Whoopppeee! I am finally embarking on getting some Spanish lessons with a tutor. It's well needed… Whilst I find the Spanish are extremely willing to help communications if you at least try to speak their language, I must say we're hitting barriers more and more often now.

The good old pointing and spurting a few unconnected Spanish words is no longer feeling 'right' for me so I'm taking the next step.

This topic on Spanish living is also giving me the opportunity to say that I am flabbergasted at how little need the average Spanish business displays for attracting new customers. (That's not a negative comment towards my new home nation, it's just a reflection of the reality that is found almost everywhere.)

We walked into a mobile phone shop today to try and get a Spanish pay as you go simcard, and without even moving an eye in our direction we were told by the shop keeper to come in tomorrow… unfortunately the lady behind the counter couldn't explain why! Granted, we couldn't speak her language, but she didn't even try to ask us…

Right, rant over!

My point is though - in a competitive market no one can afford to ignore opportunities for potential customers. I come from an ex communist country and know all about complacency can creep in at the site of a guaranteed paycheck, but sooner or later the need to differentiate your business comes out to bite you in the proverbial butt cheek.

And if you don't rise to the occasion, you WILL be swallowed by the competition. I've always been quite fond of the comforts of customer service for selfish reasons, as much as carreer fascination. And to this day consider it to be the second most important part of a successful business (the first being an excellent product).

So is it a fact that the Spanish market place is still on its way to saturation? Or could it be that the laid back attitude to life in Spain has prevailed over the 'rat race' culture of the west - haha! Here is a philosophical thought for you to ponder on…

Can laid back attitude thrive in a competitive environment, without inflicting a 'rat race' culture?

I'm reading a book currently called "How to talk to anyone" by Leil Lowndes, finishing it of actually.

Apart from being an awesome book that I would recommend to anyone in marketing, it gives a lot of food for thought. It has 92 'tricks' on how to get by in any conversation with flying colours. I'm definitely going to have to MindMap this one…

As I'm going through it I'm having many "A-Ha!" moments, and am also finding out that somehow I'm not doing so badly in my conversational style…

Anyway - I read the umpteenth 'trick' last night and thought I'd share it with you as it's one I strongly believe in and it has to do with my favourite topic - customer service :o)

It's called My Goof, Your Gain, and it's basically referring to the opportunity a great customer service department should see in screwing up… Uh-huh!

If your customer has just bought a pair of trousers, which he decides to wear on his very important date… That evening, whilst bending down to pick up his date's dropped handkerchief (spell that!) the trousers rip exposing him in a not so cute way…

Now that man will probably call your customer service dept to issue a bit of dissatisfaction - and rightly so. But instead of shooting him down and telling him he should consider loosing some weight or bending at the knees when picking things up off the floor. You should consider using this tactic which consists of the following:

• Listen out what he has to say and his entire complaint until he has fully finished.
• Sympathise with him and make him understand that you understand - without patronising him.
• And finally - tell him that you'll send replacement trousers this day, and include a generous voucher for him inside.

This is your company's opportunity to reign in this customer forever.

If you deal with his complaint in a way he's never expected, you can be guaranteed he'll become a loyal customer and may even spread the news of how well you understood his concern…

Ha ha! Yes, I attempted a play on words there and didn't do so well…

Never mind, I wanted to blog about this latest BlogRush update, for those of you who are feverishly following the developments of what's been named as "the next big thing in marketing".

BlogRush phase 2 is about to be released. There's a new interface on the way, alongside the all important and awaited security cleanups. The interface looks promising and I'm particularly excited to be able to dig into some more detailed data. I'm sure it will be a good one - we just need to see it now.

One other thing before I let you have the link to the full updates :o)

For those of you who have not signed up to John Reese's blog Income.com yet - DO IT NOW.

I hate to be forceful, but even if you care not who he is, the marketing lessons you will get from this man are priceless, real time, and most of the time unique.

Lesson 1 (for e.g.) how he's handled the whole "phase two improvements are coming" thing. Constant communication with his customers. Detailed information on what is being worked on and what's going on. This is all going to fare very well with all of us - his customers. He's building a relationship based on open communication.

All that remains to be done to finish this lesson successfully is to now deliver on the promises. Knowing John's work in the past - he will probably over-deliver.

Watch this space… oh, and sign up to his RSS >>

Now here is BlogRush - The Mighty “Phase 2?

I remember many years ago, when I was just starting out my marketing studies, how strongly I felt about the Customer Relationships module of my curriculum. And I must admit that's one thing England's got that you will struggle to find in many other places - and I will miss that here in Spain.

Anyway, the module preached that for a company to be truly successful, it needs to eat, breathe, sleep and so on - marketing. To this day (8 or 9 years down the line) I still strongly believe that should be the case, because if you miss one little person even, it can lose you good, loyal customers.

Never has this been more true than when it came to my interaction with the branch manager of a Car Rentals company in St. Javier airport…

The short background story:
We're renting a car until we receive the new car we purchased. We're renting from the car rental company, and have been doing so for the past 4 weeks (and once on a trip in April). We're happy with their prices, and the cars they offer so we've stuck with them. We're obviously repeat customers, that are happy with their deal. I.e. in terms of customers we're the ideal that they should be striving for.

When we first rented the car a few weeks ago, we noticed a small stone mark in the front windscreen, which we presumed that was marked on the known faults of the car release docs - it's not like you could have missed seeing it… (lesson one - don't presume things that matter to you).

Anyway, this initial mark turned into a crack over the 4 weeks of driving the car, at which stage we rang the office to ask if we can exchange the vehicle as it is now dangerous to drive. We were told by the polite person in the office that there's no problem and we must just go up in the morning and pickup another car. Ah, we thought, what wonderful people - we're so glad we chose them…

Next morning we pitch up at their main offices stating what I just told you above, only to be met by a judgmental smirk on the face of their employee. At which stage he proceeded to explain that he will have to charge us for the screen, the excess of the insurance and the time the car will be off the road for repairs.

Now, I will not go into heated details of the interaction that happened for the next half hour. FYI - I didn't get abusive and did not spurt blood and fire at the guy on the other end… I went on to try and clarify why we will incur the charges since the damage was initially there, whoever handed us the vehicle the first time around obviously didn't clean it or inspect for faults, as the vehicle was dirty and the little picture where existing damaged spots were to be marked were empty…

When we called him up on that he proceeded to try and excuse himself by saying it was our responsibility to mark the faults on the car before renting it - which is total b**l. He couldn't show us where in their T & Cs it stated that the insurance doesn't cover glass damage, neither could he show us where in the T & Cs it says we have to pay excess for the insurance.

I could see that by that time the guy was just trying to stick to his original statement and even though he had no legal leg to stand on would not back down with his unreasonable demands. At this stage I'd had enough, and asked to speak to the manager… (thinking that I will change car rental companies) "I am the manager of this office." he said…

Whohaaa! Incredible!

Picture this:

Here we are with a feasible case, which would realistically cost you less than 50 Euro to fix. We are a customer that has returned to use our services 5 times in the last 6 months, paying good money for the 'pleasure'. We are obviously wanting to continue this relationship, and have already driven half our to get to you (as our local branch couldn't help us). AND there are 4 other car rental companies' offices right next to ours…

For 50 Euro cost - will you be willing to tell us to bugger off?

That's a "no brainer" right?

Well, for someone like that manager it's obviously more about pride. WRONG!

What he should have done, and what his colleague, who happened to walk in the office during our debate, did.

Good customer service = loyal customers = common sense

The colleague found out what the case was and at the first opportunity he had to speak to us, apologised, swapped our vehicle for a higher spec vehicle, and as a courtesy gave it to us with a full tank of diesel. Then he took us to the new vehicle, checked it over with us present and handed us the keys with a big smile on his face.

Now that's who the car hire company should have had as its manager. Someone who intuitively or through training could see the value of repeat customers, in the presence of so much competition.

So ask yourself this - is your marketing strategy in every molecule of your business? Does everyone understand the values you hold and the customers you're aiming to attract and keep?

Rich Shrefren says that each business should have THE NUMBER imprinted into every employee's brain. It will help individuals make decisions on the fly. Every decision that's made needs to impact THE NUMBER in a positive way.

Yes, in true Anita style, I nearly missed the well anticipated Romans & Cartagenians fiesta… UUUhhh! What I hear you gasp… Yes, after I posted last time, we got all ready and dressed up, and just before stepping out to get to the car, rain pored down like there's no tomorrow. So we turned around and settled for a night of poker instead.

So, not one to be discouraged easily, I decided that next Saturday, Andre and I will attempt to attend the closing march instead.

Saturday came and for some reason I had 12am in my mind as the time we had to be in town for the start of the march. Long story short, it turned out that it was starting at 7pm… Now - even though it was already 9:30pm, we thought - there's no way we're not going to see it, grabbed our purses (man bag for Andre) and ran for it.

You'd be happy to know that we made it in time to see a good selection of legions and loved every minute of it!

And the reason I am telling you all this?

Very often people give up things they should really go for, thinking, "oh, I'll go next year", or "I can see that another time", or worse yet, "Agh, it's too late now anyway".

So I wanted to just get this message across to you:

Life's too short to leave opportunities on the table, thinking you can take them up another time. If something is important to you - go for it.

The worst that can happen is that you're too late… but then you lose nothing anyway. The best outcome however, will not only fill you with sense of achievement for taking the chance, but it will add happy memories, and knowledge to your persona!

The more you procrastinate the more you miss out on life. Even if it's just a mundane task you're putting off… think - if you do it, then you have free time to do something else - perhaps more enjoyable.