Episode 7 – Showing Some Personality and Treating Customers Like Insiders – Interview with Bob Jones of ATP

Everyone enjoys working with people they feel they know.  Bob Jones makes ATP customers feel like “insiders” by letting them in on some of the personality and internal fun at ATP.

Topics we cover in this conversation:

• How “interesting” trumps “professional”
• How to let customers in on the crazy things that happen in any office.
• How to get great blog ideas – (hint – it’s easier than you think)
• Aviation people ARE into social media, we discuss which ones they interact on the most
• How to get your company involved with blogging and social media, and to coordinate the efforts of a team (or teams, if you count marketing, sales & tech folks) without squashing spontaneity.
• How aviation people tend to be “hot” or “cold” on social media, few are “lukewarm” – How to deal with both extremes and keep communications open.

Bob Jones has been with ATP for 16 years. He is a Product Marketing Specialist for ATP and Managing Editor of AskBob.aero

Prior to joining ATP Bob owned a FBO in Livermore CA with 141, 145 and 135 certificates

From the AskBob site:

The AskBob community was started in 2006 by ATP. Our very knowledgeable Product Management team was frequently being asked questions about aviation maintenance, regulatory compliance, safety and other related topics. One of ATP’s Executives suggested starting a blog to capture all of the questions and answers so that everyone in the industry could benefit from them.

The community grew quickly and ATP realized that there was a strong demand for more tools and open discussions on aviation maintenance topics. Based on this realization, in 2008 ATP decided to invest in a major upgrade to the AskBob community. The site evolved from a simple blog to a complete community forum where anyone in the industry could share questions, answers, tips, tricks, fun stories and anything else related to maintenance. In the future, ATP plans to continue expanding and evolving the AskBob community to provide even more benefits and opportunities for members.

Why is it called the AskBob™ Community?
Every company seems to have subject matter experts that everyone goes to for answers. One of ATP’s subject matter experts is Bob Jones. When ATP started the AskBob community, it was common to hear people say, “ask Bob,” whenever someone had a question. Those questions were the foundation for ATP’s idea of creating a public portal where we can all collaborate with all of the “Bobs” (subject matter experts) in our industry.

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