If you are doing any type of business online that requires you to have a website, then you need to pay very close attention to what I’m about to say. Because right now, there are individuals who are losing a significant chunk of their bank accounts because they are ignorant of a certain set of compliance laws that their websites need to abide by.
And I’m almost willing to bet that your website(s) fall in the same category. However, there is a silver lining to this problem. One that one person used to create an additional $50,000 in only 7 weeks. In short, you need to be ADA & WCAG compliant, because authorities aren’t messing around one bit. If you think it’s a game, let me assure you that it’s not.
Everything is coming under scrutiny; websites, apps, and pdfs included. All of these are susceptible to lawsuits and litigation. This is a well-thought-out improvement to the ADA Bundle app. It allows users to easily AND effectively generate loads of pre-qualified leads who are direly in need of a web optimization service.
Unlike most apps and software offers out there, the Launch of ADA Bundle 1.0 created a very needed and unique service, giving users the potential to make a ton of money off their purchase. But there was a roadblock, a lot of users being newbies and beginners found it difficult to generate leads and to close paying clients.
Based on our interactions with users in our weekly coaching sessions, we realized we needed to make things stupid simple! This is what this brand new Website Analyzer Widget feature now provides. It gives you the perfect foot-in-the-door strategy to Easily & Effectively generate loads of pre-qualified leads who are in need of a web optimization service AND are willing to pay you to help them.
As an ecommerce merchant, you’re probably wondering what you can do to show your customers some gratitude for their continued loyalty. After all, without your customers your store is just another website!
Before we begin looking at the reasons you should be thanking your customers, I would like to start with a quote about customer experiences that came from a rather unlikely source:
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”…Mother Teresa
While there are many ways this quote can be interpreted, here is my take on it: sometimes, we can forget how easy it is to make someone’s day. A simple thank you or personal note can have a lasting and meaningful impact on a customer, and help create an emotional connection they won’t soon forget.
So what’s the impact of thanking customers in the world of ecommerce? I’m sure you already know that you should be thanking customers all year round and not just around the holidays, but you may not know the reasons behind supporting this line of thinking.
Reasons to be thanking customers
Your customers want to feel valued
No one likes being in a one-way relationship – the kind where you’re the only one committing any time or attention to keeping it going. When you’re always giving and never receiving, it’s easy to feel unappreciated and undervalued.
60% of businesses have lost a customer because they feel the business is indifferent to them…Customer Experience Insight
The same is true in ecommerce. When customers are committed to your brand community, they want to feel like you care about them as individuals. Otherwise, you run the risk of them taking their business elsewhere. This is one of the biggest contributing factors to a customer choosing to shop with another brand.
While you might assume that most customers choose competitors based on prices and products, 9% of customers leave because of what a competitor is offering while 60% of businesses have lost a customer because they feel a company is indifferent to them. Clearly customers expect a little gratitude in return for their business.
In order to avoid losing them, the simplest thing you can do to make a customer feel valued is to continually thank them for being part of your community. Through email communications, social messages, and handwritten notes, you can remind customers that you are aware of their business and appreciate it. Trust me – you’ll be glad you did, and you may even create a couple of brand advocates in the process!
Thanking customers has financial benefits
If making your customers feel valued isn’t enough motivation to thank them, maybe the fact that gratitude has financial benefits will be!
Studies have shown that 38% of customers attribute a good customer experience to personalization, and a good customer experience is what will keep delighting your customers. When your customers are happy, they’re bound to come back to your brand, join your community, and make more purchases as a result! In fact, shoppers are willing to pay more in order to get a better customer experience, meaning your gratitude has the potential to skyrocket your profitability.
86% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. Oracle
If we put those two points together, we can see that customers want a personal, emotionally driven customer experience. As a result, building a personalized experience leads to a better customer experience which customers are willing to pay more for.
If you want to increase profitability, start getting personal!
When you acknowledge each of your customers individually for being engaged members of your brand community, you demonstrate a desire to get to know them and continue building that relationship. This personal attention goes a long way towards endearing customers to your brand, so making sincere “thank yous” should be a key component of your ongoing business model.
How to start thanking customers
Now that you know why thanking customers is important, it’s time to start doing it! Since there are an infinite amount of ways to thank your customers, it’s important to find a way that makes sense for your business, your brand, and above all your customers.
Here are 5 simple ways that you and your business can start thanking your customers.
1. Include a thank you note with every order
This is by far one of the easiest and most effective strategies to start implementing, and can take any number of forms. Whether you thank your customers on social media or with a handwritten note inside the packaging, you can brighten their day by acknowledging their business every time they place a new order.
Besides making your customers smile, this will also help set your business apart. Most ecommerce packages are only shipped with the product, some packing peanuts, and an invoice – an experience that feels completely impersonal. When you include a personal message, you turn the entire experience (even after the sale!) into an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with the customer. This turns a simple order into an exchange among friends.
2. Provide customers with value-add content
Value-add marketing is an extremely powerful tool to help improve your customer experience. Not only does it provide extra value for your customers, but it also becomes a valuable resource for your not-yet-customers! So what does value-add content look like? For starters, you can provide customers with a learning centre or knowledge base where they can increase their knowledge about your product or industry.
A fantastic example of this is Bare Biology, who offers customers access to an online magazine that discusses everything from fitness to beauty. This lets Bare Biology highlight their industry expertise while also helping customers find articles related to a brand they love.
This type of content will look different depending on what your business does. For example, if you’re a fashion retailer, you could offer customers a style guide on your site that inspires their next outfit.
Whatever you choose to do, this additional content acts as value propositions that improve your customer experience and position your brand as the industry expert. These considerations demonstrate your commitment to helping customers get the most out of your brand at no additional cost.
3. Think of the individual as well as the group
As I’ve already mentioned several times, customers love personalization! This means that you need to start thinking about your customers as individuals who belong to your larger brand community.
This individual personalization can take a number of different forms. For starters, you can address customers by name in your marketing and post-purchase emails, or even thank them for another year of business every year on their birthday.
No matter how you choose to do it, approaching each customer as an individual is the perfect place to begin to say thank you on a deeper and more meaningful level.
How to Build Emotional Connections When You’re Separated by a Screen
Emotional relationships don’t have to be hard to build from behind a screen. Learn how value-add marketing and brand communities have the power to connect you to your customers in ways that have an incredible impact on your business.
4. Send a handwritten letter
In a world driven by beeps, clicks, and keystrokes, there are few things as exciting as receiving a handwritten letter. There’s something special about knowing that someone took the time to sit down and address them personally that makes it immediately more valuable. This goes a long way in a world that has become obsessed with automation, and will help you further distinguish yourself from your competition.
Take a look at this example from Jimyz Automotive. This customer experience went viral on Reddit immediately after it was posted, with many Reddit users commenting that they actually knew the business and loved Jim, too.
The customer that received this letter is sure to remember it for a long time, and you can bet that the next time they need car service Jimyz Automotive will immediately come to mind!
5. Throw a thank you event
Nothing is as impactful as a thank you given face-to-face. Even though it can be difficult with customers all over the world, there are ways to do it! You can thank your customers on a much smaller scale without diminishing your gratitude’s impact.
Two great ways to do this is by inviting customers to attend a webinar or a podcast. You can sweeten the pot by inviting a celebrity or micro-influencer to address your customers all at once. This is a great way to minimize expenses while still delivering an above-and-beyond experience.
Don’t feel limited to only using these ideas, though. If you have the resources to run an in-person customer appreciation event, do it! Inviting your customers to spend time with other valued members of your brand community is a great way to make them feel special and appreciated – especially if they’re given a little something extra.
A free gift, special meet and greet, or bonus discount are only three of the ways that you can turn a regular Friday night at your store into a wonderful evening of value for your loyal customers.
A personal thank you story
Now that you have seen some of the many ways you can start thanking your customers, I want to share an example of a business showing me thanks! My example comes from a bank, of all places. I had gone into the bank to convert some money for my upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic, and mentioned to the teller that my girlfriend and I had been dating for 5 years and the trip was our way of celebrating.
When I returned from my trip, I had a hand-written postcard from my bank in my mailbox saying that they hoped my girlfriend and I had a wonderful time on our vacation and thanking me for my business.
This personalized thank you blew me away! It left me feeling valued and important, and guaranteed that I will continue to do my banking with ScotiaBank.
If this small gesture can guarantee my customer loyalty, imagine what a combination of thank you gestures can do for your customer base! At the end of the day, thanking customers is a huge step towards a thriving brand community that will keep your customers happy and coming back time after time.
Hybrid work isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition. Here’s how managers can better understand and support different preferences and attitudes across their hybrid teams.
The conversation between business leaders and employees about long-term hybrid work plans is a complex one. We’re trying to answer some really big questions: How is our in-person time best used? What tools do people need to succeed, wherever they are? How do we build a sustainable hybrid system?
As we strive to address these big-picture challenges, managers overseeing day-to-day operations are struggling through a messy middle ground. Every day, they’re tasked with guiding different types of employees in an entirely new (and often shifting) work environment that affects individuals differently. Managing hybrid work today can feel like trying to cross a bridge that’s still under construction.
To understand how hybrid work is affecting people, we commissioned a global survey with Economist Impact. One of its central findings was that 77% of hybrid workers agree that their managers need more specific training on managing hybrid teams. To help address this training gap, we took a deep dive into the Economist Impact research and coupled our findings with proven best practices at Google. With the right tools and guidance, hybrid teams can be successful and drive impact together, no matter where teammates work.
Discovering the four types of hybrid workers in your organization
Economist Impact recently categorized employees into four segments based on their relationship to hybrid work: evangelists, pragmatists, fair-minded, and undecided. Interestingly, employees did not fall into categories based on neatly predictable criteria like role, seniority, or industry. Instead, the primary driver was more personal: how hybrid work affects their everyday lives. The study found that feelings about hybrid work are often determined by factors like need for child care, length of commute, and personal work styles.
Here’s a look at the four types of hybrid workers identified by Economist Impact, coupled with tips for managing each one.
The evangelist: Happy with hybrid. They want to sustain the current model.
As you might guess from their name, the evangelists (24%) are the most optimistic about hybrid work and typically very satisfied with the policies, technology, and social dynamics already in place. Many work fully off-site. At Google, we have long had distributed teams who are central to our organization, so we recognize many hybrid work evangelists in our midst by their enthusiasm, productivity, and loyalty. The system is working for them.
The questions we are always looking to answer are: how do we make sure that our most satisfied employees stay that way, and how can we tap into their enthusiasm to help their colleagues see the benefits of a hybrid structure? Here are a few ideas:
Empower them to keep working in a way that supports their natural productivity, using centralized tools like Google Drive for easy collaboration and shared calendars so coworkers can clearly see their schedules and availability.
Invite them to share their best practices company-wide by creating and moderating Google Spaces dedicated to hybrid work tips, work-from-home hacks, and more.
Keep them engaged through short Google Meet check-ins on a quarterly basis, with the agenda focused on how hybrid work practices are functioning and whether improvements can be made.
Offer continuing support by making sure they have the right technology, especially if they work fully off-site. Ask: “Is technology helping them stay in the mix across all the ways and places that hybrid work happens?”
The pragmatists: Optimistic, but facing challenges. They need to be heard.
The largest segment identified by Economist Impact were pragmatists (39%), a group who is optimistic about hybrid work, but experiencing significant challenges with it. Their sentiment can be summed up as, “Yes, but …”. Meaning that they want hybrid to work, and they want to be a part of making it work, but they don’t think it’s working well… yet. Pragmatists feel that their organization’s new policies don’t incorporate enough employee input and are more likely to feel these policies are unfair.
Pragmatists are also concerned with blurred work-life boundaries. This demographic includes workers who have less location and/or time flexibility, so they may not be experiencing significant benefits of a “flexible” workplace. Here are some ways to support pragmatists:
Gather input by creating an anonymous survey using Google Forms. Ask what’s working or not about hybrid schedules, team processes, technology tools and training, work-life balance, etc. Repeat these surveys at regular intervals to ensure that pragmatists’ voices continue to be heard.
To improve flexibility while ensuring collective team work, agree on “core work hours” in which teams determine daily hours when they will typically be online and meetings will take place. Offer flexibility around the “non-core” hours for focused individual work or personal needs such as medical appointments or taking children to school.
Enhance transparency and shared understanding across the team about each others’ preferences and schedules using Calendar features like working location and focus time.
Enable teams to communicate and collaborate across locations and time zones through shared comments in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
The fair-minded: Feeling good, hoping for continued cultural change. They want to improve the dialogue.
Most concerned about employee wellbeing, fairness, and inclusion, the fair-minded (23%) report an overall positive impact of hybrid work on their lives. Whereas the pragmatists express a “Yes, but…” sentiment, the fair-minded express “Yes, and…”. They like where this is going, and they want more. Over the long term, they are hoping for greater flexibility in their location and work schedule. They believe that better communication and collaboration will strengthen the culture of trust in the workplace and benefit everyone. Here are strategies for managing the fair-minded:
Foster social connection by adopting platforms specifically built for inclusivity and get creative in using them – it’s OK to have fun! Choose thematic backgrounds or break into small groups for a quick icebreaker before a meeting.
Build an inclusive environment by providing opportunities to bond at in-person events devoted to mentoring, discussion, and socializing.
Keep people informed via a “hybrid-work hub” on Google Spaces where management can share the latest policies and employees can ask questions.
Strengthen the culture of trust by shifting toward impact-oriented performance evaluations.
The undecided: Craving connection, direction, and better technology. They need to hear from you.
At 13%, the undecided may represent the smallest number of respondents, but they’re a group that need significant support. Why are they undecided? Overall, it’s because they’ve yet to experience significant benefits from flexible work. They’re more likely to be at organizations that have not issued formal hybrid policies, so they’re working in uncertain environments.
This group also reports higher rates of technology challenges, suggesting that they haven’t been equipped with the right tools to connect, collaborate, and communicate remotely. And finally, many are frontline workers who have suffered from limited social interactions or extra strain during the pandemic that has affected their mental health.
With so many challenges, it’s not surprising this cohort is the least confident about the future. Strategies for meeting the needs of the undecided include:
Clarify your hybrid policies through active communication. Consider hosting regular “re-onboarding” video calls with small groups to make sure everyone understands hybrid policies and gets training on new processes or tools.
Strengthen their sense of belonging with clear, inclusive updates on company wide projects and achievements via Google Meet video conferencing. Use the Q&A function so employees can ask questions and everyone can see answers, or conduct live polling to survey a specific topic. Follow up your meeting with an email recap for those who could not attend.
Help teams communicate and collaborate better with instant communication tools like Spaces in Google Chat, which keeps conversations about scheduling, shared tasks, and files together.
Let’s make it work
As leaders, it’s important to understand and acknowledge your team members’ different experiences of hybrid work. Do you know which of the four types your employees fall into? Taking the time to engage with them and learn their preferences allows you to shape policies while also making decisions that help the organization get work done. A thoughtfully planned hybrid work structure can adapt to individual needs, connect distributed workforces, and, ultimately, strengthen your organization. While our global shift to hybrid work was born out of necessity, we can use it to provide opportunity for every type of worker.
Controversial facial recognition firm Clearview AI has been ordered to destroy all images and facial templates belonging to individuals living in Australia by the country’s national privacy regulator.
Clearview, which claims to have scraped 10 billion images of people from social media sites in order to identify them in other photos, sells its technology to law enforcement agencies. It was trialled by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) between October 2019 and March 2020.
Now, following an investigation, Australia privacy regulator, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), has found that the company breached citizens’ privacy. “The covert collection of this kind of sensitive information is unreasonably intrusive and unfair,” said OAIC privacy commissioner Angelene Falk in a press statement. “It carries significant risk of harm to individuals, including vulnerable groups such as children and victims of crime, whose images can be searched on Clearview AI’s database.”
Said Falk: “When Australians use social media or professional networking sites, they don’t expect their facial images to be collected without their consent by a commercial entity to create biometric templates for completely unrelated identification purposes. The indiscriminate scraping of people’s facial images, only a fraction of whom would ever be connected with law enforcement investigations, may adversely impact the personal freedoms of all Australians who perceive themselves to be under surveillance.”
The investigation into Clearview’s practices by the OAIC was carried out in conjunction with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). However, the ICO has yet to make a decision about the legality of Clearview’s work in the UK. The agency says it is “considering its next steps and any formal regulatory action that may be appropriate under the UK data protection laws.”
As reported by The Guardian, Clearview itself intends to appeal the decision. “Clearview AI operates legitimately according to the laws of its places of business,” Mark Love, a lawyer for the firm BAL Lawyers representing Clearview, told the publication. “Not only has the commissioner’s decision missed the mark on the manner of Clearview AI’s manner of operation, the commissioner lacks jurisdiction.”
Clearview argues that the images it collected were publicly available, so no breach of privacy occurred, and that they were published in the US, so Australian law does not apply.
Around the world, though, there is growing discontent with the spread of facial recognition systems, which threaten to eliminate anonymity in public spaces. Yesterday, Facebook parent company Meta announced it was shutting down the social platform’s facial recognition feature and deleting the facial templates it created for the system. The company cited “growing concerns about the use of this technology as a whole.” Meta also recently paid a $650 million settlement after the tech was found to have breached privacy laws in Illinois in the US.
We’ve all been there at one time or another. Something is…just a bit off in your relationship. You can feel it. No, this isn’t a lets-draw-up-the-divorce-papers scenario. But there’s a palpable sense of distance and disconnection. Maybe it’s due to a sudden change in schedules. Maybe it’s because every day feels the same and you’ve both fallen into a little bit of a funk. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
Whatever the case, you’ve noticed that your relationship feels distanced and want to take some steps to close that space. Good for you. Here, then, are a variety of small, nice things to do if you feel disconnected from your partner. Will they all work for you? No, but each requires effort. And effort is what’s needed to make a change.
Talk about it. Seriously. Your partner is not a mind-reader. If you don’t bring up the fact that you feel distance, they won’t know how you feel and you won’t know how they feel. Hell, they may be surprised that you feel it. Either well, it will be helpful. So put it out in the open, explain what’s on your mind, and listen to your partner do the same.
Don’t blindside them when they have a five minute break from work or they finished bathing the kids. Choose the right time to bring it up.
Show appreciation. And be specific about it. Mention the loving way they defused that tantrum the other day. Compliment them on how thoughtful they are. Tell them they’re a wonderful parent. Make it known that you’re paying attention.
Ask questions. About work. About friends. About colleagues. About sex. About anything and everything. Importantly, listen actively and remember the answers. Curiosity is what keeps couples connected.
Offer up information about yourself, too. Did you eat a great sandwich today? Hear a great song? Are you working on something interesting at the office? Did your toddler do something ridiculous at the park this morning? Tell your partner. You need to be three-dimensional, too.
Make time for one another. Even if it’s just 20 minutes together doing the dishes after dinner. Set aside the time. Disconnection often happens when alone time is not actively pursued.
And make plans for next month. Real plans. The more interesting the better. Is there a cool show in town? An interesting restaurant that you both want to eat at? An axe-throwing place you want to check out? Whatever the case, find something that will give you something to talk about and connect over.
But also discuss far-off plans. Excitedly talking about the future helps make it obvious that you will both be together for the long haul. And who doesn’t like to imagine the good things to come? “Wouldn’t it be amazing to sail around the Greek isles together when we’re retired?” Yeah, it would.
Download a relationship or sex app. Use them on your next date night. Many contain a variety of exercises to help stave off boredom. Here are a few to check out.
Plan a date night. In or out. Fancy or casual. Just make it happen.
Text. Call. Occasionally pop in and say hi. Don’t be overbearing, but check in because you want to.
Put down the damn phone. If you can’t go five minutes without thumbing through Instagram, you can’t expect your partner to think you’re listening.
Say thank you. However often you think you’re saying it, say it more.
Stay up to date about expectations. The who-does-what-and-how talk is not a one-time conversation. It is an ever evolving one that must take place regularly. It helps keep you both on the same page and does a lot to ward off resentment.
Set goals together. What do you want to accomplish in the next year? What do you want to achieve in the next few years? What does your partner want? Don’t know? Figure it out. Discussing your goals and arriving at a shared set together that you can then map out is a big step in feeling connected.
Try to incorporate some couple’s therapy exercises. So many are designed to re-establish connection. Here are some to consider.
Try to maintain the “magic formula” of a happy marriage. Dr. John Gottman discovered that for every negative interaction you have with your partner, you need five positives. Stick to this as often as possible and good things will follow.
Reflect on the good times. Reminisce. Because A) this shows your partner that you look back fondly on your relationship and B) it helps you both remember why you decided to live a life together in the first place. That goes a long way.
Turn towards, not away from your partner’s bids for connection. That is, when they tell you a story about their day or offer something for you to respond to, respond to them as much as possible.
Hold hands. Touch the small of their back. Give them more hugs. Embrace the six-second kiss. Just make a pact to be more affectionate in general.
Schedule sex. It may not seem sexy, but this is a simple way to put connection on the calendar.
Handle whatever needs to be handled so they can take some time for themselves — be it an hour or an entire weekend. A relationship can only function at its fullest potential if both partners have the chance to feel like individuals. Help them carve out the time.
Call your friends. Talking to and hearing from your buddies fills you with stories to share and advice to receive. It also helps keep things in perspective.
Play a board game. Build a pillow fort. Go go karting. Just do something silly together. Silliness is a big part of connection.
Don’t bother them when they’re doing the thing they like to do. We all need time to decompress.
But sometimes watch that show that they like to watch but you don’t. You know the one. Yup, that one.
Try, really try, to make them laugh.
Hang out together without talking. Just being comfortable together is important, too.
Give them a kiss before they leave and when they return. Or, if you’re the one to leave before you leave and when you return.
Check in at the end of each day. Talk about what went right, what went wrong, what made you roll your eyes.
Say “I love you” often. But not so often that it becomes the thing you say to prevent them from being upset with you. You get it. We know you do.
Play an active role in your relationship. That is, never stop trying.
Wong DW, Hall KR, Justice CA, Wong L (2014). Counseling Individuals Through the Lifespan. Sage Publications. p. 326. ISBN978-1483322032. Intimacy: As an intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate attachment or sexual activity.
Emery, Lydia F.; Muise, Amy; Dix, Emily L.; Le, Benjamin (17 September 2014). “Can You Tell That I’m in a Relationship? Attachment and Relationship Visibility on Facebook”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 40 (11): 1466–1479. doi:10.1177/0146167214549944. PMID25231798. S2CID206445338.
Kakabadse, A., Kakabadse, N. (2004) Intimacy: International Survey of the Sex Lives of People at Work, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Grubbs, J. B.; Wright, P. J.; Braden, A. L.; Wilt, J. A.; Kraus, S. W. (20 February 2019). “Internet pornography use and sexual motivation: A systematic review and integration”. Annal of the International Communication Association. 43 (2): 117–155. doi:10.1080/23808985.2019.1584045. S2CID150764824.Newton, James D. A.; Halford, W. Kim; Barlow, Fiona K. (26 September 2020). “Intimacy in Dyadic Sexually Explicit Media Featuring Men Who Have Sex with Men”. The Journal of Sex Research. 58 (3): 279–291. doi:10.1080/00224499.2020.1817837. PMID32975464. S2CID221918661.
If you are doing any type of business online that requires you to have a website, then you need to pay very close attention to what I’m about to say. Because right now, there are individuals who are losing a significant chunk of their bank accounts because they are ignorant of a certain set of compliance laws that their websites need to abide by.
