Chicas Emprendedoras

09.09.2010
¡Hola, mi estimada Chica Emprendedora! Sí, sí, soy yo, la misma Editora Discutible de siempre. Si bien hemos estado en contacto a través de Red Ideas Discutibles, Twitter y sobre todo vía la Página en Facebook, me ENCANTA encontrarla en este espacio. ¡Qué placer volver a comunicarme con usted a través de este blog! Me [...]

Tristam\'s Blog at e-consutlancy

01.07.2010
AT&T has a lucrative exclusive for the iPhone in the United States. But that has proven to be a double-edged sword. While the iPhone has helped AT&T acquire lots and lots of customers, it has also strained the company's network. Regardless of whether or not that's entirely AT&T's fault, network issues have led to a significant number of unhappy customers.Improving its image is a top priority for the company. But how should it go about that?As detailed by AdAge, AT&T is hoping that it can turn more frowns upside down using social media: ...AT&T is turning to social media for customer care after first using the medium for public relations and marketing. "We started using social media as a PR tool," said Susan Bean, who leads an eight-person social-media strategy and execution team within AT&T corporate communications. "With marketing, we discovered that for social media to be successful we really needed there to be customer care. Otherwise all anyone would want to talk about is: 'solve my problem.'" Not surprisingly, AT&T's efforts focus on Facebook and Twitter. But there are a few problems: Twitter and Facebook aren't always ideal channels for customer service delivery. Looking at just a handful of tweets like this, it's not too difficult to see that Twitter is a fairly clunky tool for the delivery of customer service, especially in instances where a customer needs immediate help of a technical nature. Customer service isn't a silo. Can social media be a worthwhile part of a customer service strategy? Sure. But good customer service requires excellence across all channels -- not just one. While AT&T does deserve credit for monitoring tweets and following up when appropriate, these two recent tweets demonstrate that AT&T's overall customer service has a long way to go. Bottom line: if you're messing up in some channels and using another (like Twitter) as a stop-gap measure, something is wrong because there are obviously consumers who aren't on social media sites who are falling through the cracks. AT&T really isn't using social media for customer care. Problems relating to customers' biggest beef -- that the AT&T network is lacking -- are not addressable by the company's social media team. All the social media team can do is console customers and try to convince them that AT&T feels their pain. That's far closer to PR than it is to customer care. The latter point is perhaps the most important. It's easy for AT&T (and other companies) to label their activities on social media sites "customer care", but a lot of the time it's a not-so-subtle effort at PR. The reactions to AT&T's social media push highlight the fact that a good number of people perceive it as such.Obviously, when it comes to AT&T's greatest Achilles heel (network problems), there's nothing its social media team can do to make things better. But even when it comes to cases where the company is finding individuals who are complaining about their customer care experience in other channels, AT&T's efforts to publicly address them have more of a PR effect than anything else. After all, you can use Twitter to ensure that a customer who didn't receive a call back gets helped, but unless you're addressing the real problem (the fact that a customer wasn't called back), you're really only pretending to be providing customer care. What you're really doing is providing damage control with a smile.If AT&T is to improve the way customers feel about its brand, it needs to improve its product. And when it comes to the company's efforts on Facebook and Twitter, it needs to recognize that emphasizing your use of social media instead of delivering customer service effectively across all channels is little more than a fruitless PR campaign. Photo credit: cameronparkins via Flickr.

Translation Blog

30.06.2010
Here are some of the top language-related stories from the last month: 1. The recently elected president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, sports an animal last name. Could the warm and fuzzy appeal of her name have helped her to get elected? 2. As part of the state’s new comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona now requires that any teacher instructing students in the English language speak without a heavy accent. 3. Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking ponders what sort of language humans would require to communicate effectively with extraterrestrials should they one day make contact with our planet. 4. Bad translations are the order of the day. A recent diplomatic visit to Washington D.C. by Mexican President Felipe Calderón was marred due to lackluster interpretation of his comments by a substitute interpreter. 5. The Eurovision Song Contest is perennially plagued with bad English translations, and this year was no exception. 6. Icelandic-English translators can barely keep pace with the flood of financial documents resulting from Iceland’s economic collapse. For more information, visit this article at The World. Related postsWill Slang Be the Ruin of the English Language?Is Being Bilingual Good for Your Brain?How Hispanic Immigrants and Their Families Fare in the U.S.Nearing Election Day, Latino Vote Becomes CriticalSocial Networking in Spanish ExplodesTranspanish.biz Copyright © 2008.

The Business Viking Blog

27.06.2010
I'm determined to provide as many tools, tricks, and strategies on this site as is possible. But if you've been through the site then you realize that I put just as much effort in trying to adjust your attitude. You've probably heard the phrase: "Attitude determines Altitude." And that's exactly what this is about.Don't get too hung up on: I need that system or this tool in order to get me to that next level.Because most of the time - too much emphasis on the tool and no thought about your attitude will yield very little results comparatively. Are all carpenters equal? EVEN if they use the same tools and have the same knowledge? NO. Basketball players - are they all equal? No. What's the difference? Is it the skill? What is skill?Dribbling. Passing. Shooting - - Put all the players alone in a room and let them do each of them and you won't find much difference in performance. But once you add the influence of a crowd, the intimdation of other players, the importance of winning the game, or being seen making that shot -- those factors impact the ATTITUDE of the player and have more of an effect on how well he capitalizes on his skills.Competitors and Clients Sense How You Feel.A great analogy to keep in mind is to think of painters or art in general. It's easy to understand that art is a subjective experience. Some priceless pieces look like finger-painting 101, while others seem to be impossibly constructed -- and yet they both sell for tens or hundreds of thousands. But why are other pieces that objectively look very similarly - why do they not sell? Why do 'starving artists' exist? Answer: The Artist (or wouldbe business owner) Defeats Himself.Fight fans understand that the difference between winning and losing in the ring isn't strength and it isn't technique -- because at the top of the game - everyone is using extremely similar skillsets - the difference is belief. It's attitude.The difference...is the Carpenter.