Matrix Group International

Author: Joanna Pineda

  • The Driving Force Behind Good Leaders

    The Driving Force Behind Good Leaders

    At a recent CEO forum, I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Schutz, former President of Porsche AG and author of the book “The Driving Force: Getting Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People.” Peter calls himself the former king of Porsche because, as he put it, Porsche is a cult, and when you become President, you become King.

    I was captivated by Peter’s stories about Porsche’s turnaround during the early 80s. He
    talked about the 24 hour Le Mans race that began the company’s turnaround. Porsche was not expected to win; the company was broke and did not have a new car to showcase. Peter told his staff, “We shall never enter a race we don’t intend to win.” And with that edict, the company rallied and ultimately won the race.

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  • Live Support a Boost to Customer Satisfaction

    Live Support a Boost to Customer Satisfaction

    Photo of TelemarketerThe National Electrical Contractors Association recently launched a new website. Dramatic improvements were made in navigation, authentication, visual design, etc. These improvements meant change; never mind that they’re all positive, it’s still change.

    Matrix Group anticipated the typical human behavior — resistance to change — and recommended setting up live support to hedge off any frustrations when users discover that their favorite button is not there anymore or the link they always click on has been moved. We implemented LivePerson because it’s easy to set-up, user-friendly and inexpensive. The results have been terrific. Adrianne, the staffer behind the NECA live support function, reports:

    • About 10 people initiate a live chat session every day; about half never responded back to her initial hello; the other half have questions about logging in, where to find something, or how to use a specific application.
    • Visitors really appreciated the instant help.
    • She loves seeing how many people are on the site, how long they have been on, and where they are clicking. Occasionally, if a person looks stuck on a page, she will initiate a live discussion to offer assistance. The reaction has been very positive.
    • She does feel a little chained to her desk, but it’s easy to switch the message so that visitors can send a request for help, rather than initiate a live chat. She always turns off live support during lunch.

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  • Selling the Invisible

    Selling the Invisible

    My bible on selling services, customer service and marketing.

  • You Call That a Site Search?

    A friend works for Levi Strauss, so I always ask for her opinion when buying jeans. I was looking for skinny jeans; she recommended a pair of 503 jeans. So I went to Levi.com, typed “503” and got nothing. I tried “levis 503” and got nothing. I typed “skinny jeans” and finally got some results, but nothing for 503 jeans.

    So I went to Amazon.com and typed “levis 503” and got a hit for 503 jeans, as well as other jeans. It turns out that 503 jeans are no longer being sold directly by Levis, but a few are still available from Amazon.

    The Levis site search missed an opportunity to:

    • tell me that 503 jeans are no longer being made
    • suggest similar jeans or jeans that succeeded 503 in the product line

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  • National Electrical Contractors Association

    National Electrical Contractors Association

    NECA is the voice of the electrical construction industry. NECA’s national and local chapters advance the industry through advocacy, education, research, and standards development.

    NECA turned to Matrix Group for a Web strategy and solution to attract new members and improve current members’ benefits. The site includes a flexible, easy to administer Content Management System (CMS), social networking and bookmarking tools, and a robust site search that allows users to find information easily and provides content suggestions for specific key words.

  • IDSafety

    IDSafety

    Matrix Group created the “ID Safety” Web site, an innovative national public education and outreach campaign dedicated to raising awareness about identity crime, sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in partnership with Bank of America. The mission of the Web site is to create a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to prevent, investigate, respond to and effectively aid victims of identity crime.

    The site includes an interactive Flash-based map of the United States that provides information about ID Safety-specific resources available by state, including the number of sworn law enforcement personnel in each state, which states require a report to be filed when someone believes s/he is a victim of identity theft and number of complaints filed in each state.

  • Gall Zeidler Consultants, LLC

    Gall Zeidler Consultants, LLC

    Gall Zeidler Consultants (GZ) is a leader in geotechnics, tunnel engineering and tunnel construction management, with special expertise in transportation and infrastructure projects for major metropolitan settings.

    Matrix Group redesigned GZ’s entire Web site with the primary goal of showcasing their extensive portfolio of tunnel and other major projects.

  • National Parks Foundation

    National Parks Foundation

    The mission of the National Park Foundation (NPF) is to strengthen the connection between the American people and their National Parks by raising private funds, making strategic grants, creating innovative partnerships and increasing public awareness.

    NPF came to Matrix Group to create a Web strategy and solution to promote the preservation of national parks and to call on the American public to take personal action by making donations. Features of the site include an interactive timeline of park philanthropy over the last 100 years; content distribution across NPF and other National Parks and Associations sites; viral marketing campaigns that allowed users to share pages of the site with friends and link to popular social networking and bookmarking sites; analytics and tracking that identified the pages being shared, pages visited and page they exited the site from. In a five month period from when the site was launched, visitors increased from 72,000 to 79,000, average site visit went from 12 min, 50 sec to 14 min, 15 sec and page views jumped from 220,000 to 822,000.

  • DirectSelling411

    DirectSelling411

    The Direct Selling Association (DSA) is the national trade association of the leading firms that manufacture and distribute goods and services sold directly to consumers. More than 220 companies are members of the association, including many well-known brand names.

    For its latest partnership, Matrix Group assisted DSA in implementing a consumer site and a blog. Matrix Group helped DSA analyze its users and audiences which translated to better navigation and information architecture for the new site. The entire Web site and blog are powered by an open-source content management system, implemented by Matrix Group.

  • InstallNET

    InstallNET

    InstallNET is a nationwide membership network of buyers and sellers of quality furniture installation services.

    InstallNET engaged Matrix Group to develop a Web site with fresh and creative design to improve member’s benefits and experience. The site includes an enhanced logo, a Content Management System (CMS), and dashboards for buyers and sellers to view quotes, open and completed projects and real-time charts for performance trends.