Here is a screenshot of some interesting stats on registration information:

Notice, 66% of people give you an accurate email address, 49% will tell you the budget and their role in the process, and only 21% give you the right phone number.

Moral of the story: buyers say “even though I have budget and need, I still don’t want to talk to you.”

I have a free checking account with Ally, and a regular account with Citibank where there is a minimum balance to avoid service charges.

Citibank Experience (primary account):

I received a call on a Friday evening, around 5:30 or 6pm.

• Agent: Hi, I am calling from Citibank. Unfortunately your credit card number has been breached.  We will need to get you a new ATM card and immediately deactivate your current one.
• Me: Do you know how it happened?
• Agent: No, I do not know the circumstances of the breach.  You should let us know if you see any strange charges.  Do I have your OK to cancel your card and send you a new one.  We’ll send out the replacement card immediately.
• Me:  When should it arrive, I am going on a trip on the following Tuesday and I will be gone for a week.
• Agent: I’ll process this request immediately. I think we are before the deadline to get this delivered on Monday.  Let me confirm with my colleagues that this is the case. …
• Agent:  I have confirmed this will be sent via priority mail for a Monday AM delivery.
• Me: What happens if it doesn’t arrive on time.
• Agent: You can always go into a branch and get a temporary card to use for a trip.  It won’t have a Visa logo, but you can use it to get cash.
• Me: Great thanks for your help.

** The card delivery was attempted on Monday, but that’s another story.  I ended up getting the card on Tuesday after the delivery issues.

Ally Experience (secondary account):

I got a call on a Saturday afternoon from Ally’s fraud service.

• Agent: Hi, I am calling on behalf of Ally on a potential fraud issue.  We have some suspected charges.
• Me: OK, what are the details?
• Agent: Charge A in PEnsylvania, Charge B in Deleware, Charge C in California.
• Me: Charges A and B are not mine, C is valid.
• Agent: Do you have the card in your possession?
• Me: Yes, it has never been out of my possession.
• Agent: We can put a block on your card, but you will need to call Ally in order to get a new card issued.
• Me: OK
• Me: Hi, I am calling because it looks like my ATM card number has been stolen.  I have also noticed suspicious activity on my account.
• Agent: We can issue a provisional credit for the suscpicious activity while we will conduct an investigation.
• Me: I thought my card had been blocked, so I am puzzled this new charge appeared.
• Agent: Yes, your card has been blocked.  No more charges will go through.
• Me: Can I get a replacement card?
• Agent: Yes.  It will take 7-10 business days in order to receive the card.  The PIN will arrive a few days after that.
• Me: Is there a way to get the card sooner, that seems like a really long time.
• Agent: Yes, the rush fee is $15, and the card will be delivered in 2-3 business days.
• Me: Even though the reason to replace the card is fraud?
• Agent: Yes, unfortunately the fee to rush is $15.  Do you want to do the rush?
• Me: No thanks.  Can you process the replacement request?
• Agent: You should receive your card in 7-10 days.  Thank you for banking with Ally.

A few days later I received a letter from Ally to dispute the charges with the typical dispute reasons. IT asked me to attach an affidavit on why the charges were invalid etc.

Customer Service Comparison:

Citibank: The entire process happened in one phone call and a replacement card was received one business day after the initial contact (even though things started on a weekend).

• Incoming Phone Calls: 1
• Outgoing Phone Calls: 0
• Total Days: 4 (including the weekend, and delivery delay)

Ally: After the issue was reported, I needed to make a phone call in order to get a new card.  At this point, I am not sure if my claim has been approved, although the money has been credited to my account.

• Incoming Phone Calls: 1
• Outgoing Phone Calls: 1
• Total Days: 2 weeks and counting

I have banked with Ally for about a year, and it has been a good experience.  The phone lines are open 24/7 and the agents are friendly.  I love the live chat.  The online banking UI is pretty good.  I have been testing them out to see if I’d want to ditch my mainstream bank for an online only bank.  After this experience, I am not sure I am ready to ditch the branch.  If Ally was my only account, I’d have no way to access my accounts or money while waiting the 7 or 3 business days for a new card to arrive.  I also needed to be proactive to get the replacement.  Since the bank had outsourced the fraud monitoring, the phone agents didn’t have access to the systems to generate new ATM cards.  I needed to make an additional call to get a new card issued.  This is a lot of work for something that wasn’t my fault.

With my Citi account the entire process was completed within one phone call.  I also had the opportunity to go to the branch for cash or a temporary card.

A couple of years ago, my Washington Mutual account was impacted by a similar breach where ATM card numbers were stolen.  Wamu was much less proactive than Citibank.  I received a letter in the mail to the affect of: your card number was possibly stolen, we are sending you a new card in the next couple of days.  Please activate it immediately, your existing card will be cancelled on XXX (a few days after the new card was due to arrive).

Honestly, if I hadn’t had the Ally experience, I wouldn’t have bothered to write about this experience.  But Citi is offers superior service and proactive customer support here.  Washington Mutual did not handle a similar situation with the same sense or urgency.

For the average consumer, all banks are the same.  You only differentiate the banks on convenience, price, and services. When everyone looks pretty equivalent on paper, how do you choose?

You tell me, how much is better service worth for you?  Are you willing to pay a premium for premium service?  Do you appreciate premium service when you get it?

• ABTests.com
• Which Test Won

Over 42,000 visitors were presented either the original page or the long form page. The results were completely surprising. The long form page had a 37.5% increase in net signups compared to the original. Amazing right?

There are lots of opinions are mixed in the industry as well:

• Facebook is Toast
• Google+ is Over (Site Traffic Down)
• Choosing a Social Network Winner One Year from Now

So what gives:  is Google+ the new black?  Or is it the new taupe?  Or is it just out?

Let’s start with the losers:

Paper Show Guides
I am sure somewhere, someone had a physical booth map.  And a show guide.  But there definitely weren’t many floating around.  Especially compared with the number of registrants.  From the Dreamforce mobile app, and the full web portal, there was no need for paper.  The final test, the amount of trash floating around Moscone, was pretty minimal.  I only saw business cards and other card sized handouts.

Ineffective Booth Staff
Vendors who did not use every opportunity to maximize booth traffic.  I visited a few booths in hopes for prizes, sag or party invites.  Only about 10% of the time did anyone elevator pitch and scan me.  I found that puzzling, for 2 reasons.  One, no one should get something for nothing.  And two, you never know which contact will help you out in the future.  Too bad for one vendor since I had just finished chatting with someone looking for recommendations in their space.  They could have been on the list, if they bothered to tell me what they did.

PCs
Between Marc Benioff’s praise of mobile devices and iPads through out the show and poor wifi performance.  It looks like computers were the losers this time around.  Wifi was sporadic, and all of the attention was on Chatter Mobile.  Oddly, all of my Mac toting colleagues seemed to be able connect to the wifi more reliably than me and the PC toters.  Looks like I might need to add a prepaid 3g or 4g broadband stick to my conference esssentials kit.

Winners:

Salesforce
Well, of course SFDC should win at its own event.  But considering the huge turnout and the big social medial splash, things are pretty sunny in the cloud.  So sunny, SFDC has upped the levels of sponsorship to include Titanium.  At this rate, 2012 will have a Stratospheric level.

Actors, Performers, and DJs
There were a lot of actors in attendance this year.  Siverpop had an old Hollywood themed party on Monday, with people dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and other screen stars.  The Bill Clinton keynote had a George Bush impersonator.  There was a troupe of cloud contortionists, or something like that.  And as you entered each hall you were greeted with a DJ spinning dance and pop favorites or 70s style dance/funk/jazz.  Fun times for sure.  An unlikely gig, but great for non-card carrying actors.

Apple
Apple won big time this year.  With the new iPad apps and Benioff’s ringing endorsement of the product things started off pretty well for Apple.  But As I walked around the event, many people had iPad contests.  Many attendees were toting iPAds to the sessions and navigating SF, iPad in hand.  For some organizations, iPads were portable demo stations and sign up sheets.  It looks like 2011 will be the year of iOS.  Oh, and Benioff plugged iTunes to pick up the theme song of the event.

Dreamforce Attendees and Stevie Wonder
Dreamforce attendees got a double dose of Stevie Wonder at a Saasy concert and during the Day 2 keynote.  After an amazing concert at the Global Gala, the candid Q&A at the Bill Clinton keynote, made attending Dreamforce was a treat.  It was also refreshing to see Benioff’s candid conversation with Stevie, as the event was mostly staged and planned.

The biggest winner at Dreamforce 2010 is ……

Will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas
BEP was the soundtrack of the show with “Own it” playing a prominent role in the opening keynote and Will.i.am appearances everywhere.  Snippets of “Own it” played no less than 10 times throughout the opening keynote.   Other BEP from the album played between keynote speakers, sessions and more.  Considering the album dropped last week, this was the ultimate promotional appearance.  Although I don’t want to “own it” and I am sure plenty of other people did and they added at least 10000 digital downloads by the show attendees.

Who were your winners and losers?

The story is available here in the Washington Post:

A quick summary:

• Girl writes article and pulishes it on the web in 2005
• Friend calls Girl and says, saw your article, how did you get it published?
• Girls says, that was news to me
• Girl calls publisher asking for an apology
• Editor freaks out
• Girl blogs about the incident
• Social media spreads the post

We are still waiting for the ending in this story, but the commentors are out in full force.  Sharing stories, contacting advertisers and taking over the magazine’s facebook page.  Oh and investigating other copyright infringements.  And, unfortunately for the editor, Judith Griggs, they are looking to tarnish her image as well.  It has been a bad day for Cooks Source.

For business, social media can be your best friend or your worst nightmare.  The number one thing is to remember not to go into hiding when something goes wrong.  Ask Hotel 71 Chicago.  They handled a social media incident the right way, as covered in this case study.   Another good idea?  Social Media Training for your employees; social media is key element in your communications strategy.  Today everyone has a voice in building your brand, it’s a good idea to make sure it gets used the right way.

The last tip for today?  Be cautious before getting into a war of words with a writer.  They’ll take to the pen (or keyboard).

They have been rolling over the competition with a few key ideas:

Find the right partner

At a stop in Texas, they contacted a local gourmet food market.  They figured, Vietnamese sandwiches in Texas might be a hard sell, but going where the “adventurous eaters” go is where they’ll find there customer base.  The market made announcements and also helped the team out during a challenge.

In New Orleans, they parked in front of the Pinkberry store.  Considering all of the yogurt chasers that chain attracts, the customers would embrace this LA-based food truck too.

Make it work for you: find a complementary product with the same customers you have.  It is a lot harder to move upmarket or downmarket via your partners.  It is an easier sell when you are already talking to the same people

Your fans are influencers

For the first challenge, the trucks went south to San Diego.  The Nom Nom truck went to Facebook and their fans told their friends in San Diego.  Suddenly it was a trending topic among SD college students.  Sell-outs ensued.

Make it work for you: when you have news, tell your customer right away. You never know where their networks may reach.

What marketing lessons have you learned from the food truck craze?

I canceled my reservation about 1 week after placing it, and about a month before my trip.  I booked the wrong dates on the original reservation (oops) and canceled for that reason.  About a week before I was scheduled to arrive, i received an email “we can’t wait for you to stay with us, here are a few resources and coupons for your trip.”  I was understandably alarmed, because I had canceled my reservation!  So I called to confirm that the reservation was canceled :

• me:  Hi, I canceled my reservation a few weeks ago and I want to make sure it was really canceled since I received a “look forward to your arrival email.”
• reservation agent: Oh don’t worry about that, everyone gets that email even if you cancel.
• me: OK, thanks for the clarification

What kind of nurturing is that?!?!?! I ended up with 3 totally relevant emails: look forward to welcoming you, welcome, and a post stay survey.  This hotel was probably perfectly nice, but they have solidified the fact that I won’t be staying there.  How hard is it to remove people from the lead nurturing program?

So here is a friendly reminder: if you are automating your marketing don’t forget about the remove button.  No customer wants an email that says,  ”save 20% on all purchases this week,” when you finished shopping last week.  Or a message about continuing to research options when you’ve already decided a product and are in the negotiation phase.

</rant>

I don’t know about you, but any time I get a request from an unknown name, I rack my brain trying to figure out if I have met them before.  In this case I hadn’t, but I did take the time to look at the profile.  I don’t want to advocate LinkedIn spam, but using requests wisely, with an earnest pitch can be effective.  Or at least get your prospects to open the door.

Less obvious conversion number 2: a form confirmation page, literally.   You work really hard to drive traffic to your webform.  And you are happy every time someone converts.  So what if you could follow up that conversion with a second offer.  Let’s say someone downloads your white paper.  How about following that up with a webinar invite landing page or ask about their interests.  The second form is short and sweet:  email address + 1-2 more qualification questions.  Instant progressive profiling.  And the worst thing that can happen?  They close the window and decline the offer.  But you’ll likely get a 2 for 1.

The last tip is a little harder for marketers.  We like to explain things, but being direct and getting to the point right away is a lot more effective.  I’ve been reviewing the “Which Test Won” blog, and it has a ton of useful info on A/B testing and successes.  One continuous theme is really how the most direct buttons, images and wording are more effective.  That might mean putting the button at the top, clearly spelling out terms and conditions, or listing out the rewards for a registration.

To put this in practice, here are a few ideas:

• Before “You’ll learn how to improve your business”
• After: You’ll receive a 5 step checklist of areas to improve”

• Before: “Signing up will give you a free consultation”
• After: “You’ll receive a 30 minute consultation”

• Before: ” Sign up now for a discount coupon”
• After: “Sign up now to receive 20% off your first purchase”

To recap, here are 3 easy ways to improve your conversions, and be sure to share your tips in the comments:

1. Connect with your prospects, literally or find ways to stand out in the crowd of pitches with a unique come on
2. Change your landing pages into 2 for 1 offers: change your confirmation pages to secondary landing pages
3. Be direct, really direct, with your offer copy

I’ve chatted with the owner/creator, Rachel, regularly about her upcoming book, all of the flavors and the typical banter.  It’s great to be able to meet the purveyors, and that is one of the main reasons I go to the market (and of course the fact that is fresher and tastier).

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed Blue Chair was on twitter and facebook.  I “liked-ed” them on Facebook and the next week when I was at the farmer’s market,  Rachael commented “Hey, you are our newest facebook fan!”

Facebook moved from online to reality!

A few weeks later, I gave Blue Chair a shout on twitter.

And sure enough, at the market I met Jamie, and she was holding 2 jars for me. 

We all know twitter is a great way to connect with people online, but it great to take that connection offline too. If you have a business where you meet your customers in person, encourage them to follow you online and off.  And reward them for participating in the conversation.  Your customers (and your revenues) will thank you.