Whale Speak

A Highly Irregular & Opinionated Web Periodical

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How to fix eBay

July 31st, 2008 · internet, marketing

eBay sign

from flickr: Ryan Fanshaw Photography

This has been bothering me for a long time. I use eBay a lot, and recently it has become less fun, but I can’t put my finger on why exactly.

The site is flooded with generic, no-brand products, (at least in the categories I spend most of my time) being sold for razor thin profits (usually through inflated postage charges). Products have become commodities. There is no call for quality or good service. The opportunity for the home seller is drowned out in a the noise.

There are other subtler problems which are more about expectations. Customers assume that goods on eBay are cheap, but for many things you can find cheaper alternatives online. (Books are a particularly good example.) It’s also taken for granted that service will be unpolished. if you’re buying it online, from a stranger, often second-hand, it’s somehow implicit that you can’t expect to be treated well.

The main problem facing eBay is that it dominates online auctions. And it’s difficult for anyone to compete in that kind of venture without a very distinct service. When you hold that kind of power, it’s easy to be complacent.

So how do you solve these problems? I’m not sure what the best strategy would be, but here are some things I’ve been considering:

1. Separate auctions from fixed price.

It’s difficult to separate businesses from individuals, but easier to separate true auctions from fixed price sales. Commodity sellers don’t like fixed price because it represents too much risk. That’s why I like auctions, they give me an illusion that I might get a good deal.

2. Encourage better service.

Getting sellers, even people like you and me sitting at home, to think of themselves as service providers and giving them good advice on how to improve their customer service would improve the whole experience of the site. It could also lead to better differentiation between sellers. However, this might require that they…

3. Change the feedback system.

Feedback does a lot to punish and prevent scams. If a seller has pages of good reviews, you feel more confident parting with your money. But it’s more difficult to identify great service, something above and beyond. Perhaps a higher level of positive feedback is required. A new category which identifies the exceptional.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of how I handle a sale on eBay and I’ve come up with a few ideas I’m going to try over the coming months. In a way, it’s a great environemnt to test customer service ideas.

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Black Swans in SEO

July 30th, 2008 · SEO

SEO is full of Black Swans. If you’ve read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s incredible book you’ll know just what that means, but if you haven’t just think of them as massive, unpredictable events that have profound effects.

Traffic spikes are Black Swans. So are #1 rankings in Google. SEOs are always chasing them, and like the deluded traders in Taleb’s book, they are always developing systems and rules for creating them.

Search engine algorithms are black boxes. SEOs do some work, the algorithm works its magic, and rankings and traffic come out the other side. SEOs then work by induction to determine the algorithm, but if you know anything about induction you’ll know how unrewarding it can be.

People love certainty and they’re prepared to bypass reason to believe in it. That’s why so much stock market software exists that promises big returns, and it’s the same with SEOs that promise high rankings or big traffic.

The alternatives are not pretty. Tell your customers that you can promise nothing and see how happy they are when you bill them. Tell SEOs that their strategies are based on faulty reasoning and they’ll ask you what the alternative is.

There are two meta-strategies that I think will work well here. Number one, educate your clients. Show them what SEO is and tell them how rankings in Google are generated, then they’ll be less quick to buy search marketing snakeoil.

Number two, cover as many angles as you can. Look at on-site optimisation, look at link-building, look at ads, look at social networks, video etc. It might be one thing affecting your placement, it might be one hundred, but keep your hand in everywhere, keep every plate spinning. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you know how SEO works because you’ve had a few successful campaigns.

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6 reasons why your customer service sucks

July 29th, 2008 · customer service

Dave Gorman has had trouble with his BT broadband. Reading his comments on BT’s customer service, I can sense his understanding that the people he’s talking to don’t have any power to help him.

Having worked in customer service I cringe every time I read stories like this because I know what it’s like to be between an angry but reasonable customer and an uninterested bureaucracy. Why is customer service done so badly? It seems like an afterthought, something that a company is forced to do apart from their core business. But in fact, it’s an amazing marketing tool. People only remember the couple of days when things went wrong, not the years of blip-free service. If you can fill those couple of days with amazing service, you can generate customers for life.

Here’s what is wrong with the current approach to customer service (specifically in the UK):

1. You don’t give your representatives any power to solve problems.

Even in organisations that don’t use scripted responses, front-line staff usually can’t do anything outside of a pre-determined scope. The difficulty with this thinking is that customers complain when things go wrong. That means that normal procedures don’t apply. Almost every customer complaint can be solved efficiently by dropping procedure right away and cutting the Gordian knot. Sometimes this requires creativity but often the customer will even tell you how the problem can be solved. It couldn’t be simpler.

2. They’re usually the least knowledgeable people in your organisation.

People who answer the phones aren’t engineers. This is because engineers are busy engineering. I can understand that. What sickens me, is that engineers, managers, CEOs, finance, HR or anyone from any other department would rather take a bullet than talk to a customer for five minutes.

And this isn’t a “training issue”. Believe it or not, training courses aren’t some kind of magic wand that turns minimum-wage phone answerers into physicists.

3. You don’t back them up.

Why do people ask to be transferred to a manager? Because managers hate hassle, and will do anything to exit a conversation. This means that after you’ve spent half an hour defending a terrible policy, your manager will bypass it in the blink of an eye so that he can get back to playing minesweeper. This makes you look like a dick and your manager looks like a “solutions provider”.

4. You bullshit them.

Who is more likely to go along with your stupid corporate policy? Someone whose salary you pay, or a customer who is having a bad day?

You can feed any line to your staff and they will sit there and nod, but a customer isn’t fooled for a second. And your staff will get more and more fed up with explaining something that they know is stupid.

5. You try to save money.

How much do you spend on advertising? Large companies spend thousands to put their name on a board in a sports stadium so that for a fleeting second it registers in the mind of an onlooker.

How much does it cost to post a part to a customer, or to ship their order for next-morning delivery? How much does it cost to say sorry? To refund a week or a month’s subscription? To send them a free gift? People remember these things for a lot longer and they tell their friends and family too.

6. You treat complaints like problems not opportunities.

Do you know what I do when I get crap service? I don’t go back for it. Usually, I don’t say anything, I just don’t turn up again. Every time someone is disappointed in your product or service and tells you about it is a rare opportunity to make your company better. It pinpoints with laser accuracy the problems that your customers have.

If you route these complaints so that you never have to deal with them directly, you’re missing one of the most important business measures you have.

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SEO scams

July 25th, 2008 · SEO

In two days, I’ve been exposed to two SEO scams.

One company offers first place ranking in Google for £650. Their small print says that if this doesn’t happen they’ll refund you but keep an admin fee of £75. What’s more, their “first place” seems to be in sponsored ads not organic results. You can buy those yourself.

The second was a phone call saying that they had a spare place on the first page of Google for “insert relevant keywords here”. I thought wow, who is this guy? Does he actually run Google? Because I hear that they don’t exactly need the money.

For any of you who are in the dark, let me make this absolutely clear: no one can guarantee you any place in the search rankings for any keywords.

Check out Google’s own guidelines on this. (Scroll down to No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.)

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Charlie Brooker on SEO

July 22nd, 2008 · SEO

My favourite TV critic Charlie Brooker has a piece in the Guardian about SEO. It’s interesting to see how someone outside of the business sees it and in this case he sees the particularly unlikeable aspects of it. Stuffing topical keywords into online articles is all it is apparently.

Doing SEO for small or new businesses is miles away from this. These people are the enemy.

It’s a common mistake to think that traffic equals sales. But when you visit a site that’s full of spammy articles, what do you do? You click away.

The more people who employ dodgy techniques to get high page rankings, the more difficult it is for a new business to break through this spam barrier. And I want them to break through. When someone has a great product or service, I want to hear about it. But as in all media, good product does not equal good marketing.

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How to shrink your to do list

July 17th, 2008 · productivity

I love Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done, and my life is governed by to do lists. In fact, managing my system can be a pleasant distraction from actually doing work.

One thing I notice from time to time is that some tasks sit around on my list forever, never going anywhere, always being demoted in favour of other tasks. And these build up and up, until a list is a big, unwieldy mess and I don’t know where to begin.

Short to do lists are great.

If something has been hanging around for a while or a list has grown too large, I ask these questions:

1. Do I really want to do this?

Is it on your list because it’s something you think you should be doing?

2. Do I need to do this urgently?

If it’s not urgent but you still want to do it someday, move it to another pile. Put it in your calendar or your “one day I’ll get round to it” list.

3. Is there a step I need to complete before I can do this?

You could be delaying something because it’s actually the second step in a process. Sometimes these first steps are so small or obvious that we don’t articulate them. Like phoning a friend to recommend a restaurant before you phone to reserve a table.

4. What stops me from completing this?

Are there psychological barriers holding you back? Maybe you don’t want to clear out your office because you’re afraid of throwing out something important. Think about your hang-ups and maybe work on those first. Acknowledge them and move on, or do what you need to do to heal them.

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Free textures

July 15th, 2008 · design

CG Textures is a great site that gives away pretty good texture images for use as you see fit. I needed some for a project I’m working on, and these are better than a lot of the dross I’ve found.

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What is Web Design?

July 14th, 2008 · design, internet

Is it the way websites are used, or is it all the frilly bits? Where does the confusion come from?

Design is literally the opposite of an accident. It is when things are done for a purpose, or when a choice is made from many competing options.

So graphic design and usability as they relate to the web are really two different skills. How important they are depends heavily on the project, but as a web designer it’s good to have an appreciation of both. In fact, web design could be defined as where these two considerations overlap.

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The best way to learn

July 11th, 2008 · learning, productivity

The best way to learn is to do. When you learn from someone else, you can get a good overview, but the details are missing. Learning on the job provides a better sense of the “feel” of something. That intuitive touch that experts have.

When I first learned to cook, I measured out everything to the gram, but now I shun measurements and timing for almost everything. (I still can’t get the knack of baking.) What I’ve got now is not arrogance, but a set of internal guides or heuristics that have come into place without me really codifying them. I know how much is too much and how much is not enough.

It’s like that joke about the difference between theory and practice. In theory there’s no difference, in practice there is.

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8 glasses of water and other myths

July 8th, 2008 · internet, learning

Twice recently I’ve seen two high-profile blogs write about weight loss techniques which I have seen refuted by professionals. Number one: targeted weight loss, the idea that certain exercises will remove fat from only certain parts of your body, which is just false. Number two: low-carb diets, which I thought had been shown to create long term health risks.

I hate seeing the same bad ideas being brought out again and again after they have been debunked. It reminds me of crop circles, which were revealed to be hoaxes years ago and yet continue to be talked about with awe.

At times, I’m sure these things are caused by a disagreement between experts, in this case health professionals, but also they can be caused by not being rigorous enough in our research. The idea of 8 glasses of water a day is another one. I’ve heard doctors give this advice, with no idea of where it originates.

The internet makes these problems worse. A good meme travels fast irrespective of how true it is. That’s what makes Wikipedia’s [citation needed] tag so important. But this is also a matter of personal responsibility. I hear friends criticise Wikipedia almost daily as unreliable, but the facts we find there should be easy to verify. We’re putting our intellectual eggs into one basket.

There are two sides to this and one fairly easy rule of thumb to remember: if you’re repeating someone’s idea, or if you come across a new idea, ask yourself “where does this come from?” and stop taking things on face value.

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