Business
Friday, August 27, 2010
The management of accounts and logins for Web sites can be a task, for both the Web visitor and the Web site owner. For the visitor, they not only need to remember the username and password for many sites, but also secret questions and other identifying information. Then there is the list itself which needs to be protected, as hopefully each login is unique and all passwords are not only different but not easy to remember.
For Web site owners, ideally the Web site has build-in management tools to administering login accounts. These accounts themselves may have additional associated data, like customer detail, order history and frequent customer numbers. Technically, this data can take up space, and many times database administrators will want to archive “inactive” accounts to optimize the database. From a business standpoint, it is often said to also archive or purge similar accounts to not clutter reporting data.
Allow me to 1,000% disagree with both of these stands and say that a Web site accounts and logins should never, ever be purged. Why? Behind these accounts and logins are people or businesses run by people, and where you may not remember them, they remember you! If you remove them, they will remember and it may impact if they do business with you in the future. Or even write about it in a public blog post.
What follows are 3 examples of Web site accounts belonging to me personally and how they were handled. I call them the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good – Hyatt Gold Passport
Recently my family decided to get away for the weekend and sought out a good hotel rate locally, or what some call a “staycation.” We found an excellent deal at a Hyatt hotel, and I went to their Web site to book it. When I got to the Hyatt Web site, I had to think for a minute if I had an account with their frequent stay program, Hyatt Gold Passport. I checked my list and I did, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the last time I stayed at a Hyatt.
When I entered the username and password on my list, I was in, and was welcomed by name along with my last stay at a Hyatt, which was a stay at a Hawthorn Suites over 4 years ago. All of my information was correct, as well as the points I earned during that stay. Over 4 years ago! I was extremely pleased, and the online registration was a smooth process as well. After my stay I got this nice email from them – a form email, but still welcome as shown below.
Kudos to Hyatt for not forgetting about me, almost 4 years later.
The Bad – Staples
I have been a customer of Staples since store #6 opened in West Springfield, MA in the late 80’s. As Staples is from Massachusetts, they were the only real choice for discount office supplies, which was not a bad choice by any means. When I moved to Chicago and Staples later opened here, as I was a Staples Rewards member, I got an invite to the grand opening party at their flagship store in the Loop. That store is right around the corner from my office, and I shop there frequently, as well get weekly emails from them and participate in consumer surveys they extend to me. And to keep the FTC at bay, I also own stock in the company.
All of this considered, I was surprised recently when I tried logging into Staples.com to place an online order and my login failed. I was not able to receive a new password either saying my account no longer existed. So I sent a tweet to @staplestweets on Twitter to ask if they purge accounts. I don’t recall the exact time period (nor do I have the links to the tweets) but they said they do purge accounts after a year of inactivity.
The kicker here is that I am not an inactive customer! I shop in the store regularly using my black Staples Rewards Premier card, but hadn’t placed an order on their Web site in over a year. This is a failure on the part of Staples to recognize the true customer experience. If you go beyond purchases alone, I have 5 separate accounts with Staples, one each for Staples.com, Staples Easy Rebates, Staples Feedback Forum, Staples Rewards, and Staples SpeakEasy. When I pointed this out to the people on the Staples twitter account and said they weren’t making it, um, easy for me, they said fair enough. I am sure some of these are run by 3rd-party companies, but still – has anyone ever heard of single sign-on?
I went ahead and recreated my Staples.com account and made the purchase. I hope in the future I never have to do this again, and Staples makes it easier to do business with them.
The Ugly – Hilton HHonors
 The other day my family was looking into hotels and saw one which was a Hilton property. I knew I had a Hilton HHonors account and went to login. I got the strangest error message, as shown, which says in bold red letters, “The account you are accessing is no longer active. Please try again.” What does that mean? If my account is inactive, why would I try it again?
After staring at the screen for a few seconds, I called Hilton. When the line was answered, I explained the error and gave the rep my account number. She then said matter-of-factly that my account was inactive, period. I asked what that meant, and she said that after a year of not staying at a Hilton or earning any points, my account is marked as inactive and my points are deleted. What? Now sure, there is some brochure I may have received that stated this, but this is the most brutal way to deal with points, even worse than an airline! She then asked if I wanted to reactivate my account, to which I said no – I told her that though it’s their policy I was never reminded of this, and don’t ever want to stay at a Hilton hotel ever again. She didn’t seem to care.
Opportunity Lost
In short, Hyatt gets it, Staples sort of does and Hilton does not.
Staples and Hilton could have easily reached out to me and reminded me that I had not done business with them in a while and given me a special promotion to do so. I get these emails all the time from other vendors, from airlines to restaurants. Staples systems are all separate and thus they do not have an ability to view a dashboard on a customer. Hilton… well, I have no idea what they were thinking, if they were at all.
The cost of acquiring a new customer is much, much greater than keeping a current one. In the retail business, which all 3 of these customers are in, they all have that number – the cost of a new customer. Hyatt made a wise decision to keep a customer’s account active, and thus making a happy customer out of me. I will still shop with Staples and hope they get their act together – literally – and that’s not just because I want my stock value to increase. As for Hilton, I don’t care, as they have lost me as a customer.
Not to mention the cost of acquiring a customer is much greater than any disk storage required to keep that customer’s account on file.
What do you think about Web site accounts being purged? Has this ever happened to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/27/10 at 04:00 AM
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Monday, August 23, 2010
Someone has to write Web site content. Someone has to write Web site content. I could repeat this statement a million times, as it is something of great concern and passion to me. Why? Let me explain in a brief, true story. Names have been masked to protect the, um, innocent.
There’s nothing like a Web site project completed on time and under budget. My colleague and I were proud of the job we did, integrating a design from a designer who wasn’t a Web designer, but we made it work very well. The site architecture was integrated well based on the up-front analysis and the new site looked great, with one exception – there was no content. Literally, pages were blank! When we presented the site to its sponsor, who was also the one who was supposed to have written the content by now according to the project plan, he was irate. After he gave us a short monologue, it came down to the fact he let this slip from his plate altogether, though he was attempting to pass blame onto us. Oh, and this person was also my boss, the president of the company I was working for at the time, and it was for the company’s own Web site.
Completing content for a Web site can be the critical path to the site’s success. Unfortunately this has happened to me more times than I would like. So how do you ensure it is completed on time, as well as being effective and optimized? Here are some tips to follow.
Define the content - Ideally when you sit down to write content for your Web site this should have already have been completed. The information architecture of the Web site will be the top-line for what content is in the site, and its sitemap will define the pages or organization of the content. Within those pages there may be sidebars, call outs, photos, quotes, videos – whatever you feel will effectively communicate what you want to share with the visitor to your Web site.
Envision the content - Once you have gone through everything in the first step, close your eye and envision what the completed Web site will look like. What do you see in your mind’s eye? As much as pages have been laid out with placeholder text and images, seeing the finished Web page will help you in creating what will go on it.
Outline the content - Now that you know what to write and what it will look like, break down the content into manageable pieces, which is in essence outlining what will be the content of your Web site. Will a page of text have several sections with their own headings? Where will the images go?
Don’t forget SEO - Early on in the process of designing your Web site, you should have done work on the target audience of your Web site and their expectations. This information served as the guide post, spaghetti test or whatever metaphor will help you throughout the entire project. From this early analysis, the keywords and who to optimize the content of your Web site to should have bubbled to the surface or shot up like a rocket. Keep this in mind as you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
Just do it or delegate it - Yes, now someone has to write the content. Hopefully the previous steps have energized you to actually write the content, or scared you into hiring a copywriter to do it for you. But no worries, as with all of this preliminary work done, the copywriter should have all they need to create great content for your Web site.
What may be obvious to some – creating content – isn’t always obvious to all. Have you encountered this yourself, and how did you overcome it? Do you have any tips in addition to those presented here? Please leave a comment and help those whose role it is to create content, whether by choice or force.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/23/10 at 04:00 AM
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Saturday, August 21, 2010
 Sound the trumpets, as I wish to blow my own horn a little bit and pass along a few mentions I have received in the past few weeks in the Chicago media.
Newcity is a weekly print magazine with a great Web site covering additional aspects of the Windy City. Reporter Ella Christoph interviewed me about likemind Chicago, the monthly coffee meetup I co-host, as well as others who attend. It’s a great article highlighting this unique, morning gathering of tech, creative and agency folks.
Chicago Now is a blog powered by the Chicago Tribune, and reporter Lira Luis wrote about co-working and OfficePort CHI, the office space my Web consulting firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC inhabits most days and a few nights and weekends as well. Where I was not interviewed for the article, a picture of me hard at work is featured.
Thanks for the coverage, and if you are a reporter covering business or technology, I am more than glad to talk to you about an upcoming article!
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/21/10 at 03:59 AM
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Monday, August 16, 2010
Even if there was such a thing as a silver bullet for the success of a business, it would still need to be properly fired. This would require a silver gun and people who could fire the gun accurately to the exact target, whatever that target is, of course. As ideal as that would be, it doesn’t exist and I takes work to get your business to where you want it.
Thinking about where your business is and where you want it to be is the idea behind the book Predictable Success by Les McKeown. I was given a copy to read by the author. In it, the reader is taken through 7 stages of the lifecycle of a business as identified by McKeown with “predictable success” being at the top of the curve, ideally where your business should be. All of McKeown’s 7 states are: Early Struggle, Fun, Whitewater, Predictable Success, Treadmill, The Big Rut and Death Rattle.
As I read Predictable Success, I had many flashbacks to all of the firms I have worked for, and of course my own Web consulting firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC. In addition to this trip down memory lane, my takeaways from the book are reflective of my experiences, and are:
It’s important to know where your business is - Whether you are joining a business or have been in one, knowing which state the business is in is important to your decision-making there. For management, knowing the state can influence decisions to improve the business. For employees, it can influence your decision to stay or leave a job.
The wrong people can hurt a business - Unfortunately I have seen this one too much personally, where key people in a firm get to a level where many people believe they are irreplaceable and position themselves as such. This can occur to the point where management will work around them to solve problems in the company, even if those people are the real problem.
Some people cannot solve their business’ problems themselves - From small to large, there are some who lead or run a business who don’t have it in to truly do what is needed to correct the problems in their business. Why? There are many reasons, from not realizing there is a problem to being mired in the day-to-day work of the business to pull themselves out to see and do what’s needed to not having the capital they need (whether people and/or money) to make it happen. I’m not trying to be a downer, only realistic. One thing this book does well is outline steps to get to predictable success – so if you have some outline of a plan, it will help you determine if you have what it takes to make things happen, or seek help to do so.
I enjoyed reading Predictable Success. It is written in a no-nonsense, down to business manner and it is, as I said previously, easy to relate to the business stages based on my previous experience, and probably would be the same for you as well. I rate Predictable Success up with The E-Myth Revisited as a guide for businesses who are in a funk, and recommend it to any business owner, even if everthing is going great for them, or so they may think!
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/16/10 at 04:00 AM
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010
 The next likemind will be Friday, August 20, 2010 in dozens of cities around the world.
In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.
I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more on likemind, read this great article on likemind Chicago from the Newcity and likemind from the New York Times.
No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/11/10 at 11:20 AM
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Monday, August 09, 2010
 At Dunkirk Systems, LLC we are proud to have brought many clients to the Web for the first time. With the launch of the Web site for charter fishing service Spartan Charters we continue along this great tradition.
Spartan Charters is a full service charter company servicing Cape Cod, the Islands, and Southeastern Massachusetts and is a complete fishing guide and charter service. With their fleet of great fishing vessels and 2 experienced captains, Spartan ensures you have a quality and great fishing experience. As they say, they target big fish.
For this project Dunkirk partnered once again with Visible Logic, Inc. to great a highly functional Web site with a great design. The home page design is compelling to draw users to the various sections within the Web site, plus all navigational links are stylized text links, rather than images. A custom-developed content management system (CMS) powers the Web site allowing the Spartan Charters team to modify all Web site content. They are also embracing social media with their Facebook page and Flickr account with a wide variety of photos from past trips and catches.
Whether you’re a seasoned fisherman or looking to entertain clients or guests with a fishing experience, Spartan Charters is the one to call… or contact through their new Web site.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/09/10 at 09:43 AM
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
 Believe it or not, there are times you want to directly link to something from your Web site but you cannot. Despite this, there are ways you can still promote what it is you want to link to.
What Possibly Are You Talking About?
The following are a few scenarios where you cannot directly link to something on the Web.
- The publication’s Web site does not post its articles online
- The publication’s Web site requires registration or payment to view the article
- The article is no longer on the publication’s Web site
There are all real-life scenarios and have happened to clients as well as myself.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Whenever you are referencing content belonging to someone else on the Web, it is always a good idea to get their permission. In some cases you may not be able to mention specifics, such as a company or publication name or even the title of the work or article, but you’ll want to find out as much as you can about what you can mention.
Here’s a real example, and names have been changed to protect the innocent. A client of mine wants to link to articles she writes for a cooking magazine on her Web site, and in some cases she even wants to republish full or partial copy from the article. The published does not post articles online, and does not want her to post any of the articles on her own site. However, she can mention the name of the magazine, issue date and number, article title and page number. She can even show a thumbnail of the magazine cover. In this case, we posted all of this information, plus the photo, with a link to the magazine’s Web site.
If, for example, the article is available online but only to online subscribers, we can still link to it, and below the link we can mention this is behind a login which requires signup and payment. This brief disclaimer will show goodwill to the magazine, all the while promoting the fact the client wrote in it.
Striving for the Win-Win
In-bound links to a Web site are always desired and welcomed by a site owner. Depending on your business relationship with a Web site may dictate how you can present a link to promote yourself with their name. If the situation arises, seek out the method where you can present the most you can, and as a result creating a win-win situation.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 08/05/10 at 03:41 PM
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Friday, July 09, 2010
 It is with some sadness that I listened to the last ever episode of The M Show today. For over 5 years, my friend John Wall hosted a cutting-edge, concise, 10 minute podcast around marketing news and information, sprinkled with a little entertainment news. But like all good things, this one is coming to an end.
John is also the co-host with Christopher S. Penn of Marketing Over Coffee, a weekly podcast about marketing online and offline, which as a result covers all aspects of business. Recorded weekly at a Dunkin Donuts in Natick, Massachusetts, it is a very successful show with thousands of listeners/subscribers. With its success, John’s focus has changed, and thus The M Show has become a reality of that change.
The M Show set a standard for the perfect podcast. It had lively music, short in duration, informative, well-edited and human. Many podcasts out there sound like a never-ending monologue or duologue. This style has been carried over to Marketing Over Coffee, though it is about 30 minutes in duration, but is still packed with useful information.
If you never listened to The M Show, the feed remains live. His post on the end of the show on his blog Ronin Marketeer sums up the show well. I was honored to be a guest on a number of shows, and one was recorded in my home office a few years ago when John was here in the Windy City at a conference. He has said something new will be coming down the pike, so watch the feed as I am sure it will be great!
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 07/09/10 at 04:00 AM
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Thursday, July 08, 2010
The next likemind will be Friday, July 16, 2010 in dozens of cities around the world.
In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.
I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more information on likemind, you can read this great article on likemind from the New York Times.
No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 07/08/10 at 09:46 AM
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
 Go Blackhawks! That, and many other cheers have been rippling through the Chicagoland area the past few months, as the NHL Blackhawks played hard to the ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup. As a one-time pro-hockey fan, I was swept up in the momentum and was there cheering along with everyone else. You know everyone was caught up in the Blackhawks when venerable institutions like Tiffany & Co. even sported the red and black on their storefronts, as pictured!
The ascent of the team is not just one for the sports chronicles, but for the business storytelling as well. Just a few years ago, nobody would have thought the team would even sellout a game, let alone win it all. Attendance was low, games were not on TV, the team owner was known for many years as “Dollar” Bill Wirtz, and their record reflected all of this.
Then Mr. Writz died, and his son, Rocky, inherited the hockey club. It seemed like it was within days of his death that his offspring was trying to get games on local television, and a handful of games were broadcast for all to see, something his father never believed in. One-by-one changes were taking place – among them a new team president and signing young players like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. The team adopted a mantra of “One Goal” – the play on words meaning everything they did was to win the Stanley Cup. And low and behold, as I write this it is now traveling back from LA with members of the team after an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Over the course of the last few years I have followed both sides of the team. In numerous interviews Rocky Wirtz talked about changing the culture of the organization, focusing on the fans and selling and marketing the team. What I heard was almost deja vu to me, sounding much like the transformation of the New England Patriots in the 90’s. Within a few years after Robert Kraft bought the team, they were in the Super Bowl, albeit a losing effort to the Packers. But the whole organization pressed on, both on and off the field. Today 3 Super Bowl banners hang within Gillette Stadium, which replaced the outdated-from-day-one Foxboro Stadium. And though I didn’t follow the story as closely with the Boston Celtics, they are now playing for their second NBA title since new ownership took over the team in the last decade.
Even though you are a pro sports team, just because you are there does not mean people will be interested. This is what happened with me, as I lost interest in the Boston Bruins over the years because of detached ownership and what seemed to be more attention to managing the bottom line than to winning. Granted, the Bruins have done well over the last few years, probably due to the son of the out-of-town owner of the team actually being in Boston. Where I wish them well, my heart and allegiance have transferred to another of the Original Six hockey teams.
The rise of the Blackhawks is inspiring on a lot of fronts, including business. It says there is hope for all of us if the commitment is there. Granted, according to Rocky Wirtz the team is currently losing money, but the long-term affects of this championship season have yet to play out. A look at the growing Patriot Place, which now surrounds Gillette Stadium, is a testament to that. With what looks like a solid organization, there’s no reason they cannot achieve their “One Goal” next season too.
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Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/15/10 at 11:31 AM
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