Social Media Listening Is About Conversations

Posted on July 10, 2010 by admin

For years companies and nonprofit organizations have relied on one-way communication – from company to customer – to manage their brand, products and services.  We’ve built entire professions, technologies, job titles and compensation systems around the assumption that companies control the conversation about their brand.

That world is gone.

What every organization needs now, from Fortune 500 to individual proprietorships, to not for profits, is a practical, affordable way of engaging in conversations with customers and prospects.

This blog evaluates, for you, ways to create two-way conversations with customers, no matter where you’re starting from, no matter what your budget is.  The goal is to increase your value proposition for your customers and clients, to make them see you as even more awesome than they do now.  ;-)

 

 

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CocaCola and Gatorade Doing Social Media Listening

Posted on September 7, 2011 by admin

More mainstream companies are seeing the value of engaging with their customers in real time, across social media.  They are taking different approaches, but the first step is usually social media listening, to just notice what customers are saying about the brand.

Coca Cola is currently in the process of hiring an agency to provide an information mining approach to monitoring their major brands (Coke, Diet Coke, Minute Maid, Powerade, Dasani).   Kerry Tressler, of Coke says, “[We want] to yield the most information about what consumers are saying about our brands, so we know what they are looking for.”

Gatorade, a division of PepsiCo, is taking a more intensive, real time approach, with a dedicated facility to monitoring and interacting with their customers.   The full time staff has had over 2,000 conversations with customers, learning what they want with the brand.

Gatorade Senior Director of Customer Engagement, Carla Hassan, is interviewed in a nice short video (see here) about Gatorade’s efforts.  Some of the take aways:

  • They monitor a variety of social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, in order to get a deeper understanding of what their customers’ experience is.  For example, when they launched a new product, the G Series drink, they found that consumers were simply having trouble finding the product in stores, after seeing the on air promotion.  Based on this, they created an Gatorade Product Locator both online and offline, which consumers used immediately.
  • They found that consumers really want information from the company.  Before they started online listening, 35% of their one on one conversations were about sports performance.  After they created their real time social media presence, 60% of conversations  were about sports performance, which they saw as a benefit to increasing customer loyalty.
  • In 4-5 months of doing social media listening, they doubled the number of Facebook likes, from about 500,000 to over a million.  The entire year before that they were only able to get about 200,000 Likes.
  •  Social media is not a 9-5 sort of job.  So they also leverage their agencies resources to get 24/7 coverage.
  • At the 5:30 minute mark, the video shows the Mission Control center, with about 8 screens up on the wall in front of the social media listening staff.  Looks like Apollo 13…the movie!

 

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10 Ways Customer Expectations Are Changing With Social Media

Posted on July 1, 2011 by admin

There’s a seismic shift going on in marketing and how companies engage with their customers.   Social media is the disruptive technology that’s blowing away old ways of managing customer relationships and creating powerful new ways of connecting and influencing your customers.   The old ways of managing a brand through company generated messaging, with customers having little interaction with each other, is gone.  Going away too are all the marketing practices built up around periodic quantitative market research that was rarely, if ever, actionable in real time.

What’s arrived already?

Online Customer Conversation

How Customer Expectations Are Changing With Social Media

Which of these changes are you seeing?  How are you intentionally adapting to them in your company?

 

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A Quick Test To See How Well You’re Listening To Your Customers

Posted on June 30, 2011 by admin

How tuned in are you to your online customer conversations?  Here are a few quick questions about customer listening to start you off.

Right this moment, online…

  1. Where are customers, prospects, & reviewers talking about your company/brand/product/service?
  2. What are they saying about you?
  3. What is trending, right now?
  4. How many are talking with each other about leaving you for your competitor?
  5. Who are the most influential people in this online conversation?
  6. What buzz about your brand is brewing?

Do you know?  If you are not so sure, enter your brand or company name in http://search.twitter.com and get a glimpse into what they’re saying.  And if they’re not saying anything, why not?!

If you can’t answer these questions, you are not engaged in the online customer conversation that is going on about you.

This means….you can get engaged with your customers, and know the answers to these questions, by first conducting a Listening Audit, to figure out where you are listening well, and second creating and executing a Listening Strategy.

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5 Qualities of A Great Online Customer Conversation

Posted on June 29, 2011 by admin

All companies have some type of conversation going on with their customers and prospects.  Sales reps, customer service reps and many customer facing staff have them all the time.  So what’s different about online customer conversations?  It’s that an online customer conversation is run by the customer, not the company.   Here are 5 Ways that a customer conversation that are different from the typical conversation in most companies.

Customer Initiated.  In online customer conversations, it’s the customers who decide when they want to interact with you.  It could be any time of the day, week, month or year. It could be several times an hour or day, or it could be once in awhile.  It could be because they have a question, a problem, an opportunity, or a need.  It could be at the very beginning of a buying cycle, in the middle, or at the end.

This means… that a company must be available to start the conversation when the customer wants to start it, 24/7/365.

Real Time.  In online customer conversations, customers don’t want to wait a day or two for a response: they want it now.  It doesn’t always have to be a real human on the other end, it could be a high quality application, or database.  But a customer want the response when it fits into their schedule, not when it’s convenient for the company.  It’s also obvious that customers want SOME kind of response, they want to know that their request for a conversation has been received and something is happening to make it so.

This means… that a company must provide some kind of meaningful immediate response to every customer request for a conversation.

Free Form, Unstructured Data. In online customer conversations, customers will always type or speak using natural language. They do not fill out surveys, answer questionnaires.  They do not consistently use company terms and jargon for issues (models and brands are most consistent, problem descriptions least).

This means… that a company must be able to process accurately, in real time, free form unstructured natural language, whether that means a human on the other end or a smart natural language processing app.

Multiple Channels. Online customer conversations happen all over the place, not just in channels controlled and chosen by the company.  Face to face, phone, text, social media (e.g., Facebook, twitter), web sites, email, online chat, paper feedback cards; customers use all of these depending on where they are, what they want, and what’s most convenient for them.  And any one customer could use ALL of these over the course of an online  conversation.

This means… that a company must be listening, and able to engage the customer, on all channels at all times, which requires a Customer Listening Strategy.

Multi Directional. An online customer conversation is clearly two way, like any good offline conversation.  But what’s different is that, from a customers point of view, the partner could be anyone in the company, or anyone outside the company, like current customers, reviewers, competitors.  It’s the same conversation for a customer, just involving different people.

This means… that a company must participate in as many places as possible, to continually be part of the customer’s conversation, which is also part of an intentional Customer Listening Strategy.

Wrap Up: A good online customer conversation has many of the same qualities of a good offline conversation, and it has very different qualities, that companies can leverage for all sorts of great benefits.

Does your company have an intentional strategy to engage in great online customer conversations?  What does it look like now?

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8 Qualities of A Good Customer Conversation (and 8 Qualities of A Bad Customer Conversation)

Posted on June 22, 2011 by admin

In creating a good social media listening strategy, what you’re doing is creating good conversations with your customers.  We’re going to hold off on the technology for a bit, and really get grounded on this idea of “conversation” because it’s still not very common in most organizations.   To do this, think about how you have a conversation with a good friend, someone you really trust and enjoy.  What are the qualities that make a conversation with him or her “good”?  For me these qualities come to mind:

Qualities of Good Conversations

  1. We both want to have that conversation.
  2. We both find a mutually convenient time to have that conversation, sometimes even moving our schedule around to make it possible.
  3. We find a channel that works for both of us (a phone conversation isn’t as good as sitting in a quiet lounge with tasty beverage, but it can be “good enough”).
  4. We both listen well, because we care what the other is saying.
  5. We both express ourselves with care because we want the other to know what we’re thinking and feeling, and because we trust them to handle what we’re expressing with care.
  6. We both feel engaged with each other, we’re not being lectured to. We both get to talk and listen.
  7. We trust that the other will respond in a way we like, either simply by acknowledging that we just said something, or more engagnling, to respond or even take action based on what we say.
  8. We have fun, and usually find things to laugh about.

So those are what make up a good conversation.  What makes up a bad one?   Pretty much the opposite.

Qualities of Bad Conversations

  1. One of us doesn’t really want to have a conversation with the other.
  2. It’s really really hard to find a time to talk, and we are reluctant to find a time that is convenient for the other.
  3. It takes a long time to actually have a conversation because we can’t agree on a convenient channel – be it phone, online, or face to face.
  4. We don’t really listen that carefully, because we really don’t care what the other is saying…we just want a chance to talk.
  5. We don’t tell the other what we are truly feeling or thinking, because we don’t think they actually care.
  6. We do not feel engaged with each other, because we don’t feel connected
  7. We have no idea how the other is responding what we’re saying to them, because they don’t respond in any noticeable way. (think “unanswered email requests”)
  8. We don’t laugh much, and there isn’t much humor or lightness.

 

Get the idea?  Now, think about the conversations your organization has with your customers, across all channels or touchpoints.

  • What kinds of conversations are you having with your customers now?  Mostly good, or mostly bad?
  • In which channels or touchpoints are you having mostly Good Conversations?  Where are you having mostly Bad Conversations?
  • What do you gain when the Good Conversations happen?  What do you miss out on when the Bad Conversations happen? (think…insights into customer experience, new product ideas, cost savings ways of doing business, customer loyalty)

 

Notice that we haven’t talked about social media yet.  That’s because social media technology is just a set of tools to do something…have conversations.  Get clear first on that, and then come back for more about how to start creating a social media listening strategy.

Question for You!

What do you think of these qualities?  What would YOU add to this description of Good vs. Bad Customer conversations?

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How To Choose Your First Brand For A Listening Strategy: 5 Critical Factors

Posted on May 18, 2011 by admin

A listening strategy for your brand is a big deal that radically changes the quality of your relationship with your customer community.  The plus side is that you’ll end up with amazing benefits, both operational and financial.  The challenging side is that it is a different way of doing business, and some in your organization will resist the change without good proof that the change is worth the pain.   To get off on the right food, for your first listening strategy initiative, choose a brand that has these 5 factors.   (If you are a small company with only one brand, use these to frame your brand for your listening strategy.)

  1. Brand is Distinct. Choose a distinct brand, product or service that customers are already talking about.   You can have a listening strategy for broad brands too (and will!), but for your first shot out of the gate, pick something distinct so you can see – and demonstrate – the payback to others more clearly.
  2. Brand Stands Alone. Choose a brand where the customer experience doesn’t depend heavily on the experience with other related products that are outside your control.  For example, a hotel room, a rental car, and a home insurance policy are all pretty self contained.   Software games are a bit trickier, because their performance depends on hardware that the company doesn’t really control.   Such brands absolutely DO deserve a listening strategy, but save them brands for a bit later.
  3. Brand is Easy to Reference. Choose a brand that the consumer can name easily.  For example, Gillette has 4 different kinds of razors, and consumers may not really know if they have a Mach or Mach III.   So you could either choose Gillette Mach razors, together, or choose another, clearer brand, to start with.
  4. Brand is Big Enough. Choose a brand that has enough existing customers to generate conversation about it, or at least a big enough bump in initial sales.  There is no set number here, some brand with small installed bases have more conversation than some with large installed bases.  The point is to have enough critical mass.  Quick test:  search for your brand name on search.twitter.com.  If you have more than a few relevant, non spam tweets a day, you have the potential for engaging your community.
  5. Brand Gets Criticized. Choose a brand that has the potential for bad press.  This is scary, I mean who wants to hear bad news?  However, getting engaged with your customer, maybe even grumpy ones, is a powerful way to communicate your quality to others.  When you can show, in this initial listening strategy, how you turned negative reviews around, you are going to impress even the biggest doubters.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you 5 organizational factors that will help you build a successful listening strategy.

 

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The Best Organizational Model for Social Media Management

Posted on May 9, 2011 by admin

Last week Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group kicked off the Social Media Summit 2011 by setting the context for how companies are using social media today to improve their customer relationships.  He argues that companies have just two paths they can follow in investing in and managing social media.

Path 1 is a Help Desk Model, a centralized service function where individuals, most likely IT staff, support new initiatives one to one.  Most organizations will fall into this model if they’re not mindful about it, but it is not scalable, and you should avoid it like the plague.

Path 2 is the Achieve Escape Velocity Model, where companies use a “hub and spoke” organization structure to scale the delivery of social media services.   The “hub” is a policy/practice/standard creating group.  The “spokes” are the functional groups in the organization who make and use the social media apps to run their part of the business.  In addition, this model leverages crowds of people in communities to handle much of the scaling and servicing.

For example, many leading companies have formal advocate programs (Dell, Zecco, Walmart), where unpaid customers blog about the company and answer other customers’ questions – taking the load off company staff.  Customers typically see these unpaid advocates as more credible than paid company representatives.

Take Away: Whether you’re in Marketing, IT or another business area, make sure you consciously choose the right organizational architecture for your goals.  Ask the right questions, of the right people, and lay the ground work now, before it’s too late.

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