2010-05-17T09:58:44-04:00

Why Do 40% of People Call Customer Service Without Any Hope of Getting Helped? Mr Miyagi Knows...

With the remake of The Karate Kid coming out, I can't resist.... Paul Greenberg (aka the Mr. Miyagi of CRM - the Pat Morita Mr. Miyagi) said something February at the BPT Partners training event (aka Social CRM Summit) that has stuck with me ever since. OK he said a lot that stuck with me, but I'm focusing on this one thing for now. He cited a survey that found 40% of people calling customer service for assistance, called with no expectation of having their problem resolved. To me that is an incredible statistic - 4 out of every 10 people called customer service feeling that this call would not help them solve their problem. Now sometimes folks will be surprised to find that their issue can be resolved by the customer service rep, but that doesn't explain why they called in the first place if they really felt it wouldn't help. Apparently the reason they called was to vent their frustration... and to be listened to... and maybe offer up ways a situation like theirs can be avoided in the future. Maybe they just want a kind ear to commiserate to... Wax-on, Wax-off moment Customers want their problems resolved as quickly as possible - this is not news. And when we can solve their challenges quickly that goes a long way to improving their experience as our customer. But as the 40%-ers show, they also have social needs that can have just as important an impact on that experience - providing us with a great lesson to learn without having to wax a car. And it's those situations that can provide ties that bind... if companies figure out ways to listen with empathy, turn what they hear into action, and provide opportunities for customers to help themselves and each other. This can prove to customers that we're interested in them beyond the financial transaction that comes with being a customer. Customer Experience and Social Media Many companies are turning to social media to improve relationships with customers by providing a better customer experience, but some are still on the fence. Jacada - a company focused on providing customer experience management solutions - is hosting a webinar this Wednesday to discuss the role of social media in improving the customer experience. They've invited CRM guru and friend Esteban Kolsky and I to join SVP of Marketing Richard Stern SVP to discuss: How social media is impacting customer experience The price of poor customer service Why you need to think more about customer service and less about sales (tough one here but very important) The webinar is free. Below are the details: Title: The Intersection of Customer Experience and Social Media Date and time: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 11:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00) Cost: Free Use this link to register. Hope you can join us on Wednesday! I bet Daniel-san will be there... Technorati : customer experience management, jacada, social crm, social media Del.icio.us : customer experience management, jacada, social crm, social media

2010-05-12T11:00:29-04:00

Lithium's Phil Soffer talks about the Scout Labs Acquisition

Yesterday community platform vendor Lithium Technologies announced it was buying social media monitoring service provider Scout Labs, which sent the Social CRM world into overdrive with conversation... and rightfully so. The move makes a lot of sense from my perspective, as social listening, analytics and community development are a few of the hot topics in the space right now. So Lithium's purchase gives them an opportunity to integrate a few key pieces that are definitely "top of mind" at the moment - and for the foreseeable future. Here a few links to some nice write-ups from around the web that give great insight to what this means to Lithium (and Scout Labs), and to the Social CRM space: Ray Wang - Lithium's Acquistion of Scout Labs Ups the Ante in Social CRM Esteban Kolsky - Lithium Acquires Scout Labs, Dips Toes into E2.0 Waters I recently had Lithium's VP of Product Marketing Phil Soffer as a guest on TFBS to talk about the acquisition, what it means to Lithium's customers, and how the two technologies will be brought together. You can check out the conversation by clicking the by using the player below, or by clicking here to download the mp3 file. Technorati : Lithium, Scout Labs, Social CRM, Social Media Monitoring Del.icio.us : Lithium, Scout Labs, Social CRM, Social Media Monitoring

2010-03-19T15:02:38-04:00

Social Media Trustbusters: Look At Me Marketing Gone Wild

OK, the picture of Teddy Roosevelt has nothing to do with this post, but he's the most obvious symbol of trust busting I know of. Anyway, have you seen this year's Edelman Trust Barometer report? It's fascinating. The folks at Hubspot had a nice post on it, and my recent Inc. column used its findings as the focus - Overemphasis on Brand Building Leads to Mistrust. In short, trust in "people like me" is way down, while trust in recognized experts is way up - and it seems like the fall in trust of people like me coincides with the rise in social media. To be sure this is just my observation, not any scientific fact. But it's easy to see that we communicate more and more each day via social channels. And it's also easy to see that a lot of the stuff being created is about building your brand... I mean a whole lot of stuff. I don't mean to say that social media is the cause for the decline in trust for "people like me". What I do think is that social media tools in our hands today is equivalent to a Porsche 911 in the hands of a sixteen year old. The car looks great. The car is powerful. The car can take you anywhere you want to go...but the car can get you in big trouble quickly if you don't understand its power before getting behind the wheel. The other thing about the car is that it is seductive, which means it doesn't take much for it to entice you to drive it before really know what you're getting into. The same thing goes with the social stuff. We want to use it because of all that we hear and see about it. The difference between leaping into a Porsche without know how to drive it, and using social stuff without knowing where it will take us - is physical pain. Oh we definitely will feel pain with a bad misstep, we just won't have cuts, abrasions, contusions or limps. We also have to fight the urge to overdo the self promotion and branding. I mean it's ridiculously easy to push our stuff out there, which makes it ridiculously dangerous to step over the line with the LAMMP - Look At Me Marketing & Promotion. I know I've stepped over the line and had the LAMMP shining directly in people's faces. I didn't mean to, but it happens. I bet most of us have done it. And that's why I believe trust is down in "people like me". It's important for us to try and share our spotlight in ways that help us build better relationships, not alienate the people we're trying to connect with. So please let's do each other a favor and keep the following things in check: The RT-Thank You It's always cool to thank people who think enough about what you tweet to share it with their "followers". But what get's old quick is thanking them by way of a retweet that has the link back to whatever it is you want people to see. Hey, I've been guilty of this in the past - and I may be guilty of it in the future - but I'd like to think that you won't see me do that much at all going forward. I'd rather just keep the focus on the "thank you" for a kind gesture, than the extra opportunity to spread my link. The Overuse of the Auto-Tweet I know. I've seen the stat that says you need to tweet multiple times to get your message/links across. But if I look at your twitter stream and most of what I see is the same things over and over again I'm pretty much done. It just doesn't look good, or interesting. And I have to think this doesn't build any interest or trust. The LAMMP is blinding me at this point, which makes me have to turn my eyes away. The Facebook Fan Page Recommendation When someone adds me as a friend in Facebook, then shortly thereafter recommends I become their fan on Facebook, I reach for my shades. They've never really talked with me, but they recommend I become their fan. Interest down.... not even the possibility of trust. Please let's get to know each other first before trying to sign each other up as fans - Friends before Fans, ok? I'll try to keep my end of the deal up if you will. These are just a few of the Trustbusters I try to stay away from committing. It's not always easy, but I feel it's important for me to limit as much as possible. And try to keep an eye on your Net Promoter Score... not that one, your social media NPS: If you promote yourself alongside of promoting your customers, partners and industry community - in a really meaningful, genuine manner - you won't have to self-promote as much. Others will help you out with it, because they'll trust you a little more. Technorati : edelman trust barometer, social crm, social media Del.icio.us : edelman trust barometer, social crm, social media

2010-02-12T12:08:18-05:00

#SCRM: How an Accidental Online Community Became an Offline Family

I'm writing this while on a plane flying back to Atlanta from Baltimore. I'm coming back home from BPT Partner's Social CRM training event that was headed up by Paul Greenberg (aka The Frientor of CRM). The event was held in Herndon, Virginia, a stone's throw from Dulles Airport, which is where I flew into to attend the event. But I had to fly out of BWI in Baltimore after having two flights cancelled from Dulles because of the blizzard that hit the Northeast. I'm writing this after suffering through a 2 ½ hour delay, which had me sitting a total of eight hours at the airport. I'm tired..and cranky… and hungry, because the five pretzel bits they give you on the flight ain't cutting it. But more importantly, I'm happy that I traveled in blizzard conditions and got stranded for a couple of days , because coming to what was eventually dubbed the Social CRM Summit was worth every flight cancellation, minute of flight delay, and inch of snow… and that is truly saying something. It goes beyond the training, which was stellar. Jeff Pedowitz did a great job going over the practicalities of tying "social" to demand generation efforts. Ryan Strynatka from Radian6 gave a nice demo of their social media monitoring tools that sparked quite a discussion on the tool - and the subject. We performed a couple of interesting case studies that really got our minds (and our creative juices) going. And, of course, PG doing his thing. In fact I can honestly say that he was in the rarest of form, which is truly saying something. But I knew he would be. This is where I stop talking about the training. If you want a blow by blow of developments check out the pdf of all the #scrmsummit tweets put together by the one and only Esteban Kolsky…who seemed to actually be there with us, even though the weather (and airlines) conspired against him making a physical appearance. And I'm sure there are already blogs posted about the event that have covered it in ways that make it unnecessary for me to do so here(Brian Vellmure's write up is an example). So I'll talk about it from another perspective. This kind of event would not have been possible a year and a half ago. Not the way it played out over the past few days. It couldn't have because many of the people that attended the event didn't know each other. Yeah we all knew (or knew of) Paul, but even Paul didn't know @ScorpFromHell (aka @Prem_k), or @WimRampen, or @MarkTamis. He probably didn't know @CRMStrategies (Brian Vellmure), @MJayLiebs (Mitch Lieberman), @KathyHermann or @MikeBoysen (who I met for the first time at the summit even though we both live in Atlanta). But we all know each other now because of a Twitter hashtag - #SCRM. And that hashtag was the beginning of an accidental community of like minded people, that officially became an offline, flesh-and-bone, group of friends with a common cause. What's so cool about this story is how naturally it progressed. We didn't start out thinking this would happen, we just gravitated towards each other because of our interest for this thing we call Social CRM. And the discussions that took place through that hashtag moved from strictly professional conversations, to meaningful friendships based on mutual respect. This was no more evident than at this event. People came from all over to be a part of this - and from all corners of the industry spectrum. Executives at major vendors, highly influential analysts, industry media, practitioners at leading companies, and independent experts everywhere you looked. And the coolest thing of all was that we were all equals, and equally interested in moving Social CRM forward…together. I loved that we spent so much time together after the formal sessions were over. It felt like a college reunion of sorts. And even though I had never physically met many of the folks before, it already felt like we knew each other, because we did - through that hashtag. And I really think the blizzard became a convenient excuse for us just to hang out all night with each other. The most important thing for me was a true sense of camaraderie permeated through the whole thing. We all were interested in "the cause" and in each other. And even though there were many debates and differences in opinion, as the President says, we were able to "disagree without being disagreeable". There were no instances of anyone trying to make a name for themselves at someone else's expense. And there was not even a hint of shameless self promotion, or pointless pontification. None of that is needed when you're among respected colleagues, and friends. In fact what you did see is quite the opposite - people promoting others at every turn. The best example I saw of this was Michael Krigsman's sincere introduction of Forrester's Natalie Petouhoff to SAP's Peter Auditore. Michael's admiration for Natalie was so sincere you couldn't help but see it as he approached Peter. And Peter, Natalie, Michael and I spent the next hour talking like old buddies afterward. The brain power at the conference was awesome, and equally matched by the years of experience people brought with them. Concepts were explored and debated. Partnerships and business opportunities were discussed, and possibly initiated. But the brains and experiences were outdone by the spirit and friendship displayed throughout the week. And the common interest of moving Social CRM - with tools, services and strategies - from mass conversation to mass implementation. In the end this was a great event. Only Paul G. could have gotten us all together from all over the world, and in the middle of a blizzard. Well I guess Paul, and Twitter…and a hashtag. After my last rant (Twitter followership and real influence), this whole event is what can happen when Twitter is used for the good. A big thanks needs to go to the BPT Posse - Bruce Culbert, Bill Howell and Paul - for pulling this one off in some really challenging conditions. We all will benefit for years to come from this. I can't wait for the next one….hopefully without the blizzard. Technorati : #scrm, #scrmsummit, social crm Del.icio.us : #scrm, #scrmsummit, social crm

2010-02-07T15:37:57-05:00

A Few Minutes TechCrunch Co-editor Erick Schonfeld

2010-02-05T10:50:31-05:00

In the Attention Economy, Context (not Content) is King

I've been on this Attention Economy kick for a while now. My first Inc.com column of the year talked about it a bit. But I really started thinking about it after writing an ebook (made possible by the folks at Sage SalesLogix) back in September titled Social CRM: From Information to Engagement - Trends for Reaching The Social Customer. I started out the book with an estimate Google CEO Eric Schmidt made back in 2005 about how much information was on the web back then - approximately five million Terabytes. To me that's an incredible amount of information. But when you think about the year in which he made that estimation - before social media and smart phones really hit the masses - it's even more mind blowing to think of how much content is being created now. Five years ago, even if the amount of information was five million Terabytes, I didn't feel as overwhelmed with information - not like I do now. In fact it still felt like I needed more. Which is why I believed in the mantra - Content is King. Now, in the age of easy content creation, and easier content distribution, there's a new king in town... and his name is Context. In all reality, context has always been king, but many of us got swept up in content and all its glorious formats. But now there's so much content (good, bad, ugly, etc.) that there's no way to keep up with it. Forget the bad and ugly, there's so much good content - especially from people I know and respect - that I can't get to it all. But when something's on my mind, I definitely make time for content that speaks to it. And I bet I'm not alone on this one. There are people, blogs, magazines and newspapers (yeah i still read those things) that have amazing content, but if it's not aligned with my current needs I can't read/listen to/watch it until I've solved my immediate challenges. And if it I find something that helps me with that challenge, it doesn't have to be aesthetically attractive or use pretty prose - the beauty is in its ability to help me get past that obstacle. So, in the age of pretty pictures and high definition videos, it's context that trumps everything. And from a business perspective, the context comes from those we're looking to do business with, which means we need to take a strategic approach to listening. Listening can give us a better understanding of what's going on inside the minds of customers and prospects. It can provide valuable insights and give us the proper context for creating content that should captivate their attention, or at least give us a fighting chance. In the Attention Economy....during the Social Age...if you had to boil it down to a simple equation, it might be something like this: Context + Content = Conversation (and maybe Customers...) So I'll go with Context being king, but Content can make your kingdom a lot bigger. Technorati : attention economy, content Del.icio.us : attention economy, content

2010-02-02T13:00:24-05:00

Revisiting and Revising the AAAs of Social CRM: Free #SCRM Webinar

I can't believe it's coming up on two years since writing about the AAAs of Social CRM for my monthly Inc.com column. And oh what an almost two years it has been. Back then there was next to nothing going on with it. Now it really does seem to be what everybody is talking about - which is great as I've had a front row seat to seeing things develop. The best thing is that small businesses have a chance to pull strategies and tactics together that can help them connect with people who can really use their services, and do so in a ways to establish serious engagement. While we're still early on in the development of Social CRM, there are tools and strategies we can begin to use to create more (and better) opportunities to leverage the web and build long lasting business relationships. Tomorrow, as part of Intuit's free small business expert series, I'll be presenting a webinar to talk about tools and tactics for mixing social with traditional crm to "win friends and influence people" in today's business world. I'm including a new look at those three As - automation, analysis and audacity - as so much has changed since 2008. Here are the details: Title: Integrate Social Media into Traditional CRM Date: Wednesday, February 3rd Time: 1pm ET/ 10am PT Cost: Free To register for the webinar just click here. Hope to see you there! Technorati : #scrm, intuit, social crm, webinar Del.icio.us : #scrm, intuit, social crm, webinar