Posts tagged customer satisfaction
It worked for Zappos. It probably won’t work for you.
Jan 24th
Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media. In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat. It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it. But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.
And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me. So be it. This is dangerous stuff.
It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes. But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits. For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.
Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere. There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies. Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.
So what’s the answer?
Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:
- Company culture supports employee engagement
- Company leadership understands the model
- Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
- Benefits outweigh risk of security breach
If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work.
That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative.
A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.
For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.
OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!
*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:
How social media can hurt business relationships
Dec 20th
The social web may be the most revolutionary marketing tool since the advent of radio. I don’t have to tell you why at this point. But for all the opportunities, there can also be danger, if the technology is mis-applied or misunderstood. Here are some ways social media can destroy customer relationships:
1) Hit and run communication. Many people, especially under-20s who have been conditioned to handle conflict over text messages, mis-use the technology. If 80 percent of communication is non-verbal, how much is lost when customers provide customer service issues over a tweet? We are more likely to be unprofessional, harsh and inappropriate in writing than in a live conversation and unfortunately, more and more important customer interactions are taking place over short-form messages.
2) False sense of expectations. I’ve observed that some companies are urgently getting into the social media scene and then being unprepared for the response. It’s so easy to connect with customers today, but you better be prepared to connect with them in a meaningful and appropriate way or you will disappoint them and then lose them.
3) Over-dependence on social media. Pick up a phone. Make a personal visit. Write a thank-you note. Don’t get too hooked on communicating through only social media, especially if it’s not your customer’s preferred way to communicate. Going old school can actually help you stand out.
4) Wrong person in charge. Some companies pick a person to run their social media efforts just because they have a nice Facebook page. Wrong. Like your website or your sales and customer service efforts, this is your front line of defense. I would much rather have an experienced customer service person learn social media than a social media person learn customer service.
5) Customers are learning to game us. I had a company president tell me that he no longer responds to customer complaints over Twitter. Customers caught on that complaints meant free merchandise and the company became overwhelmed. So they just stopped until they can figure out a solution. Now even people with real complaints are being ignored because it is too difficult to separate the real problems from the gamers.
So, there are a few dangers withn the opportunities. What do you think? What customer-related dangers could be prompted by using social media in your business?
Are you using your buffalo?
Nov 6th
Inventory — A customer in France made coated metal plates and, for quality control purposes, had to keep a large volume on hand in a warehouse. This tied up valuable working capital. We had the idea to use this as a rapid-turnaround stockpile. They could sell and ship material out of the warehouse for customer emergencies as a premium service — at a premium price!
People — A local company said they needed my help because “everyone was just sitting around” with their business levels so low. I saw this as under-utilized human capital. How could they put these people to use to connect to customers and discover un-met or under-served needs? Turn EVERYONE into a sales person? Study the competition?
Information — A client had developed a weekly email update to keep their salespeople on top of changing market conditions. A survey indicated their customers were hungry for the same type of information. Their email was turned into a premium information service to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. They leveraged information they already HAD to create a siginificant new customer benefit.
Services — I recently taught a class on recession marketing. The class content is now an asset, part of my “buffalo.” I turned some of the ideas into articles for my website and now, my blog. I promoted this content through online forums and social media. One article had more than 500 downloads in two days. These new contacts were added to my mailing list for further follow-up. The session was videotaped and edited into short topics for my website and YouTube.
How are you using the whole buffalo in your business?
Twitter as super hero
Sep 9th
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