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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 -
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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