Tag.. I'm It!

A game of tag originally uploaded by MobileBurn.
What a month it has been! In addition to being included in the amazing Z-List [see Extending buZZ... which Seth Godin says is NOT a Z-List but rather a list of What to read now/next], I've been 'tagged' in a game of 'blog tag'. It consists of sharing 5 things about yourself that others don't know.... and then 'tagging' 5 others with the same!

I'm in good company, as you can read here:
+ Learned On Women's Andea Learned
+ Customers Are Always' Maria Palma
+ The Marketing Excellence blog's Eric Kintz
+ Church of The Consumer's Jackie Huba
+ The Viral Garden's Mack Collier
+ MarketingProfs:DailyFix's Ann Handley

Thanks go to Derrick Daye from Branding Strategy Insider for sharing this honor with me in his post titled Blog Tag: 5 Things You Don't Know About Me. And, now, here are the five things you may not know about me:

1. I am half Parisian French and half Irish American, and one of few people actually born in Washington, D.C..

2. I have quirky idiosyncracies around color. If you remember, I am mad for color, and not for white or black, and soso on grey! That translates into specifying NO WHITE cars in my rental car profile [and no SUVs, either]. I wear white and black as accent colors only....

3. I started out in college as a math major [wanting to be an engineer] until we hit vectors [the third dimension threw me for a loop] in physics and total abstraction in diffiQ [I loved linear algebra, but differential equations just didn't resonate]. I became an art history major instead. Perfectly logical, right?

4. I have a major American cultural gap in my upbringing: we lived in West Africa from 1971 to 1975 and I missed out on major formative TV programs [can't even name them!]. My TV fare consisted instead of French dubbed versions of The Saint [Le Saint avec Roger Moore], The Avengers [especially with Emma Peel], and French 'romans-feuilleton' [soap operas]. I remember hearing in 1971 before we left that by 1975 video phones would be ubiquitous. Needless to say, I was really bummed to return to this country and find that they were nowhere to be seen.

5. I like bass fishing [when I catch fish], skeet shooting [when I hit the skeet], and pulled-pork BBQ [e.g., Big Bob Gibson]- all of which I 've experienced in Alabama. Not bad for a Yankee!

In turn, I tag:
+ Susan Abbott
+ Stephanie Weaver
+ Reshma Anand
+ Sandy Renshaw
+ Becky Carroll

The whole concept of 'blog tag' reminds me that often the hardest part of developing a relationship with customers is that initial point of connection. So, imagine enabling that connection through a non-virtual version of 'blog tag'... Think of hotels where the concierge and others wear nametags showing both city of origin and name. Don't your eyes gravitate to that information? And, don't you start a conversation with that person relating to that info? Then, don't you remember more about that person [including their name?] than you normally do? I sure do.

So, consider if everyone in your store shared with customers some other 'thing' about them in addition to their name. And, consider changing those bits of information every week. You might be surprised by the quality of the relationships that you develop.

Technorati Tags: Susan Abbott, Stephanie Weaver, Reshma Anand, Sandra Renshaw, Becky Carroll, customer service, retail experience, blog tag