STL Social Media Guy

Jeff Herr

As we’ve worked on expanding the community offerings on my news company’s web site, we’ve been faced with debating how businesses can be involved. The situation arose in the early beta stage of our MySTLtoday.com site, when a string of coupons from an advertiser in our bridal marketplace showed up in the midst of readers’ comments.

Raising concerns about that prompted an e-mail discussion with Jeff Herr, director of interactive media for Lee Enterprises (our parent company). Jeff makes great points in his e-mail, excerpted here with his permission: Read the rest of this entry »

After my last post referencing Yelp and its reader-comment policies, I got an e-mail from Yelp’s director of communications, Stephanie Ichinose (eetch-EE-no-say). We had a great conversation about what it takes to manage user comments — and deal with retailers/business owners who may be upset with what readers post about them.

Yelp, which launched in 2005, is a reader-generated social networking site inviting reader reviews of businesses in a bunch of cities around the country. They have a St. Louis site, but it’s not actively moderated right now. Here’s a few of the highlights of the conversation: Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe I’m late to the party here, but I just learned that Borders will now send its coupons to your cell phone by text message. Used my first one last weekend buying a couple of books for my son. It was fantastic. Just got my second text coupon this morning.

I am on the Borders’ e-mail list. I dutifully receive my weekly batch of propaganda and coupons…and leave them at home when I’m out and about. I never have my bookstore coupons with me when I need them.

Why don’t all retailers offer this option? I (almost) always have my cell phone with me.

I’m a big fan of customer service stories — good or bad. I’m remiss, sometimes, in not recognizing good examples. Last weekend, I had one at the Uno Chicago Grill in Chesterfield. Long story short, I snagged my jeans on an exposed nail in the booth where I was sitting.

I tore a small hole in the back left leg of my pants. When I pointed out the nail, and the hole, to the waiter, he apologized immediately and agreed that the nail could be dangerous. He sent the store manager, Mike Reckert, to my table. He also apologized immediately and, likewise, said he’d have the nail repaired as soon as we left.

He asked whether I’d have my jeans repaired or replaced; I didn’t know at the time. He gave me his card and said to send him the bill, that it would be taken care of.

Truth is, I can afford to have the pants fixed. I likely won’t even bother because he did all the right things. It really is amazing how easy it is to make a customer happy.