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How to succeed in the mobile game space by Lloyd Melnick

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How to calm irate customers on social media

by Lloyd MelnickMay 7, 2015January 4, 2016

I came across a great post recently how to mollify a negative situation on social media. We have all seen, hopefully not experienced, an incensed customer or player venting their anger on Facebook, Twitter or other social media. These customers have a disproportionate impact, as many and potentially thousands see their rants if it goes viral. The negative posts also often turn up in searches of your company or product. These customers can have a long-term damaging impact on your brand.

The aforementioned post, “5 steps to diffuse an angry customer on social media,” lays out five keys to dealing with customers who are posting negatively on social media:

Slide1

  1. Timeliness. It is critical to respond quickly to the issue. The longer you wait the more the disgruntled customer’s side of the story will be visible unopposed and the more upset they will probably become. If you deal with it quickly, the issue is much less likely to spread.
  2. Deal with all social media channels. If you respond to the disgruntled customer on one social media channel, make sure you address any posts on other social media. For example, if they post on Facebook and you respond there, also respond to any of their tweets or if they mention you in their blog.
  3. Take the complaint to the right place. Make sure the appropriate department or office deals with the concern. When I had a problem with the Extended Stay and posted about the, rather than the local property responding it would have been more powerful if the corporate headquarters addressed my issues.
  4. Be patient. It is easy to get worked up by an angry customer, especially if you feel their issue is not as bad as they claim, but put your emotion aside and be tolerant with your customer. They may continue to rant and rather than being drawn into a negative loop, continue to be positive until you have won them over.
  5. Produce. It is always the results that matter and when dealing with an angry customer, these results are even more important. Make sure you deliver what you promise the customer to resolve the situation.

When you have unhappy customers expressing their discontent on social media, rather than ignoring it and hoping it goes away follow the above five steps and you are most likely to see positive results.

Key takeaways

  1. Customers who are unhappy with your company or product can cause serious damage on social media as their complaints may be seen by thousands or even millions.
  2. Rather than hoping the customer goes away, you should proactively address the irate customer.
  3. By responding to their negative posts quickly, dealing with their outbursts on every social media channel they are suing, taking the complaint to the right part of your business, being patient with the user and delivering a solution you are most likely to defuse the situation.
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Analytics in 2015

by Lloyd MelnickJanuary 8, 2015January 29, 2015

Since Thomas Davenport wrote Competing on Analytics in 2007, the use of analytics has evolved from a niche contributor to the central role of successful companies decision making, product development, marketing and other core functions. A great white paper published by Tableau highlights what it considers the top 10 trends for business intelligence. Of these ten trends, there are five that I agree will impact significantly companies this year.

Slide1

Analytics emerge across the organization

Analytics will no longer be a domain dominated by analysts and data scientists; instead everyone in the organization will be using analytics daily for their decision making. Easier-to-use technologies that provide browser-based or mobile analytics let people answer ad-hoc business questions. Companies that recognize this as a strategic advantage will begin to support managers and front-line personnel with data, tools and training to help them do their jobs more effectively.

Everything integrates

There has been a huge amount of innovation across the data space, resulting in mixed environments for everything from data storage to analytics to business applications. Although there will not be one system or application for all of your needs, the different analytic systems will be more integrated and easier to use, making them more accessible across your company. You will laugh at the multiple logins and clunky processes you had to use during analytics 1.0. Continue reading “Analytics in 2015” →

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Using WhatsApp to grow your game or business

by Lloyd MelnickApril 22, 2014May 29, 2014

One area where the tech and gaming spaces are very predictable is that they will always evolve; what is a popular platform or channel now is not likely to have the same market share in five years. In 2009, you may have focused on MySpace and told people about it with your Motorola Razr phone. To succeed in this environment, you not only need to build products that take advantage of new platforms, but your entire strategy also needs to leverage this evolution.

Most marketing and product strategies are currently centered on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but WhatsApp may be the next major platform to outpace them. Facebook obviously thought so, as they spent $19 billion for the company, so it is important to be proactive and leverage the WhatsApp platform to grow and sustain your company. Moreover, many of the techniques applicable to WhatsApp can also be used with its competitors, such as Tencent’s WeChat. WhatsApp can help boost retention and growth.Slide1 Continue reading “Using WhatsApp to grow your game or business” →

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Anticipating customer discontent and pre-empting it, with an assist from machine learning

by Lloyd MelnickFebruary 27, 2014March 25, 2014

Very rarely does a US-based airline provide a case study on the best way to handle a customer service situation, but US Airways just surprised me. One of the most difficult situations that your social media team or customer service agents have to deal with is a planned change that your users will not like. It could be a price increase, it could be a cutback on available colors or sizes, for a game company it could be fewer free options in a free-to-play game. In all these situations, most companies normally brace for the backlash and hope to weather the storm with minimal damage.

Be proactive and anticipate unhappy customers

Slide1Rather than being reactive, however, US Airways showed how you could be proactive in a potentially damaging situation. US Airways recently completed its acquisition of American Airlines, and as part of the integration they will be switching from their previous network of airline partners to American’s network. For fliers who travel frequently on US Airways’ previous partners, the merger was bad news and they were going to be upset that they could no longer earn miles on their favorite carriers. What most companies would do would be to “man up,” prepare for a wave of complaints from customers who were unhappy they were no longer earning miles on US Airways’ old partners and probably book an anticipated loss of revenue from loyal customers who wanted to continue earning miles on one of US Airways’ old partners. Continue reading “Anticipating customer discontent and pre-empting it, with an assist from machine learning” →

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How Nobel Prize winning market design theory can help social media and tech companies

by Lloyd MelnickNovember 6, 2012November 8, 2012

After reading some of the work on market design by Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley that earned them the Nobel Prize in Economics this year, I realized it has some implications for those of us in the start-up and social media/gaming space. In particular, the underlying research on market design could help make raising capital more efficient.

Nobel Prize for Economics

Market design

It is interesting to understand the underlying principles of market design that Roth and Shapley helped explain. According to the theory, there are many markets that operate where the assumption of perfect competition is not satisfied. There are many goods that are individual and heterogeneous, whereby the market for each type of good becomes very thin. A great example is tech and social media start-ups. Each company is different and there is not a direct trade-off between investing in company A and company B, as each has a different management team, concept, etc.

If a worker is hired by Employer A but would have preferred to work for Employer B, who also would have liked to hire this worker (but did not), then there are unexploited gains from trade. If employer B had hired the worker, both of them would have been better off. Shapley, in research with David Gale, defined a pairing to be stable if no such unexploited gains from trade exist. Continue reading “How Nobel Prize winning market design theory can help social media and tech companies” →

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Understanding the Predictable delves into the world of Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), a metric that shows how much each customer is worth to your business. By understanding this metric, you can predict how changes to your product will impact the value of each customer. You will also learn how to apply this simple yet powerful method of predictive analytics to optimize your marketing and user acquisition.

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Lloyd Melnick

This is Lloyd Melnick’s personal blog.  All views and opinions expressed on this website are mine alone and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity.

I am a serial builder of businesses (senior leadership on three exits worth over $700 million), successful in big (Disney, Stars Group/PokerStars, Zynga) and small companies (Merscom, Spooky Cool Labs) with over 20 years experience in the gaming and casino space.  Currently, I am the GM of VGW’s Chumba Casino and on the Board of Directors of Murka Games and Luckbox.

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