May 23, 2012

Lithium’s Customer Heroes

I recently attended the 2012 Lithium Network Conference (LiNC for short) in San Francisco to hear about the latest and greatest from Lithium Technologies as well as from thought leaders such as Brian Solis, photo left, who shared about Digital Darwinism from his new book The End of Business as Usual. Lithium’s software powers the social customer experience, including online branded communities, for over 300 brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Sephora, Skype, and most recently added Nestle, Aruba Networks, and Guitar Center, among others. I have attended two of these events in the past – as a Lithium customer (Verizon). This year, Lithium asked me to come as an industry thought leader so I could look at their event and announcements from a different perspective. Here are some of my key takeaways.

Good News for Social Customer Service

Having been a Lithium customer for the past two years, when I was the Verizon Community program manager and social media strategist, I am probably a bit different from other “thought leaders” who attended the briefing and the event. I have used many if not most of the functions of the Lithium offering. I was happy to see a renewed focus on both sides of social business – customer service, as well as marketing.

In fact, I had wondered how much new functionality we would see in the area of customer service. In the past, support communities have been Lithium’s bread and butter. In the past year or so, Lithium had put a renewed interest into marketing and had some great successes; Sephora’s Beauty Talk is a great example of how to engage the social customer. With the renewed interest in the marketing side of the house, I was a bit concerned that Lithium would swing too far in that direction and neglect good ‘ole customer service.

I was pleased to see great improvements in their customer service functionality, mainly the new Lithium Response offering. It takes the already strong features in the Lithium customer service platform and expands further on them, allowing customer service agents to have all the information they need at their fingertips so they can do what they do best – respond quickly. From what I have seen, it seems to be able to provide the full fire-hose of social media information, prioritize issues that come in to the business, route them to the right agents, and surface content (from both the community as well as from self-service pages) that can help solve customer queries. It also includes case management, which had been lacking. It looks like a great step up from the customer service functionality previously available with an online support community, and it will make the interaction between social media customer service teams and community managers much easier. I look forward to seeing more of it in action soon.

Improving Social Media Marketing

On the marketing front, Lithium announced some new partnerships, such as Shoutlet. This particular partnership will allow Lithium customers to take advantage of Shoutlet features that will help make the social conversation easier, especially in the area of marketing campaigns and CRM. It will be great to watch some of Lithium’s marketing communities take this on and deliver strong social media ROI. Other areas where the focus on marketing is visible include additional opportunities for photo sharing, group spaces/private communities (great for research and innovation), as well as improved single sign-on (much needed functionality) and more robust ratings and reviews (served up via widgets). All around, the Lithium social marketing offering has taken a big step forward, and it will make an impact in organizations that take advantage of it. In the future, I look forward to seeing these two pillars (customer service and marketing) of social business come together, as our customers don’t see departments as they go through their journeys with us. These pillars need to meet up in order to create the rockin’ customer experience that will be vital for business success in the coming months and years.

Heroes

I greatly enjoyed the conference itself; it was nice NOT to speak at an event for once! There were a lot of new faces this year at LiNC, both customers as well as Lithium employees, and this helped to keep the conference feeling fresh. New faces always means a lot of energy, and that was definitely apparent. I absolutely love the way Lithium showcases their customers at their events, and this one was no exception. Using the theme of Heroes, the Lithium event team had customers share the stage with Lithium executives. They told some inspiring stories of how their companies, including such leading organizations as Skype and Cisco, are using Lithium to get solid returns on social media as well as innovate in their space. I highly recommend more customer sharing at future Lithium conferences as well as throughout the year; hearing from other community managers was always very helpful, as well as inspiring, when I was a Lithium customer.

Thank you for an exciting and entertaining LiNC event, Lithium, and thank you for having me there.

(Photo credit: Top, Becky Carroll; Bottom -Lithium Technologies video from LiNC 2012, Paul Gilliham)

Customer Experience Food for Thought

I want to eat there!

As many of you know, I have been doing quite a bit of traveling lately, speaking about my book and sharing the Customers Rock! message all over the world – most recently in Bogota, Colombia! As most travelers are aware, the customer experience is especially important when you are away from home; it becomes something we are truly living.

So as you can imagine, the sign in the above photo really caught my eye. It was on the wall of a restaurant, Max’s Cafe, at the San Francisco Airport. Here is what it says,

“We run the restaurant for the ENJOYMENT AND PLEASURE of our customers, not the convenience of the staff or the owners.”

Who wouldn’t want to eat there? As customers, isn’t this what we are hoping to find in the businesses we frequent? Whether the business is a restaurant serving hungry travelers or a company providing office supplies, we want things to work for US, the way WE want them to; we don’t want to be inconvenienced.

This particular restaurant has thought through what could make the experience better for their customers, travelers who are rushing past to catch their flights. For example, Max’s Cafe is known for their packed sandwiches. They have thought about travelers who need to grab and go, eating their meal on the planes, and have created a container for their sandwiches which keeps the salad and those juicy pickles separate from the bread. Very convenient for their patrons! Oh, and the man creating my sandwich felt like my own personal lunch advisor; he was very engaged in creating a great experience for me.

Missing the Mark

But this great experience is not always happening, is it? The results of the mis-steps in this area are not positive for businesses. According to the new American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, more than nine in ten Americans (93%) say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations.  One in two (55%) have ditched a purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience. Businesses are leaving a lot of money on the table due to their poor customer experiences, including marketing and customer service.

Tips for Improvement

How can you go beyond just customer service and generate more opportunities from your existing customers? I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mike Stelzner of the popular site Social Media Examiner. Watch the interview to get some tips on how to exceed your customers’ expectations and create a ROCKin’ customer experience.

What about you? How do you create a great customer experience? Are you struggling to keep your current customers at the forefront of your business? What tips do you have for others on how to get more opportunities from your current customers?

Measuring the Impact of Social Media

This post is part of the Social ROI Blog Carnival at Think Customers: the 1to1 Media blog. Visit the blog carnival post at the link above to check out the full list of posts from numerous well-known social media thought leaders.

There are many ways to measure the success of social media at an organization. Some of these metrics are often focused only on tactical results (ex: number of followers or fans). Other metrics tie directly back to the bottom line (ex: value of sales coming directly from Twitter). On occasion, we see true ROI calculated from social media initiatives.

Most companies, however, view social media ROI in the same way they view the legendary pot of gold. They believe that it is there, and they keep looking for it even though it eludes them. Finding ROI in your social media initiatives doesn’t have to be imaginary. As we move into 2012, I fully believe this will be the year that executives begin asking the difficult questions to their social media teams, including what kind of returns they are getting on their social media investment. In order to answer this question, one must consider the true cost of managing a social media program.

What are the costs?

In order to consider calculating ROI, one must understand the costs involved with social media. Some of these are fairly clear, including cost of the platforms (such as community software or social media monitoring tools), cost of social media consultants or agencies (to help create strategy or execute campaigns), advertising spend (yes, you probably need to spend money advertising your social media efforts), and cost of personnel involved in social media (community manager, customer service social response team). Other costs are not quite as obvious. These include the opportunity cost of personnel that may be involved with social media in some aspect (ex: an executive spending time writing a monthly blog post is not spending time doing other things), the cost of training employees in social media (even those that are not executing social media should be trained on it), and the cost of social media influencer programs. I encourage you to understand these costs for both social media campaigns as well as your overall social media program so ROI can be calculated on both.

Measuring the gains

There is more than one way to measure the gains from social media. The first area that usually comes to mind is revenues; this is often a bit difficult to determine from social media, much as it can be difficult to determine from other marketing programs. However, the fact that social media is a web-based activity gives companies (especially those in the Business to Consumer space) the opportunity to measure actual product purchases coming from social media. Dell is one of the most commonly cited examples of this from their Twitter Dell Outlet account. Sanuk is another example. Per social media manager Rachel Gross (shared in an interview I did with her for my book, p. 44-46), even though Sanuk doesn’t often post direct links to their website from their corporate Facebook page, they are able to track conversion rates. They do this by looking at how many visits to their website (via Facebook) result in a sale, thus measuring their return on using social media as an engagement tool.

The other side of the coin from revenue is cost savings. One of the largest areas where companies can find significant returns on their social media investment is in customer service and the use of online branded communities. Most brands that host a peer-to-peer support community find that they are able to directly measure the number of calls deflected as a result of the answers provided by community members to each other; this occurs for both B2C as well as B2B businesses. Companies such as Best Buy and Verizon (where I was most recently actively engaged in this as the community program manager) see these gains and are able to use them to calculate an ROI on their communities. While we are on the subject of online communities, there are other benefits that can factor into the ROI equation. For example, Verizon’s residential community also has an Idea Exchange, where customers have the opportunity to help Verizon improve their products and services, as well as innovate around new products. The returns for such a community can include additional sales from new products as well as improved uptake of existing products with current customers due to improvements made via the idea site.

Finding the Pot of Gold

While you may not find the elusive “pot of gold” in your social media programs right away, more than likely you will see both direct and indirect benefits by engaging with customers and prospects via social media. Hopefully this post has helped you get past thinking only about the numbers of followers and fan your sites have. Read some of the other posts in the Social ROI Blog Carnival to learn how you can better answer your executives when they ask you what your company is getting out of social media, and let me know what your key takeaway is from the carnival.

(Photo credit: DNY59)

Using Social Media to Build Relationships

A lot of businesses love social media because they feel it helps them spread the word about their organization and what they do. And it does. However, I strongly feel one of the most effective uses of social media is to build and deepen relationships with customers – be they consumers, clients, donors, or constituents. I predict this will be a big focus for social media in 2012.

How can this be effectively done? Let’s take a cue from local government. No, really.

Tweet the Mayor

One of the most interesting stories about local government and social media is that of Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker. He has become one of the best examples of how to use social media to build relationships with people, in his case, the people of Newark. Last winter, when much of the East Coast was buried in snow from one of the largest storms in decades, Newark’s citizens reached out for help – via social media. And Mayor Booker and his team were listening via Twitter and went into action. Take a brief look at the segment I did on this for NBC San Diego, then come on back after the video:

View more of Becky Carroll’s videos at: http://nbcsandiego.com.

  • Citizens told Mayor Booker where streets were still snowed-in, and he sent trucks out to plow and went himself to help them.
  • Mayor Booker shoveled snow for the elderly.
  • He helped push stuck cars out of the snow.
  • He delivered supplies to needy residents (including diapers!)
  • He directed salt trucks to icy roads.

As anyone in social media knows, not everyone is your friend online. When one constituent bad-mouthed Mayor Booker on Twitter, Cory showed up at his door and helped him shovel out.

A Whole New Era of Politics

This is so different from how citizens interacted with government in the past, when people tried calling, emailing, letters, and even going into the politician’s office, often without much response. Social media, by contrast, provides not only the opportunity for an instant response but also for a personal response.

Mayor Booker has continued to reach out via social media and has recently launched a new program, using Twitter and Facebook, to encourage Newark citizens to become more fit in 2012. Called the Cory Booker Challenge, it encourages Newark residents to share their resolutions online via a social game to help them in their efforts to become more physically fit. The site allows participants to track their progress by checking into activities, uses a leader board to encourage healthy competition, and even has prizes. (Hat tip to The Next Web for highlighting this program.)

Making a Difference in 2012

In this election year, it will be fascinating to see whether other politicians follow Mayor Booker’s lead in becoming more personal with their constituents via social media. Not to have solely an aide or agency respond but to truly build authentic relationships through personal involvement. I challenge businesses to do this as well.

Make 2012 the year you use social media to build relationships with your customers. You’ll be glad you did. Share your efforts to do so here so we can celebrate with you!

(Photo credit: hh5800)

The Bathroom Experience

Once again I am participating in the Bathroom Blogfest. As I have mentioned before, if you have a physical presence, whether you are B2C or B2B, your bathroom is an important part of the customer experience. What does it say about your brand?

I have been on the road A LOT these past few months since my book launched, so I have had the opportunity to stay in many different hotels across the country (and at a variety of hotel brands). I thought it would be fun to post photos of some of the bathrooms I encountered during my travels (mostly in my hotel room). Which bathrooms do you think belong to which brands? The following are some of the brands where I stayed: Marriott, Westin, Ritz-Carlton, and a boutique hotel, Paramount Hotel in New York City. (Answers are at the end of the post.) Do they say would you would have expected about that brand?

Be sure to check out the list of all the participating bloggers, also at the end of the post. A big shout-out to CB Whittemore for leading the charge again this year!

Bathroom 1

 

 

 

 

Bathroom 2  Bathroom 2

 

 

 

 

Bathroom 3  Bathroom 3

 

 

 

 

Bathroom 4  Bathroom 4

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the list of Bathroom Blogfest bloggers (answers afterwards):

 

Name Blog Name Blog URL
Susan Abbott Customer Experience Crossroads Customer Experience Crossroads
Paul Anater Kitchen and Residential Design http://www.kitchenandresidentialdesign.com
Shannon Bilby From the Floors Up http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Toby Bloomberg Diva Marketing Diva Marketing Blog
Laurence Borel Blog Till You Drop http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok Avente Tile Talk http://tiletalk.blogspot.com
Jeanne Byington The Importance of Earnest Service http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll Customers Rock! http://customersrock.net
Katie Clark Practical Katie http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma O’Reilly DePalma: The Blog http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/
Paul Friederichsen The BrandBiz Blog http://brandbizblog.com/
Tish Grier The Constant Observer http://spap-oop.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth Hise Flooring The Consumer http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com
Emily Hooper Floor Covering News Blog http://www.fcnews.net/category/blog/
Diane Kazan Urban Design Renovation http://blog.urbandesignrenovation.com
Joseph Michelli Dr. Joseph Michelli’s Blog http://www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller Modenus Blog http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian Tile Magazine Editors’ Blog Tile Editor Magazine Blog
David Polinchock Polinchock’s Ponderings http://blog.polinchock.com/
Professor Toilet American Standard’s Professor Toilet http://www.professortoilet.com
David Reich my 2 cents http://reichcomm.typepad.com
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond Scarlet Opus Trends Blog http://www.trendsblog.co.uk
Sandy Renshaw Purple Wren http://www.PurpleWren.com
Bethany Richmond Carpet and Rug Institute Blog Carpet and Rug Institute Blog
Bruce D. Sanders RIMtailing http://www.rimtailing.blogspot.com
Paige Smith Neuse Tile Service blog http://neusetile.wordpress.com/
Stephanie Weaver Experienceology http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore Content Talks Business Blog Content Talks Business Blog
Christine B. Whittemore Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore Simple Marketing Blog http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Ted Whittemore Working Computers http://www.kinneloncomputers.com/
Chris Woelfel Artcraft Granite, Marble & Tile Co. http://www.artcraftgmt.com
Patty Woodland Broken Teepee http://www.brokenteepee.com/
Denise Lee Yohn brand as business bites http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/

Answers: Westin, Marriott, Paramount, Ritz-Carlton – how’d you do?

Influencers vs Advocates

What is the difference between an influencer and an advocate for a brand? A lot of people recommend that a brand practice “influencer outreach”; others suggest a brand advocacy program is paramount for an organization. In his recent book, Smart Business, Social Business, Michael Brito discusses these two important points. Michael and I shared the stage recently at the Lithium Technologies “Likes to Loves” event in Orange County, CA, and I had the opportunity to interview him briefly on this very topic.

What do you do at your organization? Do you reach out to influencers in an effort to get them to share about your brand? Do you work with your brand advocates to help energize their natural passion for your brand? What is working for you?

How Zappos Affects Your Customer Experience

Who is your customer experience competition? Those of you only looking inside your own industry need to take a look around, as your competitors are not who you think they are – especially online. Organizations should be asking this question: Which companies have the best practices in customer focus across all industries?

I recently exchanged Facebook messages with Deb Robison, a smart marketing and social media gal. She wanted to share a customer service story with me and get my take on it.  Here is her story:

I got a new computer recently and needed to order some accessories. Around this same time, I needed some shoes and books. I placed orders with Zappos, Amazon, Apple, and a designer’s shop, Jonathan Adler. Of course, the three big guys sent me order acknowledgment and tracking info all through the process. I got an order notification from (ordered a laptop sleeve) Jonathan Adler, then nothing, so a few days after I placed the order, I sent an email asking if my order had shipped. Later the next day I got an email from a customer service rep explaining that they did receive my order and that “my colleague is trying to find your bag at one of their stores.” Once it ships, I would get a shipping notification. That was two days ago. And, I noticed they have already charged my credit card.

So my question is this – are my customer service expectations skewed because I have dealt with some big companies that have solid customer service and shipping systems in place? (Note: Zappos had the best and most prompt services of the three big companies, of course.) Jonathan Adler is a smaller brand, but a high-end one and kind of trendy right now, so is it fair for me to set the same expectations on them?

My expectations have clearly been shaped by the immediacy which other retailers respond & deliver. Is that fair? As customers, we never had this kind of relationship before. We used to get out the catalog, fill out the form, put a check in the envelope and wait.

Yes, Deb, customer expectations are absolutely set based on our experiences with companies such as Zappos and Amazon. In fact, every interaction we have with a company sets our expectation for the next interaction, whether with that business or with another completely different organization. Additionally, the online experiences that customers have with companies, whether on the company website or via social media, are creating a higher degree of visibility. In social media, this becomes even more important as the social customer’s friends and followers are also watching, and sometimes sharing the experience with their network (unfortunately, this is more often the case when the experience has been poor).

Customer Expectations of Service

It is important to understand the needs of your customers, as well as their wants and desires. It is also critical to understand what they expect when they contact your company. Typically, customer expectations of service tend to fall into three areas:

- Customers want fast service: They want their problems solved or questions answered quickly. “Help me get back to what I need to do.”

- Customers want friendly service: They want to feel that the company appreciates their business. “Help me know that you care about me.”

- Customers want it to be easy: They want to be able to accomplish the task in the most efficient way possible. “Help make this simple for me.”

The three areas listed above may change in priority based on who your customer is, what kind of relationship they have had with your organization, and, as mentioned by Deb, what types of interactions they have had with your company and with others. Do you know what your customers want from you?

Taking Action

What can you do tomorrow to improve the experience your customers are having with your company?

1. Ask your customers. Really – go ask them! Find out what they expect from you, what you are doing well, and what you need to improve. Your customers will probably be happy to tell you, and they will also be glad you asked.

2. Look in the mirror. When is the last time you or someone from your organization called into your customer service line? Ordered something from your website? Tried to get help via your social media channels? Find out what it feels like to be your customer; I encourage you to look for both areas of improvement as well as your own best practices to share with your organization.

3. Look at the competition – from your customer’s perspective. Understand who is competing with you for the best customer experience, keeping in mind that it may not be anyone within your industry.

A world-class customer experience doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a plan that can be executed across all aspects of your organization. Your customer experience strategy should facilitate consistent treatment of customers, cultivate customer trust, and enable meaningful interactions at all points of customer contact. Most importantly, it should meet and exceed customer expectations. Now you have a customer experience that will ignite passion, inspire brand loyalty, and cement relationships.

The Old College Try

Today, I have a special guest blogger, Greg Meyer. Greg and I are kindred spirits when it comes to customer experience, and I asked him to share a recent car rental story and the lessons one can learn from it. Thanks, Greg. You rock!

The Old College Try

“Do, or do not. There is no try” -@yoda

“We try harder” -@avis

It’s really challenging to “speak with one voice” as a company, whether your company is small, large, or anywhere in between. I recently had an experience with a major car rental company that left me appreciative of individual effort and frustrated at the inability of the company to meet the needs of the customer.

So, what happened?

I had a small crisis – a flat tire on the way to an important meeting while traveling on business to Research in Motion headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. I called Roadside Assistance, and my expectation was that Avis would send a crew to fix my tire. They actually told me to fix it myself and that there were tools in the trunk to accomplish the task.

Lesson #1 – The Company Process Doesn’t Always Benefit the Customer
The representative from Avis wasn’t necessarily wrong – he was following a script that suggested what he should do when someone calls in with a flat tire – but he wasn’t able (or willing) to see things from my point of view. I didn’t want to learn a new process, use any tools, or to do work because my day was already full.

Lesson #2 – Help can come from an Unexpected Place
Lauren (the building receptionist) went above and beyond my expectations by finding a local Avis rep when he was returning another car and escalating the issue to the local sales manager Chris. Chris showed up and brought me a new car – a Kia Soul – and was very pleasant. I was ecstatic and wanted to shout everyone’s praises to the whole world. And I did.

Lesson #3 – Oops, Everyone’s not on the same page
I drove off into the sunset with a new rental car and went along my merry way. Everything’s great, right? Not quite – when I returned home to the states I got a bill to replace the tire. Huh? After a few emails to figure out what was going on, I found that because my corporate office advises me to decline the rental car-provided insurance, incidents like a flat tire are “rotten luck” and need to be paid out of pocket.

I wrote to @AvisWeTryHarder and explained to Ann Smith (the social media representative) that this outcome was silly, that I shouldn’t need to pay it, and that she should fix it. She did (eventually), but she wasn’t able to do so immediately (by policy.) And the overall experience was one of confusion, rather than triumph at great service and heroic efforts by a few people.

What did I learn?
Avis resolved my issue and I didn’t have to pay for the flat tire (yay!) There were a few key lessons that I gleaned from this experience, including:
  1. It’s hard to speak with one voice – even if everything goes right, training your employees to understand the complexities of a situation and how to use common sense is difficult to train, so you’ve got to hire for attitude;
  2. The customer decides if it was a good experience — customers don’t care why it went wrong, they just want you to fix it. Or explain very clearly why you can’t fix it and to offer a good alternative;
  3. There might be good substitutes, but it’s hard to think of them sometimes - I could have called AAA Auto Club, but I didn’t realize that they would cover me while traveling in Canada. In this case heroic effort won the day.
What’s the impact of the “old college try”?
The customer doesn’t care whether you try harder. The customer cares whether you get it done. Yoda wins.
About Greg Meyer: Greg delights customers and tries to provide the best customer experience possible by listening, providing support, and solving problems. He is a startup veteran of several early stage companies including Gist (acquired by Research in Motion.) In addition to his ability to translate simultaneously between English and Geek, Greg likes to draw things and take pictures of signs. You can contact Greg at @grmeyer. (photo by http://flickr.com/photos/gregmeyer)

The Hidden Power of Your Customers is Launched!

I just wanted to share some very exciting news with all of you – my book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers, is now launched! It has been an exciting week with the various launch activities, including an interview on NBC TV in San Diego, a book interview video released by my friends at Lithium Technologies, and the beginning of my book tour/book signing at the US Grant Hotel in San Diego.

The book is now available in bookstores everywhere, at major online retailers, as well as in eBook format. I would be eternally grateful if you would please leave a review on Amazon.com or on another online retail site as well as say a word or two about it on your blog or favorite social network. I will be featured on various blogs in the coming weeks, either as in interview or as part of a review of my book. Be sure to come over to the book’s Facebook page to keep up with the Book Buzz and see the interviews. Of course, you can also go to my book’s website right here on the Customers Rock! blog.

Here is the video interview that Lithium Technologies was kind enough to put together. Thank you, Lithium. You rock!

The Hidden Power of Your Customers – Interview with Author Becky Carroll from Lithium on Vimeo