The volume of social conversation is exploding. Hundreds of millions of blogs, millions of forums, and hundreds of thousands of online communities are supporting instantaneous conversations worldwide. And every day, new channels, forums, communities, and topics are emerging, opening the door for even more conversation and information exchange.

Consider the numbers: Facebook users collectively spend more than 6 billion minutes in the online community every day. Microblogging site Twitter is on pace to process almost 10 billion tweets this year. There are 346 million daily bloggers. Search engine giant Google supports more than 2 billion searches daily. And if you wanted to watch all the online videos on YouTube, it would take you 412.3 years to do it. A recent quote by Eric Schmidt, CEO at Google -- "We create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003" -- seems to say it best. The volume of conversation is growing exponentially and shows no signs of slowing down.

Social media has become so pervasive that we've reached an inflection point.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Debbie DeGabrielle: The Inflection Point in Social Media Is Here" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

For years contact centers have operated as islands within the enterprise. Customer complaints about everything from broken products to dirty restrooms have typically been trapped in the call center like the marooned characters on Lost. Valuable information that could be used to improve products and services, drive marketing, and shape new programs has rarely been shared outside the four walls of the call center facility.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Mariann McDonagh: Using Social Media to (Finally!) Link Contact Centers and Business Departments " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool, but it's not always as available as organizations would like. Consider the U.S. Army: Less than 1 percent of the population has served, according to CMO Bruce Jasurda. "The onus is on us to tell the story," he said during a session at the recent Conference Board Senior Marketing Executive Conference. "We have to overcome perception issues. We're a misunderstood brand." Additionally, the organization receives a plethora of routinely asked questions.

Continue reading "Connecting New Prospects With a 235-Year-Old Brand" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I remember thinking that the Greek and Roman mythology unit in my Junior High Social Studies class was really boring. But in the past few years several movies have come out (Troy, Clash of the Titans, and even Percy Jackson) that have made those ancient legends seem cool. Pure fantasy, but cool nonetheless.

The term "myth," according to the dictionary, can refer to a traditional story about the history of a people group (e.g., the ancient gods). Or it can mean a popular, but false, belief or idea.

A number of popular myths have invaded the interactive marketing world in recent weeks and I think it's time to take them on.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Dawn DeVirgilio: Four Social Media Myths" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

At this point during the holiday season, most Americans have the majority of their holiday shopping crossed off their lists. But there are some stragglers out there and most of them will be hitting the stores on Christmas Eve.

Continue reading "Wow Last-Minute Shoppers with Great Service" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies that make the sales process easy for customers and respond quickly and effectively to customers' needs have a better chance of converting sales leads when times are tough, says BigMachines Co-Founder and CEO Godard Abel.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Converting Sales Leads in a Tight Economy" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

It's hard to find a firm that says: 1) we don't care about customers; and 2) we don't care about being good corporate citizens. That said, it's astounding to see companies on a daily basis act in ways that show complete disregard for customers and their general well-being. For anyone within companies who cares about brand, this ought to sound alarm bells, particularly as customers become more empowered with global platforms to let others know about their dissatisfaction and as they have increasing ability to take their business elsewhere.

Continue reading "Forrester's Paul Hagen: Environmental Sustainability and Customer Experience" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Some of this year's hottest holiday gifts include smartphones and iPads. These mobile devices can do what many other mobile phones can't. With new technology and information access also bring with them new privacy concerns. As a result, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is taking proactive steps to address privacy with the creation of new mobile privacy guidelines.

Continue reading "MMA Looks to Strengthen Mobile Privacy Guidelines " »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

While many companies still bury their toll-free numbers--or any contact phone number, for that matter--deep within their websites, Zappos.com is one firm using phones calls to build customer relationships. During his keynote presentation at the recent Conference Board Senior Marketing Executive Conference, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh talked about the various ways the retailers works to wow customers. Along with free shipping and a 365-day return policy, Zappos makes is easy for customers and prospective customers to contact the company by placing its contact information prominently on every page of its website.

Continue reading "An Overlooked Branding Tool: the Telephone" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When J.D. Power & Associates came out with its eighth annual customer loyalty ratings for the automotive industry last week, I was heartened by the relatively strong performance of two automakers - Ford and Toyota. It's not because I'm a customer of either carmaker. But as a casual observer, I have been impressed with some of the approaches that each company has taken to become more customer-centric.

Continue reading "Customer Loyalty Lessons for Ford, Toyota" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Two Finnish service designers recently unveiled a prototype for a social media toy that's constructed out of a classic Brio shape sorting box outfitted with magnets and LEDs. Called the IOBR (the first few letters of its Iobridge tech backbone and an anagram of Brio), a small child can use the toy to let her friends know what she's up to. Yup, it's a toddler-sized status update.

Continue reading "Forrester's Kerry Bodine: "Twitter for Toddlers" Is Inspiration for Social Customer Experiences" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Sales and marketing strategy is changing, and changing fast. It can be hard to keep up. And the B2B space, with its long sales cycles and complex products and services, tends to lag behind the consumer space when it comes to evolving sales and marketing strategy. Yet in 2011, many B2B companies will recognize that 'business as usual' doesn't exist, and will change how they operate to be more collaborative and transparent with customers while keeping a tight rein on costs.

Continue reading "B2B Sales and Marketing Predictions for 2011" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a surefire way to send a powerful signal to someone we are with that he or she is not very important to us: Release eye contact, stop listening, and look at our cell phones to take or send a text message.

Oh I know...everybody is doing it. Right? Check again. I have never, ever, been with a major CEO, company owner, or any other highly successful person who constantly interrupted the flow of conversation or intimacy while they were with me to check or send messages. Never. Why? A number of reasons come to mind.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Richard Abraham: A Little Intimacy Goes a Long Way in Today's Distracted World" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many marketers have watched dumbfounded over the past week as the saga of Vitaly Borker (a.k.a Tony Russo), owner of DecorMyEyes.com, played out. The New York Times first reported the story on November 28 in "A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web," revealing how Borker used his eyewear site to cyberbully his customers with the goal of getting negative reviews to boost his company's search results.

Continue reading "Arrest of Cyberbully Reminds Us to Take a Closer Look at Our Online Reputation" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social CRM is here to stay. Is your company prepared? CDC Front Office President Jason Rushforth discusses best practices for organizations to blend social media strategies with CRM techniques and technologies.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: The Intersection of Social and CRM" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Most customer experience efforts focus on doing bad things less and doing good things more. That's a reasonable approach. But, realistically, customers will run into problems no matter how hard companies try to eliminate them. Albert Einstein described this well when he said, "Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools." Even without foolish customers or incompetent companies, customer problems will persist because customers are constantly changing - their preferences, their technology uses, their life stages.

Continue reading "Forrester's Andrew McInnes: Customers' Problems Are Companies' Loyalty-Building Opportunities" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Last week Peppers & Rogers Group held a Healthcare Executive Summit to discuss how customer centricity will become more important in the changing health industry. To deliver on those customer-centric principles, new technologies will need to adapt as well. A new study from CSC predicts some of those emerging technologies within the healthcare space.

Continue reading "Healthcare Technologies of the Future" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Hopefully you're already developing customer experience plans for 2011. If not, it's time to get going.

In a Temkin Group survey earlier in the year, we found that 63 percent of large companies have ambitions to be customer experience leaders over the next few years. We also found that two thirds of customer experience "laggards" identified the lack of a customer experience strategy as a major obstacle -- more than twice the level of customer experience "leaders."

There's no way that companies can achieve these lofty customer experience ambitions unless they have solid plans. So here are some recommendations for your 2011 customer experience plans:

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Bruce Temkin: What's Your Customer Experience Plan for 2011?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

There are so many moving parts to the total customer experience it seems unlikely that one thing can make a difference. I think it can. That one thing: the details.

Continue reading "The Secret to Customer Experience Excellence" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I couldn't agree more with Denis Pombriant. No, really. The guy talks a lot of sense. In a recent post, "Engagement is a Contact Sport," he expresses frustration at the "old think" that prevents companies from recognizing social media as a valid marketing and sales tool. Denis writes, "It's a new world, so stop treating it like the old world." I want to stand up and give someone a fist-bump.

My boss, SAS CMO Jim Davis, says that one of the most important things businesses need to be doing right now is getting ready for a very different future. What was once core to business may be obsolete today. Companies have to innovate and adopt new ways of thinking.

So, here are six reasons why you should pay attention to social media, learn from it, and incorporate it into your business.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger John Bastone: No Time to Fritter on Twitter? Think again." »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

This holiday season, shoppers are returning to the stores and to the Web. According to the National Retail Federation, the number of people who shop on Thanksgiving has doubled over the past five years, from 10.3 million in 2005 to 22.3 million in 2010, and the number of people shopping on Black Friday at midnight tripled this year from 3.3 percent last year to 9.5 percent this year. In fact, by 4 a.m. nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of Black Friday shoppers were already at the stores.

Continue reading "Fixing Shopping Cart Abandonment Could Generate Millions in Revenue" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Sales of smartphones may be on the rise but brand loyalty isn't necessarily following suit.

Continue reading "Maintaining Brand Loyalty in a Commoditized Market" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer experience improvements can be worth
billions -- yeah, "billions" with a "B."

Forrester recently published a report by my colleague Megan Burns that models the business impact of an improved customer experience. I'm proud of this report because it:

• Quantifies the correlation between a rise in a company's Customer Experience Index score and the corresponding increase in three loyalty metrics that every company cares about: purchase intent, likelihood to switch business to a competitor, and likelihood to recommend
• Makes conservative but realistic assumptions about the business fundamentals of companies in 13 different industries
• Produces eye popping projections of increased annual revenue as a result of a realistically attainable improvement in customer experience -- by industry.

And when I say "eye popping" I am not kidding. The increases range from a low of $40 million for large retailers to a high of $1.7 billion for wireless carriers.

Continue reading "Forrester's Harley Manning: The Business Impact of Customer Experience" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

First of all, thank you for taking time away from your online shopping today to read this post. Cyber Monday is a great day for deals online. But, not everyone is organized and ready to make holiday purchases today. So what happens after Cyber Monday? Are retailers prepared to deal with last-minute shoppers? How can they make the most of this important customer group?

Continue reading "What Happens After Cyber Monday?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone can sell a product online. But a successful company does more than just sell products -- they provide customers with the information and support they need to be effective with those products. Doing so will keep customers coming back and will inspire referrals.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Maureen Page: Acting as a Trusted Resource Improves Customer Retention and Acquisition" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As the busy shopping season ramps up this Friday (and on Thursday this year in some retail chains), it's important to keep your customer service and frontline staff motivated to provide quality customer experiences.

Continue reading "Videos Depict Value in Customer Service" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers hate getting stuck in IVR purgatory. Virtual Hold Technology CEO Kevin Sjodin discusses how companies can leverage automation in the contact center to help improve the customer experience.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Improving the Customer Experience in the Contact Center" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Most companies have the intention of providing excellent customer experiences. However, most find it difficult to translate those intentions into the cultural fabric of their companies. I like to give companies feedback on how they're doing -- and to see how customer service people deal with feedback. Three recent incidents with employees made me question how well these firms were making this translation:

Continue reading "Forrester's Paul Hagen: Suits On The Floor, Call Center Disconnect, And Boarding Idiots" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The mobile channel continues to grow as a valuable customer experience touchpoint. Nielsen reports that smartphone penetration in the U.S. is at least 28 percent and rising, accounting for 41 percent of new phone purchases in Q3 2010.

As customers do more with their phones, the mobile app market grows as well. Companies are clamoring to develop apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and iPad devices. But while the desire to keep up with technology is strong, there needs to be a strong strategy in place when deciding what mobile apps, if any, to create.

Continue reading "To App or Not to App?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In a tough economy, a path of least resistance is the belief we can save our way back to profitability with savings from, among other so-called cost centers, call centers. Thinking fewer calls are better, we drive customers away from personal contact and toward website technology that lets them resolve issues for themselves. Thinking shorter calls are better, we link customer service representative performance to faster average handling times.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Dan McDade: Call Center Branding -- Why We Can't Just Save Our Way Back to Profitability" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

My sister was telling me that last week the manager of her department in her office was about to make an offer to a candidate for an open position. The day before, a couple colleagues decided to check the candidate's Facebook page. What they found surprised them. Not only was her profile picture lewd, but she listed her interests as "using expletives, causing chaos, and drinking until 5 a.m." Because the manager didn't want to find out what type of anarchy this candidate would create at the 8 a.m. Monday sales meetings, she decided not to offer her the job.

Continue reading "Avoiding a Social Media Faux Pas" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg helped introduce the company's new "modern messaging system" on Nov. 15, he was careful not to call it an email service. Because it's not. Instead, it's more of a compilation of email, SMS and instant messaging.

Continue reading "What Marketers Can Learn from Facebook's New Messaging System" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I don't normally like to use this blog to complain about poor customer service. But sometimes the situation is so blatant that I can't hold back. I hope the following story encourages any automaker or auto dealer to take an honest look at how they may be alienating their customers.

Continue reading "The Auto Industry Is Ripe for Customer Experience Improvements" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"Companies have to take social to the next level and create measurable impact." Katy Keim, CMO of Lithium, noted when we spoke earlier today.

Many companies are trying to do just that as they expand and integrate their social strategies across customer service, marketing, product development, and sales. Keim offered some advice on three types of metrics that organizations can use along the way.

Continue reading "Three Must-Have Metrics for Social Media" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The scenario unravels in rapid fire incompetence: A call center agent stumbles through a script, struggling to comprehend All-American novelties like Green Bay Packers "Cheese Heads." Lunchtime mercifully arrives, and leaves behind an empty call center as every agent heads to the cafeteria while the phones ring off the hook. The afternoon concludes with the staff playing a silly "True or False" game about American culture.

All these scenes came from NBC's new "Outsourced" series - which, while attempting to be humorous, paints a pretty bleak picture of foreign call centers. And, frankly, leaves businesses scratching their heads where the real value is in outsourcing customer service operations.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Andrew Kokes: Setting the Record
Straight -- The Real "Outsourced"" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A recent report from eMarketer shows that ecommerce spending this quarter is expected to jump 13.7 percent over the same period last year. But are organizations prepared for the influx of shoppers?

Continue reading "Ecommerce Spending to Surge" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Ali Hedayati, President and COO at Coradiant, discusses steps that online retailers can take to prepare their websites for an influx of traffic and transaction volumes on Cyber Monday. He speaks with Tom Hoffman of 1to1 Media about what retailers can do ahead of the biggest online shopping day of the year.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Cyber Monday is Almost Here. Are E-Tailers Ready?" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media efforts tend to impact intangibles like goodwill, brand awareness, and affinity, which are tough to measure. But companies are increasingly thinking of social media as part of a coordinated, multichannel effort, connecting specific online and mobile initiatives to offline sales. Marketers are finally starting to answer the question, "how does social media impact my bottom line?"

Continue reading "Companies Find the Elusive "Social Media ROI"" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Whether customers comment on a blog post, join a conversation thread on Facebook or Twitter, or respond to an online promotion, the goal is more, more, more. Earlier this week at the "10 Ways to Screw-Up Your Social Media Marketing" event hosted by New York Social Media Meetup, Offerpop cofounder Mark Cooper shared six strategies companies can use to encourage customers' participation in social settings.

Continue reading "Six Ways to Improve Social Media Participation" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media's skyrocketing adoption, along with "Generation Me's" coming of age and buying power, is drastically changing customer service and its best practices. Companies that don't figure out how to leverage social media while catering to the newly empowered Generation Me consumer will suffer lost customers, brand damage, and failed new customer acquisition strategies.

"Generation Me" is a term loosely described as Gen X combined with Gen Y, meaning anyone from age 10 to 40 years old. Usually defined as children that grew up with "a sense of self," and with the strong belief that "self comes before duty," the group gets a bad rap for being narcissistic and focused on their own self-promotion. Whether you agree or disagree with the definition or think that the moral and social outlook ascribed to this group is negative and spells out the decline of American society, this generation (which includes myself) is the hottest and most powerful demographic, and has the influence to kill your brand and your business if you don't support, service, and communicate with them correctly.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Duke Chung: Upgrading Customer Service for "Generation Me"" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday when I went to the grocery store, I was surprised to see Christmas and other holiday items already in place of the Halloween aisle--only a day after trick or treating. But a new study from ATG of more than 1,000 consumers called "Consumer Shopping Experiences, Preferences, and Behaviors," reveals that most consumers will start their holiday shopping prior to Thanksgiving, with only 22 percent waiting until Black Friday to shop.

Continue reading "Study Reveals Greater Need for Sound Multichannel Strategy" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Over this past weekend, Cablevision and Fox ended a two-week squabble over transmission fees that had left some 3 million viewers without Fox programming, including the first two games of the World Series and episodes of Glee and The Simpsons.

Continue reading "Lessons from the Cablevision-Fox Feud" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Not to brag, but I have a lot of friends on Facebook. 421 to be exact. Some are good friends with whom I spend a lot of time, some are family members I keep up with, some are old elementary school acquaintances that I reconnected with, etc. I have different relationships with each of them. One giant social network to treat them in the same way makes it hard to manage.

Understanding this, Facebook created a new tool called "Friendship Pages" to show exactly how specific friends interact. According to developer Wayne Kao, "they contain the public Wall posts and comments between two friends, photos in which both are tagged, Events they RSVP'd for together and more. You'll be able to see a friendship page if you are friends with one of the people and have permission to view both people's profiles." It is basically a visual representation of a one-to-one relationship online. PC World calls it "Cool But Creepy." What do you think?

Continue reading "Facebook Adds One-to-One Tools to Its Features" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Imagine how different the healthcare debate would have been if trips to the Registry of Motor Vehicles were a breeze.

Here in the U.S., mid-term elections are in full swing. The themes feel familiar: voters dislike various social and economic situations; candidates promise change. Across parties, many people seem to agree that the current government can't do what's necessary, a belief crystallized in comments about "politics as usual" and "Washington insiders."

Continue reading "Forrester's Andrew McInnes: Why Is Citizen Experience Missing From the Mid-Term Elections?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

If you're from the New York Metro area, you've likely heard of Stew Leonard's. It's a grocery store fully stocked with a reputation for outstanding service -- and a clear commitment to delivering that level of service every day. Consider the huge rock outside its stores with the following engraved on it:

Our Policy
Rule 1. The customer is always right.
Rule 2. If the customer is ever wrong, see rule number one.

President and CEO Stew Leonard Jr. shared his secret sauce for ensuring service excellence -- employee engagement -- during a keynote Q&A with Curtis Bingham, president and founder of the Chief Customer Officer Council, at NACCM earlier this week.

Continue reading "Retailer Stew Leonard Jr. on Moo-tivation" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

An interesting question was asked during Email Radio when I was discussing mobile marketing with mobileStorm's Jared Reitzen and Jim Ducharme: "Can mobile be used to do acquisition?"

At the time of the show I answered that mobile wasn't a good source for acquisition. I've given this a bit more thought, and although I don't think it is an ideal channel for acquisition, I do think there are growth opportunities.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Len Shneyder: Acquisition Versus Retention in Social and Mobile Channels" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Don Peppers & Martha Rogers say that trust is built on combination of intent and competence. It's so true. Misfire on either of these, and it's hard to win customer trust.

Continue reading "I Really Want to Trust Sirius/XM" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"Analytics turn uncertainty about the future into usable probability."

James Taylor, CEO of Decision Management Solutions, at SAS, said this yesterday at SAS Media Day in Cary, N.C.This quote resonates because I believe that companies have finally reached the point where they are applying analytics to improve business processes rather than to gain efficiencies.

Continue reading "Analytics Grows Up" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers often welcome assistance from companies when they're having trouble finding product information or completing a checkout online. eGain Chairman and CEO Ashutosh Roy discusses how companies are able to use co-browsing to assist customers during online interactions.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Co-Browsing Boosts Online Customer Relationships" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Marketing can be a very siloed business. Email marketers may be doing their thing, while social media folks play on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. Elsewhere traditional direct marketers are planning direct mail campaigns and website folks might be working on lead generation programs with the sales team. Mobile marketers are finding short codes and promotions to use. All of this activity is important, but without a common thread, it can get pretty confusing to the customer. It's time for digital marketers and direct marketers to come to the realization that they're all in it together, and create a holistic strategy as a result.

Continue reading "Direct and Digital Marketing Join Forces" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Actions in today's business world are driven by what consumers are doing, Clickatell CEO Pieter de Villiers noted during a recent conversation. And what they're doing more than ever, he said, is using their mobile devices.

"We firmly believe that mobile becoming the primary means of customer engagement, especially in many emerging markets," de Villiers said. "The mobile device is the first thing switched on in morning and last thing switched off before bed. From a footprint perspective, it dwarfs anything else out there."

Continue reading "R U GR8T @ SMS? Texting Is an Underutilized Customer Engagement Tool" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As marketers, we know that our customers are evolving and we must evolve with them. The question, of course, is "How?" To reach today's buyers, whether they are in B2B or B2C, we must engage them. Customers want to be connected with on an individual level and made to feel like they are a part of the buying process. We can't simply abandon traditional marketing tactics, but we must leverage social marketing channels, as they enable levels of engagement never previously available to marketers.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Lisa Arthur: Get Engaged -- The Value of
Two-Way Communication" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

It's no secret. The effects of a bad customer experience can be far reaching. With dissatisfied customers telling up to 10 people about their bad experiences, such negative word of mouth can be devastating.

Continue reading "Customer Service as a Strategic Weapon" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many companies gather demographic information about their customers, including location data. But for smaller companies or those that might be resource-constrained, it often makes sense to utilize additional customer data services from third-party providers.

Continue reading "Giving Customer Data a Boost" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I attended the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference in San Francisco. You can always count on the show to be a mix of old school and new, but this year the new media had a much larger presence than traditional direct marketing strategies. Of particular note was the prominence of analytics discussions among just about everyone. I took note of some of the hot trends in analytics being discussed at the show.

Continue reading "Five Hot Trends in Analytics at DMA2010" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"One percent isn't a 'success' rate," author Ernan Roman stated emphatically when we talked about marketing strategies last week. "Ninety-nine percent of direct marketing recipients basically saying, 'No thanks,' isn't OK."

According to Roman, founder and principal of Ernan Roman Direct Marketing and author of Voice-of-the-Customer Marketing, today's wasteful marketing practices are a statement of marketers' lack of social responsibility and respect for customers. "A 99 percent waste factor is unsustainable, he said. "We have to wake up as an industry and change our practices."

Continue reading "Stop the Marketing Waste!" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When customers spend money on your services, that's a good thing. When they lose money because of poor service--not so good.

According to TOA Technologies' recent Cost of Waiting Survey, consumers lose both time value and real dollars waiting for in-home appointments. Nearly 70 percent of adults in the United States have waited for deliveries, cable or Internet technicians, utilities, and the like in the past year; waiting on average for about four and a half hours, four times per year--equivalent to about 2.75 billion hours and a cost of more than $750 in lost time annually, the report finds. Additionally, nearly a quarter of respondents lost actual wages waiting for an appointment.

Continue reading "Are You Costing Your Customers Money?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

For several years I've seen company after company jump on the customer experience bandwagon. In a Temkin Group survey earlier in the year, two thirds of large North American companies said that they had ambitions to provide the best customer experience in their industry within three years.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Bruce Temkin: Will The Customer Experience Bubble Burst In 2011?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When Gap Inc. swapped its 20-year-old blue and white logo last week for a new black one with a tiny blue box without first consulting or notifying its customers, the company received a barrage of complaints and criticism from customers who demanded the return of the old design, as well as from the graphic arts community who just didn't like it. Thousands took to social media channels to demand the company return to the classic blue box with the white logo.

Continue reading "Gap's Logo Mistake Reveals a Company Unwilling to Adapt" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

This week at the DMA annual conference, new CEO Larry Kimmel was introduced to the DMA community. He's nine weeks on the job, and takes the reigns in the midst of an evolution in the direct marketing space. He seemed to welcome the challenge.

Continue reading "New DMA CEO Makes It a Family Affair" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I often wonder if the moment some executives get to their office, they forget that they're customers, too. Do they ever shop, call a contact center, wait for a cable technician? They must. And in doing so they must realize how essential frontline employees are to the customer experience and to the brand. Or maybe they don't.

Continue reading "Why Is Employee Appreciation Such a Revelation?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A growing number of companies are leveraging social media connections such as Facebook and Twitter to generate more buzz about their brands. ShopVisible CEO Sean Cook shares his views on steps that marketing leaders can take to maximize their social media connections to drive higher sales. He speaks with 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Driving Brand Awareness Using Social Media" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

No matter what you think, how you spend your resources, or what your agency tells you, the honest truth is that you don't control your brand anymore. Consumers do. They have the ability to make it whatever they want, and share that definition with their sphere of influence. Companies need to participate in this new era of branding.

Continue reading "Fact: You Don't Control Your Brand" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"The majority of what we do every day appeals to our non-conscious brain," Martin Lindstrom told attendees earlier this week at the HSM World Business Forum.

Lindstrom, author of Buy-ology, shared insight into reaching the non-conscious brain using branding. He asked attendees, can you "smash your brand" and still have customers and prospects recognize it? That is, are there components besides the logo that are identifiers for your brand like color, sound, touch, taste, shape or traditions? He cited several examples, including the Coca-Cola bottle, designed so that if it shatters someone can pick up any one piece and still recognize it as a Coke bottle. Another example is how Corona beer is often served with a lime stuck in the top of the bottle. He also showed the Marlboro man and several elements from McDonald's, like the colors, the arches, and the French fries.

Continue reading "Go Ahead, Smash Your Brand" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"I want to buy from you, but you don't make it very easy."

What would your reaction be if a potential customer said that to you? Most of us would probably be in shock--and wonder if our sales process is as effective as it could be--or as it should be.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Audrey Spangenberg: Encouraging Best Practices Throughout the Sales Cycle " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A.G. Lafley, former president and CEO of Procter & Gamble, focused his remarks at the World Business Forum on innovation and growth. And customer centricity is what drives innovation.

"If you don't really understand who your customer is and what they need and want, you can't serve them," he said. "I'm a classic [Peter] Drucker aficionado. The primary purpose of a business is to create a customer and serve them throughout their life. And you can't create a customer if you don't know who they are."

Continue reading "P&G CEO's Rule of Innovation: Attack Yourself" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A report released this week by the CMO Council and Accenture reveals a divide between IT and marketing in many companies. The study, "The CMO-CIO Alignment Imperative: Driving Revenue Through Customer Relevance," surveyed more than 320 global marketing executives and 300 global IT executives. The results show that marketing and IT don't believe they are effective partners.

Continue reading "Marketing and IT's Deep Divide" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Levitt, author of the best-seller Freakonomics, took the stage this morning at the World Business Forum to share stories of tax fraud, flatulence, and prostitution. Not a typical economics discussion. A great storyteller, he talked about how some of the best ideas in business today are also the simplest ones.

Continue reading ""Freakonomics" Author Levitt Urges Simplicity to Spur Innovation" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Today at the HSM World Business Forum Charlene Li, cofounder of Altimeter Group, sounded off on the value of social technologies. "Social technologies are all about the relationships you can form," she said.

Here are a few pieces of Li's advice:

Continue reading "Social Technologies Are All About Relationships" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Today at the HSM World Business Forum Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, revealed his three elements of a performance culture: dream, people, culture.

Continue reading "How to Create a Performance Culture" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

This morning at HSM's World Business Forum Jim Collins, leadership expert and author of Built to Last and Good to Great shared a list of 10 to-dos for successful leadership:

Continue reading "10 To-Dos to Go From Good to Great" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Brand Keys recently released its 2010 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. It's an interesting list that got me thinking about emotional loyalty versus loyalty based on price or convenience.

Brand Keys polled 35,000 consumers about their affinity toward 501 brands in 71 detailed categories (not just breakfast cereal, children's breakfast cereal, for example). A quick examination of the top 100 showed that customers love their tech toys, their cosmetics, their favorite retailers, and they have a real affinity for their preferred vodka.

Continue reading "Consumers Love Gadgets, Cosmetics, Shopping--and Vodka" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

What social media was last year mobile is today. User adoption of mobile devices is more than 95 percent, and consumers are using them for more activities every day. Smartphones are getting more popular. Mobile commerce, mobile marketing, and mobile customer service are now realities. Consumers are expecting the companies they do business with to provide a strong mobile customer experience. Can you meet their expectations?

Continue reading "Get Past the Mobile Hype and Get Down to Business" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Verizon's familiar jibe at competitors' network quality may be a hearkening call to contact centers, as well. A recent study by Empirix finds that voice quality is affecting the customer experience at many contact centers.

Continue reading "Can You Hear Me Now?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

John Wanamaker's quip about half of his advertising budget being wasted could be coming back to haunt email marketers.

Continue reading "Email Marketing's Wasted Opportunity" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

You may have heard, "Assign a 20-something to monitor your brand mentions on social media sites." This generalization could be highly damaging to a company's customer relationship experience, marketing effectiveness, and its bottom line.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger David Dalka: Social Media -- A State of Mind, Not an Age" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One of the primary benefits of all the conversations happening online is the insight available as a result. Companies can "listen in" to what customers, prospects, analysts, and others are saying about their products or services, their competitors, trends, and more. The catch is figuring out what to track and who in the company should track it.

Continue reading "Social Listening: Who's Listening to What?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who tuned in last Thursday for the premiere of NBC's comedy Outsourced about an American company that outsourced its call center to India, was treated not only to some Indian stereotypes, but to some contact center misconceptions as well.

Ben Rappaport is Todd Dempsy, who returns from management training to find that the entire call center at Mid America Novelties has been laid off. He moves to India to manage the new contact center where he encounters a group of Indian call center misfits. He has his work cut out for him, and begins training them on crafting American accents and upselling "fake pooh."

Continue reading "NBC's "Outsourced" Perpetuates 5 Call Center Myths" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies considering whether to advertise on social networks face a mixed market: Some consumers are leery of ads within social networks; others think social networks are the perfect place to advertise.

Continue reading "Advertisers: Friend and Foe?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Legislative, technological and market forces have dramatically altered the direct marketing landscape. Larry Kimmel, the recently-named CEO of the Direct Marketing Association, shares his views on the key challenges and opportunities faced by direct marketing leaders.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: The Changing Face of Direct Marketing" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A superior customer experience motivates most customers to buy more, stay longer, and refer friends or associates. So, yes, customer experience not only matters, it can provide a significant competitive advantage.

Continue reading "Does Customer Experience Really Matter?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In the marketing world, many people are focusing on how their brands and companies can take advantage of emerging social media channels. While that is important, email is still a dominant channel and should be given as much attention. The two platforms complement one another, and marketers need to think of email and social media as part of a holistic interaction strategy.

Continue reading "Email Marketing Grows Alongside Social Media" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"The voice of the customer is an untapped asset," Bruce Temkin said during his keynote as the 2010 Allegiance Engage Summit.

According to Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group, not many companies are using true voice of the customer programs, but those that do are at the forefront of customer engagement. He shared three essential elements for harnessing voice of the customer to help improve the customer experience: keep the big picture, master best practices, and make a difference.

Continue reading "Three Essential Elements of the Voice of the Customer " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies deliver a defaulted, unplanned customers experience, then wonder: Why don't customers like us? The truth is, the experience many of you are delivering to your customers today is likely a blueprint of your organization chart.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jeanne Bliss: Are You Delivering a Customer Experience...Or Siloed Action Items? " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In the new book "Coolfarming," author Peter Gloor likens leaders of the past to race car drivers, controlling every aspect of the group they lead, setting the precise speed, and steering the corporate car to where they thought it should go. Creative leaders, on the other hand, are like hot air balloon pilots, mapping a direction, assembling a team to help chart the course, and then enjoying whichever direction the course takes.

Continue reading "The 2010 Customer Champions Share Their Inspirations" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Today may only be the first day of fall, and Halloween paraphernalia may be hogging some store shelves, but it's the holiday season that's already on the minds of email marketers everywhere. The question is, what's your holiday email strategy? Perhaps it's a daily deluge. Or targeted trigger campaigns. Something else?

Continue reading "An Email a Day Keeps Competitors Away" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

To get a sense of just how frenzied the M&A market has been recently for analytics and business intelligence software companies, consider the following statistic that was posted in a story about the trend on FT.com on Sept. 20: IBM alone has spent $12 billion on 23 analytics-related acquisitions over the past four years.

Continue reading "How the Analytics Buying Spree Will Affect Marketers" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Today we're happy to announce the newest group of 1to1 Customer Champions. These 15 executives embrace customer centricity and advocate for customers both internally and externally. Part of what makes them stand out is how they encourage their colleagues and co-workers to do the same.

Continue reading "1to1 Customer Champions Overcome Internal Challenges to Build Customer Centricity" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Hiring has to be one of the toughest jobs out there. Consider the retail store: Most employees are part-time workers, often teenagers--and the ambassadors of the brand. It can a huge challenge to ensure that all of them are equally engaged. But if they're not, can the great service from some offset the poor service from one? Consider this example:

Continue reading "One Bad Apple Don't Spoil the Whole Bunch--or Does It?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In a recent conversation with a local real estate agent about her business, I heard her utter a familiar line: "It's all about location! location! location!" Only, she wasn't talking about my future housing needs. Rather, she was commenting on all the changes within digital marketing that are affecting her business. She emphasized how consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones for Internet information, whether to find a new Thai restaurant, a local plumber or, in her case, checking the listing information and mobile Web pages of local real estate agents.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Alan Edgett: Location-Based Services -- Where do you Stand? " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The fate of brands is a topic of heated discussion these days. Some pundits say marketers need to relinquish control of their company's brand to their engaged consumers. They claim that consumers already have taken control through their use of social media, so why fight it? Others suggest that consumers can influence brand perception, but a company will always control its brand. I say the truth lies somewhere in between.

Continue reading "Who Controls Your Brand?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Brian Curran, recently-named as Vice President of Web Customer Experience Solutions at RightNow, shares how he's drawing upon his background as a customer experience officer at Best Buy and other companies and applying that to his current role.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Lessons from a Customer Experience Officer" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The social advantages of the Web have brought companies and customers closer than ever before. Many companies use online communities, contests, and other activities to encourage users to share their opinions about products, services, and brands in general. Some have extended this strategy to product design and even marketing and advertising campaigns. Mountain Dew is the latest company to see the benefits of customer involvement in every step of the product lifecycle.

Continue reading "User-Generated Content Moves to the Marketing Arena " »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

We continue to talk about how the marketing landscape is constantly evolving. While all this change offers exciting opportunities, it is also accompanied by tremendous fear. Perhaps the most profound and provocative is the fear of losing control of the brand. It's a reasonable fear. Organizations spend millions of dollars building strong brands and, traditionally, marketers have been the ones in direct command of managing customer touchpoints and shepherding the message.

Now, the voice of the consumer is being amplified like never before. New channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter provide easy outlets for observations, opinion, and debate. Today's marketers recognize that their brands are increasingly controlled by consumers and the often fickle whims of the community. Consumers are commenting, complaining, or raving about brands 24/7. Now more than ever marketers need to react in real time.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Lisa Arthur: Have No Fear, Let Customers Control Your Brand" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Every time a new something comes along, many rush to proclaim the demise of the old thing. It still happens today.

You'd think that by now people would realize that the old thing is more likely to change than become extinct. TV didn't replace radio; radio's role in entertainment changed. Video didn't replace photography. Heck, the incandescent light didn't even wipe out candles. And there are still people who use the horse and buggy for transportation.

Continue reading "The End is Near? I Don't Think So" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Once upon a time there was certain symmetry to the flow of information between a buyer and a seller. There were, if you like, steps to the dance that were intrinsically understood and accepted by both parties. This symmetry endured even through transformative business cycles such as the dot com period. Sure, email and other technology-driven capabilities allowed new ways of enabling this interaction, but they still did not fundamentally disrupt the equilibrium of this age-old process. The advent, however, of social media, with its democratization of information flow and disintermediation of messengers, has introduced an asymmetry that is becoming truly disruptive.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger John Golden: Sales Professionals Must Embrace Social CRM -- or Risk Extinction " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:24 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Sure, there's plenty of chatter online these days, but there's also some great information being shared face to face and at events. Here are a handful of thoughts on customer strategy gathered from the road:

Continue reading "Heard and Overheard: Thoughts on Customer Strategy" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Location-based marketing might not be a game-changer for companies, but it can definitely enhance organizations' social media marketing efforts.

With marketing budgets still tight, companies might not be willing to invest in location-based advertising. A new study from ABI Research, however, indicates that may change in the coming years. The study reveals that businesses will commit $1.8 billion on location-based advertising in 2015 as part of their overall marketing budgets.

Continue reading "Spending on Location-Based Advertising to Increase" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I've always been fascinated by cultural differences in people's attitudes and behaviors. A prime example of this is the differences between how business meetings are approached in the U.S. versus Japan.

Continue reading "Delivering on Customers' Regional Preferences" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

This summer, our family vacationed in Italy and Austria. Travel, as I'm sure you will agree, is a very high-involvement experience -- exhilarating when things go well and pretty awful when things go wrong, particularly when you are traveling with family. In preparing for the trip, we relied on traditional guidebooks, as well as customer feedback from a variety of travel sites. In doing so, it struck me that the guidebook companies have diversified and leveraged multiple media types to truly engage with their customers in order to inform and enhance their travel experience.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Naras Eechambadi: Making Customer Engagement Happen in Today's Multichannel World" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One sentiment I've heard repeatedly is that delivering customer service via social sites is hard to scale. Some companies are trying to overcome that challenge by using a customer service capability they already have: dynamic routing in the contact center.

Today a call comes in to the contact center and in most cases it's routed to the next available agent based on the issue, the agent's skill level or type, customer value, etc. Many companies also use dynamic routing for email response and web chat sessions. The next step some companies are taking is to try to get tweets and comments from other social sites into the contact center queue.

Continue reading "Connecting the Dots Between Social Media and Customer Service " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media marketing means many things to many people. And as social channels like Facebook and Twitter continue to transform the way people relate to the brands, retailers, and service providers they love (or love to hate), marketers need to look at what social media approaches deliver the biggest bang for the buck. Fans and followers have a value, and engaged happy fans may spread the word and even buy more or renew at a higher rate. But as marketers we also need to make sure our social programs are resulting in actual top-line business results like more sales and greater loyalty.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Allen Bonde: Making the Move to Social Commerce" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Recent research shows that organizations are leveraging social media to retain loyal customers.

Continue reading "Marketers are Investing in Social Media to Build Loyalty" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Consumers say a lot about companies and their brands in social media channels. CoTweet Co-Founder and CEO Jesse Engle shares his insights on steps that companies can take to leverage Twitter to forge tighter connections with customers.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Tweet Your Way to Customer Relationship Strength" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer loyalty is a term that gets bandied around among executives with customer-based responsibilities. For many, loyalty is synonymous with a points or rewards program. But as customer savvy evolves, companies need to rethink how they define and build customer loyalty.

Continue reading "What Does Customer Loyalty Really Mean, Anyway?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"There is a massive amount of information bouncing around online," Richard Hanks emphasized during a recent conversation we had. Hanks, president of Mindshare Technologies, was referring specifically to the many comments, complaints, and opinions voiced through such social channels as blogs, online communities and social networks.

Continue reading "Feedback or Noise?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A few months ago I tweeted about one of my posts post called XFINITY Is (Unfortunately) More of the Same. Immediately afterwards, a nice woman from Comcast replied to my tweet and tried to change my opinion. This type of social media outreach is not unusual for Comcast, which has made a name for itself over the last few years with an active presence on Twitter.

Comcast, however, continues to receive less-than-stellar (I'm being nice) feedback on its customer service. The company managed to come in 125th and 126th out of 133 companies in Forrester's 2010 Customer Experience Index and ended up in 3rd place on MSN Money's 2010 Customer Service Hall of Shame.

So Comcast reaches out to strangers on Twitter, but doesn't service customers very well when they contact Comcast. Something seems out of whack.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Bruce Temkin: 8 Symptoms of Social Schizophrenia" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

With the news this week that the direct marketing job market is worsening (indicative of the state of the overall industry), it's no wonder that companies are turning to new channels to engage with customers.

Continue reading "Writing the Social Media Playbook" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The Federal Trade Commission is planning to propose voluntary measures to curtail online privacy abuses that may also allow consumers to opt out of online behavioral tracking.

Continue reading "Budding FTC Restrictions Could Impact Online Behavioral Tracking" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 7:19 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social engagement may not be easy, but for the majority of companies today it's essential. Often the most difficult part is just getting started. During Alterian's Engaging Times Summit 2010, executives from American Greetings Interactive, Dave & Buster's, and Western Union provided a glimpse into their social engagement strategies:

Continue reading "Step One of Social Engagement: Strategy" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies have long aimed to increase their market share or wallet share. Today organizations also need to consider their share of friends, Engauge Chairman Stan Rapp told attendees during his keynote at Alterian's Engaging Times Summit 2010. Businesses not using social media to engage customers risk losing those customers to competitors that are making the most of social channels.

Continue reading "What's Your "Share of Friends"?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"Consumers are in the driver's seat," Alterian CEO David Eldridge told attendees of Alterian's Engaging Times Summit 2010, "and they want interaction, not interruption."

During his opening remarks Eldridge also revealed several findings from the company's report "Your Brand: At Risk or Ready for Growth," based primarily on a study of about 1,000 consumers. According to the report, he said, customer trust is low and companies need to focus on rebuilding that trust.

Other key findings he noted include:

Continue reading "Rebuild Trust by Engaging Customers" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Different companies have followed different paths to reach the goal of high customer loyalty.

IBM was known for being safe, for product reliability. "No one was ever fired for buying IBM" went the popular saying. Their products were not exciting, but IBM made sure they always worked. Customers followed them in lockstep loyalty, a slavishness that Apple parodied in the famous "1984" commercial.

Microsoft became a very big company through persistence. Their goal was product functionality, and they have been known for trying over and over again until they got the product right. Sometimes they started from scratch (BASIC) and sometimes they acquired a starting point (MS-DOS), but they keep plugging away until they get the function right. Internet Explorer and Bing are more recent examples. Customers rewarded them by buying the upgrades to each new version of their many products.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Mark Klein: The Paths to Customer Loyalty" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Those of us in media and marketing have been feeling the effects of shrinking marketing budgets for some time. However, a new Accenture report "Onward and Up--How Marketers are Refocusing the Front Office for Growth," found that in addition to budget decreases, marketing organizations are also experiencing a shortage of skills and inadequate tools.

Continue reading "Marketing's Uphill Battle" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Suburban Propane has been in the news a lot recently in my corner of the world and the coverage has been anything but favorable.

Continue reading "Reacting When Opportunity Knocks" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

You may think that studying cultural anthropology in South Africa is a far cry from working in digital marketing; however, there are parallels between both practices that you can recognize and use when creating effective web strategies and online communities.

As a former cultural anthropologist I had the privilege of studying how social groups defined themselves in a hotly contested political, racial, and geographic environment. Among the Rastafarians living in the Cape Province of South Africa I mapped out an organized hierarchy of relationships among participants to the people around them. This hierarchy allowed us to observe how rules were enforced, how decisions were made, and how this hierarchy affected individual behaviors, including communication between and among people and groups.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Tim Neill: Mapping Your Online Village" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer loyalty is becoming volatile. Companies are growing more concerned about losing customers and the cost of replacing them is the highest it's ever been. Many companies, however, think that if their customers are satisfied, then they will be loyal. Wrong.

Continue reading "Don't Stop at Satisfaction When Building Loyalty" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Managing the complexities of customer relationships can be fraught with challenges. Udi Ziv, Chief Product Officer and President of NICE Systems' Enterprise Products Group, shares his views on steps that marketing leaders can take in tending to customer interactions effectively.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Best Practices for Optimizing Customer Dynamics" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday opened up football's preseason. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Cincinnati Bengals 16-7 in a game designed to shake the rust off after a long off-season. There were no spectacular plays or memorable moments, just a slow-pace game led by second string players. What happens on the field is in the hands of the coach and the players, but the organization is working to make sure that it can influence fan relationships by improving the fan experience to match the grandeur of the new $1.3 billion, 80,000-seat Cowboys Stadium.

Continue reading "Dallas Cowboys Make Improvements Off the Field " »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One sales tactic I recently fell pray to is the half truth. I think the reason this approach works so well is that the customer wants to believe that half truth (I certainly did). You know, the "Those shoes will stretch as you wear them" or the "It's paint and primer in one, so you'll 'probably' only need one coat.

The problem with this strategy, however, is that once buyer's remorse kicks in, it has the potential to hit big. Big, as in, returning the item in question at best; switching providers for good at worst.

Consider my recent fall to a series of half truths:

Continue reading "The Half Truths of Selling--and Their Impact on Buying" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The marketing industry is undergoing a transformational change in the heart of a revolution that questions its relevancy. This revolution challenges the definition and future of the marketing function. It is a revolution long overdue and offers an exciting opportunity to restore marketing to the art of driving business results based on the science of understanding and adding value to current and future customers.

To successfully achieve the potential of this revolution, the CMO must be a powerful change agent, both internally and externally, and help her department chart a course for where marketing needs to go, navigate the waters of change, and compellingly lead from vision to results for both the board and the street.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Lisa Arthur: CMOs Must Be the Change Agent of the Marketing Revolution " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Within the span of a week, I had two dramatically divergent customer experiences, each with different companies.

Continue reading "A Tale of Two Customer Experiences" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A personal touch can go a long way to building customer loyalty. And as more companies look to capture and maintain strong relationships with high-value customers, they are embracing the use of personal concierge services in unique industries. For many companies, the long-term benefits far exceed the costs. Is it right for your business?

Continue reading "Personal Concierge Services Expand Across All Industries" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When you have 98 percent brand recognition, what do you do? Thrive.

Montblanc currently commands 70 percent of the world market in fine writing instruments, according to Jan-Patrick Schmitz, president and CEO of Montblanc N.A. The company has achieved this by focusing on creating "deep positioning and meaning" in the luxury market instead of targeting everyone who writes, Schmitz said during his keynote at the Argyle Executive Forum's 2010 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services.

Continue reading "Montblanc Inks a Long-Term Customer Strategy " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

There are rare moments in technology when everything changes. When the entire framework defining how we interact with machines (and consequently, each other) shifts perceptibly. That happened when the TV was invented, it happened when the computer mouse was made available commercially. These kinds of changes forever alter our economics, our social life, and our individual experiences.

It's now about to happen again. Only this time, the shift that is coming is on such a large scale that not only will it change things dramatically; it will usher in a new era in human economics (and therefore, everything else).

Continue reading "Forrester's James McQuivey: We Are About To Enter The Age Of Experience" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Attempts to monitor what customers are saying about your company in social media can often be a hit-or-miss approach. Vovici's Vice President of Research Brian Koma shares his recommendations for using enterprise feedback management tools to help gauge and react to customer sentiment in the social media atmosphere.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Applying Enterprise Feedback Management to Social Media to Glean Customer Insights" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

For years, companies have pursued loyalty programs that cater to their most valued customers. However, in a tough economic environment, where every dime of revenue matters, it is now essential to promote loyalty among a broader base of customers. Expanding loyalty requires that companies ensure a satisfying experience that moves high-potential customers up the value chain.

En route, however, companies can find that loyalty comes in many shades. Depending on the duration of the relationship and other factors, customers have their own definitions of what loyalty entails. Knowing the appropriate treatment for customers, at the right stage of their development, makes all the difference in the success of conversion efforts.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ryan Pellet: Customer Loyalty -- Follow the Customer's Lead" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Self-service can definitely enhance the customer experience, but it can also hurt it too. On Sunday my husband and I went to Lowe's to purchase some items that we needed for home improvement projects. After about an hour in the store, we approached the check-out to find our choices limited. There were only four self-service kiosks open--both with two winding lines.

Continue reading "Using Common Sense When Deploying Self-Service" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

After Facebook's big open graph announcement and Project Titan murmurs, it seems likely that email marketing will take a hit. If Facebook could bring down Google and turn SEO on its head in its reorganization of the Web, it's just a matter of time before email goes the way of the carrier pigeon, right?

With 500 million people reachable on Facebook, 125 million on Twitter and millions more siphoned off by any number of mobile and other digital distractions, what chance does email have?

A great one.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ajay Goel: Life After Facebook -- Why Email Remains Your Biggest Opportunity" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The financial crisis has forced many governments to enact rules to rein in financial processes and procedures. The United States earlier this year passed credit card reform, and just last week passed its financial reform bill, which creates a federal consumer protection agency and puts limits on fast and loose financial activity. Not to be outdone, the British government last year enacted its own set of mandates. The Financial Services Authority (FSA), which regulates banks, building societies, and credit unions, added rules designed to build confidence in the banking system. As part of the reform, financial services companies will be required to take a holistic view of their customers.

Continue reading "Financial Reform in the UK Mandates Customer Centricity" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies can learn a lot about customer behaviors, attitudes and preferences by listening to what they have to say in social media channels. Erick Brethenoux, Predictive Analytics Strategist for SPSS, an IBM Company, shares his views on how companies can apply analytics to learn more about the social customer.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Applying Analytics to the Social Customer" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

There's a huge amount of buzz around social CRM but a limited amount of action that marketers are actually taking. Larry Ritter, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Sage CRM Solutions, shares his insights on opportunities for marketing leaders to engage with customers through a variety of social CRM platforms.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Making the Most of Social CRM Opportunities with Customers" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"The best strategy is nothing without engagement and accountability," Allstate Insurance Chief Customer Experience Officer Patty VanLammeren told attendees of the Forrester Research Customer Experience Forum 2010.

Those two elements were essential to Allstate's recent customer experience revamp. "We changed the way we measure success," VanLammeren said, explaining that success is now measured across the enterprise, not just within one business unit.

VanLammeren was appointed to lead the customer experience journey in 2008, when Allstate's management team made improving customer loyalty one the insurer's three corporate priorities. "We needed to change the way we think, to shift the culture to focus on the customer," she said. Today the company reports earnings and loyalty together.

Continue reading "Allstate's Full-Coverage Customer Experience" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A few years ago it became nearly cliché to say, "This is the year for mobile." That notion is now a reality. At the recent Internet Week New York, the Mobile Marketing Forum (MMA Forum) showcased the mobile channel's global reach and local relevance.

Here are some examples of mobile marketing success happening today, cited during MMA Forum:

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Michael Becker: The Time for Mobile Marketing Is Now" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A Facebook friend wrote a status update yesterday that caught my eye. He was ranting about an interaction he had with a customer service rep, saying "Does 'customer service rep' mean liar nowadays? They B.S. so much they should be in politics. And returning phone calls? Forget it."

Continue reading "What's Wrong With Customer Service These Days?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome--more commonly known as SARS--hit Southeast Asia in 2003, infecting more 8,000 people, killing nearly 800. Very quickly, 80 percent of business travel and tourism to Vietnam evaporated.

Our colleague Binh Nguyen was working at the time at the Duxton Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. His boss, the hotel manager, faced some tough choices and spent a few days agonizing over what to do. Finally, he brought all of his employees together in the hotel's grand ballroom. "You all know about SARS and what it has done to our business," he said. "And you've seen other hotels in the city cutting jobs by 40 percent." Everyone nodded, prepared for the worst. Then he said, "I also understand that you still have your family to feed. I know what will happen if you don't have a job. So I have an idea." The manager then explained two options: The hotel could cut jobs by 40 percent...or everyone could take a 40 percent pay cut but no one would lose his or her job.

Continue reading "Guest Bloggers Jeff Grimshaw & Tanya Mann: In Tough Times, Rally People Around a Common Cause" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

McDonald's is one of the most ubiquitous brands in the world, and customers can find a fairly consistent experience no matter which store they visit, anywhere in the world. But aside from the temperature of the french fries and famous golden arches, one franchisee take his approach to customer service a step further than corporate asks for.

Continue reading "McDonald's Franchisee Shares His Employee Engagement Secret Sauce " »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Understanding the mobile channel is a must for marketers today. "It's increasingly becoming an essential part of the marketing mix," Michael Becker, Mobile Marketing Association's managing director for North America, told me during a recent conversation. "Companies need to provide value through and with mobile in a unique way."

According to Becker, we've hit a critical inflection point in smart phone adoption, about 24 percent of the market. MMA expects a rapid uptake in the use of text, MMS, email, mobile applications, and the mobile web over the next year. Marketers need to prepare, he said.

Continue reading "Mobile Marketing Is a Must" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies are spending a dwindling amount of face time with customers as consumers become increasingly selective and utilize a plethora of communications channels. Mark Smith, Executive Vice President at Portrait Software, shares his insights on some of the opportunities decision-makers can seize upon to maximize their interactions with customers across various channels.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Optimizing Customer Interactions" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Having lived in Asia for the past eight years, I have learnt much about the respective cultures of this unique part of the world. It only takes a single phone call to an Indonesian, Vietnamese, or Thai contact center, for one to realize, like Wizard of Oz's Dorothy, that you are no longer in Kansas anymore.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger CJ Werley: Cultural and Geographical Differences Are No Excuse for Poor Customer Service" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

It makes sense that a company should listen to what its customers are saying, then take action based on the feedback it receives. The idea is simple, but putting it into practice can be an arduous task. It requires departmental integration, technology, training, and a culture driven by customer focus. Forrester Research understands the challenges and recently awarded three companies for their commitment to not just voice of the customer, but true enterprise customer feedback.

Continue reading "American Express, CDW, Dell Share Award-Winning VOC Strategies" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A growing number of companies are discovering they can exert greater control in online interactions with customers by creating their own online communities. Lithium Chief Marketing Officer Katy Keim describes how companies can use online communities to engage with customers and develop tribal knowledge centers.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Building Online Communities with Customers" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

If you're not investing in customer experience improvements across your organization, now is the time. According to Victoria Bough, vice president and practice leader, customer experience, at Forrester Research, customer experience has become a top strategic priority.

Continue reading "Customer Experience Is a Strategic Priority" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

There's a lot that companies can learn about what consumers are saying about them in social media. Clarabridge President, Co-Founder and CTO Justin Langseth shares his recommendations for using text analytics and sentiment analysis to learn more about customer attitudes and preferences in social media.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Applying Text Analytics to Learn More About the Social Customer" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Love it or hate it, interactive voice response (IVR) has defined telephony self-service for nearly three decades. Whether a customer is looking for store hours, refilling a prescription, ordering a taxi, or simply trying to get routed to the right department, the find-it-yourself option has long taken the form of a 'Press 1 for X, Press 2 for Y' message. But the script is about to change.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Tim Harris:
The New Self-Service -- Beyond IVR " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer service can make a big difference in a down economy, yet many companies are missing out by not providing quality service. According to findings released today in the American Express Global Customer Service Barometer of 1,000 U.S. consumers interviewed in April, 28 percent said that companies are now paying less attention to good service. And with 61 percent of those consumers indicating that quality customer service is more important to them than ever, it's apparent that organizations need to improve their service strategies.

Continue reading "Companies Are Paying Less Attention to Good Service" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Despite years of practical experience with customer relationship management, marketing leaders can still encounter challenges in executing these strategies effectively. Pegasystems Chief Marketing Officer Grant Johnson shares his advice for leveraging business process management tools and techniques to help drive successful CRM outcomes.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: BPM+CRM = A Seamless Customer Experience" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Price, Promotion, Product, and Place have been among the traditional marketing instruments for decades. However, "Four Ps" marketing has been criticized by professionals and academics in the direct marketing/database marketing and CRM space. These experts correctly point out that 4P conspicuously lacks any meaningful consideration of customers. In fact, many in the CRM industry dismiss the usefulness of these old concepts and argue that customer-centric analysis and marketing is the only way to go. Some even call such change a paradigm shift both from marketing strategy and execution standpoints.

It's true that a strong customer-centric approach should be the overarching strategy framework, and that the 4P way of thinking has not adjusted itself to reflect the Internet and today's multichannel world, where there is a noticeable change in the way customers consume information. These changes have had a dramatic effect on marketing landscapes.

But 4P has not become completely irrelevant. If anything, marketers in the CRM space should use them more.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Hongjie Wang: The Four Ps -- Alive and Well in Marketing and Strategic Analytics" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In a new study by GlobalSpec, 70 percent of manufacturers reported that their sales will increase this year. However, with growth comes complexity. Growing demands placed on manufacturers requires a clear eye on what is needed to deliver on customer expectations. and that requires an investment in marketing.

Continue reading "Manufacturers Need to Ramp Up Marketing Efforts" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Most companies today, 62 percent according to Forrester Research, have a voice of the customer (VOC) program. Some of those organizations are getting increasingly sophisticated in their approach to enterprise customer feedback and translating the customer voice into action.

Earlier today at the Forrester's Customer Experience Forum 2010, Forrester's Victoria Bough and Andrew McInnes announced the winners of its 2010 Voice of the Customer Awards--companies that excel in how they collect and act on customer insight. According to Harley Manning, vice president and research director, and another Voice of the Customer Awards judge, "the best VOC programs demonstrate that executive involvement, measurement, and insights that are tied directly to action are critical to customer experience success."

Continue reading "Listen (to Customers) and Learn" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Proving the business value of marketing is getting harder, Dave Frankland principal analyst, customer intelligence, noted during his presentation at Forrester Research's Customer Experience Forum 2010. Numerous challenges affect this. Channel proliferation, for example, makes attribution more difficult. Some marketers have difficulty gaining agreement on a definition of marketing accountability; others say that measure marketing ROI is tricky.

Frankland cited four areas--alignment, process, metrics, and communication--that lead to breakthrough accountability in marketing.

Continue reading "Four Tenets of Marketing Accountability" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Since Dan Hesse joined Sprint Nextel as CEO in 2008 the company has seen increases in its share of new customers, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction. The reason: An intense focus on improving every aspect of the customer experience. At the core, Hesse said during his keynote presentation this morning at Forrester's Customer Experience Forum 2010, problems the company faced prior to 2008 stemmed from poor customer experience. In fact, the number of calls to customer care was two times the industry average.

According to Hesse, 2008 started with three priorities that remain today:

• Improve the customer experience
• Strengthen the brand
• Generate cash

Continue reading "Fix the Customer Experience, Fix the Business" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Why are today's websites so boring?

Ron Rogowski, principal analyst of Forrester Research, asked this question during his keynote this morning at Forrester's Customer Experience Forum 2010. "Today's web experiences leave an emotional void," Rogowski said.

Fortunately, however, 67 percent of companies want their website experience to be a competitive differentiator, and are taking steps like improving web design and navigation, according to Forrester.

So, how can a website be emotionally engaging? Through emotional experience design; that is, by interacting with customers by catering to their emotional needs.

Continue reading "Create Emotionally Engaging Online Experiences" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Marketers are wrestling with effective ways to help their companies lift sales in a tight economy. Market Force CMO Janet Eden-Harris shares her insights on how to leverage customer intelligence to help drive new sales.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Using Customer Intelligence to Boost Sales" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Employees rarely pay attention to--and invest effort to align with--any new strategy or initiative they believe is the "flavor of the month" and will soon be forgotten. Unfortunately, that is the default assumption employees in many organizations hold any time leaders introduce something new. "I've learned from experience," employees will sometimes say, "that this too shall pass." Leaders can complain that this is a cynical point of view for their employees to hold--but most of the employees who hold it arrived at it honestly.

So how do organizations show employees that this time, it's for real?

Continue reading "Guest Bloggers Jeff Grimshaw & Tanya Mann: Want Engagement? Stay on Message" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In a Temkin Group Insight Report called "The Current State of Customer Experience," we surveyed more than 140 large North American firms. It turns out that 11 percent of those companies think they are customer experience leaders today, but 65 percent want to lead within three years. That's a lot of ambition!

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Bruce Temkin: Can You Be a Customer Experience Leader?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media adoption is happening at an extraordinary rate, and I believe most companies will have some sort of social media presence within the next 18 months. But social media isn't about quickly building flimsy connections between a company and its customer base; it's about slowly building strong affiliations between an organization and an engaged portion of its customers and fans.

Continue reading "Socia Media: Slow and Steady Wins the Race" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social CRM is a hot topic with businesses these days--not only with all the usual suspects, but also with some new ones that are trying to enhance the customer experience using social tools. And there are signs that it's working. Before you put the cart before the horse, however, it's important to realize that if you are simply responding to customers' tweets, posts, and reviews in the social sphere and doing nothing else you are leaving major value on the table.

If you've done a great job starting a relationship with your customers, why not do more with it? If customers are using their valuable time and energy to tell you about their experience with your product or service, they are signaling that they want to be involved. Yes, there are times when a customer wants to vent. So let them. But other times they are opening the door for more. You've started the conversation; now use that to get closer.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Debi Kleiman: Hey Social CRM Cart, Here's Your Horse" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social CRM is a hot topic these days, and many companies are looking to create a strong social CRM strategy. And as more organizations dip their toe into the social waters, best practices are beginning to emerge.

Continue reading "Social CRM in Action" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Some consumers who complain about a product or brand experience on Facebook or other social media sites often welcome offers by a company's agents to help resolve their issues. But in some instances, consumers feel like their privacy has been invaded and that the company that's reached out to them has crossed the line.

Continue reading "Drawing the Line on Social Media Eavesdropping" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The growing adoption of smartphones by consumers is creating additional opportunities for marketers to connect with prospects. SpeechCycle Chairman and CEO Zor Gorelov discusses some best practices for utilizing so-called rich phone applications to engage with customers and enrich their interactions.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Connecting with Customers Using Smartphone Applications" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

What frustrates customers? That's a loaded question, depending on in which industry you're asking the question. If companies can get at that valuable information and decipher customers' needs and concerns, they can increase customer retention and improve sales.

Continue reading "What Frustrates Customers?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Forrester Research recently reported that the web "is now a pervasive part of consumers' lives, embedded into their shopping experiences overall. By 2012 approximately one third of all retail sales will be influenced by the Web." As more consumers conduct everyday transactions like refilling a prescription or purchasing beauty products online, organizations' web support and presence has to evolve to provide exceptional ecommerce experiences whether contacted on Twitter or during an online chat session.

Even though consumers are moving online to purchase items, their expectations for personalized service experiences has not decreased, and they have more product choices than ever before. To differentiate from competitors and increase sales, organizations have to deliver a personalized, superior web experience to consumers using the mix of new tools available to them.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Andrew Hull: Cure for the Common Customer Experience" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

It seems like new drugstores are popping up almost daily. Whether it be CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Duane Reade or others, the chain drugstore market is fiercely competitive. While many companies look to compete on price, some drugstore chains are turning to customer centricity as a competitive advantage.

Continue reading "Customer Centricity in the Drugstore Aisles" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers ultimately decide which channel or channels they use to connect with companies. Responsys CMO Scott Olrich shares his recommendations on how to execute cross-channel campaign marketing effectively.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Best Practices for Cross-Channel Campaign Marketing" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns talked at today's World Innovation Forum about how her company innovates. I was impressed at how often she mentioned customers. It's uncommon for a CEO, let alone one with an engineering background, have such a customer focus rather than lean on technology during an innovation discussion. Xerox, which came back from the brink of bankruptcy in 2000, innovates by dreaming along with its customers.

Continue reading "Diapers Lead Xerox's Innovation Efforts" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

So far today at the World Innovation Forum we have heard from marketing expert Seth Godin, venture capitalist Brian Cohen, and Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach for America. They represent three very different industries, but each sector share common qualities of leadership and innovation.

Continue reading "Industry-Agnostic Innovation" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"Innovation means doing something that's impossible," said author Seth Godin at today's World Innovation Forum opening session. "Because if it wasn't impossible, someone would've done it already."

What marketing has been about for a long time is advertising -- yelling at people about stuff that you make, he said. You want people to buy more. You make average stuff for average people. There are more average people than anyone else. The mass is average, and average people want average stuff. TV was the best way to find average people.

Even a relevant marketing message, the model that says 'I'm going to find the right person and push that message to that person,' is wrong, Godin said. "We have branded ourselves to death. Marketing innovation does not mean a better ad." Instead, marketers need to organize tribes of people - groups that are connected by work, family, a passion, or something they want to make happen.

Continue reading "The Marketing Revolution Is Filled With Tribes, Artists, and Genius" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media is rapidly changing the way consumers and companies interact. Consumers are more empowered and companies have greater opportunities to interact with customers on a more personal level. However, a lack of organizational change, integrated technology, and staffing skills prohibit such opportunities from becoming reality.

Continue reading "Are you Commited to Social Change?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

At the 2010 World Innovation Forum in New York today, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Jeff Kindler was asked what healthcare companies need to do to effectively serve different generations of customers.

Continue reading "Delivering Better Customer Experiences in Healthcare" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One of the keynote speakers at the 2010 World Innovation Forum in New York today is Michael Howe, the former CEO of MinuteClinic, the retail healthcare division of CVS/Caremark Corp.

Continue reading "In Healthcare, The Customer is the Driver" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Are you reading this blog post from a mobile device? I bet some of you are. It just shows that people are doing more and more on their iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, iPad, or other mobile devices. As customers get more mobile, customer service needs to follow suit.

Continue reading "Customer Service On-the-Go" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

From the day of advertising's mad men to the era of the Internet, the relationship between marketers and customers has continued to evolve. And this era is no different.

Consumers are no longer content with the marketing status quo. They're calling the shots, and what they want are experiences -- not messages. Today's consumer wants to engage with a brand on all levels and at the time that they prefer, not the other way around. For a meaningful interaction to take place, they want a total engagement experience. Technology today has made it possible for customers to create real relationships with brands -- and the more technology evolves, the more they'll come to expect from these brands.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jeff Hilimire: The Total Engagement Era" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Marketers are wrestling with effective ways to reach customers using social media. Greg Nelson, Director of Customer Engagement at agencyQ, discusses best practices for devising global social CRM strategies that engage customers across geographies.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Devising a Global Social CRM Strategy" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

We hear and read so much today about bad customer experiences, resulting in negative word of mouth that spreads like gossip at a ladies luncheon.

In contrast, I would like to highlight an impressive customer experience that I recently had in April after I flew on Delta. The return leg of my trip was delayed a couple hours, and a week after the trip, I received a letter in the mail from Elizabeth Reed, the general manager of customer care. Here's the letter:

Continue reading "Doing Customer Experience Right" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As leaders we should always be looking for ways to improve our business and increase bottom line results. Building customer engagement by delivering an outstanding customer experience is one way to do so. But this will only happen if employees are engaged.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger James Castellano: What Do You Expect?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The customer/salesperson relationship has always been a bit dysfunctional. Customers often feel ignored and agents feel pressured to make a sale and follow the "script." But in my own personal and professional CRM experience, I've found that relating and knowing more about the customer could be all that's necessary to improve this "tense" relationship.

My own personal experiences can help explain this a little more.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ian Henderson: You Won't Find Knowledge in a Knowledge Base and Your Customers Don't Read From Your Sales Script" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As mobile marketing continues to blossom, a growing number of firms are throwing viral marketing into the mix. Oddcast President and CEO Adi Sideman discusses trends with social media and viral marketing, and shares examples of companies that are reaping the rewards.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hotseat: The Convergence of Social Media and Viral Marketing" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As the senior marketer for a global business-to-business firm, I get so many solicitations through direct marketing channels that it's tough for potential vendors to break through the clutter. It's not that I don't care about unsolicited offers -- really I do. It's just that the volume is large and time is short. But, one recent campaign captured my imagination and, then, my attention.

I received an express envelope that contained two pieces: a blue striped conductor's hat and a postcard with one simple message: "It's Time to Take a Ride, Jim." There was a faint image of a train in the background and at the bottom a vanity URL, personalized with my name. That was it -- no brand logo or name. No product or service features. No laundry list of benefits. No incredible claims of productivity improvements or sales gains. No typical call to action. To top it off, the reverse side was blank! I knew it was commercial in purpose, but it was the best teaser I had seen in a long time and I couldn't resist the urge to find out the who and what of it.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jim Wehmann: Now That's Integrated Marketing at Its Best" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Today's wave of social media venues--YouTube, Twitter, the "blogosphere", Yelp, Yammer, Facebook, comments on Facebook and beyond--have become, with their multithreaded, ungoverned, one-to-one and one-to-many interactions, the IP-powered equivalent of the ancient Commons.

The Public Commons was the riot and roar of the medieval city center; antedated by the rumor-driven, mob-centric ant-hills that we now understand the Forums of the Roman Empire to have been; and is rooted yet farther back in time when ill-informed, distracted individuals gathered in front of caves or huts and exchanged fragmentary, personal, often irresponsible monologue, dialogue, and multilevel arguments with other barely recognized, easily misunderstood individuals of uncertain provenance. Like social media, this worldwide form of interaction was no-cost-to-user, ungoverned, and personal.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Andrew Edwards: Social Media Measurement: Blind Date with Ancient Traditions?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

List(S)entimonics is the art of listening effectively to your social audience -- anyone a company depends on for its success who is having online conversations about its brand -- to direct your Social CRM strategy.

Sure, I made up "List(S)entimonics," but if online conversations are not in a company's direct control, then it is vital to listen to know how and when to leverage the sentiment of those conversations to align your Social CRM strategy. Using a careful blend of social media monitoring tools and services can assist you in making sense of the online noise.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Michael Thomas: Why Listen to Customer Sentiment " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many companies focus on managing data as a key strategy, but it can be a challenge. Bridging the gap between raw data and profitable insight is an arduous task. Arduous, but not impossible. In this month's 1to1 Magazine feature article, three companies share how they connected customer data to profit.

Continue reading "Connecting Customer Data to Profit" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Net Promoter Score is used to determine customers' likelihood to recommend a brand or company. Deborah Eastman, Chief Marketing Officer at Satmetrix, discusses how NPS has evolved and how companies are applying it to improve the customer experience.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Leveraging Net Promoter to Improve the Customer Experience" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

To win with your loyal customers, you need to be equally in tune with the elements that cultivate loyalty and those that detract from it. Marketers tend to think about the customer experience and the customer journey, both important, but often the difference between winning and losing with your most valued customers is determined in the moment. Seize the moment and, ultimately, you seize the day and the customer.

The promise of mobile marketing is it affords you the ability to impact the moment.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Guy Cierzan: Carpe Diem -- Mobilizing Your Customer Loyalty Strategy" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social media, SEO, multichannel marketing, mobile campaigns, email communications...Traditional marketing is becoming a thing of the past. Marketing, for the most part, is moving to the digital arena, which means your internal organization has to evolve too.

Continue reading "Marketing and IT: The New Dream Team" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was first published in 1989, and has since sold millions of copies and spawned a multitude of "lookalike" self-help guides -- all created with the common purpose of helping people and businesses become more effective and efficient. Before Covey, there was the mother and daughter team Katherine and Isabel Myers who created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), based on the typological theories originated by Carl Gustav Jung, to help people understand their personality traits and identify what sort of jobs they would be most comfortable with and effective in. In fact, we have been trying to figure out how and why we tick since pretty much the birth of humanity.

Why then, with all this research and insight into the type of people we are and how we can improve our behaviors, do we still not show up for appointments, follow the advice of our doctors, pay our bills on time, follow our medication regimens, or wash the car even though we're fairly sure it is going to rain? Is the answer simply that we're an unpredictable bunch. Or, perhaps it is life that is unpredictable and when it doesn't map 100 percent to our expectations, we react to it; but we react to it in a highly predictable manner. So, if our reactions are predictable - arguably the best way to get ahead of our customers' behaviors in order to best serve them is as simple the old adage "if you don't ask, you don't get."

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Scott Zimmerman: Anticipating the Habits of Highly Predictable Customers" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

New customers are great, but sometimes they can cause new challenges. Can your company handle an influx of 2 million customers in six weeks? Not many can, but mobile provider Nedjma in Algeria turned its focus to retention after gaining so many new customers in such a short period of time.

Continue reading "Customer Acquisition Worked Too Well. Now What?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Over the next three years there will be a major shift in business as an increasing number of companies transform their operations from product centric to customer centric. J. Patrick Bewley made this prediction during his presentation at the Building a Differentiated Customer Marketing Strategy event, presented by ARF and Acxiom.

Bewley, vice president, global marketing strategy, for Acxiom, went on to describe the five phases organizations will need to travel through on their journey to customer centricity:

Continue reading "The Self-Funding Journey From Product Centricity to Customer Centricity" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A growing number of colleges and universities are making use of CRM systems to help them manage the student enrollment process and other key elements of onboarding and retaining students. Hobsons' Sasha Peterson discusses trends that are impacting the use of CRM in higher education.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: School's In: CRM in Higher Education" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Much has changed in the field of data since George G. Moore, the CEO of TargusInfo, started working as a data analysis professional in 1976. Since that time, data security, data privacy, and the fight over intellectual property have become key growth areas.

Last week at TargusInfo's Scoring Summit in New Orleans, Moore spoke about these evolutions and focused, not surprisingly, on the rising interest in building analytical scoring models within enterprises.

Continue reading "Moore's Laws for Data Professionals" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Unrelenting budget and revenue pressures are forcing CMOs to work harder than ever to maximize their marketing strategies. Aprimo CMO Lisa Arthur offers her recommendations on effective ways for marketers to succeed in a challenging environment.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Winning Market Strategies in Turbulent Times" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Data is more important than ever to a company's business strategy. And while there are plenty of software packages and IT resources to help a company manage data, most important are the people who work with the data. Companies that employ "data rock stars" will have an edge over the competition.

Continue reading "The Making of a Data Rock Star" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, I've noticed an interesting "evolution" in how some leading B2B companies are leveraging their CRM systems to enhance performance and productivity in sales.

Now, like many of us, these companies initially bought in to the notion that with access to more and better data, salespeople could--and would--make more-profitable decisions. In fact, for many of these companies, this "better decisions through better data" concept was the basic justification for investing in a CRM platform in the first place.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Rafe VanDenBerg: CRM for Sales Should Provide the Answers, Not Just Data" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Did Mom invent social media? Some say she did. And there is no arguing that she is driving it and helping it to evolve. There are 82 million moms across the U.S. of all ages. That's right, 82 million. And 26 million of them are mommy bloggers. And they are grassroots, Oprah-like brand advocates with loyal followers who can change the trajectory of a brand and its products.

Identifying Mom is the easy part -- who she is, where she is, and what she likes. The hard part is balancing content with brand messaging and finding the right tone and authenticity. How does a brand build a relationship with her? The more you know about her, the easier it will be to develop programs with her. And "with" is the operative word.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Avi Savar: Social Media Campaigns That Moms Love" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

You don't have to be Dr. Phil to understand the importance of "listening" to maintain a healthy relationship, but is this a courtesy you apply to the relationships with your customers? More than a third of them don't think so. According to the 2010 Convergys Consumer Scorecard research, 39 percent of customers surveyed said they do not believe that "companies generally listen to and act on customer feedback." Add to that another 45 percent who feel that companies do not "have a good understanding of what customers really experience in dealing with them" and what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Mike Betzer: Customers Want to be Heard... Are you Listening?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers have always been a great resource for companies looking to improve upon or create new products and services. And now that social media has been widely adopted, many customers actually expect to participate in the process. What started as a growth in user-generated content has expanded into the product world as companies like Aflac, Dunkin Donuts, and LG Mobile letting customers drive their product innovation.

Continue reading "Research & Development Meets Social Media" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Consumers today are maneuvering a maze of messaging across multiple channels. The most commonly cited number of daily marketing messages bombarding the typical American consumer is 600. Cutting through that cacophony represents an awe-inspiring challenge for marketers today. Compounding the problems we face is the increasing power of the consumer to tune out, turning instead to peers for information and using social media channels to engage with brands on their own terms.

The answer isn't to simply switch channels. The challenge today is to rethink what messages we're sending to our customers, and evaluate whether what we're communicating is relevant.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Sandra Zoratti: Engaging the Customer Means Becoming Relevant -- In Any Channel" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

"Everything that touches the customer defines our brand," John Costello said to a packed house yesterday at Argyle Executive Forum's 2010 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services. This includes customer service, media, signage, product, events, advertising, public relations, the website, and the in-store experience, of course.

Costello, chief global customer and marketing officer for Dunkin' Brands, asserted that keeping the retailer's brand as fresh as its coffee requires a consumer-centric strategy. "We need to recognize what's important to customers, not just what's important to us," he said. He cited six areas to consider:

Continue reading "How Do You Transform a 60-Year-Old Icon? Customer Centricity" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers today have high expectations, as well as easy access to social tools to voice opinions or ask for company and product recommendations. Organizations can no longer only focus on establishing a customer relationship with a friendly handshake at the department store.

While ensuring a positive customer interaction in person is still important to build loyalty, the experiences that customers receive online are just as critical, and even more imperative are the interactions customers have with other customers. Organizations looking to steadily increase brand loyalty and sales are quickly realizing that online communities offer a compelling new option for companies that want a better connection with customers. Nike, Dell, and Adobe, to name a few industry giants, have all launched communities that strengthen their brands, generate excitement, and increase loyalty among customers.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger John Kembel: Fostering Brand Loyalty Through Online Communities" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As companies dive deeper into using social media to connect with customers, these interactions are providing decision-makers with huge opportunities to examine and apply customer feedback to improve products and support. SAS Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Davis talks about the trends he's seeing around the use of social media analytics and best practices for harnessing the data for competitive advantage.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Exploiting Social Media Analytics" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, I spent a few days on a cruise ship in the Bahamas with some of the top business experts and stage presenters in the world. I was excited by the opportunity to join them and pick their brains. Out of curiosity, I decided to ask them about their close rates. When they can talk to someone one-on-one they all agreed that 50 to 75 percent isn't too outrageous. These guys are good! Then I asked them about their close rates are on their websites. The responses varied, but they weren't anywhere close to their close rates in person. Most said 5 to 10 percent. So, I asked them: Why do they close a large portion of sales in person and only a small portion on the Web? Unanimously, they stated that the ability to adapt the message was key to the success of any good sales representative.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Tyler Garns: Is Email your Worst Sales Rep?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When I had a vehicular accident last year, I fully expected my auto insurance to increase. But when I called Progressive to report the damage, the customer service rep informed me that because I'm a loyal customer, my rates will stay the same.

Continue reading "Are You Among the Top 100 Trustworthy Companies?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customers are more mobile, choosier, more adorned with options, more judicious with time, more demanding of simplicity, and less tolerant with business-driven organizational procedures and policies.

They also talk more about experiences. What used to be transactional, "I'll never return" disappointed customers now become petulant gossips on a mission to make sure that businesses are held accountable. On trip advisor: "The waitress was rude"; on Twitter: "I lost my credit card and it's taken the bank a month to send a new one."

Social customers say nice things, too -- they recommend their "friends" to visit certain restaurants, to buy certain products, and to try certain beers. We have always done this, of course -- to our friends in the bar or at the local gym locker room -- if its fresh in mind, a nice recommendation is great value gossip! What's changed is the technological ubiquity of the Web and its ability to electronically network people around the world. And, the fact that these comments can last forever, and be aggregated, counted, double counted, used by competition, and even by a couple in a bar in Wicker Park as the final checkpoint to decide which steak house they would try later that evening.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Paul White: The Emerging Customer Engagement Continuum" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Voice of the Customer is an important strategy for any company looking to innovate and evolve. What used to be the job of one department to manually capture customer calls to measure satisfaction has become an enterprisewide initiative that includes not just listening, but participating and acting on insight. Advancements in technology and strategy have created Voice of the Customer 2.0.

Continue reading "Voice of the Customer 2.0" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One thing I always emphasize is the importance of providing feedback on the feedback you receive. Leading IT research firm Gartner feels the same way. They've reported research that shows that while as many as 95 percent of companies gather feedback in one form or another, only half of those companies bother to tell their staff. Even fewer change processes and make improvements.

Want to guess how many actually tell their customers?

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Gary Schwartz: Build Customer Engagement by Responding to Feedback" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Most business meetings where strategic and tactical plans are developed generally focus on efficiencies. Being efficient is without a doubt a good practice and one that can be easily measured when we review our financial statements. A problem occurs, though, when we place too much focus on being efficient and not enough focus on being effective--and here's why.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger James Castellano: Shoot for Effectiveness with Your Employees and Efficiency Will Follow" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As companies become more active in connecting with customers using social media, they also need to effectively integrate the use of these tools with traditional communications vehicles such as voice and email. Tim Kopp, ExactTarget's Chief Marketing Officer, explains how to combine email marketing with social media.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: The Convergence of Email Marketing and Social Media" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow I will be in Los Angeles attending Forrester's "Marketing Forum 2010. Adaptive Marketing: How to Design a Flexible Organization to Thrive on Change." I'm looking forward to hearing about how companies like Intercontinental Hotels and Walt Disney leverage consumer intelligence to improve their organizations and better serve customers.

Continue reading "Follow My Tweets From Forrester's Consumer Marketing Forum" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I found myself with writers block. My goal was to write about effective leadership and how it translates into organizational customer service success. Then two things happened: I heard on the news that Spirit Airlines was going to start charging customers for carryon luggage, and I read Mila D'Antonio's blog post "Will Spirit Airlines' Passengers Sacrifice Service for Cheap Flights"? Suddenly the writer's block went away; it became clear how to explain that effective leadership does directly translate to organizational customer service success.

By now, the average consumer has come to the realization that as the price of airline travel continues to increase, the level of services and perks passengers will receive may decrease. And, if you are like me, you can adapt to some changes, like no longer getting a blanket and pillow or no longer being served the pathetic little sandwiches the size of a dinner roll that has been sitting for a few days. I can live with that. But what I will not settle for is less than the expectation of an exceptional customer service experience. That is not negotiable.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Patricia Jackson: If you Don't Think Effective Leadership Translates to Customer Service Success, Think Again" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Credit card companies in general get a bad rap, and in most cases it is justified. But not all of them have predatory business models that consider customers a burden. Three years ago American Express set out on a mission to become "the most respected service brand in the world." How successful has the journey been so far? 1to1 Magazine peeks inside its customer service organization to find out.

Continue reading "American Express' Customer Service Makeover" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As we all know, an increasing number of customers today are complaining about poor service, product issues, and the like in online communities or social networks. Many of those customers are, in effect, jumping the queue, getting their issues resolved ahead of customers who contact an organization via email, and sometimes, faster than those who call a company's contact center.

The question is, do these customers deserve priority treatment? Is it a case of "the squeaky wheel gets service first," when, perhaps, a higher value customer is left to wait?

Continue reading "Using Social Media to Jump the Queue" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Gregory Perrault of Long Beach, California grabbed headlines this February when he sued review website Yelp -- claiming that the company "extorts" customers by promising to hide or remove negative reviews if companies purchase advertising subscriptions. And while Perrault's suit garnered the most attention, this incident is far from isolated and raises a series of interesting questions around companies, the vast importance of their Web presences, and lengths they are willing to go to maintain these reputations.

In the era of digitalization, when ROI is often determined by your company's online presence and reputation, how are professionals monitoring, managing, and perhaps manipulating their brands' image online?

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Michael Fertik: Taking Control of Your Online Brand " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody's thinking about social media these days, and what their company should be doing about it. For some, it seems like a huge and risky unknown. For others, it's more like a natural extension of what they're already doing. How do you move from that risky, unknown place towards a more natural extension of existing activities? That's what we'll explore in this post.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Amanda Thompson: Practice Social Media Internally to Succeed in Social Media Externally" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One of the chief barriers to developing a unified view of customer behaviors and sentiments is largely cultural. Many line of business leaders are unwilling to share customer data gathered by their divisions with other parts of the business. It's unfortunate because it inhibits organizations from developing a comprehensive view of customer needs and preferences and then utilized to drive cross-sell or upsell opportunities. But it's not an insurmountable problem.

Continue reading "Breaking Free of Customer Data Fiefdoms" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter are opening up new opportunities for companies to learn more about customer preferences and to forge tighter relationships with consumers. Viviana Padilla, Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Salesforce.com, shares some recommendations for utilizing social networks to create exceptional customer service.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Leveraging Social Networks to Drive Exceptional Customer Experiences" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The economy, the proliferation of data, and emerging customer channels all have challenged marketers over the past year. A recent study reveals that despite their difficulties, marketers are showing increasing optimism toward 2010 marketing and advertising spending. The results also show a definitive move toward leveraging online audience marketing measurement tools, and a focus on emerging digital and social channels for reaching target audiences.

Continue reading "Digital Marketing Grows Marketing Budgets" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I recently returned from a week-long trip to Orlando with my wife and three kids, spending a couple of days at local theme parks before attending a conference there. From a customer experience standpoint, the trip was a mix of highs and lows.

Continue reading "When a Bad Travel Experience Sticks" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

These days your customers can listen to each other and share experiences as never before, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and countless review sites and online forums. A quick Google search and your prospects will have multiple opinions of your products and services at their fingertips. Unfortunately, when mistakes are made, it is often the detractors who seem to be the most vocal in these online forums. Empowering your fans to make themselves heard in the online conversation starts with strategic listening.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Thompson Morrison: Strategic Listening Is the First Step to Creating Brand Evangelists" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Twitter has made a name for itself as a viable business tool. It has evolved from a status update tool to a direct, real-time interaction touchpoint. Many companies are using Twitter for customer service initiatives. But with all the great buzz about Twitter's potential, there are limitations to its usefulness. It takes a multichannel, coordinated approach if you want to succeed in a 140-character world.

Continue reading "Can You Provide Customer Support in 140 Characters?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer experience is a broad term. Depending on the conversation it may refer to customer service, an in-store experience, the experience with the product itself...and the list goes on. Sometimes one customer experience is itself multifaceted. One part of the experience might be great; another aspect might be awful.

Continue reading "Crafting a Better Customer Experience" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

What a difference a year makes, especially when it comes to the ever-changing attitudes of consumers toward the service experience. We at Convergys just released the results of our second annual Consumer Scorecard Research study, and there are some dramatic adjustments to what consumers expect in the way of service from companies in 2010.

As we all know, consumers (myself included) are a tough lot. But many of the trends we are currently seeing in our customers' service preferences can be attributed to one major economic influence: the recession. When we conducted our first annual survey in late 2008, the serious affects of the recession were just surfacing. More than one year later we find ourselves in a very changed marketplace. According to our recent findings, 46 percent of respondents say they are worse off today than they were before the recession. For today's consumer, the key to a superior customer service experience in 2010 can be summed up in one word: value.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jim Boyce: "Value" is Key to Positive Customer Experience in 2010" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Delivering consistent experiences to customers across all channels can be a big challenge for many business leaders. Merced Systems President Mark Selcow shares his views on effective approaches that customer-facing organizations can take to generate optimal customer experiences.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Secrets to Optimal Customer Experiences" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 2:59 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In an effort to create efficiencies and speed the boarding and deplaning of planes, Spirit Airlines announced this week that it will start charging for carry-on bags.

Domestic passengers who check-in online will pay $20 for their carry-on luggage, versus $45 if they check in at the gate. Members of Spirit's $9 Fare Club who pre-reserve their carry-on bag in advance online will only pay $10.

Continue reading "Will Spirit Airlines' Passengers Sacrifice Service for Cheap Flights?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The average elevator ride is 30 seconds. Even in the Empire State Building it is possible to ride from the lobby to the 80th floor in 45 seconds. That's plenty of time to send a quick message on your iPhone or finish half of the overpriced, large nonfat, no whip, caramel latte. But is it enough time to deliver a strong, concise brand pitch to a potential business partner? It should be.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Steve Kleber: The Right Elevator Pitch Gives Your Brand a Lift" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Like Don Peppers, I get steamed when companies intentionally profit from customers' mistakes. Banks and credit card companies draw a lot of fire for the high fees they charge, and we're beginning to hear about passengers slapped with checked baggage fees that can be higher than the airfare for a trip. But practically any company that offers a rebate on a purchase benefits from "breakage"--another word for customers failing to claim a rebate.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger David Bakken: A Tale of Three Rebates" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Those of you who have followed my rants about the credit card business and retail banking, or about stupid-company tricks in social media, know just how angry I can get when it comes to businesses making profits from customer mistakes and pushing their own interests to the exclusion of their customers' interests. (Some business models actually appear to be designed precisely for that purpose!)

Continue reading "AT&T Earns an "A" for Customer Trust" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Several market dynamics are influencing the kind of functionality that decision-makers are seeking in customer experience management tools, including capabilities to generate ROI on software expenditures more quickly. Gary Schwartz, senior vice president, marketing at Confirmit, shares his views on these and other trends that are affecting the kinds of CEM capabilities being sought by end users.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Trends Influencing Customer Experience Management Software Functionality" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Think you can't put a dollar amount on great customer service? Think again. StellaService, a provider of customer service ratings for online businesses, announced last week that the value of great online service in the U.S. is $17.3 billion and across all consumer categories it soars to $268 billion per year.

Continue reading "Putting a Dollar Amount on Good Customer Service" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Oracle Corp. Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer Jeb Dasteel discusses how the software giant goes about collecting, analyzing and acting on information it gathers from its customers.

Continue reading "Acting on Customer Information" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Social CRM is quite the hot topic lately. With all the articles written about it, many companies feel they are lagging behind. But don't worry if you don't have a specific strategy in place yet. Even with the fast pace of social media, rushing into a social CRM strategy could have negative effects.

Continue reading "Are You Making Social CRM Strategy Mistakes?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In the world of social media your voice is your brand. Do your employees parlez sociale media?

Some companies today leave their online branding to chance. Their employees are blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking on their behalf without guidelines or training on how to best do so. Every comment these employees keystroke has the potential to improve or destroy the customer experience, customer engagement, and brand reputation. In a time when trust is paramount to success, when customers increasingly expect that companies will act in their best interest, companies that neglect to support their employees with interaction guidelines and social media training risk negative word of mouth that could spiral out of control--and ultimately damage not only their brand and reputation, but also their business performance.

Continue reading "Speaking the Language of the Social Customer" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In this age of data explosion, marketing and data are becoming synonymous. A perfect storm of technology, data, and the new consumer, are coming together to finally demand and achieve true one-to-one relationship marketing. First, personalization; then, mass customization; and now, real-time marketing. It truly is a great time to be a marketer. But how do we harness the power of
real-time engagement? More important, what does real-time marketing even mean?

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Erik Nelson:
Riding the Crest of Real-Time Marketing" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Although many organizations continue to gain a growing number of followers on Twitter and Facebook, CMOs continue to wrestle with how best to engage customers to meet their product and support needs using social media.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Leveraging Social Media to Deepen Customer Connections" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

We all know that marketing must be targeted, focused, and personal in order to appeal to existing customers and to attract new ones as well. To emphasize the importance of targeted marketing, Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, created 10 key advertising principles for the next century under a new Marketer's Constitution. He discussed the principles last week at the NexTargeting Summit in New York City hosted by X+1.

Continue reading "The New Marketer's Constitution" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Let's face it. We're all tired. We are tired of getting so much spam. We are tired of having to throw out so much useless direct mail. We are tired of having to hang up on a telemarketer. We, justifiably, have communication fatigue. And at today's Varolii's Interaction '10 user conference, executives offered some remedies to liven up customer communications for both the company and customer.

Continue reading "Fighting Communication Fatigue With Mass Personalization" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Tough times call for drastic measures. A natural reaction to the current economic downswing was for companies to counter a drop in revenues by cutting costs wherever possible. The result meant that many companies' marketing budgets were substantially cut and their staff was reduced to a skeletal crew.

Personally, I have seen a significant drop in direct mail and catalogs in my mailbox, and many of the companies that used to regularly market to me and my household have completely stopped. Broad scale advertising seems to have slowed, and many of these brands aren't finding me online either.

Where have these companies gone?

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jim Umberger: Staying in Front of Your Customers" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

One-to-one marketing: the ability to reach an individual rather than a segment, and the ultimate goal of every marketer. Marketing to a segment of one is such a difficult feat to attain that there are entire magazines, conferences, websites, and blogs dedicated to it. And thanks to the age of the Internet, reaching a consumer directly and personalizing that experience has had a major revitalization.

However, all that is changing rapidly. It would seem the Internet has been the best friend of the one-to-one marketer, but now is making one-to-one marketing less relevant on a daily basis. Over the past few years the evolution of the Internet has created a new social connectivity, allowing people to not only get personalized content when, where and how they want it, but also to share that content and their experiences with their friends and connections.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Jeff Hilimire: 1to1toMany Marketing" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

My philosophy professor used to say: everyone serves a purpose in life, even if they only serve as a horrible example for others.

A more accurate description of Nestle's mishandling of a big fracas in social media could hardly be written. It started with an initiative by Greenpeace to get Nestle to stop using palm oil in its products, contending that the harvesting of palm oil was damaging the environment. The organization created a faux Nestle Kit Kat logo, and posted a video on You Tube. Then - you guessed it - Nestle tried to have You Tube take the video down, and things spun out of control from there, with Nestle doing dumb things ranging from the outright idiotic, like deleting critical comments on their Facebook fan page, to the inane and passive aggressive, like correcting critics' spelling errors.

Continue reading "Nestle - A Social Media Case Worth Studying " »

Posted by Don Peppers at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Most every executive wants to move the needle: more awareness, more customers, more interaction. But pushing metrics up doesn't always mean success, if the cost is too high, said Robert Shaw, Ph.D., professor of marketing metrics, Cass Business School, and founding director of Value Based Marketing Forum, during his keynote at 2010 Gartner CRM Summit UK. Sometimes, what drives the most value is to narrow your focus and use analytics to target the right customers at the right time.

Continue reading "Is Popularity Worth the Price?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Launching and sustaining a customer relationship management initiative can be as challenging as reaching level four in the video game "Top Gun." During a presentation at the 2010 Gartner CRM Summit UK Michael Dunne, a Gartner research vice president, cited 13 reasons many CRM projects are handicapped or lose momentum. Business leaders or project leaders...

Continue reading "13 Ways to Handicap a CRM Project" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

What are you going to do to help your company sell more? This the question Stephen Prentice posed to attendees at the 2010 Gartner CRM Summit UK.

Prentice, a vice president and Gartner Fellow, advised attendees that their companies must engage customers today to get mindshare and wallet share. The current environment, however, presents a significant challenge to doing so: The reality, Prentice said, is that things are changing much more quickly than we think.

Continue reading "Business Truths to Ignore at Your Own Risk " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Companies are making more extensive use of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter to engage their customers. But because many organizations are just becoming involved with social CRM, most executives are still figuring out how best to measure the returns from these initiatives. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with Brad Wilson, General Manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM about different approaches for CMOs to consider.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Measuring the Benefits of Social CRM" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The old credit card business model, in which companies make money off of consumer error, is finished. With new regulations taking effect, the credit card industry needs to shift its strategy to be more customer focused.

Continue reading "The Making of a Trustworthy Credit Card" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

When it comes to customer loyalty, benchmarks provide a gauge for companies to determine how they are delivering customer experience.

Today Satmetrix released its 2010 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks for the insurance, financial services, airlines, telecommunications, technology, retail, and online services industries based on survey responses from 19,500 U.S. consumers. John Abraham, general manager of Net Promoter programs at Satmetrix, said that the scores serve as an indicator of how companies are performing.

Continue reading "A New NPS Report Shows Winners, and Losers, in Customer Experience" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday British soccer superstar David Beckham tore his Achilles tendon during a match. The L.A. Galaxy player was on loan to A.C. Milan for the winter, keeping fit for the upcoming World Cup in June. Doctors say the injury will keep him out of soccer for up to eight months. That means no World Cup, and possibly the end of his storied soccer career.

While the impact on England's team won't be too severe (he is not considered an automatic starter for the national team these days), the companies that sponsor him will certainly feel the pain. Beckham is one of the world's most popular figures and many companies have invested millions to make him a spokesperson. As marketers prepare for the run-up to the World Cup, his injury may have a lasting business impact.

Continue reading "The Business Impact of David Beckham's Injury" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many decision-makers are struggling to strike a balance between efforts to reduce their organization's contact center costs with the need to maintain quality for a consistent customer experience. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with Nicolas de Kouchkovsky, Chief Marketing Officer at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Applications about actionable steps business leaders can take to optimize their call center operations.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Trends Driving Workforce Optimization Strategies" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Few companies truly understand the importance of investing in their employees. But fewer still realize how critical it is to routinely listen to employees to know exactly where to make their investments in their companies.

A new television show "Undercover Boss" on Sundays on CBS reveals how some executives are in the dark about their companies' employees and policies.

Continue reading ""Undercover Boss" Provides a Wake-Up Call for CEOs" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

2009 was the year many companies became aware of the potential impact of social media and began experimenting. 2010 needs to be the year we make it an integrated part of our activities, not just a standalone novelty. I hope by now you've come to terms with the fact that your customers -- and your employees -- are talking about you and your industry in social media, whether you're out there or not.

One of the most important steps in equipping your company to participate in social media is establishing a social media policy. It could be as simple as saying, "Understand the standards of the online community and don't do anything stupid." For most companies though, the realities of branding, marketing, communications and legal issues require a bit more detail.

And if you don't have a policy in place, you have a de facto policy that says, "Do whatever you want."

Continue reading "Guest Blogger David B. Thomas: 9 Musts for Establishing a Corporate Social Media Policy" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I moderated a panel of loyalty experts who discussed distinctions between emotional and behavioral loyalty. During the roundtable, Prof. John Daly of the University of Texas added a new type of loyalty into the mix -- profitable loyalty. A profitably loyal customer helps the company make money. The key is knowing who these customers are and taking action.

Continue reading "Are Your Customers Profitably Loyal?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I know what you're thinking. Delivering a one-to-one customer experience shouldn't have to be a choice over branding; it should be an essential part of branding. I agree. But when your brand isn't fully established, can taking a one-to-one approach help a company win over established competitors?

Continue reading "One-to-One Versus Branding" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

If you ask someone to name a social media tool, they would probably say Facebook or Twitter. These get the most attention and are familiar to the masses. Now ask them how they use either service and you are likely to hear that they post a message for others to read. This misses 80 percent of the opportunity. Where is the dialogue, the engagement that drives traffic and loyalty? Sadly, it is mostly absent.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Steve McAbee: Conversation and Credibility, Company Blogs Need Both" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A growing number of companies are launching Voice of the Customer programs to help gather customer feedback across multiple channels. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with Roderick Morris, Vice President of Marketing at Vovici to discuss some of the inherent challenges of making these programs succeed, including data integration issues.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Getting Voice of the Customer Programs to Succeed" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past couple weeks, I've interviewed a couple handfuls of data analytics experts for an article that I'm working on which will highlight the new data economy. Each expert seems to concur: Data silos still remain the main reason that keep many companies from integrating their analytics efforts into multiple channels or layering indepth predictive analytics.

Continue reading "An Enterprise Approach to End Data Silos" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

How is it that so many people think they know what I need? They haven't asked, nor have I met them. Yet they fill my inbox with information they assume I need. It's rude.

Is it possible that senders of this "stuff" think they're the only ones pitching information? Have they considered that they'll end up in my junk folder? I guess they don't care, because the next transmission is on the way. It's all about them, what they're selling, with no real interest to serve me.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Michelle Cubas: Earn a Place in My Inbox" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Teaching is a struggle. Teachers would be paid like rock stars if I were our country's benevolent dictator. (Full disclosure: my mother, sisters, and much of my family are all teachers. Further full disclosure: I'd love to be the country's Benevolent Dictator.)

Consider this situation: I was helping a young man with a speech the other day as he is in the finals for the "Outstanding Young Man" in the state of Wisconsin. And indeed he is an outstanding young man and very smart, as you would expect.

He used the word "ump" in his story and I suggested he use the more formal umpire as some of the judges may not be as familiar with the word ump. I also thought using the formal word might make him sound more eloquent. Probably not my best contribution ever, but the speech was so good I couldn't think of anything to add and I'm supposed to be Mr. Big Shot Keynote Speaker Guy. In subsequent rehearsals he struggled to make the relatively simple transition to the word umpire.

It is a testament to the challenge of teaching and getting people to embrace change (and why minor suggestions are often best left unsaid).

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ralph Heath: Teaching and Developing Leaders via Storytelling" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Emulating best practices is one approach to achieving marketing success. But often the true learning comes from mistakes. The following horror stories, shared by clients, illustrate that your best laid marketing plans may be doomed without fierce attention to detail. You can't make this stuff up.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger James E. Sullivan: Success--or Not--Is in the Details" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many marketers struggle to obtain a clear picture of who their organization's best sales prospects are. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with TARGUSinfo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George Moore about demand for real-time lead scoring analytics and the challenges that marketers face in utilizing this information effectively.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Utilizing Real-Time Analytics With Lead Scoring" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I got a pleasant surprise yesterday when I opened the mail--a letter from the Stamford Ford Lincoln Mercury dealership where I purchased my Lincoln MKX a year ago. The simple letter was from my sales rep, wishing me a happy one-year anniversary, adding that she hopes that I'm enjoying my car and that she and the dealership value my business.

Continue reading "A Little Goes a Long Way" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Have you recently called a company to resolve an issue, only to get conflicting answers as they pass you from one department to another? In the past few weeks I've had that experience with Comcast, American Airlines, and Citibank. And the sad part is that I'm not alone. You've probably had something similar.

The customer experience that companies like these offers is an "external" sign of an "internal" dysfunction.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Nilofer Merchant: How Collaboration Improves the Customer Experience " »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I flew from Barcelona, Spain, to New York , returning from my vacation. The flight landed 90 minutes EARLY, something I've never experienced before as an airline passenger. Thanks to Delta for surpassing my expectations and creating a great experience.

I wanted to mention it because it's rare to hear someone discuss a great customer experience around airline travel. Most news you hear is bad news. Take JetBlue's Valentine's Day Ice Storm three years ago. People were stranded on the tarmac for hours, leading to changes in federal regulations and a new commitment to the customer on the part of JetBlue. As the company reflects three years later while also celebrating its 10-year anniversary, we look at what the company's commitment to customers really means.

Continue reading "For Its 10-Year Anniversary, JetBlue Recommits to Customer Experience Excellence" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer service, in its many forms, can be an effective sales tool. Sometimes, however, when the experience is self-serving for the provider, a service opportunity can become a way to lose business. Consider these two examples:

Continue reading "Service Can Make or Break a Sale" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

C-level executives are hungry for fresh sales, inventory and other data that they can use to make more knowledgeable decisions quickly. But once executives are provided with these business intelligence dashboards, these systems often sit dormant or are under-utilized. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with Infor Director of CRM Product Marketing Tony Compton to explore steps for gaining dashboard adoption and to help make these tools succeed.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: CRM Dashboards: Best Practices for Gaining Executive Adoption" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Customer ratings and reviews, online communities, and social media have become critical components in influencing customers in the online experience. A September 2009 study from "Internet Retailer" demonstrates the power of customer recommendations when it revealed that 67 percent of shoppers spend more online after recommendations from their online community of friends.

Continue reading "Rubbermaid Proves the Value of Listening to Customers" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Does your organization have a soul? Does it matter?

Some organizations constantly show passion, commitment, and the ability to achieve sustained success. These organizations have a "soulful" quality about them; there is a feel or a buzz that is noticeable and memorable. Conversely, many companies seem disorganized, unfocused, and unproductive. These organizations have less soul and, often, less market share. Soulful organizations consistently outperform soulless organizations.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger William Seidman: Rediscovering the Corporate Soul" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In my new book, Flip the Funnel, I talk about better being S.A.F.E. than sorry. The acronym stands for:

• Satisfy curiosity
• Address concerns
• Avoid festering
• Prevent escalation

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Joseph Jaffe: It's Better to Be S.A.F.E. Than Sorry" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As a growing number of organizations are creating the role of Chief Customer Officers, they're also working harder on designing more granular customer experience programs that are aimed at improving the business performance of their companies. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with Sage North America's Chief Customer Officer Doug Meyer about the importance of incorporating business process and culture change as part of this evolution.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: The Chief Customer Officer: Building a Customer Strategy" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Marketers today are pondering their social media strategies, questioning the best tools, how much to invest, and the real benefits.

This week ForeSee Results attempts to answer some of those questions in a newly released study, "The Key to Driving Retail Success With Social Media: Focus on Facebook."

Continue reading "Starting Out in Social Media" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Remember Super Bowls ads that were truly memorable? Like Apple's `1984' spot for the Macintosh? The Budweiser frogs? Monster.com's 'When I grow up'?

Continue reading "Betty White and Lindsay the Milkaholic: Memorable Super Bowl Ads" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The ability to innovate is an entrepreneurial quality that is essential for companies to succeed in today's fiercely competitive retail markets. However many companies may be locked in an inertia of change dictated by industry norms.

Continue reading "Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone " »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

CIOs have expressed some trepidation about managing different types of customer data in public and private cloud environments. Security, loss of control over data and regulatory/compliance issues top the list of worries. 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman spoke with RightNow Technologies CIO Laef Olson about these concerns and steps that can be taken to address them.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Customer Data in the Cloud" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

New technologies follow a pattern. They start by imitating older technologies before they evolve to their true forms. The first automobiles looked like horseless carriages. It wasn't until the Vintage Era of the 1920s that cars evolved to a form that we'd recognize today with features like front-engines, enclosed cabs, and electric starters. Televisions started off copying radios -- they looked more like an armoire with a small screen stuck on the front.

In the process of working on my latest piece of research, it became clear that the Web has followed a similar pattern. Early sites imitated a much older medium: paper. And even though "web page" still dominates our thinking, online experiences have begun to evolve away from the page-based metaphor. In the next 5 years the evolution of online experiences toward their true form is about to take off at a much faster rate than in the previous 5 years.

Continue reading "Forrester's Moira Dorsey: The Future of Online Customer Experience" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Motivation as a topic is quite popular. Whether in sports or in business, we talk about motivating others to perform better, to work better, or to help us accomplish our goals. But the best way to motivate can be quite elusive. We try all sorts of different programs and philosophies to get others motivated, but in the end, we are right back where we started. There is a very simple reason why this happens. The reality of motivation is this: We cannot positively motivate anyone but ourselves.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger James Castellano: The Truth About Motivation, and What You Can Do About It" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Online customer communities used to be just a message board where customers could ask questions or more likely, complain about products. But as social tools become more available and user adoption increases, online communities should advance with them.

Continue reading "Online Customer Communities Embrace New Social Tools" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

To say that marketing today is fast paced is an understatement. Consumers want information quickly and have little patience for slow-loading Web pages, interruptions in streaming videos and ads, or off-target marketing as they browse a brand's site. According to a December 2009 survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly three quarters (74 percent) of American adults use the Internet. This high Internet usage by everyday Americans further validates that consumers are tuning in online for information, product research, and an always-on connection with the brands and sites they rely on most.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Martin Hayward: Supporting Social Media Engagement on Your Website" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As mobile phone and Smartphone adoption rates continue to soar, a growing number of organizations are taking advantage of mobile marketing and messaging campaigns to help tighten the customer experience. As part of these trends, companies are also beginning to increase their use of mobile feedback systems to gauge and react to customer experiences.

I spoke recently with Allegiance Vice President of Marketing Chris Cottle to determine whether mobile feedback systems make sense from an ROI perspective.

Continue reading "Hoffman's Hot Seat: Mobile Feedback -- Is It Worth It?" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

In my new favorite movie "Up in the Air," the George Clooney and Vera Farmiga characters, both frequent fliers who met for the first time, sit in an airport lounge, impressing each other with the amount of loyalty cards they carry in their wallets and how many frequent flier miles they've accumulated. At one point, the Farmiga character says to the Clooney character "We're two people who get turned on by elite status. I think we're starting at cheap," to which Clooney responds "There's nothing cheap about loyalty."

Continue reading "There's Nothing Cheap About Loyalty" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The other night on the way home from work I stopped to pick up my dry cleaning at the drive-up window. I'm not making this up. A nice young woman opens the window and says, "I'm sorry we are closed." And promptly closes the window. I'm usually up for a robust discussion about the quality of service, but she closed the window so quickly and I was so surprised by her action that I did not have time to mount a charm offensive. I checked the time as I thought perhaps it was past closing time and I was being inconsiderate, but I had 5 minutes to spare. I drove away in stunned silence.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Ralph Heath: What Has Happened to Customer Service in America?" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Tax season is upon us, and almost no company is as synonymous with tax preparation and accounting activities as Intuit. The makers of Turbo Tax, QuickBooks, and Quicken software are preparing for its busy time by gathering and acting on customer insight from the web.

Continue reading "Intuit Gains Customer Insight in Time for Tax Season" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

A colleague of mine was angry about the way Orbitz handled a service issue, so she tweeted about it. She also sent a complaint via the company's website customer support page. Orbitz responded to the Twitter posts via email, and resolved the issue; the company only ever sent a generic "we're reviewing your inquiry" email in response to the complaint sent via the website.

This made me wonder whether Orbitz's service channels are actually connected on the back end. Many companies now have people whose primary focus is tracking and responding to complaints aired in online communities and social networks; but not all of those teams are integrated with the rest of the service organization in a way that promotes information sharing.

Continue reading "To Tweet or Call, That is the Question" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Driving to work the other morning, I heard a news report about how Burberry PLC's third-quarter sales beat market expectations. Same-store sales from the company's own retail outlets, which generated two-thirds of Burberry's overall sales in the third quarter, were up 10% for the period.

What really caught my attention in the report was a comment about how the effectiveness of the company's Internet marketing efforts have helped this 154 year-old maker of trench coats and outerwear to drive additional sales traffic at its retail outlets.

Intrigued, I decided to do a little research.

Continue reading "Internet Marketing from the 'Trenches'" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Taking cues from customers is difficult in the rapidly shifting social landscape. This week Forrester has updated its Social Technographics Ladder to help marketers determine the categories of social behavior that customers exhibit to help them analyze their target audiences. A new one has emerged and marketers should take note.

Continue reading "Forrester Adds a New Rung to the Social Technographics Ladder" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Amid all of the excitement around new media and predictions that this will be "the year of" mobile, social media, or augmented reality, the reality is that most companies will still only spend a fraction of their marketing budgets on these new alternatives in 2010.

I have heard one consistent question that inhibits spending in new media: "Where's the scale?" It is a question that goes to the heart of how the basic model of marketing has fundamentally changed, and while there still is no answer to the scale question, I believe we are on the verge of shifting our approach in a way that will uncover opportunities for more meaningful results for both bottom lines and customers' lives.

Continue reading "Guest Blogger Bob Gilbreath: Finding Success in New Media by Abandoning the Search for Scale" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Many companies talk a good game when it comes to the customer experience. It's very easy to speak in broad strokes when it comes to a company's efforts to provide a consistent, positive experience from any channel. Yet when it comes to taking action, it can be confusing to know where to begin. There are two tactics that may serve as good starting points.

Continue reading "A Tactical Approach to Customer Experience Improvements" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Succeeding in today's hypercompetitive, fast-changing environment is no easy task. Qualities like perseverance, resourcefulness, and consideration are musts. Two that are especially important today are optimism and enthusiasm.

Continue reading "Optimism and Enthusiasm" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As a ski buff, I'm fortunate to live in an area where there are a handful of small resorts located within a half-hour's drive of my home. What I like most about the proximity is that I can take a few runs on a weeknight or on weekends and not have to make a huge time commitment. I buy passes in advance so I don't have to waste time waiting on a ticket line. Just park the car, strap on my gear and head right to the chair lift.

Unless there's an unforeseen glitch.

Continue reading "Preventing a Customer Experience from Going Downhill" »

Posted by Tom Hoffman at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

With the media constantly inundating us with negative messages, it was refreshing to listen to someone like Bert Jacobs speak on Monday. The cofounder and chief executive optimist of Life is Good, a $100 million privately held t-shirt and apparel company, talked to an audience at the National Retail Federation to provide life lessons that we can all translate into business lessons. "Your life isn't there to grow your business; your business is here to serve your life," he explained.

Continue reading ""Life is Good" Offers Valuable Lessons" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

This is our third year publishing the CxPi. The 2007 CxPi and the 2008 CxPi rankings were published in Q4. We decided to publish this year's CxPi in Q1 2010, so we don't have a 2009 CxPi.

The 2010 CxPi ranks 133 organizations across 14 industries: Airlines, Banks, Credit Card Providers, Health Plans, Hotels, Insurance Firms, Internet Service Providers, Investment Firms, Parcel Shipping Services (new this year), PC Manufacturers, Retailers, TV Service Providers, Utilities (new this year), and Wireless Carriers.

The CxPi is based on consumer evaluations during November 2010 across three areas: 1) meeting needs; 2) being easy to work with; and 3) enjoyability (see the methodology section below).

Continue reading "Forrester's Bruce Temkin: Forrester's 2010 Customer Experience Rankings" »

Posted by Guest Blogger at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

Brand value improves as customer loyalty to that brand improves. It makes sense, but many companies still don't connect the dots between customer value and brand value. But which are the companies that do it best, and what can we learn from them?

Continue reading "Loyalty Correlates with Brand Value" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

I once was fired as a customer. It's true.

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, Allstate Insurance decided that potential hurricane damage was a significant risk for many of its customers in the New York City area. So, the company notified us that it was cancelling our homeowners insurance--with plenty of time to find a new carrier. Initially, it seemed absurd to me (I live in the city and the extremely rare times any hurricane has made landfall in New York, it's been at the eastern-most area of Long Island). But, being in the "customer business" I understood Allstate's decision to fire potentially unprofitable customers.

Continue reading "When Is It OK to Fire Your Customers?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The IRS doesn't have a very good reputation for customer service or helpfulness. With the bar set so low, it would take something extraordinary to get people to be upset about a lack of service. And here it is: the customer service goal is to answer only 7 out of every 10 calls that come in.

Continue reading "The IRS' Customer Service Goal: Don't Answer 30 Percent of Calls" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

As it becomes clear that social networks provide a real opportunity for performance advertisers, I'm nevertheless surprised about PepsiCo's announcement in December to sit out Super Bowl XLIV and not purchase an advertising spot, instead investing $20 million in a social marketing campaign.

Continue reading "Pepsi Watches Super Bowl From the Sidelines" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)

The New Year always brings with it predictions about what to expect over the next 12 months. The consensus among our group of leading business thinker is that this year will be the year that social media actually gets operationalized into business. Companies now realize that it's no fad, and they should dedicate resources and strategies to incorporate social media into everyday business, say Don Peppers, Martha Rogers, and others. What do you think?

Continue reading "Is Social CRM the "It" Strategy of 2010?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)