Give “Em a Statue and an Apology in Your Business Blog

The best comic strips have lessons to teach freelance blog writers, I’ve found. One of last week’s Dilbert strips shows the company lawyer offering to settle employee Wally’s discrimination claim against the corporation for a whopping billion dollars.  "Plus a statue and an apology," adds Wally, not satisfied to be compensated with money alone.

Fact is, too many SEO marketing blogs focus on appealing to consumers’ greed.  In the long run, however, as I try to bring out in corporate blogging training sessions, the success of any business blog will depend on engaging the interest of the right kind of customer, the kind that buys for the right reasons and who remains loyal.

A second very important function corporate blog posts can serve relates to damage control. "Every agency, no matter how well managed, local or multi-national, will have to deal with dissatisfied and even angry customers from time to time," points out sales expect Colleen Francis of engageselling.com. Blog content writing can be the best instrument for offering "statues and apologies", as compared to, say, email or letters.  Why is that?

• Timeliness: Business blog material can be immediately created, published, and updated (as compared to the typical corporate website).
• Public acknowledgement: A blog post is "public", which means the company’s owners are recognizing the customers’ complaint or concern in front of other people, which can give the apology more weight.

One truth I learned about angry customers from the late Jerry R. Wilson, who preceded me as president of the National Speakers’ Association of Indiana back in the mid 1980’s, was that angry customers want to heard and recognized, not just "made whole" financially.  They want their pride restored, Jerry taught me, not just their money back!

A money-back guarantee is good as far as it goes, but at Say It For You, I teach Indianapolis blog writers to help business owners offer angry customers a statue and an apology!