The card said:

“You recently tweeted about your ReadyTalk experience and even used the word ‘Awesome.” We appreciate your feedback and for sharing & spreading the word about ReadyTalk. Enclosed is a hard drive as a token of our appreciation.

With Regards, April.”

Wow. Just wow. That’s all we could say.

ReadyTalk.com is a Denver-based, online meeting services company. Think WebEx and GoToMeeting, only without the hassle. ReadyTalk is actually easy to use, doesn’t crash your computer and allows you to hold a webinar without the usual attendant brain damage.

We’ve conducted ReadyTalk.com webinars for the Colorado Society of Association Executives (CSAE). We’ve done a couple others for their Web Seminar Series. But, oddly we’ve never written about them on our blog.

Sure, we’ve gotten online Twitter thank-you messages back for a “tweet,” but we’ve never, ever gotten a card (and gift!) for a “tweet.” Makes you think about your online strategies, doesn’t it?!

Eat, Drink and Be Married

What do you do if you’re pretty much a 100% online company? That describes MyWedding.com. They’re an online local wedding resource, as well as a total management site for the happy couple (RSVP, email, registry, blog, etc).

They already do a great job of creating relationships online, but last week they blew it all out and invited everyone in the Denver/Colorado Springs area to show up at their new offices in Castle Rock, Colorado.

And, boy did they ever provide offline goodies – wines from Castle Rock Winery, superbly neat little gift boxes from Keltoy.com, food and excellent service from Occasions by Sandy, and on and on.

The place was packed! Photographers, florists, DJ’s, caterers, brides, grooms and every other type of wedding hob-nobber, rubbing elbows with Woody Pastorius and the rest of his welcoming crew at MyWedding.com.

Get Off of It

It made us think about online businesses. When was the last time you took your online business – and got off of it?

These days, when it comes to social media everyone wants to pitch its money making power. They tell you that if you just twerp your web site, use the right keywords and tweet 20 times a day you’ll be a success at the online game.

Ever stop to think that perhaps the real power of social media is to keep the “social” in it?

Pretty sure ReadyTalk and MyWedding have. What about you?

In an article about their financial results, Ann Zimmerman at the Wall Street Journal wrote this:

Target yesterday reported its fiscal fourth-quarter profit dropped 8.1% from the year-earlier period, signaling a new stumble as shoppers snub its stylish but discretionary designer duds and homewares in favor of low-priced necessities.

Zimmerman’s commentary about the financial situation at Target said nothing about a firestorm of controversy that surrounded the company earlier this year.

Readers of this blog know how to search the News, Blogs and Videos for deeper and more precisely targeted information, so you can read about the controversy without our help. We will tell you, however, that the public relations department at Target told Amy Jussel, the executive director of Shaping Youth, to go take a hike.

You see, Amy happens to be a blogger. So when Amy voiced her concerns to Target about their possible advertising exploitation of young women they told her:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets.”

Have a nice day, Amy. Target’s fumbling response in handling her concerns helped to bring her a ton of additional publicity – and to bring Target a scolding from journalists and bloggers around the world.

In fact, the New York Times reported the story in Daniel Barbaro’s “Target Tells Blogger to Go Away.”

We’ll let you read some of our linked articles (and screen shots) and decide for yourself about the Target advertisement in question.

Our question – might there be a link between being a doofus and their financial performance? If Target can not stay on top of the shifts in the world of communication and media, might they also be falling behind in the world of fashion, product selection and customer service.

In fact, if you consider this story as a merely a customer service story (and not a jilted blogger story) Target’s lack of response is appalling.

That’s got to carry over into the rest of their business. If they are dismissive to Amy, they are likely dismissive to other customers. Bottom line, anyone?

Here’s the real story behind the story, though. Target is the exception when it comes to treating bloggers like dirt, not the rule.

We write a couple of small blogs that have an admittedly small audience. We regularly write and call companies to ask for interviews and more information. The majority of them not only respond, but willingly cooperate in helping us report the story to our readers.

In the past few weeks we’ve interviewed the folks at Creative Commons, Viewstream Video, ThoughtEquity and many others. These companies and organizations not only took their time, they often went further, providing us with extra material and networking us to other information.

Our experience shows that Target is out of step, and think about it. Might that mean they’re missing a few financial steps along the way?

Click here to see a short video about GetHuman.com but don’t forget to read the rest of the article!

How would you ever know to ask for GetHuman.com – an online phone timesaver that is not only free, but superbly effective?

I used GetHuman.com again just this past week. It made me wonder, “How did I ever live without these guys?”

Here’s what happened. I needed to call MetLife, the insurance company. However, their phone system seems designed to do just about everything – except let you talk to a real person. Does that sound familiar?

So, I remembered GetHuman.com, found MetLife’s listing and sure enough had a real person on the line in seconds.

How? This is not a pretty site. By that I mean GetHuman.com doesn’t have pictures and flying porpoises and pop-up ads. All it has, really, is a list of companies, their 1-800 numbers and the “cheats” that allow you to talk directly to a human being.

The cheats are pretty simple:

Press “2”
Say “agent” at each prompt, until offered a representative; say “yes”
Press 33; at prompt press 2; at prompt press 2.
Press “5” then press “3”

How the heck do they know about all these different combinations? In some cases employees inside the company have spilled the beans. In other cases, they’ve done years of scientific research (well, maybe just tons of phone calls to make sure their information is accurate, but you get the idea).

Seriously, though, I was pulling my hair out last week until I remembered Paul English’s pet project – the GetHuman database. He’s just as fed up with the state of customer service in the world as you are, but he’s done something about it.

Here’s what the GetHuman listing looked like for my insurance provider:

MetLife 1-800-560-5001 Press ####

Once I hit ####, I was quickly connected to a wonderfully helpful real person who resolved my problem quickly and efficiently. (I know, that sentence just doesn’t seem to ring true, but it really did happen!).

Recently a participant in one of our workshops who didn’t even own a computer benefitted from GetHuman. Believe it or not, her bank just happened to be listed on the PowerPoint slide we showed at the front of the room. She quickly jotted down the 1-800 number, along with accompanying phone “cheat” – and told us later she was able to resolve a duplicate account problem that had simmered for years.

And this morning we got an email from NSA speaker John Marx:

By the way, I think I told you that the day I received 2400 Spam emails I was having a hard time reaching anyone at Earthlink thru their website, live-chat, fraud department, etc.

I was getting increasingly agitated but remembered your suggestion about GetHuman.com from one of your workshops. Using it, I was able to get right to a real human at Earthlink, who solved my problem right away.

Seems impossible, but try it the next time you are stuck in phone hell. And thank you, Paul English, for this stunning volunteer created and volunteer run web resource. You’re one of the good guys.

Note: To learn more – click here to see our video about GetHuman.com.

I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. You see, one of the drawbacks of the online world is the distinct lack of customer service, especially when you are almost always paying so much less than you pay in the offline world.

When it comes to difficult transactions, I like to have my hand held. I like to assure myself that my online clicks and forms and submissions are correct. I like to have someone walk me through the tough spots – or even do it for me.

Len had helped me register a bunch of web sites. They’re so cheap these days that you may as well buy several of them, while you’re at it. He had understood my hesitancy to process what for me was a big order (maybe six or seven URL’s – big deal, huh?).

Skip forward almost one year. On January 6th (which is a Saturday, by the way) it was time to renew those web sites. Again, I was hesitant, and thought, “I need some hand-holding.” I remembered that I had Len’s contact information, so I said to Sheryl, “He’s probably not there anymore, (studies show that employees stay with their companies about 37 hours on average) but I’m going to send him a note this morning and if he works this coming week, maybe he can help me renew the sites.”

The phone rang 15 minutes later. Here is what Len said, “Mr. Benidt, I would have called you sooner, but I was on break.”

Look, you can register web sites at any number of places online. We originally chose GoDaddy because it was reasonably priced and relatively full-featured. But, we will stay with them forever because of Len’s service.

I have been an Expedia.com customer for years now not because they are so much better than Travelocity.com or Orbitz.com, but because they have a toll-free number where I can talk to a real person who “holds my hand.” In fact, they gave me a VIP toll-free number early on in my dealings with them – and I’ve been using it ever since.

Here’s one more for you. Zoho (www.zoho.com/crm) offers a full-featured CRM manager for free. That’s a “Customer Relation Manager,” not unlike SalesForce.com, for free. Who dreams up these money-making ideas?!

And imagine this. We know a speaker who is converting his CRM database to Zoho.com. He is paying Zoho NOTHING for this remarkable program – and even so, their customer service department is helping him convert his SalesForce.com contacts and his Outlook contacts into their program. Is this a great Internet, or what?

Look-out below, offline companies. We thought that companies like GoDaddy, Zoho and Expedia were changing the face of business by offering low prices, convenience and inventive products and services. Think again. Companies like these are completely re-inventing the customer service experience, too.

“Timothy Bishop doesn’t go out and rebuild downtowns. He is an arson who lights fires in the hearts and minds of downtown citizens.” – Pug Ostling

In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 they burned books. In Ellensburg, Washington, they are igniting fires in their business community by reading them.

Yes, Timothy Bishop and a lot of other people are in the process of saving downtown Ellensburg. (See Just Try to Stop This Downtown Train). Their association has started a book club specifically for the downtown merchants – to read and discuss ideas that can re-energize their businesses.

Here’s a link to the full list of books to be discussed this year at Brown Bag Business Basics, just in case you want to join in. It’s a cooperative project of the Ellensburg Public Library and the Ellensburg Downtown Association.

You’ll notice that on February 15 they will be discussing Mark Sanborn’s The Fred Factor.

That ought to be enough time for us to get Mr. Sanborn to offer up a little “value added” tidbit for Tim’s book club. You see, Mark wrote an article for our blog recently and has been hanging around asking how else he can be of service. And Bishop is getting ready to reinvent their fundraising effort for what he calls “Round 2.”

We think Mark will be glad to help the book club as he will surely recognize these four “Ellensburg Factor Principles:”

1. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can prevent Ellensburg from being exceptional.
2. The quality of Timothy Bishop’s relationships is evident from the nationwide donations and the comments from Pug Ostling, David Burris and Shelly Schlumpf on Just Try to Stop this Downtown Train.
3. Not that they have much choice, but the Ellensburg Downtown Association is doing it all with ingenuity, imagination and pluck – not dollars.
4. Ellensburg is truly reinventing itself – combining the talents of a book club, the D&M Coffee Shops, Alpha Kappa Psi and lots of other volunteers.

Yes, “Fred Ellensburg” we call them.

Here’s Pug Ostling again, to close today’s ceremonies. But, before we do that – please, log on to www.savedowntown.org and donate $10 or more to this good effort. Here’s Pug:

“On the economic chessboard of Ellensburg’s future, King Wal-mart, Queen K-mart, et al, position themselves to gobble up the small pawns of independent merchants; corral the knights and horses; and monopolize the formerly castle-controlled real estate. But for what it’s worth, my money’s on The Bishop.”

And the Fred Factor. Stay tuned.

Arun’s “house call” happened via the magic of the Internet. It cost less than the gas it would have taken for the Super Chitos Squad to drive to my house, wonder what the heck was wrong with my computer, mess it up some more and charge me an impossible amount of money. Arun works for Microsoft. When I place the call to Microsoft’s technical support yesterday it was one hour before midnight and the New Year in Bangalore. Arun was hard at work, thank goodness.

Here’s an email note he sent me immediately as he began work on my computer, “My name is Arun and I have taken ownership of your support case in order to help you obtain the fastest resolution to your Outlook issue.” It also included his contact information, his working hours and a way to reach his boss if I somehow had a problem with the service he provided me. Not likely.

A few days ago Charles H. Green wrote an open and honest blog post called “The ABC 20 Question Rule” about a New Year’s Resolution he was going to make. In his typically honest way, he admitted he hasn’t always practiced what he preaches. I resolved right then to practice more of what I preach in 2007. So here goes.

In 2007 I resolve to do a better job of collaboration with my customers, partners, business associates, relatives and friends. The Internet makes this a snap because the tools are there. I just don’t use them enough.

Did you know that there is a program in Windows XP (and I’m sure Windows Vista) that will allow you to work on someone else’s computer? It’s called Remote Assistance and it gives you the ability to help friends and relatives with their computer problems without being there. You just log in like Arun did on my computer and your relatives can sit there and watch their little mouse arrow scurrying around and diligently fixing their problems. Assuming, of course, you know what the heck you’re doing.

Or, let’s say you need to compare and share documents and files with your customers or business partners. Try out programs like Vyew.com, Google Docs and Spreadsheets or the new Windows Meeting Space.

Vyew.com will let you work with other folks (even if they are in Bemidji) on files and documents with whiteboard annotations, real time chat and a bunch of other cool editing tools. And Vyew’s basic service is free. No software to download. It’s one of those sites they refer to as Web 2.0, which is technical talk for “plays well with others.”

Google Docs and Spreadsheets also provides a quick and easy way, again without downloading software onto your computer, to team up on the wording of a new marketing piece or keep track of attendees for an upcoming conference by sharing a spreadsheet.

And, the new Microsoft Vista operating system offers something called Windows Meeting Space. We’ll have to get Arun to tell us more about that program.

There are many more ways to connect via the Internet to collaborate with your customers, business associates, friends and relatives. The purpose of this note today is not to teach or review all of the programs that can help you do those things. It’s to make the resolution. That’s all it takes really. You can learn to do anything when you know how you might put it to use.

Resolved in 2007 – to see if I can be of as much use to someone else as Arun was to me yesterday. I promise to try.