We spend a lot of time talking about brands and brand advocates.
And, of course why not, since customer loyality and brand advocates are vital to the success of any business.
I recently came across this;
in lots of ways it goes against conventional wisdom but in so many ways it supports it , as in my opinion one goal to get customer advocates. By aiming at the very top we will gain customers that are not only satisfied with our products and service but are so happy that they want to tell everybody about it.
As Ross Beard puts it;
Customer advocacy is a marketing term for a customer-focused strategy that encompasses all aspects of contact a company has with its customers, including experiences with products, services, sales, support and complaints.
Customer advocacy is important because it provides marketers and business owners with a way to leverage their most loyal customers as brand ambassadors to build awareness, drive sales and increase revenue. In fact, research by BzzAgent, a leading word-of-mouth marketing company, shows that a customer advocate is 50% more likely to influence a purchase decision than a regular customer.
The following are the top four reasons why customer advocacy is important to your business.
1. Word of mouth is the primary factor behind purchasing decisions
A study by McKinsey & Company found that word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20-50% of all purchasing decisions. Interestingly, the same study found that word of mouth is most influential when a customer is buying a product for the first time or the product is relatively expensive.
This makes sense. These two scenarios will require you to do more research, seek trusted opinions and weigh up the purchase decision longer than you usually would.
As a customer, we all remember buying something that didn’t quite meet our expectations and then feeling buyer’s remorse. Often times, these purchases could have been avoided if we had a trusted opinion from a friend, family member or colleague.
How do you think Apple experienced so much growth in the past decade? Yes, they spent some money on creative advertising, but so did Microsoft (PCs) and Sony (mp3 players).
Apple’s products and their customer experience did the selling for them. This combination fuelled millions of brand ambassadors who told millions of other customers about their iPods, iPhones and Macs. Microsoft and Sony simply didn’t have the same passionate customers spreading word-of-mouth opinions about their PCs and MP3 players.
The lesson here is to create products and experiences that your customers love. You want your customers telling their friends about your products – both when they explicitly ask for recommendations and in passing conversations.
2. People trust friends and family more than any other information source
According to research by Nielsen that looked at consumer trust, 92% of respondents trust recommendations from people they know, which is well above any other information source. Ads on TV are only trusted by 47% of respondents, while online banner ads are trusted by a measly 33%.
This is probably no surprise to you. As a customer, you likely rely on friends’ opinions and you trust them more than any TV or banner ad.
But think about what this means for your business. How much money are you spending on paid advertising? How much of this advertising is not being trusted by your customers? In comparison, think about how much you are spending on customer advocacy.
I challenge you to consider customer advocacy an important part of your marketing strategy and allocate some of your marketing budget to create an advocacy strategy.
3. Referred customers typically cost less to acquire and are less price sensitive
How much does it cost you to acquire a customer through word of mouth? This question can be interpreted in many ways, but essentially, customers you acquire through word of mouth cost you nothing from an advertising perspective.
I understand there may be some marketing initiatives that influence these customers and I understand there may be some costs associated with your customer advocacy programs, but all in all, it’s safe to assume the customers acquired through word of mouth were done so for less money than your other marketing channels.
From my experience, these customers are also less sensitive to price. Referred customers are less likely to haggle with you over cost because they have been referred by someone they trust. This inherently means they trust the price and value they get from the product or service.
According to a study by a team at Goethe University, customer referral programs were found to be a financially attractive way for companies to acquire new customers.
The study looked at information from a database of 10,000 customers acquired by a bank in 2006 and found that about half of them were acquired through referrals and the other half through direct mail and advertising. The analysis found that referred customers had higher margins, churned less and had higher customer lifetime values than other customers.
The point here is that customers acquired through customer advocacy can cost less to acquire and be more profitable than customers acquired through other paid and unpaid marketing channels.
4. Advocates are repeat customers who spend more money
Customer advocates don’t just refer new customers – they are also valuable repeat customers. They come back and buy from you regularly, they upgrade their packages more often and they effortlessly sign contract renewals.
There’s no better example of this than Chick-fil-A’s raving fans. This group is extremely profitable for the restaurant, making up 10-15% of its total audience. Chick-fil-A’s advocates eat at the restaurant four or more times each and every month. That’s at least once a week!
Imagine if your customers kept coming back every week.
Steve Robinson, Chick-fil-A’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, says these die-hards “are crucial to the health of the business and help us grow. Our goal and strategy is to build special relationships with them.”
You can see from this example that, although we tend to focus on referrals being the big benefit of customer advocacy, advocates themselves also drive significant revenue through their repeat purchases and loyalty.
Customer advocates are your brand ambassadors and biggest marketing asset
Customer advocacy is important for all businesses because we now live in a world where the most important person selling your product or service is no longer you – it’s your customer.
Buyers increasingly want to learn about products and services through peers – their trusted friends, family and colleagues. As a company, you need to be creative and find a way to put your happy customers in front of these buyers.
Apple found a way to create a passionate community of Apple fans who came together around a purpose for innovation and being different. They used these customers as ambassadors to spread their vision and sell a lot of products.
Chick-fil-A found a way to create ambassadors by doing lots of little things to create a memorable customer experience. By consistently exceeding expectations, they have created millions of ambassadors, with hundreds who will to dress up as a cow for “Cow Appreciation Day” every year.
Hubspot found a way to cultivate advocacy by creating valuable educational content and letting their customers do the sharing for them. Hubspot leads the movement away from outbound marketing towards new, fresh inbound marketing methodology. They create useful content so valuable to their customers that they share it with all of their colleagues via social media and email. Hubspot reaches millions of new customers each and every day through their educational content.
I challenge you to start leveraging your most loyal customers by creating a customer advocacy initiative. Allocate some of your marketing budget and turn these happy customers into brand ambassadors who will do your marketing for you – much more effectively.
The wine industry has typically been segmented by the different lifestyles of the consumers. Knowing the target consumer group helps producers focus on either packaging, marketing, or true quality of wine.
Baueraus Design elaborates on the six different wine consumers and their needs. This diversification is crucial for wineries seeking to increase their competitive edge in the global market because it informs business strategy.
The 6 Types of Wine Consumers
Overwhelmed (23% of consumers):
Overwhelmed by sheer volume of choices on store shelves
Like to drink wine, but don’t know what kind to buy and may select by label
Looking for wine information in retail settings that’s easy to understand
Very open to advice, but frustrated when there is no one in the wine section to help
If information is confusing, they won’t buy anything at all.
Image Seekers (20% of consumers):
View wine as a status symbol
Are just discovering wine and have a basic knowledge of it
Like to be the first to try a new wine, and are open to innovative packaging
Prefer Merlot as their No. 1 most-purchased variety; despite “Sideways,” Pinot Noir is not high on their list
Use the Internet as key information source, including checking restaurant wine lists before they dine out so they can research scores
Millennials and males often fall into this category.
Traditionalists (16% of consumers):
Enjoy wines from established wineries
Think wine makes an occasion more formal, and prefer entertaining friends and family at home to going out
Like to be offered a wide variety of well known national brands
Won’t often try new wine brands
Shop at retail locations that make it easy to find favorite brands.
The Savy Shoppers (16% of consumers):
Enjoy shopping for wine and discovering new varietal s on their own
Have a few favorite wines to supplement new discoveries
Shop in a variety of stores each week to find best deals, and like specials and discounts
Are heavy coupon users, and know what’s on sale before they walk into a store
Typically buy a glass of the house wine when dining out, due to the value.
Satisfied Sippers (14% of consumers):
Don’t know much about wine, just know what they like to drink
Typically buy the same brand–usually domestic–and consider wine an everyday beverage
Don’t enjoy the wine-buying experience, so buy 1.5L bottles to have more wine on hand
Second-largest category of warehouse shoppers, buying 16% of their wine in club stores
Don’t worry about wine and food pairing
Don’t dine out often, but likely to order the house wine when they do.
Wine Enthusiasts (12% of consumers):
Entertain at home with friends, and consider themselves knowledgeable about wine
Live in cosmopolitan centers, affluent suburban spreads or comfortable country settings
Like to browse the wine section, publications, and are influenced by wine ratings and reviews
47% buy wine in 1.5L size as “everyday wine” to supplement their “weekend wine”
98% buy wine over $6 per bottle, which accounts for 56% of what they buy on a volume basis.
Please note that this information has been directly adapted from theoriginal authors. Other sources suggest similar terminology, but the idea of market segmentation based on lifestyles is constant and predominant in the literature.
What does this imply for producers? Some suggestions
Prioritize the overwhelmed consumer in the retail setting. Make the label clear and easy to identify, include a sales person in the most popular retail settings to help with selection (of your brand).
Also prioritize the image seeking consumer by making a higher presence in social media platforms, as well as investing in packaging.
Prioritize reputation for the traditionalist.
Give a good bargain! For the traditionalist, the savvy shopper, the satisfied sipper and the wine enthusiast. Make these discounts easily accessible for those that take the time to reach out.
Conclusion? Do focus on packaging, marketing and discounting.
Other Market Segmentations
Some reports have focused on category segmentation, with the main segments being still wine, sparkling wine, champagne and fortified wine. Following this analysis, still wine was the largest segment in industry for 2012, accounting for 81% of the total market value.
Percent Share, by value 2012
Similarly, there has also been a focus on geography segmentation, with Europe capturing 63% of the global wine market value in contrast to the Americas, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa.
Percent share by value 2012
For more insight and information contact iwine hq today
Recently when asking a winery how much they knew about wine segments and their own customer profiles, I discovered they knew very little, like many things there is the intention but little time to actually get around to do anything about it.
According to Johnson and Bruwer study they classified wine segments according to the following;
The Segments are:
Conservative, Wine Knowledgeable Wine Drinkers (20.9% of wine drinkers)
However this is all very well, if you know which of your customers fall into which groups, and this is where building your own customer profiles is so important.
As ‘wine industry’ writes one of the biggest and most important changes in the wine industry has been the shift from being producer to consumer driven.
Historically a luxurious good associated with wealth and prosperity, if a consumer did not like a certain wine they were labelled as uncultured. Clearly, producers held the power in the value chain.
Today however, with globalisation and access to information, this is no longer the case. People of all socio-economic status consume wine, causing greater segmentation in types of wines produced and empowering buyers.
So what can you do about it, well the answer now seems a little bit easier.
The answer, of course, is to start building a profile of your customers and thanks to a recent innovation – Cuspidor; this is a lot simpler.
Cuspidor captures demographics including age, gender, postcode and personal details including name and email address in a non-evasive way. It allows you to capture customer information from those not so engaged customers through a quiz type format.
just because they are not engaged with the cellar door doesn’t mean they dont know what they like and they won’t buy
And, for those groups, who don’t want one the one interaction with the cellar door staff it allows you to offering a tasting paddle and for them to be self directed by Cuspidor, all they need are their phones.
Because Cuspidor allows customers to make notes and for them honestly to rate the wines. It starts to provide you with the basis of a profile of your customer base. This information coupled with your Point-of-sale information will build a profile of the customers and the wines of your winery they like and buy.
It will identify any geographical hotspots, which can provide valuable information in persuading retailers or restaurants in that area to stock your products.
It will provide social media opportunities to engage customers on the wines they like and invite them to special events which appeal to them.
You will be able to build profiles on return visitors and identify potential brand advocates.
According to marlene pratt, in her survey examined how the typical wine tourist is viewed by respondents. The image of a typical wine tourist was portrayed through descriptors self-generated by the respondents themselves
Respondents were requested to imagine the typical wine tourist who visits their favourite wine region. Over 1,900 descriptors were provided by respondents; ranging from motivational attributes, such as relaxing, through to appearance, such as sophisticated.
The most common descriptors/adjectives used were;
interest, knowledge and passion for wine, wine lover (22.7%),
Wine Segments – a really short summary relevant to wine retailers
Conservative wine drinkers want to be buy wines they already like, no advice needed thanks.
Image-Oriented seek information and will believe more expensive wines are better quality.
Experimenter wine drinkers are keen to receive advice, will act on a knowledgeable sales person’s recommendation, and like to try different wines.
Wine Segments – a short summary
Segment 1 – Conservative, Wine Knowledgeable Wine Drinkers (20.9%)
The consumers in this segment of the Australian wine market are likely to be
tertiary educated males (63%),
male/female ratio is 70:30,
working in a professional capacity
with over half having a total household income in excess of $75,000 per year.
These consumers demonstrate connoisseur-related tendencies,
are interested in the provenance of the wine they drink
and are involved in wine storage and preparation for drinking rituals
they are likely to have a cellar at home or some other space used solely for the storage of wine
and they use the correct glassware, decant their wine and check it for spoilage prior to consuming the wine.
They derive enjoyment and satisfaction from drinking wine
and approximately 40% of them drink wine every day.
These consumers display a good knowledge of wine and wine-related matters.
When purchasing wine, the occasion during which the wine will be consumed plays a role in the purchase decision.
They are somewhat reluctant to purchase wines that they have not tried before
and they do not seek information or advice when purchasing wine.
Rather, they tend to rely on their own knowledge and beliefs and hence their purchases could become ‘stereotyped’ – they are likely to purchase similar styles of wines over the years and do not exhibit variety seeking or experimenting behaviour.
Their purchases are rarely spontaneous, although they have a wide selection of brands from which to choose. Their preferred retailers are fine wine specialist stores.
Segment 2 – Image Oriented, Knowledge Seeking, Wine Drinkers (22.3%)
Consumers in this segment share many of the characteristics of the previous segment. They are likely to be
tertiary educated males (65%),
male/female ratio is 80:20,
with over half having a household income in excess of $75,000 per year.
They also display connoisseur tendencies and are interested in the provenance of the wine they drink
and they have a dedicated cellar (or space) for storing wine.
They indulge in pre-drinking rituals and about 40% drink wine every day.
These consumers have some knowledge about wine and they are actively seeking to further their existing knowledge.
One way in which this is manifested is that they take more notice of wine-related media today than they did two years ago, a reflection of their growing interest in wine.
When purchasing wine, they seek information about their prospective purchases and are guided by the views of wine writers and other opinion leaders.
They are risk averse, as they tend to purchase in accordance with the recommendations of others.
They are particularly mindful of the price of the wines they buy, but this does not mean that they buy cheap wines.
Rather, they tend to have the view that the more expensive the wine, the better it is.
They have been drinking wine for some time, probably since their university days, but they now have the income to buy the wines recommended by others.
Their preferred retailers are fine wine stores.
They derive a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction from drinking wine and like the image that drinking wine portrays.
Segment 3 – Basic Wine Drinkers (16.8%)
These wine consumers
have little time for the rituals and image that often surround the drinking of wine.
They drink wine because they enjoy it.
These wine drinkers are comparatively well educated relative to the general population, with 40% having a tertiary education,
however, their average household income is lower than all but one other segment, with 36% earning less than $50,000 per year.
The male/female ratio is 60:40, an indication that the male dominance in the previous two segments is diminishing.
When purchasing their wine, this segment does not take into account the occasion during which the wine will be drunk and they seek little information about their purchases.
They have a number of safe brands from which they choose their wine – these brands have served their purpose in the past and will do so in the future.
Their average amount spent per week on wine is relatively low.
They are less frequent drinkers of wine than some other segments.
Their preferred retailers are national wine chain stores.
Segment 4 – Experimenter, Highly Knowledgeable Wine Drinkers
(19.0%)
The consumers in this segment
share the same connoisseur tendencies and the interest in the provenance of the wine and the associated rituals as segments 1 and 2.
What separates them (in part) from those other two segments is their very detailed knowledge of wine and wine-related subjects.
This segment had a significantly higher mean general wine knowledge score than the next highest scoring segment.
Although they have this detailed knowledge, they have the desire to learn more and are therefore updating their knowledge on a regular basis.
They are also likely to be well-educated males (61%), male/female ratio = 70:30, with household earnings in excess of $75,000 per year (57%).
The other main distinguishing factor is their approach to buying wine. They like to take a risk when buying wine and they are keen to drink wine that they have not tried before. They are experimenters in their wine buying.
They are also keen to ask for advice and seek information about the wines they are considering. This is consistent with their quest for knowledge and their interest in the provenance of the wine.
This can also lead to spontaneous buying of wine – perhaps a sales person has recommended a wine and provided information about that wine and this consumer is happy to buy something different based on that recommendation.
As a result of this experimenting approach, they do not have a safe set of brands from which they purchase, although it is likely that they become brand loyal to those wines that meet their ‘experimenting’ needs and wants.
Their preferred retailers are fine wine stores.
Segment 5 – Enjoyment Oriented, Social Wine Drinkers (20.9%)
This segment has
a predominance of female consumers,
with the male/female ratio 40:60.
Half of the drinkers in this segment have tertiary qualifications,
but their average household income is lower, with 36% earning less than $50,000 per year.
The average age of this segment is lower than that of segments 1,2 and 3.
The consumers have little time for the rituals and image that surround the drinking of wine,
but they do derive enjoyment and satisfaction from drinking wine.
Almost 40% of these consumers only drink wine during the weekend, which is consistent with socialising and just enjoying a glass of wine.
They are less likely to drink wine on a daily basis than all other segments and they have the highest rate of once a week consumers, therefore they could be classified as more occasional drinkers.
Their average weekly consumption is correspondingly the lowest of all segments at just over 8 glasses.
In their purchasing behaviour, the occasion during which the wine will be consumed plays some part.
They seek some information before purchasing wine and they exhibit some variety seeking or experimenting traits, perhaps because of the information they receive.
These consumers also exhibit quite strong spontaneous buying behaviour and the packaging and labelling of a bottle is an influence in their purchases.
This may indicate that this segment is attracted to so-called ‘concept’ brands.
Their preferred retailers are national wine chain stores.
This is an old study but forms the basis for building your own customer profiles
*From: Johnson, T, & Bruwer, J. “An Empirical Confirmation of Wine-Related Lifestyle Segments.” International Journal of Wine Marketing Volume 15 Number 1 2003
How to Create a Knowledge Base That Will Make Your Customers Love You
The ability to create great customer experiences has never been more important, particularly if you’re a winery in a highly competitive region.
However, if there’s one lesson I’ve learned working with Customers and achieving Success. it’s that the term “great experience” is probably the most relative phrase in the English language. “Success” to one winery rarely means exactly the same thing to another. That’s why it’s so important to create flexible processes and use a range of tools that allow customers to shape their own experiences.
A key part of that is Cuspidor, and statistics are increasingly pointing to self-service as a key driver of great experiences. In fact, research from Zendesk has shown that up to 67% of customers actually prefer self-service to speaking with customer service staff.
That’s where knowledge bases come in.
How to Build a Knowledge Base
Building a great knowledge base is not a quick or easy process. It’s much more work than throwing together a few “help” articles and picking the right subdomain. However, it’s also a project that, when done right, can pay huge dividends across your entire organization.
Knowledge is currency in the digital world, and a great knowledge base can lead to better end-user experiences, decreased support costs for your organization, and a waterfall of new insights for your Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams (not to mention increased product adoption and user engagement).
Here’s how to get started:
1. Understand Your Customers’ Needs
An important first step in the process is codifying your customer personas.
If you’re a marketer, you’re probably very familiar and comfortable with the concept of buyer personas. If you’re not, buyer personas are a conceptual exercise designed to help organizations easily understand the most important things about their target customers. They’re an incredibly important part of building modern marketing and sales processes.
But when thinking about your customer personas, your buyer personas are not enough. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great place to start and should certainly play a key role. But a prospect going through a sales process and an existing customer have very different needs, problems, and expectations. To best meet those needs with your knowledge base, you need to understand how they engage with your platform and how their needs differ based on their use cases, plans or account types, and more.
2. Audit Your Existing Content
Once you’ve identified your customer personas, performing an audit of your existing knowledge content can help to identify gapsthat need to be filled. If you’re familiar with the concept of a marketing content audit, you’re all set. A knowledge base content audit is virtually the same process.
So talk to your salespeople, ask your best customers about their biggest challenges, pour through every support case looking for common themes, and keep detailed notes of every customer interaction.
When we redeveloped our knowledge base here at Uberflip, a content audit helped us discover some pretty glaring holes in our existing knowledge base content. To be completely honest, our old knowledge base resembled swiss cheese more than a dynamite resource for our customers.
A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself a common question about your product, service, or solution you’d hear from a customer. If you can’t immediately name a piece of content you have that you could send to a customer to help explain a feature or walk them through a process, you’ve got a problem.
3. Fill The Gaps
This is the most important, challenging, and time-consuming aspect of building a great knowledge base.
We went into our knowledge base redevelopment expecting this part of the process to take between two and three weeks. After all, we were just answering the common questions that help guide our customers to success each and every day… how much of a challenge could it possibly be to document that knowledge?
Answer: a big one. Three and a half months later, we finally *finished*.
And I say “finished” with a tremendous amount of hesitation since a knowledge base, as Jesse Eisenberg reminded us in The Social Network, is a lot like fashion – it’s never finished. There will always be new questions to answer, new ways or mediums with which to answer them, and new use cases to help your customers explore.
But your knowledge base has to be where they live. The key is to develop a process that makes it easy from the get-go.
Get your team together and answer the following questions:
Who will be responsible for creating the new articles?
Who is responsible for editing and verification?
Who is responsible for making updates as new features are released or existing features are updated?
Will those updates be made daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly?
What format will your content take?
Once you’ve established some answers, you’ll have a solid framework to guide your content development efforts.
4. Structure Your Content Fluidly
Imagine you walked into a grocery store and found all of the food left in a big pile in the middle of the store. Wouldn’t be a great experience, would it?
Unfortunately, too many knowledge bases take this type of approach to education and learning. To the end user, it can be a bit like drinking through a firehose. When it comes to structuring your content, it’s crucial to make it easy for your customers to find what they’re looking for based on their own unique circumstances, situations, or use cases.
At Uberflip, we create Marketing Streams of content for specific types of users, specific plans, and sometimes even specific users themselves. This allows us to position our content in the proper context and encourage users to consume multiple pieces of helpful content on any given visit.
Providing this type of context is the difference between a so-so user experience and one that helps your customers truly master your product, services, or platform.
5. Capture Insights
A great knowledge base can be a wealth of insight for your team.
Understanding which articles and videos are being consumed can help guide your customer success efforts by letting you know where you need to spend more time from a content creation standpoint. If a particular article or video is getting a lot of views but you’re still fielding lots of questions, chances are that article needs to be re-written or that video re-recorded.
In the example below from the Uberflip Knowledge Base, it’s easy for us to understand how well our article on “How to Add a Custom Domain – HTTP or HTTPS” is helping customers by looking at the ratio of Views to Click-Throughs. The higher the ratio, the less the article is helping.
As well, when you understand what your users are looking for, or more importantly, what they’re struggling with, it’s easy to be proactive from a customer success perspective.
6. Leverage Integrations
Insights are great, but simply tracking data isn’t enough to understand whether your knowledge base is being used. If you’re not proactively working to turn those insights into action you’re missing a huge opportunity.
That’s why a great knowledge base should be integrated with other tools in your marketing and sales toolkit like Google Analytics, social sharing tools like AddThis, commenting tools like Disqus, and marketing automation tools like HubSpot,Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, Act-On, and MailChimp.
For example, here at Uberflip our knowledge base is integrated with HubSpot. This gives our marketing team the ability to actively use knowledge base content consumption in our lead nurturing process (changing lead scores or sending automated emails) and allows our customer success team to have user-level insight into potential areas of opportunity or concern.
7. Ensure 360° Accessibility
First and foremost, your knowledge base should look awesome. Far too often knowledge bases are the forgotten stepchild when it comes to user experience design and end up looking more like pumpkins than carriages.
When we redeveloped our knowledge base, we decided to use a Hub to take advantage of its native design features (and of course because it’s an awesomeuse case for our own product).
Additionally, a great knowledge base should also have powerful search functionality that can surface not only the right content, but the right content in the right context (say that five times fast). It should be easy to find, from search engines like Google or Bing, from within your app, from your website, or in the email signatures of your employees. It also needs to be mobile friendly and accessible on any device.
Accessibility should also extend to your Support and Success teams. Your knowledge base must enable them to adapt on the fly and easily create new content to solve new customer questions.
8. Add a Human Touch
A great knowledge base is a labour of love. As much as you can, you should try to make it evident that there is a caring team on the other side of the computer screen from your customers.
Here at Uberflip, we use a Marketing Stream to highlight the human side of our Success Team. Instagram photos from team outings, day-to-day Uberflip shenanigans, and brief bios help let our customers know that we care and we’re here to help when needed.
Your Knowledge Base is a Cornerstone
In the few weeks since we’ve re-launched the Uberflip Knowledge Base, we’ve seen customer engagement with it go through the roof and have gotten nothing but positive feedback from our customers, partners, and the Uberflip team.
When creating your own knowledge base, ensure that it’s customer-centric, regularly audited and updated with new content, well-structured, optimized from a metrics and integrations standpoint, readily accessible, and truly showcases that you care about your customers’ success.
A great knowledge base is certainly not the be-all-and-end-all of a great customer experience, but it’s a must-have foundation.
we certainly aren’t driving into the countryside for wine alone
Experiences are also part of the package – be they winery tours, exclusive tastings or varietal blending workshops such as those offered by Wolf Blass, Wynns and Tahbilk, all of which offer the chance to take a home a personalised bottle of your own unique wine. Many cellar doors double as museums or art galleries, and musical entertainment is also commonplace: Hunter Valley’s Hope Estate, Yarra Valley’s Domaine Chandon and Margaret River’s Leeuwin Estate continue to host some of the world’s biggest acts.
It’s unsurprising to find that the wine itself has become secondary in this modern age of wine tourism. The internet puts the world’s wines a mouse-click away, so we certainly aren’t driving into the countryside for wine alone.
93% of consumers say that online reviews have an impact on their purchase decision, ensure that the bad reviews don’t come in, make sure that your customers experience the best it can possibly be.
33% of people leave reviews when service was either extremely good or extremely bad. Another 25% said they leave reviews when service was really good.
Whether your online reviews are positive or negative, it is always a good idea to respond to them. After all, it is nice to know why customers aren’t returning to your restaurant or why they love it.
The results from a recent study show that 67% of people say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions. More than half of the people also said online reviews are absolutely part of their decision-making process.
This means they are reading your reviews – both the good and the bad. And, this is why it’s so important to monitor your reviews and respond to them.
If you can turn a negative review into a positive one, you’ve shown you respect and appreciate your patrons. (tweet this) This leaves review-seekers with a positive feeling about your restaurant and might make them willing to give your restaurant a try.
Lastly, try to stay on top of what patrons are saying about your restaurant online.
Check out the review sites and sign up for Google Alerts so you’ll be double sure to notice when something is posted about your restaurant online.
Business owner responses allow you to build relationships with customers, but they’re also public. When replying to your customers, keep the following guidelines in mind:
Be nice and don’t get personal. This isn’t just a guideline—it’s also a good idea as a business owner. It’s difficult to win an argument with a frustrated customer, and you want to avoid burning bridges. Keep your responses useful, readable, and courteous. In addition, responses should comply with our local content policy.
Keep it short and sweet. Users are looking for useful and genuine responses, but they can easily be overwhelmed by a long response.
Thank your reviewers. Respond to happy reviewers when you have new or relevant information to share. You don’t need to thank every reviewer publicly, since each response reaches lots of customers.
Be a friend, not a salesperson. Your reviewers are already customers, so there’s no need to offer incentives or advertisements. Tell reviewers something new about your business, or share something they might not have learned from their first visit.
If you believe that a Google review violates the posting guidelines, you can flag it as inappropriate by placing your cursor over the review and clicking the flag icon . Complete the form on the next page and click Submit.
George Kneller quoted,“Creativity, it has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we don’t know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” Critical thinking is a very important tool in any creative endeavour.Critical thinking is a friend of creativity, not a foe! CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING: FRIENDS, NOT FOES!
Critical thinking Critical Thinking, also called critical analysis, is clear, rational thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments.
During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned, well thought out, and judged.[1] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking[2] defines critical thinking as the ‘intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.’[3]
One of the main purposes of a good education is to learn to think critically. Critical thinking leads to one of the highest forms of human knowing.
Creative thinking is divergent, critical thinking is convergent; whereas creative thinking tries to create something new, critical thinking seeks to assess worth or validity in something that exists; whereas creative thinking is carried on by violating accepted principles, critical thinking is carried on by applying accepted principles.
Although creative and critical thinking may very well be different sides of the same coin they are not identical (Beyer, 1987, p.35). Critical Thinking vs. Creative Thinking
If you want to save democracy, learn to think like a scientist
Fake news is running rampant on the internet, but blaming social media sites like Facebook for not filtering it out doesn’t address the larger issue at hand. Bogusnews isn’t the real problem: The problem is that we undervalue the type of critical thinking needed to spot it.
We shouldn’t expect a social media site to tell us what is and is not real. We are bombarded with nonsense on a daily basis, and navigating through it is a life skill we must learn. We can’t expect others to do it for us.
A lack of critical thinking and scepticism creates problems beyond politics. It makes us vulnerable to scams and pyramid schemes as well as phoney products like weight-loss drugs and “miracle cures” that are really only as effective as placebos. It leads us to ignore existential threats like global warming and perpetuates harmful conspiracy theories such as the idea that vaccines cause autism.
If there’s overwhelming evidence for something—like man-made climate change—and you don’t believe it, you aren’t being a sceptic, you are in denial. Being sceptical means demanding evidence, not ignoring it.
In this new age of social media, our news is no longer being filtered through major media outlets that have teams of meticulous and principled fact checkers. As a result, empiricism is more important than ever. We all must be trained to navigate through the false information, and we can do that by thinking like scientists.
What is empiricism? — Empiricism means a method of study relying on empirical evidence, which includes things you’ve experienced: stuff you can see and touch. Empiricism is based on facts, evidence, and research. Scholars and researchers deal in empiricism. If you believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Claus, you’re out of the realm of empiricism — there are no facts to support those myths. If you want to get something practical done, or to really know what the deal is with something, empiricism is the way to go.https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/empiricism
We must be empiricists, not ideologues
Ideologue —-an advocate of some ideology.
What is ‘Ideology’?—- An ideology is a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual. Very often ideology refers to a set of political beliefs or a set of ideas that characterise a particular culture. Capitalism, communism, socialism, and Marxism are ideologies. But not all -ism words are. Think: cronyism (a system of graft whereby friends unfairly help each other make money.) Our English noun is from French idéologie. The suffix –logy, used with many English words describing theories or doctrines, is from Greek logos “word, reason, speech, account.” https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ideology
Our ideologies blind us and bias our behaviour. For that reason, we should all be empiricists, not ideologues. Empiricists form their beliefs and opinions about the world based on facts and observation; ideologues, by definition, are uncompromising, dogmatic, and committed to specific principles. They are therefore unlikely to change their views based on new evidence. By self-identifying first and foremost as empiricists, we commit ourselves to a worldview that is shaped by reality.
Unfortunately, we often don’t feel compelled to check the accuracy of something that already aligns with our ideals and worldview. This is bad practice. We must continue to demand evidence—even when the claims in question come from the side that shares our beliefs and values.
A recent Buzzfeed News analysis of Facebook activity found that while 38% of news shared on popular right-leaning Facebook pages was false, so was 19% of the news shared on popular liberal Facebook pages. Given that liberals have also been known to peddle pseudoscience and ignore facts, as can be seen by theanti-vaxxer movement, this should be no surprise.
But how do we all become empiricists without training?
Scientists and researchers are trained to sniff out untruths, but you don’t need to be a scientist to do what scientists do.
We must create tests
When scientists want to understand how reality works, they devise experiments to test their questions. If they want to know if a specific treatment works—for example, if a certain diet makes people healthier, or if a particular medicine is effective—they design a study that will determine whether or not a hypothesis is true. If the hypothesis is supported, it becomes the reigning explanation while it continues to be tested further. This is an ongoing process that should continue until almost no uncertainty remains.
Derren Brown, a famous British magician and mentalist (think David Blaine, but more focused on mental tricks) is an expert at appearing to have psychic abilities. He is also a sceptic who exposes those who try to claim they have them for real. In an interview with prominent evolutionary biologist and outspoken sceptic Richard Dawkins, Brown describes a simple test that he has suggested to non-empiricists in the past.
“I think it feels unfashionable to talk to people about the importance of evidence, of testing things,” Derren said to Dawkins. “A friend of mine, who’s a psychic, told me she puts crystals in her plants and they grow better. So I said, well you’ve got loads of plants—have you ever put two in the same window? Maybe just put crystals in one and not the other?”
This anecdote illustrates just how easy it can be to start testing your beliefs.
It is also important to teach children to demand evidence and think critically from an early age. A few months ago on the Late Late Show with James Corden, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told a wonderful story about the way he and his wife gave their child a lesson in critical thinking.
After their daughter lost a tooth, they told her that they heard if you put a tooth under your pillow, the tooth fairy visits. That night the little girl did just that, and Tyson swapped the tooth for money while she slept. The next morning, after their daughter had shown them her gift, they asked her a question that prompted her to think sceptically. “How do you know it was the tooth fairy?” they asked, to which the daughter replied, “Oh no, I don’t know, I just know that there’s money here.”
With her curiosity stirred, their daughter began setting traps for the fairy—for example, foil on the floor to hear when it arrived—and when those didn’t work, she and her equally suspicious schoolmates thought of a test. The next one to lose a tooth would put it under their pillow—without telling their parents.
The next day, when the tooth did not turn into money, the children worked out that their parents were the perpetrators of the hoax. This doesn’t mean that you should crush all the magical beliefs that children have—it only means that you should teach them to question. As adults, we must do the same to set a good example. When something sounds outlandish or simply incredible, we must investigate. Without conducting our tests in controlled settings, it can be difficult to make any definite conclusions. But these steps will still likely help us identify many bogus claims without stepping foot inside a lab.
We must encourage others to be empiricists
It is often said that we should let people believe whatever they want as long as they aren’t hurting others. “Ignorance is bliss,” as some say. However, we can no longer ignore the fact that when people don’t think critically, it actually harms others. When candidates who peddle false information get elected into office, they are more likely to also ignore crucial evidence when making decisions or policy. Do we want the person making decisions concerning climate change to be someone who ignores all the data that’s been carefully collected by scientists? That’s a recipe for catastrophe.
We must, therefore, encourage our friends to think critically and to test things. When they make claims or decisions that ignore the evidence, they should be confronted. We speak up when someone we love has an addiction or some chronic bad habit. We should feel a similar moral obligation.
Lastly, we all must all demand that our celebrities, influencers, and politicians also think critically and refrain from making claims that ignore evidence. Spreading lies and misinformation to millions of people can have some serious real world effects.Conservative or liberal, there’s just no excuse for it. Consistency is crucial.
Scientific advances come from critical thinking and curiosity. Science is also successful because it is self-correcting. When new evidence doesn’t support our previous conclusions, they must be abandoned and replaced by evidence-based assertions. Good science is also consistent in its methods; so that opinions and biases do not get in the way of logic and measurement. We do not get to pick and choose which rules to follow. Instilling these principles in society will bring about progress.
Try to understand and then describe what someone claims;
Determine the merit of those claims by applying criteria; and
Rationally justify their criteria (explain their reasoning process).
If the criteria are good ones, then a critical thinker can discriminate mere opinions and false beliefs from true facts and verifiable knowledge. Critical thinkers can determine false or unverifiable claims and can tell you why. Just because someone else writes something or says something does not mean it is true or has merit.
To be a good writer, critical thinking is essential. If you need some help with your writing, here’s an inexpensive and excellent resource:
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2008). The craft of research(3rd. Ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Leaders are expected to take right decisions after considering various facets of a given problem – just like an expert jeweller looks at a diamond. Logic looks at problems as a coin with just two sides whereas critical thinking is all about looking at the same problem as a diamond with multiple facets.Source
The fact is that a leader needs a fine balance of emotion and rationality to succeed. They need to connect with their people using emotion and decide what is best for them using rational thought.Critical Thinking is the connecting link between emotions and intelligence. Source
Critical thinking is an antidote to cognitive biases. When we think critically, we recognise our own assumptions, evaluate arguments and draw conclusions.Source
The truth is that conflicts if managed well, are an opportunity to understand better, get to the root causes, introspect, improve and learn. A well-managed conflict often leads to improved clarity, better relationships and win-win situations. Source
There is a difference between creative thinking and creativity. Creative thinking is the process of ideation (thinking). Creativity is about bringing that idea to life (execution). Source
If communication is defined as a meaningful exchange of information, thoughts and feelings between two living creatures, critical thinking is the engine that provides this meaning. Source
Standards should serve as a flexible framework to meet the academic, social, emotional, and vocational needs of diverse learners and NOT a forced march to meet the data-driven demands of standardised tests.
Rather than rating and sorting students according to a common and narrow set of testable academic skills, we should be celebrating and cultivating uncommon talents and divergent thinking in our classrooms.
As Arnold Dodge explains, schools should be honouring and uplifting the creative “characters” in their classrooms…
Many of our schools have become dry, lifeless places. Joy and spirited emotions have been replaced by fear, generated by masters from afar. These remote overseers — politicians, policy-makers, test prep executives — have decided that tests and numbers and drills and worksheets and threats and ultimatums will somehow improve the learning process…
When a student does well on a reading test, the results tell us nothing about how well s/he will use reading as a tool to learn larger topics, nor does it tell us that s/he will be interested in reading at all. What it tells us is that s/he is good at taking a reading test…
With the battle cry “College and Career Ready,” the champions of standardisation are determined to drum out every last bit of creativity, unpredictability, humour, improvisation and genuine emotion from the education process in the name of useful “outcomes.”
The self-righteous and powerful, if they have their way, will eliminate from schools kids who have character — or kids who are characters, for that matter…
But there is another way. If we believe that children are imaginative creatures by nature with vast amounts of talent waiting to be mined, and if we believe that opening children’s minds and hearts to the thrill of learning — without competition and ranking — is a healthy approach to child development, then we are off to a good start…
William Glasser, M.D., studied schools for over 30 years and in his seminal work, The Quality School, he outlines five basic needs that all human beings are born with: survival, love, power, fun and freedom.
How many policymakers today would subscribe to having fun or experiencing freedom as a goal of our educational system?
Just think of the possibilities if they did. Kids actually laughing in school and not being punished for it.
Students feeling strong enough to talk truth to power and not being silenced. Youngsters feeling free to write with creativity and originality without being ridiculed for deviating from state test guidelines.
And that’s before we even get to love.
Think of the characters that would emerge from such an environment.
Comedians, orators, raconteurs, revolutionaries, magicians, clowns, young people with agency and drive, having fun, not afraid to take risks or make mistakes. Not afraid to be children…
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