Five Tips for Presenting a Webinar

I recently had the opportunity to present a webinar on Customer Journey Mapping.  I was excited to take presentation content I had used in a past conference and present to a group via Go ToMeeting.

The webinar was co-hosted by Mike Cleary of Red Wing Shoes, so in preparation he and I connected in person a few times ahead of time to practice.  Like with any presentation, I cannot stress the value of dry runs through content to watch time and focus on transitioning between topics.  I practiced alone in my office, forced a few friends to listen to me, and practiced with Mike both in person and via call.

I have experience presenting in person to groups of varying size, as well as experience moderating meetings that include remote participants, so I thought the webinar would be very similar.  However, while presenting and in receiving feedback from participants following the webinar, there were a few a-ha take-aways I have for webinars:

1. Give yourself ample time to set up and work through glitches.  There are a number of things to hammer out ahead of time, and you want to make sure you are ready to start promptly at the designated time.  I hooked up to the Go ToMeeting the day before, then again 30 minutes before go-time.  This gave me the chance to test connectivity, sound quality, and work through the Go ToMeeting interface.
2. Invite coworkers or friends to attend in person.  Presenting to an empty room was challenging.  Inviting a co-worker to sit in gave me an audience I could see, and some ability to gauge reactions.  My co-worker also could provide me some queues real-time to do things like slow down or speak up. I had my co-worker also monitor the Go ToMeeting for questions so I could focus on the presentation.
3. Stand and smile as you are presenting.  A friend of mine provided me this advice, noting that your energy level changes when you are standing and you can hear a smile. 
4. Involve your audience.  In any presentation, and especially when your audience is remote, draw the audience in with leading questions at the beginning and throughout your presentation.  In a webinar, you can use survey tools to get immediate feedback from the audience.  Creating a feeling of dialog instead of monolog helps the audience remain engaged.  This is a tip I would incorporate more of in my next webinar.
5. Ensure nothing interferes with your presentation. When including things on-screen, such as a survey, be sure you are not overlapping your presentation unexpectedly.  I accidentally covered up email addresses on a slide with my survey, unintentionally confusing my audience by inviting their feedback with no visible avenue in which to respond.

All in all, I found the most challenging aspect of the webinar format to be the lack of visual and verbal feedback from my audience.  Understand that during a webinar, you are competing with email, the web, and many other distractors.  Without the eyes of your audience, it is hard to gauge engagement. The tips above helped alleviate some of that challenge for me. 

A webinar can be a powerful tool when done right, and the opportunity for content reuse in the form of a download makes the investment worthwhile.  However, if you do not engage your audience you could end up talking to an empty virtual room without realizing it.

Do you have any tips to add to the above?

Social Networking: Nothing Personal, It's Just Business?

I have been an active user of a few of the social networking sites for many years, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.  I use Facebook for personal purposes, and I use LinkedIn for professional purposes.  In my mind, each is clearly suited to be used in that way.  Facebook is where I post all of the pictures of my kids and post random thoughts for my friends.  LinkedIn is where I keep my professional profile and post updates on upcoming speaking engagements. 

 

I have been less enthusiastic on using some of the other social networking sites, such as Twitter.  Twitter is widely used by my teenaged-daughters for personal updates, but most of my peers who use Twitter post things that include personal updates and work-related updates.  I set up a Twitter account many years ago, and have been trying to increase my activity on that platform, but focus mostly on my professional activity and interests in my tweets.

 

As my passion around the topic of the intersection of customer experience and technology has exploded over the past couple of years, I have been taking advantage of social networking as a means to learn and connect with other professionals who share my interest as well as a way to better familiarize myself with the strengths and weaknesses of the different social sites on behalf of recommendations I may make to my customers.  To this end I have been working in research mode.  I have been primarily a consumer of information. 

 

This year, I decided I should contribute more.  To keep myself on my toes around the topic of customer experience, I committed to find one image per day for a year to illustrate best practices in customer experience.  I ran the idea past Kris Nyreen, our Director of Marketing, to get his input.  He suggested I post my updates to Pinterest. 

 

Pinterest?  I have had a Pinterest account for about a year.  I started using Pinterest as I was redecorating my home.  I have a board with ideas on how to hang frames, samples of living spaces I love, and general decorating pictures.  I quickly added a board about cooking.  The recipes on Pinterest are endless, with pictures that make my stomach growl.  My initial assessment of Pinterest is that it is primarily used for personal sharing of home-related or fashion-related topics. 

 

I opened up Pinterest and did a search on customer experience.  Wow!  There is a lot of good information out there.  Additionally, based on my facebook friends who are active Pinterest users, there are men and businesses using Pinterest.  As an experiment, this is where I created my new board: 365 Days of Customer Experience.  More to come as I learn in the ins and outs of the different social sites.

 

With my decision to post customer experience-related pictures to Pinterest, the lines between my personal and professional life on the social networking sites is blurring.  As I thought about this more, I realized that the lines have always been a little blurred.  A good portion of my professional image, as I post to blogs, tweet, and pin on Pinterest, is intertwined with who I am.  I don't just re-post others' ideas, I share my own.  It also seems like the more of myself I inject into my activity, the more engaged and connected I become with others.  And the more personal others are in their posting, the more interested I am in continuing to follow them.

 

So I am finding that for me social networking as a whole IS personal, not just business.  Maybe that is what I am enjoying about the experience.  I LIKE connecting with real people.  Although I will refrain from posting updates about my morning run or the cute thing my daughter said to me on LinkedIn.  Maybe.

Do You Get Treated Like a Rock Star?

The Hard Rock Hotel says they treat their guests like rock stars.  That is their mantra.  And deep down, who doesn't want to be treated like a rock star?  I know I do.  Just leave the chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne outside my office door…

 

I just returned from a vacation in Mexico.  I stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel.  I have stayed at a Hard Rock Hotel before and had high expectations - not too far from strawberries, champagne, and somebody waving a fan over me while I stretch out on a couch.  While I was at the hotel, there were times when I felt like Lady Gaga…or maybe Madonna.  I might be a little old to pull off Gaga.  However, there were other times when I felt more like Liz Phair.  You know, brilliant but overlooked.  Underappreciated.

The employees at the Hard Rock were fabulous.  They were well trained in making their guests feel important and appreciated.  They pandered to my needs.  They recognized my inner Madonna.

There were some Liz Phair interactions, too.  For example, when I checked into the hotel, as I waited in line I was handed a complimentary beverage (Madonna).  When I got to the counter, nobody recognized me as a repeat Hard Rock visitor (Liz Phair).  I am a rock star, and I wasn't recognized?  Just think how Madonna-like I would have felt if the concierge would have said "Welcome back to the Hard Rock!  We are glad you decided to join us again, Mrs. Vogt."

When my husband and I got up to our rooms, and saw that instead of a king-sized bed, we had two twins (Liz Phair).  We called down to the front desk, and they didn’t know who I was.  They put me on hold, and transferred me.  The phone rang, unanswered for two minutes before my rock star impatience forced me to hang up.  I tried again with the same results, and had to go down to the lobby to get help (Liz Phair). 

How I would have loved to have received confirmation ahead of my check in that I was in a room with twin beds.  I would have liked it if when I called down, the person would have greeted me by name.  And I would have appreciated it if somebody would have answered the phone when it was ringing.  When I called the second time, it would have been fabulous if I were greeted by somebody who would have known I had just called down a few seconds ago so they could have reassured me that my rock-star needs would be promptly attended to  along with apologies for my prior treatment. 

The Hard Rock Hotel in Cancun is an all-inclusive.  As I was wearing a wrist band the entire visit to assure staff I wasn't a squatter, how cool would it be if I had not needed to also carry along a room key with me everywhere?  Rock stars can't be expected to keep track of trinkets like room keys.  When I had to go to the front desk to get admitted to my room after I locked my key inside the room, not only was I inconvenienced but I was taking an employee's time - maybe away from answering the phone for the other hotel rock stars who were trying to call down for help - to let me back into my room. 

Employees of the Hard Rock Hotel waved good-bye to me as I drove away.  So far, that has been the end of my rock star treatment.  I have great ideas about things the Hard Rock Hotel could tweak to move their service from good to extraordinary.  Nobody from the Hard Rock has asked me how things went, or sought my input.  The Hard Rock will not benefit from my willingness to share feedback that could help them anticipate their next customer's needs and desires.

I wonder what the customer journey map would look like for the Hard Rock.  The value of the customer journey map is in visually presenting the complex weave of customer interactions in a consumable manner so your organization can ensure consistent, and consistently positive, customer experiences regardless of the avenue the customer chooses to interact with you.  To drive what "positive" means, look to your brand and ensure you are living it with every customer interaction.  It is also critical to realize that missed interaction opportunities with your customer are interactions your customer is having without you.  The Hard Rock Hotel interacted with me in many different ways.  They missed opportunities to build their relationship with me prior to my stay, build on previous stays, and continue nurturing our relationship after my visit. 

With the Hard Rock Hotel customer journey, they have the people part of building relationships in aces.  There are some definite opportunities for technology to improve the journey, however.  When you think of a hotel stay, technology probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind in making your stay a good one.  You probably think of feather beds, room service, roomy showers, and attentive staff.  However, coming from IT, I see opportunities everywhere I look where technology can work behind the scenes to upgrade average experiences to rock star level.  Technology could have equipped the well-trained Hard Rock staff with the information they needed to provide me more Madonna moments.  I am also sure technology exists that could combine the bracelet and room key into one thing.  Madonna would have loved that. 

My point isn't that the Hard Rock is a bad place to stay.  Overall, they were very good.  However, the Hard Rock made a big statement when they told me they would treat me like a rock star.  If they had delivered throughout my journey without fail, or recovered well when they had a hiccup, I would have become a loyal Hard Rock patron.  I would certainly return, but I wouldn’t seek out a Hard Rock over another hotel chain.  The Hard Rock also didn’t provide me with an experience that I will rave about to other sun-starved Minnesotans who may want to visit the Cancun area.

Top 10 Take-Aways From CXPA Members Insight Exchange Event

I am home from San Diego, and the withdrawal is complete. I am determined to make the awesome CXPA event I attended last week go further than getting me pumped up about CX only for a few days before I settle back into the daily grind.  As I review my notes for sharing with my partners at the office, I thought it might be fun to assemble a top 10 list to summarize the event.

Please don't expect anything close to David Letterman's humor from me, but what better way to pull so many disparate ideas together into one post?

10. I am not alone! There are lots of super cool people from all different backgrounds forging the path for the CX professional.And many people have been at this for years.
9. People with a CX focus are outgoing, friendly, and welcoming. No offense IT conferences - but this was a whole new experience for me attending an event where most people were socializing, and enjoying it.
8. Building an ROI case for CX is no different than building an ROI case for any other business initiative. There is no magic bullet, but the same basic templates apply. And the ROI should be a supporting backdrop to the obvious return conveyed by the business problem description. Everybody has to rely on plenty of assumptions, so the key is ensuring the assumptions are documented and reasonable.
7. The CXPA vibe feel entrepreneurial to me. I love working with entrepreneurs. This is a new, and growing organization with goals to help establish a budding profession.
6. The best CX companies get that their culture, driven from the executive level, sets the stage for delivering a superior CX AND employee experience.
5. The excitement around a company who really gets CX is contagious regardless of the company's product. Fabulous CX fills a gap in what can otherwise be a disconnected business world. With the reliance on social media, texting, mobile devices, websites, and IVR instead of face to face relationships between the customer and the organization, companies that get how to establish and maintain that connection are exciting, sometimes in spite of the product they deliver. Great examples from the conference include 1-800-Got-Junk, Umbqua Bank, Signature Healthcare, and USAA. Hire leadership based on their commitment to the culture, and remove leadership immediately who do not live and breath your culture.
4. VOE - the Voice of the Employee is an invaluable tool. Don't forget to talk to your employees (front-line, not just leadership) to gain their insights on what your customers need and want. Empower and expect them to deliver it.
3. Like 1-800-Got-Junk does, motivate your company be rewarding all employees based on NPS (Net Promoter Score) rather than revenue.
2. NPS - I feel there is a huge opportunity to make this measurement more meaningful. When you only hear back from 10% of your customer base as a benchmark, how can you make the best decisions about the whole of your customer base. I understand why the benchmark is what it is, but I think it is time to make it better.
1. The role of IT - as I spent time in the sessions and in networking, it was more and more clear to me what a unique animal I was at the conference.I come from IT. Few others at the conference did - they mostly came from marketing. IT has an opportunity to help organizations use technology to make CX innovative and a differentiator. IT leaders need to ensure their focus is on the CX rather than holding up the old adage of IT as a cost center.

As soon as I finished the above list, a bunch more items popped into my head.  I really enjoyed the conference, and highly recommend it for the next time around for those who are passionate about CX.

CXPA Members Insight Exchange Event

I am en route to the CXPA Members Insight Exchange Event.  I have been looking forward to this for a while.  Side note - in flight wifi is a great example of anticipating my needs as a business flyer.  However, charging for checked bags then not having space for the allotted carry-on luggage is an example of a customer interaction I would give a red to in overall health.

I may end up being a track-jumper at the conference.  I am particulary interesting in getting more insights to how to caluclate the ROI.  While I feel it makes perfect sense that delighted customers will remain loyal, result in a lower cost of sales, and spend more money with your organization than dissatisfied, or merely satisfied customer will, I am very interested in how people are calculating and measuring this.  Just as with streamlining processes, there are so many soft returns and measures you cannot unequivocally tie back to the customer experience initiatives.



How do you estimate ROI, and how do you prove after the fact that your estimates were valid?


I am also interested in learning how others are leveraging the power of social media to make marked improvement in learning from, reacting to, and proactively improving the customer experience through word-of-mouth.


I will keep you posted.

Engage Your Customer...

I liked this post title - and wholeheartedly agree.

Are You Obsessive About Customer Experience

I was reading a great post by Megan Burns about obsessing over the customer experience.  In reading the blog posting, I questioned how much my organization obsesses about the customer experience.  We strive for customer satisfaction, but do we obsess?

As I shared the blog post with others on my team, I quickly realized that if I focused too much on whether my company is obsessing, I lose the opportunity to be obsessive myself.  I changed the thought process in my mind from is my organization obsessing about our customer experience to am *I* obsessing about our customer experience.  The change in thinking helped me move outside of thinking of customer experience as a large universe over which I have no control to a realm I can impact.

So for today, I WILL obsess about customer experience.  If everybody else in my company did the same thing, then the answer we be YES my company does obsess about customer experience.

Now I have to put it into action...