I’ve often thought that if employees at a company replaced their own name with the name of the company where they currently worked, the employee would treat customers in a totally different way (more better even ;). I think that’s especially important in the increasing virtual business world we all work within, where we buy things from telephone operators, not from stores.

The following story I’ll share now took place today. It involved me and Sage, a software provider who makes the contact management software ACT!

This story is for exposition purposes only, offering my first hand account as a long time ACT! customer (including many upgraded versions and even securing corporate licenses for some of my marketing clients). It’s not written in anger or with a desire for vindication but it’s certainly meant as an example of how easy it is to sabotage a customer relationship if it’s not “your” name on the door.

I have a Treo 650 phone on which I often run my business (voiceover is a very mobile profession…always has been). When I bought the phone, I made a separate decision to also upgrade my contact management system so I bought ACT! 2006.

The purchase of ACT! 2006 was a disappointment in that to get questions about the software answered after 14 days, I’d have to buy a service agreement. I did because it is not easy software to use even having used past versions. After I got my some of my initial questions answered, I never used that service again. I wanted to manage my business, not my software. Oh well, live and learn, right?

At the time of the ACT! 2006 purchase I did not buy the ACT for Palm OS (might not have even been available at the time, come to think about it) which is software that would much of the functionality look and feel of the ACT! 2006 to be integrated on to my Treo 650. As you can imagine, that would be a great convenience.

When I had a Palm Pilot (another hand held contact management device, sans phone and internet like the Treo 650 has now) I had used a similar ACT for Palm software and I liked it very much. So I decided today that I was ready to buy the new ACT for Palm OS.

There was a catch though. My Treo 650 is almost three years old and I may be upgrading that phone to a Treo 700 or 750. I needed to make sure this version of ACT for Palm OS software would work in a newer Treo phones…I did not want to buy another version of ACT for Palm OS software if I did buy a new phone.

Buying Experience #1
So with that in mind, I called ACT! The first sales representative to whom I explained all this advised me of two things very clearly:

1. The current version of ACT for Palm OS would work on my current phone and the newer Treo versions
2. I had already purchased ACT for Palm OS.

Number two was quite a surprise to me I told her and she sent me over to customer service so that I could find out where my ACT for Palm OS software went…it certainly didn’t arrive in my mail.

Buying Experience #2
Customer service said she didn’t know what the other operator was talking about as no such purchase appeared on my record. She sent me back to sales so that I could buy ACT! for Palm OS software. The wait on hold was longer than with the first call to the sales department but eventually I had…

Buying Experience #3
This sales representative confirmed that:

1. I hadn’t purchased ACT! for Palm OS software
2. This current version of ACT! for Palm OS software would NOT work in the newer versions of the Treo phones

He further added that ACT! would be coming out with an upgraded version of the ACT! for Palm OS software that WOULD work in the newer Treo phones in the next four months.

I appreciated that update and asked if I did purchase the ACT! for Palm OS software today, would I be given the free upgrade to the version for newer Treos since I didn’t want to spend twice for basically the same software with minor tweaks for the newer Treos. He said he understood that logic and needed to check on that with “a manager”.

He came back on the line having spoken to his manager to advise me that he really wasn’t sure when the newer version would come out, he said he had only heard that “four month” time frame and nothing official had come out from ACT! so no, I would not be getting the free upgrade.

Big yellow flag for me!

Not having had such a great experience to this point on this call and because my original ACT! 2006 software purchase (and service agreement fiasco) came flooding back to me, I did not buy.

I don’t know if I should ever buy from them. I was a disciple of their software for years…Goldmine or Outlook or anything else couldn’t match ACT! Now I don’t think I could in good conscience direct someone to ACT! based on my most recent experiences.

I’ll leave it to you to tell me whether I am wise to avoid this company in the future, if I am over reacting or if this is just the way business is headed and I am expect too much regarding good service anymore. Right now, I think ACT! blew it with me.

Tags: commentary, marketing, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

Traveling along the internet super highway (which sounds more impressive than what I was really doing, which was scanning my Google Reader for updates) I came across this certainly less than scientific way to judge one’s internet brand presence.
I started with my main web brand: Peter O’Connell.

My score? A perfect 10 for 10. I figured I’d best stop while I was winning.

What’s your score? Enjoy.

Tags: commentary, google, internet, marketing, media, silliness, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

A great product or service alone does not ensure a financial windfall. There’s this little issue of selling.

Notice I didn’t say marketing…I mean selling, where the rubber meets the road.

Apple’s iPhone now appears to have achieved sales success. My theory has usually been when you sell out and also get a bunch of press about what doesn’t work on the product (cause people love to tear about a success, it makes them feel better about their lack of success) then you’ve probably developed a winner.

While the technology was pretty terrific, I think much credit goes to Steve Jobs’ masterful iPhone presentation at Mac World in early 2007 that enthralled the audience and the web (oh, yes, the presentation has been viewed a few thousand times).

If you are in sales and make presentations to clients, you should watch the whole Jobs iPhone presentation here.

Then you should review communications coach Carmine Gallo’s review of the Jobs’ speech in Business Week to learn how you can apply the principles of the Jobs’ i-Phone presentation to your presentations

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, technology, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

From the people that brought you the simply brilliant (and I use those two words specifically) “RSS” in Plain English” (which many of my IT friends are now sharing with their customers by way of easy explanation) and Wikis too comes a terrific new video from the CommonCraft folks on Social Networking web sites.

My thanks to my fellow social networker, marketer and professional speaker Mitch Joel for featuring this video on his Twist Image blog (to which I subscribe via RSS, by the way and you should too).

If you liked to join my network in Linked In, click here.

Tags: blogs, commentary, internet, marketing, media, technology, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

Are you like me…do you hate when you open up a magazine to have 25 subscription postcards drop out? Or even worse when they DON”T fall out and make turning or staying on a page more difficult? It’s most annoying, I find, in magazine to which I already subscribe!

Well, blogs are different. While I’ve written about blog readers in the past, I’ve been wanting to improve and make easier the blog subscription process (so that when audio’connell’s voiceover blog on! has a new post, you’ll be notified you’ll see it in your reader or feed service and can read it when you like…really simple). RSS (Really Simple Syndication) can be secured through a variety of services…maybe “a ton of services” would better describe it. Being a good marketer, I want to be all things to all people so I needed to try and find a service or a plug in (if you don’t know, don’t ask) or something that would allow me to provide this great subscription service. “We write, you read!” I call “trademark” on that phrase!

Well anyway I have two options: first, a service called addthis.com and another service called Social Bookmarks plugin. Both pretty much do the same thing: allow people to subscribe or bookmark using their preferred service (which, as I mention, include a whole lot of choices).

The next question is: if they both pretty much do the same thing, which one do I choose to feature on the blog? Add This is featured under the “rss feeds” header in the upper left hand column of this page. And at the bottom of each post right now are the icons featured in the social book marketing plug in.

My first thought was having both would be subscription over kill (akin to the 25 subscription postcards falling from a magazine). But I now think it should be up to the consumers to decide (btw, if you’re reading this, YOU are the consumer….just wanted to clear that up). I do not expect a flood of voting but I do welcome your opinions.

And if your reading this sometime long after I’ve posted it and you can’t find one or the other of what I’ve just written about…you’ll either know how the vote turned out or that technology has changed again and we’re all subscribing via the computer chips the government has implanted in our ear lobes. Whether it’s the right ear lobe or the left ear lobe will determine the “tribe” you’ll be assigned to….stop freaking out, I made up that chip/ear lobe thing.

Tags: blogs, commentary, internet, marketing, media, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

So I’m checking my Treo today and up flashes as “news bulletin” from All Access, a radio industry e-zine.

“XM SATELLITE RADIO has suspended OPIE AND ANTHONY for 30 days, effective immediately. The suspension follows the airing of the “HOMELESS CHARLIE” rant about Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE last week for which XM and O&A apologized”. That “rant” included a guest musing about raping Secretary of State Rice, First Lady Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth, according to the New York Daily News. I did not hear the broadcast.

It went on to note that the suspension was a result of recent statements that O&A made on air that “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the (“HOMELESS CHARLIE” broadcast) matter.”

Yes, this IS satellite radio that these former terrestrial radio shock jocks got suspended from…the very “panacea” that was to be the safe haven of “naughty” former terrestrial radio shock jocks everywhere. I’ll leave it to the more suspicious of you out there to determine if this firing had more to do with the mix of politics and business (i.e. the pending merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio which would need governmental approval the FCC commissioner had previous to this incident indicated he is loathe to offer) rather than anything resembling broadcast standards.

Back track a few days earlier when WFNY/New York (former radio home of Howard Stern and terrestrial home of O&A) fired on-air hosts Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay of “The Dog House with JV and Elvis” show. Their bit involved calling Chinese restaurants and making obnoxious and insulting statements. I did not hear the broadcast.

Comedian Donnell Rawlings was fired from New York’s Power 105.1 FM last week for making an anti-Semitic remark on air. I did not hear the broadcast.

And then you remember the whole Imus thing.

So with all these disc jockeys fired or suspended, when do we get to fire the audience?

Yes, the audience.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if a radio station General Manager thought he or she could make their company money by broadcasting knitting and crocheting 24/7, you’d be listening to “Yarn 105.3” right now!

But people are listening to what I consider crap radio. Lots of people. And advertisers are spending money to have their products and services featured on these shows. Lots of money.

So since these listeners have made a choice that they are free to make and these advertisers have made a business decision that they are free to make, why are we blaming the disc jockeys?

Sure what they are saying is vile and crude and abhorrent to most of the citizens of the free world. Their humor is at best sophomoric most of the time. The problem is there is an audience…a big one…for these types of broadcasts.

Who is taking THEM to task?

It is the audience who is the truly guilty party in these matters. it certainly isn’t only about the broadcasters and the stations. In fact, I don’t think it’s even mostly about them.

I’m not sure if the audiences for these crap radio shows are getting what they want or getting what they deserve. I’m just glad there’s still an “off” switch and that I know where it is.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, radio, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »