, and then that’s your
being fogged off, and if it goes any
further. Or, they may even say that was
dreadful, very sorry that happened. Well that’s
great but that’s just words. So,
the idea isn’t communicate thank you very much
very sorry this happen, and
we’re going to follow up on this, and we’re
going to follow up you. So things then
start very quickly things are set into motion.
Paul:
To offer you a counterpoint to your counter point if you like. Let
me follow
through the idea that sometimes people don't
complain because they think it isn't
worthwhile. Now you said something that
really surprised me, that the Bite-Sized
have attracted in the three years you've
been working for them two expressions
of criticism, two.
Roger:
That I I through social media that I'm aware of.
Paul:
Yes. Two right? And I don’t know many people have engaged
with engage with
The social media rather a lot in three years?
Otherwise the company wouldn’t be
hiring you to do anything for it. So, lets assume
that… so there is theory which
would say that one Bit-Size have no experience,
almost no experience with
dealing with complaints. Sounds very impressive
what their doing. However,
what Bite-Size don’t know is there are a huge
volumes of complaints out there!
People are saying that their John Tarts were
stale, their their cream has gone off.
Roger:
There are private meetings in back rooms and pubs full of criticism of
Bite-Size.
Paul:
And their all saying on, what’s it called? Blog.ie or
Boards.ie.
Roger:
Or their all probably on Tor Network… internet on the private forum
criticizing
Bite-Size.
Paul:
Yes exactly. So, we do need to go to Bite-Size. The listener
will be saying to
Themselves to check out whose whether Paul’s
theory has anything to go to. So,
there will be a flood of people going to
Bite-Size in
order to see whether there is
something to complain about at Bite-Size,
and this episode is not sponsored by
Bite-Size.
Roger: Yeah. I like I like that idea of saying to people come
to Bite-Size buy our coffee,
buy a candy treat, and let us know what you
think. Because your just generating
business for Bite-Size. Which is not
sponsoring this episode as Paul said.
Paul:
One of the one of the other things in relation to customer service
that really does
Matter in relation to complaints is, that
number one the more complaints you
attract the better. Secondly that it isn't
the complaint, it's how you respond to the
complaint which determines long-term
customer loyalty. This would be something
that I doubt any of our listeners would
doubt. It’s been said innumerable times
nothing new about it. It's how you recover.
Let me tell you a story. Years ago I
was responsible for customer service
training in the bus part of London transport,
and I was responsible for I let a project to
train managers on how to manage
customer service. And at the time London
transport which went London transport
buses which went from being kind of
nationalized industries almost like a branch
of the civil service or the military rolled
together into one. Was doing something
very initiative. Something that was breaking
the mold or something and never
done before. It was running coach services to
the seaside at the weekend. It was
dipping its toes into providing a coach service
in a market that was totally
dominated by National Express. The key thing
was that none of the managers
had much experience running coach services
before, none of the drivers had
much experience. People like to be provided
with training. Now I remember
coming up with a bizarre idea which failed to
get any support. Based around the
idea that it's how you recovered that matter. I
suggested to a number of people
that at the start of the next season we should
deliberately cause the first coach to
break down on the motorway. We should
deliberately cause this what should
then happen, oh this can happen we all know it
has happened, but there should
be a deliberately manufactured breakdown. The
driver would get on the radio
and report that the coach wasn't safe to be
driven any further. There would be a
replacement coach there within 10 minutes. All
of the customers would be given
some form of competent balloons for the kids,
buckets whatever you like but
memorable compensation for the inconvenience of
breaking down, and the
coach would travel on and to be no more
problems whatsoever.
Roger:
You devious man.
Paul:
And this would cause a lot of people to have had a complaint,
bloody hell,
We’re not going with these people anymore. And
suddenly, oh my goodness,
They would tell everybody
might even get in the local newspaper, the whole thing.
Roger:
This is the kind of thing, there’s a BBC radio sitcom with Stephen Fry and
he he’s one partner in a PR company, and this
is exactly the kind of
Deviousness that they would come up with on
intently having having a
coach load people break down. Just of course
and around the corner
there’s already this the coach on standby. It’s
not like this happen and the
nearest coach is two hour away, no, it’s ten
minutes around the corner. In
fact they passed it in a lay by two mile two
miles back. So it doesn’t… I do
wonder about as a marketing exercise it’s top
notch. As a genuine
experience for people, I wonder because of
course everything is planned.
It’s not like somebody has said, “bloody hell
we better find some balloons
for these children or we better lay on some
food, and now we need to find
a coach, and the nearest
coach is the we ho owner is two hours away.
Can we rent one nearby?” None of that. So it's
a little bit fabricated. I
curious, did somebody say Paul O’Mahony that’s
a genius idea let's do it?
Paul:
No. Nobody said that.
Roger: Did anybody say,”Paul O’Mahony you
devious you devious man please
leave our employ?
Paul:
Yes, it was being regarded as Paul being completely fanciful. Let
me tell
me about Richard Branson a story that you told
on Business Jazz a long
time ago.
Roger:
I was going to avoid that story.
Paul:
Well, I want to tell you why I want to bring it in? Which it is
that and I’m
going to cut it down to size. A lady who is a
wheelchair user had her
wheelchair badly damaged. She went home…
Roger: Badly damaged on a Virgin Airways
flight.
Paul: Yeah
yeah yes sorry I should say on Virgin Airways flight. She went home
And
Brand
Deliberately
would be phoning
small stock of state-of-
worked brilliantly. The ad
got a high performance
award
personally in a dream
last week.
company O’Mahony and Co.?
I did very
are drawing to the end of
this episode of
feedback, a one-star
rating, as an amplifier
saw this done once on a
web site, and it was a
And I think they had six
seven hundred star
Paul:
Tot class?
Roger:
No, All from one to five. So there were six hundred ratings in total.
Paul:
Total ratings yeah.
Roger:
And, you could select which ones you wanted to see.
Paul:
Yes.
Roger:
So of course the…
Paul:
You can still do that on Amazon.
Roger:
You can still do that, ok. This this this company said here are all the reviews
we’ve had, and we’ve asked all the
people that work with us to give us a star
rating from one to five. And their
all available on the web site, and you can
search them, and you can categorize
them. Of course the temptation is well lets
look at the one star reviews. Not to
say seven hundred there might be twenty.
Which when you work it on a
percentage is a not that many. But also here’s the
thing that does it means that, hold
on, if the one star ratings are there, and lets
for sake of augment assume that it’s
not O’Mahony and Co. PR company that’s
creating the negative statements.
Then the five star ratings of which there
overwhelming majority the
overwhelming majority are fire star ratings, they then
must also be authentic, and real.
And that’s what I mean you have to
this instant a company says yeah
here are here our 1-star ratings. Here are the
people who criticize us for what we
did for them, and here are the people who
love what we did, and you access to
both, and I just found it a very powerful way
of amplifying the five star rating.
Paul:
Would you be willing to do this on your LinkedIn profile?
Roger:
That’s an interesting point. Invite people to say…
Paul: Would… well you might have already some
commendations on your a LinkedIn
profile? Saying, “Rodger Overall superb to
work with, top-class output, fabulous
productivity, everybody loved working with
him, highly recommended. Everybody
of course says naw written by Paul
O’Mahony.
Roger:
Yes.
Paul:
So Roger puts on his LinkedIn profile, dreadful man to work with,
failed to deliver
on-time, overcharged, avoid him like the plague.
Would you be courageous
enough to do that?
Roger:
To if somebody wrote it to leave it on there you mean?
Paul:
Yes!
Roger:
Oh oh I actually personally, because of the way I view that sort of criticism,
absolutely. Now that’s because I have a
particular quirk when it comes to…
Paul:
Well I’m rushing to your LinkedIn profile to look for the number of
comments like
that. That are in there as commendations.
Listeners, we got to be accountable
here. We do not make remarks likely. We urge
you to go to Rodger Overalls
LinkedIn profile. By the way don't look
online mine for any negative comments.
I’ve paid all the people who put comments on
my LinkedIn.
Roger:
Paul, where can people where can people part from LinkedIn, where can people
find out about you?
Paul:
Well you can go to the Show & Tell website. If you go to the
“About Us Page,”
and you will see my photograph, and a blur
put you wrote about me, and that will
tell you how to get in touch with me.
Alternative, you can phone me up 087-
20911-9082 in Cork.
Roger:
Thank you very much for listening. If you’ll do us a favor would be awfully
grateful, could you tell one person about
this podcast, and suggested they they
listen. That would be great. Probably best
not if their Game of Thrones fan.
Thank you very much for listening, and join
us again next week for the season
finale we think?
Paul:
Yes. The last show in season seven.
Roger:
Season seven. Will it live up to expectations or will it be roundly criticized?
Paul:
Oh, one last thing a P.S.. Perhaps we
should leave a little space?
Roger:
See now what your doing, what your doing now is you doing the Marvel
Universe we’ve had the credits, we’ve had
the end of the film, and now in middle
half way through the credits we’re going to
have another bit. We are going have
than have an end bit? Anyway, go on. Sorry.
Paul:
The person who was nameless at the
start of the show is a man called
Richard Roberts and he lives in New York
State.
Roger:
Are you saying this so that your encouraging our other fan who did enjoy the
show to now to go to New York State with
pitchforks? And...
Paul:
No. I'm encouraging them to go to FiremanRich‘s Twitter output, and
to read
what he wrote about Business Jazz, and
listen to and I haven't listened to it yet.
Some comments he's made because he put up a
second link today.
Roger:
Oh and this is this is in the public space?
Paul:
Oh, it’s all public! It’s all public!
Roger:
Oh that’s that’s that’s that’s fine.
Paul:
Oh this was none of this was private. Right Roger, we better say
goodbye to our listeners.
Thank you very much.
Roger:
Well it’s good-by for… Good-by for me, good-by for Paul and Louis is asleep.
[ End
Of Podcast ]
You can listen to more of the Business Jazz podcast with
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