davidpoulos.com

Tag: Social Media

  • Is facebook Your New Customer Service Department?

    Is facebook Your New Customer Service Department?

    I was speaking with some colleagues at a networking function the other day, and the presenter asserted that some companies have scaled back their customer service phone centers, and some have virtually done away with theirs altogether. The natural extension of this is the assertion that eventually all customer service would be performed through, and customer interaction take place on, social media platforms. Initially, I was astounded at the audacity of such a possible future, but upon further reflection, this might not be such a bad thing . . .

         

    There are some advantages to this strategy, including:

    1) All interactions can be collected, cataloged into a database, and searched for trends later to guide not only marketing, but new product development.

    2) Both parties to the interaction would have a record, held on an independent server, so that the practice of CS takes a more friendly footing, rather that degenerating into a “He said, She said” proposition for long-term issues.

    3) Since CS is often outsourced, and off-shored, having all customer communication be transacted in writing eliminates problems with misunderstandings due to accents and local dialectic usage – spell check and autocorrect should take care of 80% of that problem, anyway.

    4) Having to write down your problem forces the customer to think through the problem from beginning and end, and to actually ask for the action they would like the company to take. So many customer call and say things like “I bought this and it’s not what I wanted” or something else equally vague, and expect the company to not only know what the problem is, but to try and solve it in satisfactory fashion without actually being asked to do so.

    5) Having to write down your issues brings down the tempo of the conversation, makes the customer think about how that problem might sound to others, and gives the customer some time to calm down and remove some of the emotion from the issue before assaulting the CS rep on the phone.

    Those are mostly advantages to the company, but the consumer gains a few benefits too.

    • It’s hard to be given the run-around being transferred to different departments as the company tries to figure out how to deal with you, or tries to avoid it at all
    • No more waiting on hold endlessly to ask a simple question not listed as a choice on the phone tree.
    • Now you have some time to gather your documents, account numbers, invoices and the like and organize your thoughts into something coherent someone can actually act upon.
    • Now there’s a public record of your complaint, available to all your friends! They can steer clear of the company if the problem is severe enough or not handles promptly and effectively – it’s like everyone’s a walking copy of Consumer Reports!
    • Digital interaction is here, the technology is so advanced that “chatting” has taken on an entirely new connotation, all encompassing a digital conversation online with a rep on the other end in real time.

    Now, that’s not to say there’s no downside to all this digital back and forth. Companies gain some great insights from their interpersonal contacts with customer, or at least they should if they are listening. Nothing telegraphs a problem better than watching the phone banks light up and hearing the noise level rise in the Call Center ten minutes after the release of a new version of a piece of software or the launch of a new product, or a new issue of a newsletter or magazine hits the mail stream. That cumulative noise tells you in a collective, aggregate fashion that something is amiss, and it had better be dealt with quickly and effectively to stem the tied of customer defection and mitigate damage to the brand.

    The big loss is the interpersonal connection customers feel with the brands they know and love. Sometimes you just want to talk to a “human being,” not be dealt with in turn by a machine or work through a series of choices on a phone tree. All the kitten pictures and blather about meals on social media will never replace that human connection, and the reassurance that there is “someone” responsible for taking care of your problem. Digital pixels aren’t accountable, and it leads to a distancing and disconnection between customers  and the company, which is what your marketing efforts are designed to avoid.

    What do you think? Will social media replace customer service in the near future? Comment below, or contact me through LinkedIn, facebook, Twitter, or through my automated customer service website . . .

  • So, I’ve Got All This Data . . . Now What?

    So, I’ve Got All This Data . . . Now What?

    Marketing industry media, and more recently mainstream media have latched on to the term “Big Data” as the next big thing due to the huge impact all the computer communications and digital signal data can have via tracking internet traffic. It has reached the point that you can’t open a blog, a magazine or newspaper without seeing it mentioned in a headline, often in conjunction with subject only thinly related to marketing. Some are related to privacy and identity data, which is a legitimate concern when all your personal information is digital and flying around through the air every time you take a phone call or text your friends. But the use of transactional and biographical and search data to custom craft messages and actively serve digital ads online has been around for the last five years, or more depending on how you qualify the description, (remember AOL, and their MyAOL product that showed you ads from places you’d visited in the last week? 1998!)

    But unfortunately, big data is here to stay, not just the next big, shiny thing on the marketers tactical menu. Our personal, transactional, and biographical data, (medical, too, if you dig nefariously) is available for the taking, asking, renting, or hacking, and can and will be used against you in a court of law . . . Everything you text, tweet, post, share, like, friend, check-in and play is held on a server somewhere, virtually forever, and if mankind invented a way to store and secure it, man can find a way to get at it for other purposes. Certainly adds food for thought as you’re browsing those facebook posts that lead who-knows-where, killing time on the phone waiting to pick up your kids or in the doctor’s waiting room.

    Used properly, ethically, and strategically, the use of big data to mine and prospect for customers should be nearly invisible, and indeed will create welcome and well-timed information that is relevant to you and that you will actually use and enjoy. It’s when corporate marketers use these sophisticated tools with less-than-complete understanding, and don’t want to put the safeguards in place, to put in the effort and human intelligence to remove the obvious mismatches any such algorithm will inevitably create. That’s when the problems start and people get in trouble.

    If your company has a a sizable database, a well-trafficked website, and a social media and web presence of any size, you have or can gather a vast treasure trove of data on your visitors, casual and otherwise. The question then becomes not “How do I get this data,” but “Now what do I do with it.” The real task here is to use groups, sets, trends and responses in that data to build an outreach or nurturing program that will provide your customers and prospects with a positive, relevant, valued experience. Such a program will allow you to engage them in a positive way that puts your brand in the best light and make them feel comfortable and engendered to your products and services, to the point where they buy them over and over again.

    Call it trust, call it security, call it safe harbor, to whatever degree your customers feel they need to feel comfortable buying from you, you need to show them that you will provide it, including how you use their data – mistrust of data use leads to mistrust of transactional security, which leads to avoidance, in a strange death-spiral of aversion that makes it hard to retrieve a customer who’s been caught in this web of misappropriation of your personal information. You play that card 100,000 times a month, and see how many customers you have left . . .

    One of the best safeguards against this, for the marketer, is to start slowly, put the relevant safeguards in place, play them up, in fact, compared to your competitors – you want to own it, especially in the beginning of your big data journey. You want to highlight your security in a way that shows you care about and for your customers. People will endure unimaginable, tedious routines and log-in scripts to avoid having their data end up somewhere unintended – anyone who’s flown on an airplane in the last decade instinctively knows this.

    Build up your data use slowly, carefully, cautiously, so that it makes sense to achieve the outcome you want – happy, engaged customers in growing numbers, recommending your products and services to their “friends” and families, because they are secure in the knowledge that buying from you won’t lead to any surprises later. Trust is a fragile thing, handle it with care . . .

    If you like this train of thought and want to jump on board, or if you think I’m full of it, let me know, I’d like to hear from you in the comment box below.

  • Does Social Media Marketing ACTUALLY Drive Customer Behavior and Convert to Revenue?

    Does Social Media Marketing ACTUALLY Drive Customer Behavior and Convert to Revenue?

    Social Media, social media, social media – there, I said it three times into the mirror, now I just have to wait and see what happens . . .

    That seems to be the approach many companies are taking to this relatively new phenomenon. The head in the sand approach might have some advantages in the long run, if recent data on the effectiveness of social media in driving customer behavior is to be believed. It seems that despite all the hype, and press, and sturm-und-drang in the digital media, minting new ‘social media gurus’ by the flock, digital media and it’s permutations don’t drive near as much revenue or even shopping behavior individually than they do when used together. Integration seems to be the real strength behind conversation marketing’s mechanics, and when the reams of data generated are used properly ACROSS multiple platforms, it seems to at least have the ability to drive a solid promotional campaign and boost response levels.

    That said, here are some interesting tidbits of data, excerpted from a recent Gartner Group study:

    • 11% of polled consumers had read a company blog, and only 4% had commented on one.
    • Twice that many, or 23% had viewed a company provided video.
    • 45% said they planned to purchase based on a combination of brick and mortar, digital ads, and mobile marketing, but only 1% said they planned to do so based on mobile marketing alone.
    • Only 26% of consumers said they had clicked on a Search Results page paid ad – irrespective of engine brand.
    • Based on data from another similar study, only 6% said they had purchased based on a facebook ad
    • 40% said they had registered for a promotion or contest based on an e-mail or social media ad

    Clearly, consumers want something for nothing (hence the contest results), but don’t want to work at it (read the blog data, reading a whole blog takes effort)

    Also just as clearly, mobile marketing has not reached the level of credibility, trust or penetration it’s purveyors would have you believe, and while it may be the next big thing, it ain’t there yet, not without massive support from other media to reinforce it’s message and bolster its credibility.

    Video seems to have made substantial inroads, but anyone who recognizes the level of involvement the TV generation needs to engage will see a clear correlation between the aging of the boomer TV generation and the level of importance video has attained. Add in the near ubiquity and availability of high-speed broadband Internet access allowing for video transmission at better fidelity and faster speeds, and video’s effectiveness becomes less mysterious. The fact that consumers would rather watch a video and have their eyeballs babysat rather than read and understand and digest and analyze a company blog to get their information is less than mysterious as well, when the audience is considered.

    The trick with all this is to take the data it generates, and use it to form better customer profiles that can be used to not only drive behavior, but to predict it as well. If you can create a digitally integrated campaign that uses the initial brush with consumers to link to a behavior and transaction based profile, you can then draw that consumer along a continuum toward a purchase after several touch points are hit. That’s how integration beefs up the ROI equation. The development of such campaigns requires broad and detailed knowledge of the target audience, so that it can be set up to account for the wide variety of behaviors possible by consumers. If you can narrow the range of preferences and behaviors, and drive consumers down a narrower funnel, the ROI can be quite lucrative.

    According to Gartner, ‘Companies using in-bound and event-triggered marketing techniques to draw consumers will see a 600% higher response rate compared to traditional outbound push campaigns’. That sounds pretty fantastic. I wonder if that will continue to be the case as more firms start to embrace this practice and it becomes more common. Will this type of campaign reduce the level of trust and credibility across the board, making consumers distrustful? Interesting to ponder, but I think not. To paraphrase W.C. Fields, “no one ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American public”.

    If you found this insightful or controversial, and would like to read more like it, subscribe to this blog today! Also, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • Publish or Perish – By What Definition?

    Publish or Perish – By What Definition?

    In today’s social media-immersed, blogosphere saturated, media-driven, net savvy world, the nature of publishing has certainly changed. The very definition of publishing has changed as well – but is that a good thing?

    The Internet has provided the everyman a unique opportunity to broadcast their innermost thoughts to the world, no matter how inane or irrelevant, with no editing, correction or restraint. While this may seem freeing, in the end it has lead to a huge, nearly unnavigable mass of questionably valuable information.

    Now when researching a topic, you certainly have more information available and in a more convenient format – but is it valid, accurate, vetted and unbiased? Probably none of the above in most cases.

    This glut of information has given rise to some unique phenomenon as well – the speed with which urban legends develop and spread is breathtaking compared to just a decade ago. Viral information can be more damaging than real viruses, and travels faster, and with greater impact! Cyber-bullying is now an additional concern parent’s have to deal with, and the youth of today have diluted the accuracy, eloquence and power of their native English nearly to the point of unintelligability, in the interest of speed and convenience, holding true to an artificially-imposed brevity limit. Progress . . .?

    Internet publishing has some tremendous advantages, in speeding the exchange and sharing of scientific, philosophical, cultural, economic and ideological information. In the old days, when a book or magazine article was “published” in print, a whole host of scholarly, educated, experienced professionals read, fact-checked, edited, contributed to and proofed a work before it was released to the public. This may have slowed the release of information, but it gave the information a fighting chance to be at least passably accurate and honest.

    Today, most of those professionals have been rendered obsolete, and those skills are rolled up into a single individual – the author, right or wrong.

    What does all this have to do with marketing? Simply this: take care in assessing what you “put out there” to market your company, build your brand, promote your products – one false step not only travels faster than you can catch, but is permanent, residing in servers and living on hard drives around the world!

    Good luck all you nascent publishers out there!

    Be sure to pick up my published efforts, “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” – Amazon/CreateSpace can have it to you in a just a couple of days!