Jim Gilbert has been creating direct marketing programs that drive superior ROI for almost 30 years. Fluent in consumer or B-to-B, creative, operations, and analytics, he marries the strategic and tactical sides of direct and social media marketing in a seamless fashion that gets results. He's CEO of a multidiscipline direct marketing agency, Gilbert Direct Marketing, Inc., which focuses on direct mail, catalogs, DRTV, telemarketing, print, alternative direct marketing media and social media marketing.
Jim has been involved in start-ups, expansions and turnarounds, and is an expert in helping multichannel marketers get to the "next level." He's a former adjunct professor, teaching direct marketing at Miami International University, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Florida Direct Marketing Association. Jim loves to talk direct marketing, and has done many lectures on direct and social media marketing.
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Two weeks ago in my blog, I totally skewered CompUSA and its warranty company (found out it’s Assurant Solutions) for not doing the right thing and honoring the extended warranty I purchased for a high-definition television.
Within days of that blog post publishing, pushing it out to my Facebook, Plaxo and Twitter connections, and posting it on the Linkedin groups I belong to, I got a call from CompUSA.
Since I was driving at the time, I never did get the person's name, so let's call him Good Corporate Samaritan (Sam for short). Essentially Sam wanted me to know two things:
Sam assured me that the new CompUSA would never treat a valued customer so shabbily. In that conversation, I told Sam that I believed heavily in the power of social media as the great equalizer. It can right many wrongs that bad companies perpetrate on their customers.
I also told Sam that once I received my replacement TV, I'd write a follow-up blog letting my readers know that I had my CompUSA’s wrong. So for Sam and all of the employees at the new CompUSA, I just wanted to let you know that I did indeed receive a replacement TV. The new CompUSA came to the rescue. Thanks Sam! Much appreciated!
That said, I'm a very lucky guy in that I have a bully pulpit with a decent-sized following to preach to (and thanks to all of you for listening, by the way).
It makes me wonder if Joe Everyman would have been as successful at getting justice from CompUSA — or from any company, for that matter — without said bully pulpit as a platform. I guess it depends on the company really, and how customer-centric it actually is.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I'm going to further explore what it means for a company to be truly customer-centric. I have a few great case studies for you.
Let me leave you with my favorite quote and essential operating concept that drives my business practices. The quote is from Peter Drucker, and is brilliant in its elegant simplicity:
"There is only one valid definition of business purpose — to create a customer. Companies are not in business to make things … but to make customers.”
I hope I'm preaching to the choir here!
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