Where Talent Strategies + Social Media Intersect
From the monthly archives:
Cartoon by Hugh
My blog post “Just stop it. You don’t get to use twitter anymore” made it into the Tweet & Shout blogging contest.
I am so flattered!
And you know how much I like to use video so please go to my blog post at the contest site and comment so I can win that HD camera. 
Please click here to comment/vote.
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As you may have read in previous posts on my blog, I’ve had some trouble with Sears over the past ten days.
I thought it might be constructive to provide some ideas for the CEO and executive team at Sears so we took today’s episode straight to their door.
It was my turn to ask the question, and I asked “When a company provides a poor customer experience, what is the most important thing they should do to heal the customer’s brand relationship?”
What are your thoughts?
When a company delivers a poor customer experience, what can and should they do to heal their relationship with the customer?
Post ‘em in the comments please.
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Cartoon by Hugh
When I last wrote about my series of misadventures with Sears [that is putting it sooo nicely] it was Wednesday and Sears had called to tell me that I would not be receiving my mattress set that day because they had put it on the wrong truck.
That was the second whole day within a week that I’d had to block out my entire day thanks to Sears. Because they won’t give you a delivery “window” until the night before your delivery date I had no choice. I could not schedule so much as a phone call on Wednesday thanks to their customer unservice policy. And, you know; it’s not like I have a business to run or anything.
To make long and painful story short I then arranged to have the mattress set delivered on Saturday. Yesterday. Which was my birthday. But I was so furious and just wanted to get this thing over with and move on with my life I did not even care.
They called Friday after 6:00 pm to give me my delivery window. It was from 5:15 to 7:15 pm.
Had someone actually delivered that message to me face-to-face they would probably have been risking their life.
THAT IS NOT DAYTIME.
NO ONE TOLD ME THAT I HAD TO BLOCK OUT MY EVENING AS WELL.
I pressed whatever button that gave me the option to talk to a person and a woman answered.
Her: Hello thank you for calling Sears how can I help you?
Me: Hi my name is Stephanie Lloyd and I was just informed that my delivery window for tomorrow is 5:15 to 7:15 pm and that will not work for me. I need to change it.
Her: Oh we can’t change it.
Me: But that’s not daytime. No one told me that I had to block out my evening too.
Me: I blocked out my entire day for you all and now you’re telling me you’re stealing my night as well?
Her: Well.
Her: Ma’am.
Her: Our delivery hours are from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.
Me: NO ONE TOLD ME THAT.
Her:
Her:
Me: This is ludicrous.
Her:
Me: I’d like to speak with your supervisor please.
Her: Well I can transfer you but she can’t change it either.
Me:
Her: Do you want to reschedule for another day?
Me: NO I DO NOT BECAUSE THEN I WOULD JUST HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL OF THIS ALL OVER AGAIN CORRECT??
Her: Uh huh.
Me: AND THAT WOULD MAKE DAY NUMBER FOUR that you all have stolen from me.
Her:
Her:
Me: Have a good night.
If I could have reached through the phone and ripped out her jugular I would have wouldn’t have but I so wanted to.
So, yesterday (Saturday) I was sure to be home well before 5:15 and I stayed off the phone because no way was I going to risk them calling to say they’re on their way and missing the call and then having to reschedule. AGAIN.
At 6:55 pm my phone rang.
Me: Good evening, Stephanie Lloyd...
Him: Oh yeah hi uh this is Sears and I’ll be there in an hour.
Me: An hour?? My window is from 5:15 to 7:15. It’s 7:00 now.
Him: Ooooh NO.
Him: That window is for us to call you and tell you when we’ll be there.
Me:
Me:
Me:
Him: Ok I’ll be there in half an hour.
Me: See you then.
They arrived an hour later.
The two men came in my door, one with the mattress; the other with the box spring. (Box springs? I never know which is correct.)
Guy #1: Where do you want them?
Me: Through that door, in the room on the left.
Me: The one that has the mattresses leaned up against the wall.
Me: Now you are taking the old mattresses away, right?
Guy #2: No we don’t do that.
Me: My mom told me that she paid extra just to have you take them away.
Guy #1: Well then she should get her money back.
Guy #2 laughs.
Me: I am being serious. I need you to take these.
Guy #1: We can take them outside if you want. Where should I put them?
Me: Do not take them outside. It’s about to rain.
Me: Are you seriously telling me that you are not going to take them?
Guy #2: We don’t do that.
Me:
Me:
Guy #2 starts walking out with the old mattress.
Me: Wait! Where are you going?
Guy #2: I thought you wanted us to take it.
Me: YOU JUST SAID that you don’t do that.
Guy #2 to Guy #1: This lady needs an aspirin or something.
Me:
Guy #1: We’re just playin’ with ya.
Me, seething:
Me: So you’re taking them.
Guy #1: Yeah.
Me: Look. I know you don’t have the background information on this, but I’m just A LITTLE on edge right now as getting these mattresses delivered has been one of the worst experiences of my life.
Guy #2: You are the 20th customer we’ve delivered today and you’re the 20th person who’s said that.
Me: Well, I’m writing a letter to your CEO.
Guy #1: Oh, good! PLEASE DO.
Guy #1: This job sucks.
Guy #2: Sears is awful. They’re terrible to work for.
Guy #1: I’m only doing this til I can find something else.
Me: OH so they treat their employees just as poorly as they treat their customers.
Me: What a shock.
Guy #1: Yeah…
Me: Well I’m very sorry to hear that.
They put the mattress set on the bed and were out of here.
I will say that it was so nice to wake up this morning on that completely awesome pillow-top mattress my mom got me for my birthday. I slept really well!
However, Sears cannot take any credit for that. The mattresses were made by Sealy. Sears just sells them.
[Sealy might want to re-think that relationship.]
Stay tuned for additional commentary on this debacle.
AND THEN, I’ll share my email to the Sears CEO with you. Won’t that be fun.
The Sears mattress department. Don't let my smile fool you.
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Today I ran a report on Hubspot’s Website Grader for Radiant Veracity.
Finally, I now have some insight into my blog stats and what I need to do from an SEO (search engine optimization) perspective – and I recommend running this report for your blog so you can learn more too. They also have a blog grader.
Oh.
Bonus.
It’s free.
Cartoon by Hugh
Following is what I think is some of the most valuable information provided by the report. To see the report in its entirety click here.
A website grade of 98.1/100 for www.radiantveracity.com means that of the hundreds of thousands of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 98.1% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.
The website www.radiantveracity.com ranks 25,010 of the 1,371,012 websites that have been ranked so far.
The software is constantly being upgraded and the algorithm enhanced. The number of potential recommendations provided by the tool is also increasing frequently. Please check back often.
On-Page SEO is the process of placing your selected keywords in the right places on your web pages. On-page SEO involves changing page titles, headings, content, and URLs to improve search engine rankings.
Metadata
Metadata tags allow you to tell the search engines what your web page is about. Learn more about metadata and why it’s important.
| Page Title: | Radiant Veracity — Where Talent Strategies + Social Media Intersect |
| Meta Description: | Where Talent Strategies + Social Media Intersect |
| Meta Keywords: | hr,human resources,recruiting,recruiter,sourcing,sourcer,job,jobs,talent,talent acquisition,social media,humor,office,workplace,employee retention,employee communication |
We believe that though the search engines don’t weigh keywords as heavily as they used to, they’re still important to get right. By using a high number of keywords, it is possible that you are diluting the effect of your most important keywords. We would suggest keeping the keywords to 10 or less. Currently, this page has keywords in its metadata.
It’s usually better to have fewer or smaller images. Sometimes simply resizing your images will make them smaller in size, and your web page will load faster.
| Page | Keywords | Description |
|---|---|---|
| For Companies | – missing – | – missing – |
| For Individuals | – missing – | – missing – |
| http://www.radiantveracity.com/meet-the-autho/ | – missing – | – missing – |
| Keyword | Estimated Monthly Search Volume | www.radiantveracity.com rank |
|---|---|---|
| hr | 16,932 | 100+ |
| human resources | 19,862 | 100+ |
| recruiting | 4,388 | 100 |
| Section | www.radiantveracity.com |
|---|---|
| Website Grade | 98.1 |
| Google Page Rank | 4 |
| Google Indexed Pages | 91 |
| Traffic Rank | 400,083 |
| Blog Rank | 340,343 |
| Inbound Links | 1,720 |
| del.icio.us Bookmarks | 2 |
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