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Katie: Welcome back to the BusinessMakers Overtime show. Esther and I are still here enjoying the heck out of Tasti D-Lite. This is such a great place.
Esther: It's amazing. Actually, the crowd's getting kinda bigger here.
Katie: It is.
Esther: We have Deb Evans who's actually been a guest on the BusinessMakers Show.
Katie: Hi, Deb. [Laughs]
Esther: We love her very much. She's wonderful. She's having some Tasti D-Lite, not yogurt.
Katie: Not yogurt and not ice cream. Tasti D-Lite. [Laughs]
Esther: It is Tasti D-Lite. She is a franchise expert in her own right, so she knows quite a bit about what it takes to keep franchises going and - you've got to check out her interview. If you've never heard her interview, her Overtime Show interview, you've definitely gotta check it out.
Katie: Something that we find totally interesting these days is these check in applications. If you have an iPhone or a Blackberry or even you can do it online, this new technology that allows you to check in, so to speak, at different locations, places you like to frequent, some of your favorite spots. And as Katie was saying earlier, you get kind of a discount. Sometimes if you check in a lot, they'll give you $2.00 off your order, or you can become the mayor of wherever you are.
Katie: Tasti D-Lite. [Laughs]
Esther: Yes. So it's very interesting technology and it's really good for businesses.
Katie: It is. So it's interesting 'cause it's kind of like a combination between what people are a little more used to, like City Searching giving review on restaurants, bars, venues. But now it combines this geographic like tagging, in a way, so business owners are gonna be able to know who you are, when you're in their door, what it is that you prefer. Tasti D-Lite's actually is pretty interesting in that they've hooked up their Tasti D-Lite -
Esther: Their treat card.
Katie: Treat cards. That's what it is -
Esther: It's a loyalty card.
Katie: To Twitter. And so whenever you are here using your Tasti D-Lite treat card, it's gonna ping out on Twitter. So there's this whole network kind of era of not you just sitting behind your desk typing away a review, but saying, "Hey, I'm here. Come and meet me. The business knows I'm here," and it's just this really interesting combination of technologies. Now some opportunities for businesses - so, of course, Tasti D-Lite has taken a whole direction in implementing their own technology with their Tasti D-Lite treat cards. But some businesses can even be actively monitoring Twitter. Even better, to make sure that the people that are frequenting their restaurant or their venue the most often, really get treated like realty. 'Cause they're the ones that are in the influencers that are telling the world their thousands of Twitter followers that, "Hey, I support this brand. I love this company. Come and join me." So what a neat way for a business to be able to identify their advocates and really turn 'em into lifelong loyal fans for sure.
Esther: Absolutely.
Katie: So some interfaces that you may be familiar with, yelp.com is another one of those great review sites online that's really taken strides. And now their most recent iPhone application of Yelps has this check-in feature. So instead of me just saying after the fact like, "Yeah, Tasti D-Lite was great. I love white Russian and Oreos and peanut butter," now I can say, "Hey, I'm here. I'm about to try this. Here's the flavor of the day. Here are some recommendations if you're coming today." Say, "Happy Katie loves Tasti D-Lite for a free Oreo." I don't know [Laughs] But it's all very live and as it happens, which is really the spirit of the Web these days.
Esther: There's also a competition factor because people like to check in as much as possible to become the mayor of these places. And you can bump other people the more you come.
Katie: So it's a game.
Esther: Exactly.
Katie: It's fun.
Esther: It's fun. It's interactive. It's exciting. It's addicting.
Katie: Yeah. It is. And some of these services take it even one step farther. So Gowalla will actually ping you if your friends are near - if they're in the same place you are, or if they're near there you are. And, of course, this is all opt in, so you decide who knows where you are at what time. But it's a great way to reach out and find the people that maybe you see all the time but just don't realize you're at the same venue. So really a neat place to share and find new places in a new city or in your hometown that you may never have heard of.
Esther: Yeah.
Katie: So we absolutely love it. So, Esther, let's talk about given the importance of online reviews, let's talk a little bit about how a company or an organization can really tap into passionate consumers giving them reviews on line, preferably positive reviews, of course. [Laughs] Well, sometimes those bad ones are learning experiences of themselves.
Esther: We came across a really interesting article. I think it was in Inc. Magazine. It basically gave you some really great suggestions for ways you can pay attention to customer reviews.
Katie: Yes.
Esther: And one of the suggestions was to make sure you pay attention to the reviews you already have. It's great to get these reviews through Yelp. It's great to get reviews through Four Square and to hear what people are Tweeting about. But make sure - check forums, check message boards, check anywhere you can possibly think of. Set up Google alerts for yourself so you anytime anyone anywhere posts something about your business - because you never know where people who frequent your establishment go. You don't know. You don't have it all figured out. It's really important. You might discover something completely new about your business. You might discover that people who shop with you are very much involved in some other online community that you've never even heard of. So make sure pay attention to those things and respond quickly to them.
Katie: Exactly. And speaking of response, another one of inc.com's tips to get these great reviews online for your business is that you should not just pay attention to everything, but really zone in on kind of the negative borderline unhappy stuff that your clients and your customers are talking about. Address the issues. Some of them may not be valid. Sometimes people just have a bad day and they just wanna take it out on you. [Laughs]
Esther: Exactly.
Katie: Unfortunate reality. But if there are some things, if there's customer service, there's product issues, make sure that you address them promptly, and try addressing them as directly as possible. I know that there's a lot of businesses that have a hard time responding to negative reviews 'cause they're really concerned that they're gonna be perceived as being really kind of defensive. Even if they're being positive, "Thank you, thank you," people may view that in a weird light. So some companies - and I'm thinking of on in particular, an iconic restaurant here in Houston called Brennan's of Houston, they're famous for really keeping track of thank you cards and online reviews and word-of-mouth reviews. And if someone has a bad experience, they've been known to show up at that person's house, have the whole chef team come with three dozen roses and cook dinner for them in their house that night.
Esther: Amazing.
Katie: I mean, like they go above and beyond to say, "Hey, we saw what you said. We care about what you say. We're gonna make it better, and we're gonna do this crazy thing for you, and you're gonna love us forever." [Laughs]
Esther: It's a great thing to do. I think better than defending yourself, better than explaining away why a situation went badly or why a customer wasn't treated properly is just to wow them again.
Katie: Exactly.
Esther: Invite them back. Ask them to come back and try again and apologize. An apology really does go along way with customer service and customer retention.
Katie: Yeah, exactly. And I know that a lot of businesses get really nervous about promoting these online review spaces because people have this concern of what happens if someone writes something really nasty over the weekend and we don't see it 'till Monday morning. Well, the great thing about really pushing asking for people to leave their honest feedback is that you are gonna have a lot of rabid fans that want to stand up for you, that want to talk about how great you are. So often, you'll see companies that have really strong online presences, people will be standing up for you defending you, battling it with their own positive experiences hours before their PR people will even notice it. So it kinda goes both ways. You may be a little nervous about not having control of this medium, but definitely let the good work that you've already done and the great people that are already crazy about, let them take up for you. They'll fight 'em. [Laughs]
Esther: Totally agree. And sometimes it's not just straight customer reviews that you want. You want to engage your fans. You want to get your feedback that way. It's not just posting on the Web site, "I love this place. It is wonderful." You want to get reviews in any way you can, even if it's through Tweet, even if it's through Facebook. And the article did mention something about knowing your age group. If your customers are under 30, there's a chance they don't want to post a review on your Web site. Maybe they wanna talk about you on Facebook. They wanna to talk about you on other social Web sites. So focus on those. If that's your target audience, focus the. Well, I think that about wraps it up for this week's episode of Overtime Show, the sweet, sweet episode.
Katie: Yes. Sweet, sweet, sweet. [Laughs]
Esther: We're gonna go eat some more ice cream, so -
Katie: Yeah. Wait, wait, wait Tasti D-Lite, Ester. [Laughs]
Esther: We actually would love to know your favorite Tasti D-Lite flavor is. So let us know. Please Tweet us a twitter.com/overtimeshow, facebook.com/theBusinessMakers, or at our wonderful Web site, thebuisnessmakers.com/overtime.
Katie: Maybe we should have you talk about what the weirdest combination of Tasti D-Lite flavors could possibly be, and then we'll go order it for John, our producer, and have him drink it. [Laughs]
Esther: Yeah. That would be fun. All right. I'm in.
Katie: I can see the glint of excitement in John's eye. [Laughs]
Esther: Awesome.
Katie: Well, thanks so much for being here and totally putting up with our delicious mouthfuls of Tasti D-Lite in between sentences. You've been listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show, heard here and online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm Katie Laird.
Esther: And I'm Esther Steinfeld.
Katie: And we will see you next week. See ya.