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Mapping the Ideal Omnichannel Journey: How Retailers Can Delight Customers Across Touchpoints

omnichannel retail customer journey

Today’s consumers expect seamless shopping experiences engaging with retail brands across devices, channels and physical locations. Crafting and optimizing a successful omnichannel retail customer journey is difficult, but can be a solid revenue driver for your retail organization.  Companies that can deliver superior omnichannel customer engagement realize a 9.5% yearly increase in annual revenue.

Yet mapping and optimizing a unified omnichannel journey is complex for retailers. This article will help you map out and optimize a superior omnichannel journey for your customers.

Conduct In-Depth Journey Mapping

Your retail brand can gain a granular understanding of all touchpoints and customer pain points through:

  • Creating detailed omnichannel customer journey maps from the user perspective across web, mobile, in-store, social media and beyond.  If you want to get started creating a customer journey map for your retail brand, this link has a great primer.
  • Performing observational research and usability tests to uncover gaps and friction points in key journeys. Monitoring users as they navigate your website and other digital presences (such as your mobile app) can help uncover issues that are slowing or stopping the flow of the customer along the purchase journey.
  • Surveying shoppers on difficulties experienced and desired improvements in their omnichannel journey. Ask shoppers where they hit a ‘snag’ in the buying process. Most often, a shopper can identify an exact point that triggered a decision to end purchase consideration. Use this valuable feedback to improve the flow for all shoppers.

Journey insights help your retail brand design a customer journey that flows with little or no bottlenecks.

Bridge Platform and Channel Gaps

Eliminate transition friction across digital and physical by:

  • Enabling tight integrations between platforms to maintain context. Allow moving activities between channels seamlessly. Crafting a seamless experience is the name of the game. The shopper should view the journey as one process, they shouldn’t be able to notice when they move from one device or location to another. If they do notice, it’s because their experience changed, for good or bad. Try to eliminate this so the experience is consistent across all touchpoints.
  • Providing consistent commerce capabilities like buy online pickup in-store or return in-store. This is a convenient that modern retail shoppers demand. Allowing customers to buy and return in a more convenient fashion results in higher sales, customer loyalty and satisfaction.
  • Sharing customer data and history across channels to enable personalized, contextual interactions. Don’t silo customer history, make it equally accessible across all devices. Tie to the customer account, if possible.

Frictionless cross-channel experiences feel unified and that leads to more convenience for the shopper, which increases the number of purchases as well as loyalty and engagement.  Starbucks does this well, the brand allows ordering ahead via app, picking up in store, earning and redeeming rewards across channels. Messaging is integrated in its app for real-time support. All of this provides a consistent experience from app to in-store.

Design Consistent Branding and Messaging

Inconsistency across channels causes confusion. Consumers expect and demand a brand that gives them a consistent experience across channels and touchpoints. Maintain alignment through:

  • Auditing each touchpoint to ensure visual identity, voice, tone and terminology are aligned.You are looking for a smooth flow from one touchpoint to another. Try to identify ‘breaks’ in voice and branding, and correct those snags so that the flow continues.
  • Creating knowledge bases, style guides and templates for human and automated engagements. This not only provides more value and convenience for the customer, but it also meets an anticipated need: Some customers will visit a website, for example, needing support moreso than product information. By giving customers access to both product information and material for self-support, you are meeting two potential needs at once.
  • Monitoring across channels frequently to rapidly address inconsistencies. Keeping a close eye on customer flow through every channel helps you quickly identify potential problem areas. These can be corrected and a smooth customer flow can be maintained.
  • Coaching associates and optimizing AI chatbots to represent the brand appropriately. Remember that the point of AI isn’t to replace the human connection that your brand has with its customers; It’s job is to enhance it. Leverage AI to provide more convenience to customers, but it shouldn’t be obvious when its a human or AI helping you. Consistent branding, voice and tone is paramount.

Consistent experiences build familiarity and trust as shoppers traverse channels.

Personalize Intelligently

Leverage data to tailor experiences across the journey, Analyze the data you collect from the journey your customers take, and apply it to improve the process by:

  • Individualized content recommendations based on interests, purchase history and browsing behavior. Offer customers a unique content experience based on their interest and behavior patterns on your channels.
  • Omnichannel promotion consistency:  For instance, offer discounts synchronized across online and in-store. Customers should see no break in the promotion flow just as they wouldn’t expect it for other forms of content.
  • Contextually relevant assistance like help messages at decision points. Track user patterns and note where visitors abruptly leave your website. See what triggered their decision and attempt to correct by giving them access to additional content that meets their needs.
  • Recommendations aligned to buyer lifecycle stage based on past purchases and activity. Promotion of complimentary products is appreciated, if relevant.

Personalized journeys can help the customer feel appreciated and lead to higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty.

Drive Mobile Experience Excellence

With mobile dominating, relentlessly optimize mobile apps and sites through:

  • Streamlined navigation, minimal data entry, and contextual help for seamless completion of key tasks. Keep in mind that mobile apps are primarily used when the customer is mobile, or on-the-go. Factor that in when considering how the customer will be using the app and in what environment.
  • Core functionality availability offline for convenience. Give mobile app users the ability to access basic functionality when offline or mobile coverage is inconsistent.
  • Location awareness bridging digital with nearby physical interactions like in-store pickup prompts. Additionally, add in-store signage to encourage app usage. Making customers aware of the convenience of a mobile app helps drive adoption.

Optimizing the mobile app experience leads to a more dynamic and profitable customer journey for your retail brand.

Orchestrating seamless, personalized journeys across an exploded digital landscape is complex yet invaluable. We hope this article provided insights into excelling at networked omnichannel experiences that powerfully differentiate your brand.

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The Tourism Power List For October

Welcome to The Tourism Power List for October! The Power List features the Top 10 professionals in the tourism industry! You can view September’s Power List for the Tourism and Hospitality industries by clicking here.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Tourism Power List! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for The Tourism Power List. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

So before we jump into the Power List for October, a couple of takeaways:

1 – The tourism pros, especially those in the Top 5 of the Power List, are competing against themselves as much as they are the rest of the list. Sometimes if I am torn on where to rank two pros, it can simply come down to activity over the last month. This is a very strong group, but that also creates more competition and means everyone has to be on their A game each month.

2 – I see a lot of reposting of content versus sharing content with an explanation of why it’s interesting. I think part of this is due to experience, the more experienced tourism pros seem more likely to share an original take on the content they are sharing, while their less experienced peers seem more likely to share and move on.

3 – We have three new entries this month! I feel like this makes a strong group even better!

 

Here is the Tourism Power List for October.  There will be a number after their name in parentheses that shows the change in their score this month versus last:

1 – Kathryn Shea Duncan, Sr Director of Social Media, Lake Charles CVB, Power List Score – 94(-). Another solid month for Kathryn, she is a content machine! A good mix of different types of content; Articles, pictures, podcasts, all focused on the Lake Charles and surrounding areas of Louisiana. She did go a bit heavy on reposts this month, but she also mixed in more tweets with her original content than most tourism pros put out in several months. Well done, Kathryn, you again lead the pack!

2 – Jim Hagen, Sec of Tourism for South Dakota, Power List Score – 92 (+1). Jim had a very good month.  His volume of tweets was up, and although the majority were reposts, he did include his original take on several of the tweets that he reshared. This was honestly the difference between Jim being 2nd or 3rd on this list. Well done, Jim.  Keep it going!

3 – Leisha Elliott, Executive Director, Marion Co, WV CVB, Power List Score – 91(-2). A solid month for Leisha. It felt like her content output dipped slightly, but it was still really good. Almost all of her content was resposts, but it does a great job of helping to promote the Marion County area of West Virginia.

4 – Kyle Edmiston, President/CEO of Lake Charles CVB, Power List Score – 89(-). Status quo this month for Kyle, and that’s not a bad thing. His volume of tweets drops versus the Top 3, but he also does a better job of adding his original take on the content he shares. This really does help increase engagement, especially replies. This of it as if you are adding ‘This is why I think this article/picture/podcast/video is worth your attention.”

5 – Ben Berthelot, Lafayette Travel CEO, Power List Score – 88. New entry alert! Congrats to Ben for joining the Tourism Power List this month AND an impressive debut at #5 in a very strong group! Ben has a lot of content, and a good mix promoting the Lafayette, Louisiana area. Sports, music, nightlife, food, and festivals. Solid mix of content, a lot of it, and a few original takes sprinkled in.  Nice job, Ben!

6 – Adriana Cruz, Executive Director, Texas Economic Development & Tourism, Office of Gov Greg Abbott, Power List Score – 82.(+2) I again struggled a bit with where to rank Adriana’s profile this month. Adriana wears multiple hats, and much of her content is focused on  economic development news in Texas, as well as coverage of what Texas Gov Greg Abbott is up to. She does post a lot of content, but I would still like to see a little more content devoted to actual tourism in Texas.

7 – Diana Plazas,CSMO Caribbean & Latin America at Marriott International, Power List Score – 80. (-3) There is a noticeable decrease in posting volume for the last 7 spots on this list, starting with Diana. I enjoy her content and the mix, I hope to see more of it next month!

8 – Jessica Blankenship, Exec Dir of KY Music HOF, Rockcastle Co Tourism, Power List Score – 79. New entrant alert! Congrats to Jessica for joining the Power List! Jessica is like a few others on this list, she wears multiple hats. The majority of her content is focused on music events and functions associated with the KY Music HOF. So this content does work from a tourism angle as well. Congrats on joining the list, Jessica!

9 – Chris Landry, CEO Louisiana Travel Assoc., Power List Score – 73. New entrant alert! Congrats to Chris for joining the Power List this month. Chris’ frequency is a bit lot compared to the other members of the list. Hopefully that will increase as we move forward, and his score will follow I am sure.

10 – Robin Bloom, Director of Content, Philadelphia CVB, Power List Score – 70 (-3).   A quiet month for Robin, I hope that changes soon.

 

So there’s the FIRST update to our Power List for Tourism! And THREE new entrants, congrats again to Ben, Jessica and Chris!

Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Toursm Power List, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Retail? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

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Revelation and God’s Plan For Christians in the End Times

In January, I committed to reading the Bible every day. It’s been a wonderful experience, and on Saturdays (and sometimes Sundays) I like to write a post about what I am learning from Scripture. You can read my past posts on the Bible here.

Today, I want to talk about Revelation and the End Times. Before I do, I need to put a disclaimer that any discussion of Revelation typically involves much speculation. Revelation is the final book of the Bible, and it details what will happen leading up to, and after Jesus’ second coming. Much of Revelation is to be taken as a symbolic telling of what will occur, rather than a literal account. For instance, there is a passage describing a massive beast with 7 heads, this is considered by most biblical scholars to be symbolism for an empire on earth that will have 7 kings, a head for each one.

So anything I write here, you should assume it is my speculation on what I think Revelation could mean, because that’s all it is.  My guess.  And since I have very little experience reading the Bible, it’s quite possible that a year from now, I could believe something different.  I think my main hope for what I am writing is that you would read my words, and want to investigate further for yourself.

Now, as I have mentioned here before, when I decided to start reading the Bible in January, I had it in my mind that I should read the first book of the Bible, and then the last.  Genesis, then Revelation. Almost everyone agrees that a new reader to the Bible should NOT tackle Revelation early on, but I can be quite stubborn and like to do things differently.

So I read Genesis, then read Revelation, and quite frankly in my first reading of Revelation, much of it was over my head. Which is to be expected. So I went back and read Exodus, then shifted gears and started reading the New Testament from the start.

As I was working through the New Testament, I loved all of it, but especially Paul’s letters to the churches. What struck me about Paul’s writings is he kept impressing to both jews and gentiles that being a Christian is a gift. And that you can glorify God by being a positive example for others, especially non-believers. Paul’s instruction was quite empowering as he encourages us to do more, to be more active, to walk stronger in our faith, and to understand that our eyes should be set on our eternal home in Heaven, not on a quite temporary time in human form.

So still inspired by Paul’s encouragement about growing into your role as a Christian, I continued throughout the New Testament, and finally reached Revelation, which I read for a second time. This time, the messages were slightly clearer, and at this point I decided that I wanted to stop and do some research on Revelation and get a better handle on exactly what I was reading.

The basic story of Revelation that I had understood it to be up till this point was: The world will continue to fall deeper into despair. At some point, a person will arrive who many will believe is Jesus, but who is actually the antichrist. Things would get even worse. Then Jesus would return, and save us all from the horrors of this world.

In short, things would get worse and worse and finally Jesus would come back to save us from ourselves. We just have to wait till His ‘appointed time’.

But after reading Paul’s letters and his constant encouragement that Christians should be more proactive, it seemed to be a bit of a disconnect with what I thought I understood Revelation to mean. Basically, it didn’t seem to agree with the theory that Christians are powerless to do anything but wait on Jesus to come back and save us in the final days.

So I started doing some research into the teaching of Revelation. I started exploring what biblical scholars say about what Revelation could actually mean.

A large part of the Revelation story, as I understood it, involved the breaking of 7 seals, with each seal pouring out a different type of judgment on sinners on earth. My assumption has always been that these seals will be broken in the final days. However, many biblical scholars actually believe that some of these seals have already been broken, and some of the periods of violence we have seen thus far reflect this. A few teachers even make a case that ALL the seals have already been broken.

But what really struck me was the disagreement about the role that Christians will play in the final days. As I said earlier, I had believed the basic story of the end times to always be that things on earth will progressively get worse, until Jesus has His second coming, and in effect saves us from ourselves.

The more I read about Paul’s writings, I began to notice that this thinking of how Christians should be bold and feel empowered didn’t really coincide with a story that ends with Christians being weak and powerless and having to be saved from ourselves by Jesus.

Then I found a biblical scholar/prophet named Johnny Enlow who has a different interpretation of our role as Christians, and what will happen in the end times. Enlow’s contention is that when Jesus is called The King of kings, that the ‘kings’ doesn’t refer to the rulers on earth. Actually, what this means is that all Christians are royalty, we are all kings.  And Jesus is our King, and Jesus is waiting on Christians to assume their role as kings on earth.

Enlow believes that when satan tricked Adam and Eve into eating of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, that besides introducing sin into the world, that satan also took over authority of the earth from Adam and Eve. Authority over earth was gifted to Adam and Eve by God in the Garden of Eden. But when satan tricked Adam and Eve into sinning, satan took their rightful authority over earth.

Until…Jesus died on the Cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, according to Enlow, He took over all authority on earth from satan. And that means man now once again has authority on earth, and satan no longer does.

Let’s look at a few scripture passages about authority on earth.  First, Luke 4:5-8 (NKJV):

5 [d]Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

8 And Jesus answered and said to him, [e]“Get behind Me, Satan! [f]For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”

Now let’s look at Matthew 28:16-18 (NKJV):

16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

See the difference?  When satan first tempts Jesus, he says he has authority over all Jesus can see, and offers it to Him.  Yet after Jesus has risen, He states to His disciples that all authority on earth has been given to Him.

These two passages, the first before Jesus died on the cross and the later after, seem to say that there was a shift in authority from satan to Jesus between the time before and after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

The contention by many biblical scholars, including Enlow, is that when Jesus died on the cross, He not only paid the debt for our sins, but He also reclaimed the authority over earth than man lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God (I say Adam and Eve instead of Eve because while Eve did eat the apple first, Adam was there with her and did not stop her, then he ate it as well. So it’s unfair to try to position this as if Eve was responsible for man’s fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam was there with her, and they both agreed to disobey God together. Eve did not act alone).

So….this means that by dying on the cross, Jesus reclaimed authority on earth, for man. So man has authority over earth that before Jesus’ first coming, had belonged to satan since he deceived Adam and Eve.

The issue is, man hasn’t been exercising his authority over earth. This also completely reframes the book of Revelation and what will happen in the end times.

For instance, many biblical scholars have long contended that the breaking of the seven seals of the scroll will be the spilling out of judgment on earth for man’s sins.  And that this breaking of seven seals will happen at a point in the future, the seals will be broken, God’s judgment will pour out on the earth, and this will pave the way for Jesus’ Second Coming to save us.

Enlow, however, claims that the breaking of the seven seals has already happened.

Further, the breaking of the seals wasn’t to signify the beginning of judgment, it was to signify the END of satan’s authority to harm the earth! When the seven seals were broken, satan’s authority over earth was also broken.

So if this is correct, that means the breaking of the seven seals would have happened most likely when Jesus reclaimed authority over earth, ie His death on the cross. When Jesus died, He became worthy to take the scroll from God, and loose its seals.

At this point I’m sure your head is spinning because mine was when I first started studying this theory. But the more I researched this theory, it seemed to line up.  For instance:

  • The Bible repeatedly references that the earth is GOOD, and that it will endure FOREVER.  In fact, the Bible even says that after Jesus’s second coming, that there will be a New Jerusalem on earth. This doesn’t make sense if Revelation is telling us about how the earth will be destroyed in the end times.
  • In Revelation, John is brought up in Heaven to the throne room, and he sees that God is on His throne holding the scroll. And an angel in a loud voice asks if anyone is worthy to take the scroll and open it? And the Bible says John wept, because no one could be found worthy to open the scroll. Until, the Lamb (Jesus) was found worthy, and He opened the scroll. And Heaven cheered and celebrated because someone was found that could open the scroll.  Now….if the opening of the scroll meant a pouring out of death and destruction on earth, why would all of Heaven be celebrating that???  But if the opening of the scroll and the breaking of the seals was really about ENDING the death and destruction, then Heaven celebrating makes perfect sense.
  • Which version of the end times would bring more glory to God:  First, if man fell further and further into sin until God had to step in and cleanse the earth with death and destruction, then Jesus came to earth to defeat satan and save man from his own sin (again) or……Second, if man instead stepped into and began to assume his authority over earth, and acted as God intended, and we began to defeat satan by removing him from the areas of the earth where he no longer has power. Then in the final battle, Jesus returns to earth to lead us into the final battle, which sees satan’s ultimate defeat. Personally, I think the second version would bring more glory to God, because we would be in a position to help Jesus by claiming the authority that He had gifted us.
  • Jesus is referred to as The King of kings.  I always assumed that meant that Jesus was the King over all the kings (rulers) on earth.  But the kings on earth ARE CHRISTIANS. From Revelation 1:5-6: “5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Ok, that’s probably enough for now, so I wanted to leave you with a video from Johnny Enlow that will help get you started learning more about Revelation. If you enjoy Enlow’s teachings, he has hours and hours of instructive videos where he breaks down what Revelation means in great detail. Here’s the first video, and his detailed analysis of Revelation starts around the 25 min mark if you want to fast forward:

Now again, if you’ve read this far, and you are thinking ‘I just don’t agree with that!’, then that’s ok. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind about Revelation or the end times. I’m just sharing what I have learned, and all I would ask is that you investigate for yourself and do your own research. Pray about it and ask God to give you the wisdom to discern what is real from what is not. That’s exactly what I do before I start reading the Bible every single day.

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Crafting Seamless User Experiences Across Devices: An Essential Guide for Tech Companies in the Omni-Channel Age

cross-channel user experience

In today’s digital landscape, users engage with technology products and services across an ever-expanding array of devices and touchpoints. For tech companies, delivering a fragmented and inconsistent user experience can have dire consequences, eroding user adoption and loyalty. In this guide, we will explore the complexities of orchestrating a seamless cross-channel user experience and provide tech leaders, including CEOs, with proven strategies to optimize UX and usability throughout the user journey.

Mapping the End-to-End Journey

Research from Forrester has found that a frictonless user experience could boost customer conversation rates by as much as 400%. A cohesive and consistent UX is vital in all business categories, none moreso than in the technology industry.  The first step towards crafting seamless cross-channel user experiences is gaining a comprehensive understanding of the user journey. Here’s how tech companies can do that:

  • Customer Journey Mapping: Create detailed customer journey maps from the user’s perspective across various devices and channels. This exercise not only identifies gaps in the cross-channel user experience and opportunities for improvement, but it also helps your tech company gain a greater understanding of the experience you are delivering to your customer. This can greatly aid in providing customer support for that experience.
  • Usability Testing and Research: Conduct usability testing and research to uncover friction and inconsistencies in the cross-channel user experience. This step allows you to pinpoint pain points and areas in need of enhancement. The idea is to identify potential bottlenecks in the buyer’s journey, as well as areas that are performing well. This helps you spot areas for improvement across the entire process.
  • Gathering User Feedback: Actively seek feedback from users about their expectations and unmet needs regarding the cross-channel user experience. This can be done via email, social media, or a user message board of forum on your website. After you collect the feedback from your users, circle back with them and let them know how you addressed their feedback and what changes were made as a result. This encourages your users to give you more feedback in the future, and it improves user loyalty.

Bridging Platform and Channel Gaps

Seamless cross-channel user experiences hinge on eliminating transition friction. Here’s how to bridge the gaps:

  • Close Gaps Between Social and Online Support: One of the most frequent support issues that tech companies face is an inconsistent experience between the support experience that users get from the social media team and the main customer support team. Often, these teams are siloed and it can lead to a user having to ‘start over’ in their support request when it is handed off from social to the main CS team. All employees engaged in customer support should be given the same support training so that a consistent experience is delivered throughout the process.
  • Tight Integrations: Enable tight integrations that seamlessly share data, context, and user history between platforms. As stated above, all areas of support should have seamless access to user data so that a consistent support experience can be delivered. This is keep to developing user loyalty and satisfaction with the support process.
  • Continuity of Activities: Allow users to effortlessly switch or transfer activities between devices and pick up where they left off. This added level of convenience communicates to the user that their attention is appreciated.  This also helps facilitates all areas of the customer journey.  It’s worth remembering that tech customers frequently do a good deal of research prior to a purpose. This research can take several days or maybe even weeks. Making it easy for users to remember their search history and continue their research when it’s convenient to them is a key driver of loyalty and satisfaction.

Embracing Mobile-First Design

Mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a website that doesn’t deliver an optimized experience for mobile devices. In today’s digital landscape, mobile devices dominate usage. Optimizing for mobile is no longer an option but a necessity:

  • Responsive Mobile Experience: Mobile users should enjoy the same level of usability and satisfaction as users on other devices. Talk to your IT department and check your website’s traffic. You will likely find that half, if not more, of your overall website traffic originates on a mobile device. If you aren’t optimizing your user experience for mobile, you are intentionally alienating roughly half of the traffic to your website. That’s crippling for a business, regardless of industry, but its disastrous for a company in the tech sector to not offer an exceptional mobile experience.
  • Streamlined User Flows: Streamline forms, navigation, and content presentation to facilitate quicker task completion on mobile devices. This optimization doesn’t compromise the cross-channel user experience but enhances it. Users now spend roughly half their time connected to the internet on a mobile device, according to HubSpot. Designing for mobile is no longer an option, it’s a requirement.

Intelligent Personalization

Leveraging user data and artificial intelligence is key to tailoring cross-channel user experiences:

  • Contextual Help Messages: Offer contextually relevant help messages precisely when users need assistance during their cross-channel user experience. This personal touch enhances user satisfaction. Track your site’s analytics and identify which pages or posts are most likely to lead to a click onto a Support of Contact page. This signals intent; The visitor needs further assistance after visiting these pages. You can improve the UX by proactively offering assistance in the form of a popup to alert them to chat help or point them to a contact page or form.
  • Predictive Issue Resolution: Proactively prevent problems in the cross-channel user experience by using AI to predict and resolve issues before users encounter them. Track and simulate how user experience their journey on your site, and identify potential issues. Once potential trouble spots have been identified, proactively offer assistance and the access to help (FAQs) and solutions, or the ability to contact your support team directly for additional assistance.

Keep in mind that something is only a bottleneck IF it stops the user in their journey. Identify these potential trouble spots, and proactively offer assistance to the user. This will help eliminate the possibility of a bottleneck.

Simplifying Navigation and Search

Intuitive navigation and efficient search functionality are vital to preventing user frustration:

  • Clean Interface Design: Design clean and uncluttered interfaces that focus on key user tasks and calls-to-action. A clutter-free design enhances the cross-channel user experience.
  • Intuitive Hierarchy and Menus: Create intuitive content hierarchies, menus, and flows that align with user mental models. This approach simplifies navigation and leads to smoother user interactions. Focus on user intent: Think about what information they are looking for on your site, and how they expect that information to be organized.
  • Predictive Search: Implement predictive search, autosuggest, and filters to help users find information faster. Context-sensitive help and tooltips provide seamless assistance when needed.

Continuously Optimizing Based on Data

A metrics-driven approach ensures ongoing improvement of the real user experience:

  • Data-Driven Insights: Utilize data and testing to identify areas of friction and opportunities for enhancement. Let user behavior guide your decisions.
  • Monitor Analytics: Keep a close eye on analytics across devices and channels to address inconsistencies or gaps in the cross-channel user experience.
  • Gather Qualitative Feedback: Regularly collect qualitative UX feedback through surveys, session replays, and more. User insights, not guesswork, should steer ongoing optimization efforts.

Orchestrating seamless user experiences across an exploding digital landscape is undoubtedly complex, but it’s also essential. By consistently championing user needs throughout every touchpoint and channel, technology companies can remove friction, enhance satisfaction, and ultimately earn user loyalty. The question remains: Will you optimize for omnichannel excellence? Your users are counting on it.

In conclusion, delivering a seamless cross-channel user experience in the omni-channel age is a multifaceted challenge that demands a user-centric approach, intelligent use of data, and a commitment to continuous improvement. CEOs of tech companies can lead the charge in optimizing user experiences, ultimately driving user satisfaction, loyalty, and business success.

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Restaurant Reputation Management: The Data-Driven Playbook for Turning All Reviews Into Raving Fans

restaurant reputation management

If you are a CMO in the restaurant industry, few things keep you up at night like your online reputation. A handful of negative reviews can counter hundreds of positive interactions in the digital age. But effectively encouraging, monitoring, responding to, and leveraging guest feedback online is complex. With fierce competition, restaurant reputation management becomes vitally important.

That’s why taking a proactive, strategic approach to managing reviews and amplifying authentic earned advocacy is now mission-critical. This playbook explores proven ways restaurant marketers can use data, processes, and creativity to turn any review into five stars.

Strategically Solicit First-Party Reviews

Don’t leave review generation to chance. Proactively collect feedback from delighted guests through:

  • Review links on receipts and emails surveys to lower barriers. Make it quick and easy for customers to leave reviews. Also, track your restaurant’s reviews online and point customers toward the sites that would help the most with your restaurant reputation management efforts.
  • Thank you follow-ups checking on the experience, offering review links. These can be done via a newsletter than also offers coupons on future purchases.
  • Occasionally offering a free dessert in exchange for a review. I am subscribed to Olive Garden’s newsletter, and they will occasionally offer a free dessert in exchange for my feedback.
  • Manager outreach to VIPs asking for reviews based on their satisfaction. VIPs can be identified by membership in your loyalty program, or by managers and staff simply identifying a frequent customer. Frequency of business obviously signals satisfaction with service and product, so your restaurant should encourage reviews from frequent guests.

Empower your happy customers to sing your praises via stellar reviews.

Leverage Servers to Solicit Reviews and Feedback

Your servers are in direct contact with your restaurant’s customers, and as such they have the best sense of how their meal is going. Servers need to remember to:

  • Praise in public, criticize in private. If a customer is pleased with their meal and experience in your restaurant, the server should encourage them to leave a review, and steer them toward the sites where a positive review would be the most beneficial to your restaurant.
  • If a customer is unsatisfied with their meal and experience, the server should encourage the customer to leave feedback or to even talk with a manager. This gives the restaurant an opportunity to address the customer’s problem, without it going public. Obviously, the customer could still leave a review online or tell others, but if they are unsatisfied, you want to know why so you can address their concerns.
  • Train wait staff to recognize if a customer is satisfied or unsatisfied with their meal and experience. Your staff will pick up on cues from the customer naturally throughout the course of the meal as to whether they are satisfied or unsatisfied with their experience. At the end of the meal, if the server believes the customer has been satisfied with their meal, ask them to leave a review and encourage them to review on the site that best helps your restaurant. If they appear to be unsatisfied, then ask them to leave feedback on their experience. If the customer does leave feedback, but it is positive, you can contact the customer directly and thank them for their feedback, then ask for a review at that time.
  • Have managers observe customers and check in with them. When doing so, the manager can also pick up on cues from the customer as to whether they are satisfied or not with their meal, and address appropriately.

Praise in public, criticize in private. Empower your servers to help create positive word of mouth for your restaurant.

Activate Brand Advocates

Happy, frequent customers are your best source for positive reviews and the frontline in your restaurant reputation management efforts. Empower them by:

  • Offering incentives like loyalty perks for shares and reviews. Tie this into your existing loyalty program. Remember, happy customers WANT to sing your praises, you are just giving them the tools to do so.
  • Making it effortless to post through review widgets and social media links. Offer to collect reviews on your site, and ask for permission to repost on your social channels. Communicate how this can help your restaurant, and true fans will jump at the chance.
  • Have staff help in identifying frequent customers. So a few years ago, I got on a serious kick for Pizza Hut breadsticks. Every time I was running errands in town, I would stop by my local Pizza Hut and grab some breadsticks. The staff quickly recognized me, what my order would be, and how I liked them made. They would then ask me while I was waiting if I would please fill our a survey for them, and then inform me that I could win a $10 credit toward a future order. I would do the survey while waiting for my order, then when my order was ready, the staff would let me know it was prepared the way I wanted it, and I would let them know I had filled out the survey. The staff was smart enough to recognize that I was a happy customer, so they encouraged me to offer reviews.
  • Spotlighting top advocates as “VIPs” on your digital customer wall of fame. Treat your happy customers like they are rock stars, because they are. Put the spotlight on them, it encourages them to give you more reviews and feedback, which is exactly what you want.

Proactively activating your biggest fans maximizes their impact. Oh, and read the best book on the topic, Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans.

Monitor Third-Party Review Sites

Actively track guest feedback using tools like Hootsuite (Perch is another option) to:

  • Get alerts when new reviews are left. When a new review happens, it’s vital that you know about it ASAP. For instance, let’s say your server followed the above advice and encouraged a happy customer to leave a review. The customer did as soon as they got home. If you have their contact information, you can contact them personally and thank them for the review. This encourages them to not only return to your restaurant, but to spread more positive word of mouth about you both online and offline.
  • Identify recurring themes and systemic weaknesses. Actively tracking reviews and customer feedback helps you identify themes versus isolated experiences. Whether it’s a positive review or a negative one, you need to understand what triggered the review. If there’s a problem with service, that needs to be addressed. Likewise, if customers are happy, you need to understand why so you can replicate that experience for other customers.
  • Keep pulse on your average ratings compared to competitors. If possible, set up monitoring alerts for select competitors. Just as you want to identify recurring themes in your own restaurant, you can do the same for competitors. Perhaps another local restaurant has added a feature that customers are raving about. Could your restaurant offer something similar? Once you know what their customers are excited about, then you can evaluate if a similar feature could work for your location.

Proactively monitoring online reviews empowers you to act quickly and appropriately.

Respond Skillfully to Negative Reviews

Negative feedback is inevitable in hospitality. Yet if handled correctly, a customer’s negative experience can be defused, or possibly even converted into a positive. Here’s some tactics to employ:

  • Reply promptly, calmly and avoid defensiveness. Make sure that the member of your CS team that responds does NOT take the criticize personally, because it isn’t.
  • Do NOT admit fault UNTIL it has been clearly established that the customer’s negative review is a direct result of unsatisfactory service from your restaurant.  You SHOULD communicate to the customer that you are sorry they are unsatisfied with the service they received, as this communicates empathy for their concerns. But wait on apologizing for an error until you have established that an actual error was made.
  • Offer to move your exchange with the customers OFF THE REVIEW SITE or social channel. Give them a way to contact you or your staff directly. Emphasize that you value their privacy and the privacy of your staff, and can better address and server them in private.
  • If you find that the customer has a legitimate complaint, clearly communicate to them that their feedback will be addressed and let them know how. This communicates that you are taking their feedback seriously.
  • Share improvements made to address broader issues raised. Followup with the customer to let them know what you found and how you are addressing their feedback. This will also communicate to the customer that you value their feedback.
  • For false claims, politely correct with facts. Do NOT argue with the customer, especially if the exchange is happening online, in public.
  • Consider inviting unhappy reviewers back to improve perceptions. This is another way to illustrate how feedback is taken seriously and improvements made.

I’ve worked with clients for over 15 years in helping them deal with angry customers, and I can tell you this from my own experience: Angry customers can often be converted into your most passionate fans IF you handle their complaints correctly. Follow the above steps and you will be on your way.

Continuously Improve Based on Insights

Regularly analyze customer reviews and complaints to:

  • Identify recurring complaints and focus training to strengthen weaknesses. Frequent sources of complaints should be flagged by your customer service team and sent to management so it can be addressed at the frontlines in your restaurant by staff and management.
  • Identify what’s working. If there are features of your dining experience that are consistently praised by customers, highlight those features to make customers aware of them. This can encourage more positive reviews.
  • Set targets for ratings improvements by location and category. Set realistic goals and give management a plan of action to reach those goals. Make sure everyone on staff understands what the goals are, why it’s important to reach them, and how to get there.
  • Conduct text analysis of online reviews to detect shifts in sentiment and perceptions. Identify gains and losses and drill down to figure out what triggered the change.

Insights inform operational investments that can help your restaurant reputation management efforts exceed expectations.

Today’s diners heavily factor reviews into dining decisions. With strategy, creativity and commitment, restaurant brands can leverage guest feedback to perpetually improve and manage reputation. Are you ready to turn reviews into five-star raves? The impact on guest acquisition, loyalty and sales makes this effort well worth the investment.

restaurant reputation management

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The Technology Power List for October

The Power List for Tech

Welcome to The Technology Power List for October! This will be the first update of the Power List for the Technology industry. You can view September’s Tech Power List here.

Why have a Power List for the Tech space? Because I wanted to highlight workers that are doing a great job of leveraging social media to connect with customers, partners and clients. It’s damn hard to work in the tech space and still carve out time to create engaging content for social media. I am hopeful that by putting a spotlight on a few of the tech all-stars, it will make their jobs a little easier.

If you want to view all the candidates for the Tech Power List, follow this list on Twitter. If you work in the tech space and would like to be considered for the Power List, then follow me on Twitter and reply to me and ask to be included.  Please state clearly in your profile bio what company you work for in tech, and your position. And the Power List isn’t limited to just big brands, startups and smaller tech companies are just fine.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Power List for Technology! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

So enough yakkin’, let’s get to the Tech Power List for October!

The Top 10 will be ranked 1-10. There will be a number after their name in parentheses that shows the change in their score this month versus last.

I am SO excited for this list because we have some new entries!!! It’s so exciting to see people entering the Power List. Now those of you that will see your scores and/or rank drop, keep in mind that it’s likely due to there simply being a larger pool of candidates this time versus last month.

The Technology Power List for October:

1 – Pat Gelsinger, CEO at Intel, Power List Score – 91 (+1). Pat hits it out of the park, once again. High volume of tweets, good mix of reposts with original content as well. Mostly focused on Intel, but a few personal tweets around scripture mixed in as well.  Bravo. And it’s highly unusual to see the CEO at a major brand being this active on Twitter, and curating, creating and sharing such good content. Well done, Mr. Gelsinger, you continue to set the pace for the Technology Power List!

2 – Sergio Raguso, Regulation Manager @ Siemens, Power List Score – 86. (+6) So last month, the take on Sergio’s profile that he was prolific as a tweeter, but I wanted to see a bit of content with his personal take on the work he does, or even life in general. His frequency of content is still off the charts, but in September he’s started mixing in some tweets with more personal content, and that’s much appreciated. A nice 6-point jump in score for Sergio this month.

3 – Greg Joswiak, SVP of Marketing at Apple, Power List Score – 85. (-1) A solid month for Greg, even with a ton of big news coming out of Apple that could have kept him busy and off Twitter. Nice output of content, and he’s still solidly in the mix as one of the leaders in the Tech Power List.

4 – Sushail Kakar, Developer Relations @ Livepeer, Power List Score – 84 (-). Sushail’s content is so geeky and nerdy, I just love it! High volume of content, good mix, notice he gets very good engagement on his content, he’s focused on techy work that developers and even tech hobbyists can relate to. Great job, Sushail!

5 – Lauren Cooney, VP Java Cloud Services, Oracle, Power List Score – 80 (+3). So Lauren’s profile is the first one on the list that has a lot of personal content, even moreso than tweets about the work she does at Oracle. But that’s ok, because she does tweet semi-regularly about her work. And her volume is off the charts, and that’s why her score jumps 3 points this month, looking forward to what comes this month.

6 – Stella Low, Chief of Corporate Affairs and Communications @ HP, Power List Score – 79. New entry alert! Congrats to Stella who joins the Tech Power List at #6. Good volume, nice mix of content focused on HP, but also sprinkles in some personal content and her original takes on the industry and work she does. Nice, welcome aboard!

7 – Krithika Muthukumar, VP of Marketing @ OpenAI, Power List Score – 78. Another new entry, congrats Krithika! And wow, cool job title! Krithika was suggested by multiple people and she has a pretty good Twitter profile.  Solid volume of content, focused on her work and the AI/Tech space. As with most of the others on this list, as her volume increases, her score can only go up. Welcome aboard!

8 – Maria Poveromo, SVP and Chief Communications Officer @ Cisco, Power List Score – 77 (+5). So the analysis for last month was that I loved Maria’s content, I just wanted to see more of it. She increased her tweeting a bit in Sept, and her score jumped as a result. Awesome! Let’s hope this is the start of a trend so we can see her score soon hit 80.

9 – Jennifer Davis, Corporate Affairs @ Dell, Power List Score – 76 (-). So Jennifer and Maria had about the same advice last month, loved both of their content, just wanted to see more of it. Still the same, love Jennifer’s content, hope she can pull herself away from doing amazing work at Dell to send out a few more tweets.

10 – Chloe Jones, Gaming Brand Manager @ Lenovo, Power List Score – 73. YAS! I am sooo happy to see Chloe on the Power List this month. I wanted to put her on the list last month, but I just couldn’t justify it then, because she had only posted a few times this year, at the time. But since last month’s Power List, she has tweeted several times, so she earned her way onto this month’s Power List. I love her content and I’m such a fan of the gaming and eSports space. Chloe please keep tweeting at the same rate as you did in September! I love your content and want to see you keep rising on the Power List!

 

So THREE new entries in this month’s Tech Power List! Congrats again to Chloe, Stella and Krithika! And overall, the scores were mostly up, which is great to see. This group as a whole definitely feels like it’s improved over last month, let’s hope we can continue to see growth in November’s Power List.

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Amazon’s $4B Investment in Anthropic, Twitter Making a Profit, Gen Z’s Social Media Habits

Happy Monday, y’all! Welcome to October, probably my favorite month of the year, at least from a weather perspective. It’s starting out hot, but by Halloween the days and nights will be crisp and clear, I can’t wait! While we wait, let’s stay busy and immersed in a few stories from the business/marketing/web3 worlds:

 

As I’ve said before, Claude is my favorite AI tool. Well it’s parent company, Anthropic, just announced a massive $4B investment from Amazon. This makes sense, as Amazon would no doubt love to leverage the technology behind Claude to help with production recommendations, summarizing user reviews, etc.

 

So Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino recently gave us an update on the platform’s performance. She claims that 90% of its Top 100 advertisers have returned to Twitter/X, and that the platform is on pace to return to profitability sometime early next year. When Elon announced Yaccarino as new CEO, I speculated that the main driver for this move was the sense that Yaccarino could coax advertisers to return to Twitter, and it seems that’s working. I’m still very much worried about the future of the platform, as Elon keeps hinting that he wants to take Twitter/X to a completely paid platform, meaning all users would have to pay a fee to use the platform.

 

How are Gen Zers (born approximately 1996-2010) using social media?  To watch videos…and some other stuff. If you want to create content that connects with teens and twentysomethings, it needs to be video first, at least that’s the findings we see below:

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! What do we have on tap for the rest of the week here? Tomorrow, we will have the FIRST update to a Power List, as the October Power List for Technology will be revealed (Spoiler alert: We have THREE new entries!). And on Thursday there will be a new post up on restaurant marketing.

I hope you all have a wonderfully productive week!

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How to Protect and Enhance Your Tourism Destination’s Online Reputation

tourism reputation management

Online reviews from current and former travelers are vital to forming your destination’s online reputation. For instance, travelers use their mobile devices 83% of the time to research a trip before booking. What others are saying about your destination or attraction matters to travelers, so your tourism reputation management strategy should be given serious consideration.

This comprehensive guide explores proven strategies travel marketers should employ to actively monitor, manage and build their online reputation and credibility.

Conduct Sentiment Research Across Sites

In the introduction I mentioned that 83% of travelers are doing trip research on their mobile phones. You also have to consider how much research travelers are doing at home on their laptops as well. The point is, travelers will be doing a LOT of online research, and your destination or attraction must actively monitor the information that travelers will be reviewing, so you can manage your online reputation appropriately. Here’s some tactics to keep in mind:

  • Monitor review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google Travel, and Facebook for location-specific mentions. When a traveler begins researching a potential trip, review sites will be one of the first stops they make. You must be aware of what is being said about your location online, so you can build out a proper tourism reputation management strategy.
  • Conduct social listening across platforms to analyze trends in perceptions, issues and reactions. This applies to mentions of your destination as well as competing attractions or locations. Figure out what’s working for you, and what’s working for others, and adjust your tourism reputation management efforts accordingly.
  • Survey recent guests to see what they liked and disliked about their stay. Pro tip: Follow up personally with 4-star reviews and ask these guests what could have been done differently to earn a 5-star review.
  • Audit star ratings, attributes and keywords frequently cited to identify strengths and weaknesses. Don’t focus solely on complaints, often guests will appreciate a feature of their stay that you may not be focusing your attention on. When guests are telling you that something is working, put a spotlight on it!

Being aware of what travelers like and dislike about your destination or attraction gives you the information you need to improve the guest experience.

Optimize First Party Review Generation

Focus on generating increased reviews from guests and visitors. Also focus on generating more positive reviews internally and via third party sites by:

  • Email guests to encourage reviews. As part of the survey, ask guests to tell you at what point in their trip were they the most satisfied, for instance at the beginning, middle or end. Once you have identified the point during a stay where the average guest is the most satisfied with their trip, send an email asking for a review. Send a followup email 2-3 days after the stay ends reminding the guest to fill out your survey, if they haven’t already.
  • On-site signage with QR codes to easily leave a review before departing. Track survey results of the most popular locations at your destination or attraction and place signage with survey reminders in these location. The idea is you want to give your guests a reminder to fill out a survey when they are most satisfied with their stay. Also make sure the signage encourages reviews on third party sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google Reviews.
  • Offering incentives like loyalty points, discounts or free amenities to motivate contribution. By tying incentives to reviews from loyalty program members, you are encouraging your most satisfied guests to leave reviews, which is exactly what you want, especially on third party sites.
  • Sharing positive feedback publicly to build social proof. Digital signage on-site can show guest reviews and social media posts from satisfied visitors. This also models the type of behavior you want current guests to exhibit, so include a call-to-action with signage encouraging guests to create and share their own feedback on their own social media accounts.

First party platforms allow you to highlight strengths through UGC.

Respond Skillfully to Negative Reviews

Negative feedback is inevitable. How you respond to negative feedback is even more important than the criticism itself. Here’s some tips to keep in mind:

  • Respond professionally and calmly to critical reviews. Never get defensive, remember that your tone and energy will greatly dictate any future interactions with this guest as well as others.
  • Empathize with their dissatisfaction and if a legitimate error was made, offer to make it right. Do NOT apologize for an error until you have confirmed that the error actually happened.  Believe it or not, sometimes the customer IS wrong. It’s fine to apologize for their feelings when you first interact with the dissatisfied guest, but you should not apologize for something unless you know it happened.
  • Let the guest know that you have considered their feedback, and clearly communicate what steps will be taken to address. This is vitally important if the interaction is happening in public such as via tweets or comments on a social platform. By letting the guest know that you are taking steps to address their complaints, it communicates to that guest and any potential guests viewing the interaction that you take complaints seriously.  This communicates respect for the guest and it can help diffuse the situation.
  • Consider inviting unhappy reviewers back as guests to change perceptions. This also communicates that you want to ‘make it right’ and that you want to prove to the guest that you have acted on their feedback in an effort to improve the situation.
  • For unfounded claims or ‘fake reviews’, tactfully present facts or contact platform admins. Do NOT argue with a guest who has presented misinformation, it may not have been intentional. Politely correct the misinformation, and invite the guest to contact you directly (and more importantly privately) in order to address their concerns.

BONUS: Your Complete Guide to Responding to Angry Customers Online

If criticism is handled correctly, you can often convert an angry guest into a passionate fan.

Promote Positive UGC Broadly

Regardless of the industry you are in, your best salespeople are your happy customers/guests/visitors. As we’ve already discussed, travelers will consult reviews and feedback left by other travelers before committing to a trip. So you want to do all you can to promote positive content created by your happy guests and visitors. Here’s some tactics you can use:

  • Spotlight UGC in ads and across your digital touchpoints. Focus on sites that you know travelers will likely be using when researching an upcoming trip.
  • Re-share guest content to your social accounts when permitted. UGC builds trust with fellow travelers.
  • Aggregate video and visual content for compilation promotional reels. Pro Tip: Monitor social channels and if you find guests sharing content during their visit, contact them and ask if you can use their content. Offer perks such as loyalty points or room upgrades.
  • Publish curated guest galleries on your website highlighting stellar experiences.

User content highlights your best salespeople: Your happy guests.

Continuously Improve based on Insights

Use ratings, attributes and feedback to guide ongoing enhancements:

  • Identify recurring themes in complaints so they can be addressed systemically. Likewise, uncover recurring themes that are viewed positively by guests and develop a plan to leverage them.
  • Develop improvement plans for locations or services suffering repeated low ratings. Track problems and collect feedback from guests on desired improvements. Make changes as possible, and then communicate to guests that improvements have been made, based on visitor feedback. This communicates to guests that you will act on their feedback.
  • Look at highly rated competitors to identify gaps in the visitor experience.
  • Align guest satisfaction with desired brand associations through data analysis.

Proactively managing your reputation leads to higher visitor satisfaction, and loyalty.

Today’s travelers heavily factor reviews into travel plans. By embracing authentic engagement, responding quickly to guest feedback, and continuously improving, tourism brands can turn even critics into vocal advocates over time.

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The Restaurant Power List for September

The Restaurant Power List

Welcome to The Restaurant Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the restaurant/fast food/dining space. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Restaurant Power List! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for The Restaurant Power List. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Restaurant industry, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space:

1 – I mentioned above that one of the main criteria I look at when ranking profiles for The Power List is I want to see is ‘original’ content. What I mean by that is I want to see your unique perspective on the work you do. I think this is some of the most engaging and compelling content that someone working in a corporate environment can create. Up until this list, I really struggled to find candidates for the Power List that did a great job of creating content that communicates to me that they love their jobs. But the top 2 profiles on The Restaurant Power List knocked that ball out of the park.

2 – It was rough finding solid candidates for this Power List. Almost as brutal as it was for the Retail Power List. It’s not that good candidates aren’t out there, it’s just that a lot of them have left Twitter for LinkedIn. Same thing I saw in the Technology industry. So far, the Tourism space is the only industry of the four Power Lists where most of the candidates are as active on Twitter as they are on LinkedIn.

3 – I think there is a ton of potential for workers in the Restaurant industry to have fun with their social media accounts. The top accounts on the Power List are tapping into that potential and it’s clear they are having a blast with their jobs. That reflects positively on them AND the brands they work for. The sooner brands in ALL industries understand this, the sooner they can begin to leverage the content that their workers create on social as a recruiting tool. Because that’s what it becomes. Simply reading the tweets from the members of The Restaurant Power List, I now have a slightly better opinion of McDonald’s and Aunty Anne’s as a result.

 

The Restaurant Power List for September:

1 – Guillaume Huin, Head of Social Media @ McDonald’s, Power List Score – 93. Guillaume’s profile is a near perfect fusion of company and ‘original’ content. Most of his content is focused on his employer, McDonalds, but none of it feels like I’m reading a press release. Anything but! He makes his work seem fun, and that makes the McDonalds brand more relatable and likeable. If you are working in a corporate environment and want to learn how to create content about your employer and work that is ALSO interesting, study Guillaume’s content, because he’s giving you the blueprint. Well done, indeed (round of applause from the crowd).

2 – Bari Tippett, Social Media @ Auntie Anne’s, Power List Score – 90. You just have to enjoy reading Bari’s tweets. She leans more on the personal side than professional in her tweets, but her takes are always interesting. Like Guillaume, she makes her employer Auntie Anne seem like a fun brand to work for. She is great at building her personal brand, and that reflects positively on her employer. More companies need to be willing to embrace employers who I great at building their personal brand, as Bari is. Another very solid entry in the Power List.

3 – Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands, Power List Score – 86. I kept bumping Gregg’s profile higher up the Power List the more I reviewed it. On my first initial pass of the candidates, Gregg was around 5th or 6th place. But the more I reviewed his profile and compared him to others on the list, I had to keep moving him up. Now Bari and Guillaume are very comfortable sharing their own personal opinions on their work, and not all workers (or their employers) are as willing to do the same. I get that. For those workers, look at what Gregg does with his content. Almost all of his content is focused on his brands, but he typically includes enough of an individual take on the content to make it more interesting, He will usually share a ‘here’s why I think this is interesting’ take on any content he shares. Which is much appreciated, and this is a great example of how a CEO can create compelling content on Twitter.

4 – Carl Loredo, Global CMO @ Wendy’s, Power List Score – 85. Carl has a solid profile. Good frequency, almost all of his content is focused on his employer, which is what you would expect from a Global CMO. I would like to see more content related strictly to Wendy’s marketing efforts, Carl is in a unique position where he could speak to this area. I think more content that pulls back the curtain and gives us insights into Wendy’s campaign development would be gold, and could push his profile toward a Power List score of 90 or higher.

5 – Tariq Hassan, CMO @ McDonalds, Power List Score – 83. A very solid profile, Tariq allows his character and personality to flow in his tweets in a way that’s very rare for the C-Suite on Twitter. His posting frequency is a bit on the low side, otherwise his score would be about 5 points higher.

6 – Meredith Almond, Social @ Jimmy John’s, Power List Score – 80. I went back and forth on where to rank Meredith’s profile. She has really good frequency of content, yet 75% of that content is personal, with the rest being a mix of content about Jimmy John’s, and her thoughts on working in social media. Still, just 25% of her content being about her work means she’s posting more often about her work than some who are tweeting about their work 100% of the time. If that makes sense, and it probably doesn’t. I think if Meredith could give us a bit more content about the social campaigns that Jimmy John’s is executing, it would really lift her profile.

7 – Brett Hammit, Data Scientist @ Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 73. Of all the profiles on all 4 Power Lists, I may have struggled the most on where to rank Brett’s profile. First, his content frequency is adequate, although it’s much better than some of the participants on this and past Power Lists. It could definitely improve. But none of his content is directly focused on his employer. Normally, that would be an automatic dis qualifier. Yet the majority of his content IS focused on data and data science. Which is his field. So I think if Brett would increase his frequency of posting AND have that content be around ‘Here’s how we are using data science at Yum! Brands’, even at a 30,000 foot level, his profile would really take off.

8 – Ali Beemer, Communications Manager @ Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 72. We see a big drop off in the number of tweets for the final 3 members of the Power List. Ali doesn’t tweet very often, if she could get in a habit in tweeting even every couple of weeks, with at least half focusing on her work at Darden, it would greatly increase her score.

9 – Helen Mackey, SVP Marketing, Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 71. As with Ali, she needs to tweet more. Hope to see more content, and hopefully focused on her work in marketing at Darden.

10 – Clay Johnson CTDO – Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 70. Very low activity from Clay’s account. Just from reading his brief bio on Twitter you can see that he has a wealth of work and life history to pull from to create amazing content. I hope he can start to do just that, his score would really take off if he did.

 

So that’s it for the first Restaurant Power List! A fairly top-heavy group, but the ones at the top are pretty amazing. Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Toursm Power List, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Restaurants? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

So now that we have our first batch of Power Lists done for the Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant industries, let’s do an extra Top 5 of ALL the lists:

1 – Kathryn Shea Duncan – 94 (Tourism)

2 – Guillaume Huin – 93 (Restaurants)

3 – Leisha Elliott – 93 (Tourism)

4 – Lou Dubois – 92 (Retail)

5 – Jim Hagen – 91 (Tourism)

 

Well done by all! Please remember to follow all the members of each list and leave a comment if there’s someone in ALL of these four industries who I should be considering for The Power List.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Another Elon Misstep, Instagram Still the King of Influencer Marketing, YouTube Adds AI Tools for Creators

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s the first official full week of Fall! My favorite time of the year! I hope you are ready to have a productive week, here’s a few stories that caught my eye over the last week:

 

I started to spin this story into its own post, and probably will at some point soon. Elon is floating the idea of charging ALL Twitter users a fee to use his platform. This is the first time in my 16+ years of using Twitter that I am seriously considering if it is time to leave the platform. Working on the Power Lists for Technology, Retail and Tourism (with Restaurants debuting on Weds) has been an eye-opener. I had always heard peers claim that there was a mass exodus of professionals from Twitter when Elon took over, but I just assumed that was overblown. It’s not, at least not in the four industries above.  Pros from technology, retail, tourism, and restaurant are absolutely more active right now on LinkedIn than they are on Twitter. In reviewing hundreds of Twitter accounts over the last month, I lost count on how many pros hadn’t tweeted in 2023, who were active on LinkedIn. I’ve been hearing ‘Is Twitter dying?’ for at least the last 10-12 years. This is the first time I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

 

Companies working with influencers are still spending more marketing dollars on Instagram than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s simply a desire to be contrarian, but I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for a certain brand to partner with the right influencer and create some momentum on Snapchat? Sometimes it pays to go in the opposite direction of the herd.

 

Social media platforms continue to integrate AI as a way to aid creators. LinkedIn has done it, Elon is working on an AI alternative to ChatGPT that will no doubt be integrated into Twitter/X, and now YouTube is doing the same. I think we will eventually see a time very soon where video platforms like YouTube will allow you to create a video on the fly from a simple prompt, using AI. An additional app YouTube announced is YouTube Create, which is a standalone app that is geared toward mobile creators, giving them simple editing tools to use on the fly. I actually think it will be a big hit with smaller YouTube creators.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. On Thursday, I will have a new post on tourism marketing. But tomorrow the debut edition of The Restaurant Power List will launch, so be sure to check back here to see who ends up #1! Hope you have an amazing week!