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)

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)

Today’s post is written by a guest blogger, Harry Rollason. Harry is with Useful Social Media, and I will be presenting at their New York Conference on Social Media and Customer Service next week. Plus, Harry interviewed me about my book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers. Here is some food for thought from Harry.

The rise of social media has changed customer service beyond recognition.

In today’s competitive landscape, customer service is more important than ever. A company’s reputation for satisfying their customers has never been so valuable.

It’s worth pointing out that it takes three times as much internal resources to acquire a new customer as it does to retain one. In these lean times it puts an awful lot of pressure on companies to ensure retention rates are as high as possible. And good customer service is a great tool to do this.

But are companies getting it? Does it look like big corporates are responding to this change in the landscape?

The short answer is no:

• Over 58% of tweeters who have tweeted about a bad experience have never received a response from the offending company
• 55% of consumers expect a response the same day to an online complaint – yet only 29% receive one
• 43% of consumers say that companies should use social media to solve customers’ problems

These statistics lay out clearly how the game has changed. Customers will no longer be happy with ‘old style’ customer service. To satisfy your customers, it’s essential to have a responsive social media presence.

To be fair, things are changing. By the end of the year, 75% of US-based companies expect to use social media for customer service. It’s a reaction to the changing game. Gone are the days when social media was all about marketing through Twitter and Facebook. It’s now an integral tool to ensure you are responsive not reactive, contactable not aloof and authentic not robotic. And increasingly, it’s about solving customer’s issues in real time through social channels, showing your dedication and transparency to your customers.

I ramble I know, as I have a tendency of doing, but there is a reason for my rant. On my return back to the office last week – having recently returned from #CSMSF and #CSMNY – I stumbled across some great examples of companies embracing the power of social media for customer service and I thought I would share them with you. It looks like companies are trying to solve this problem, but aren’t quite there yet. So maybe I can help.

We’ve got some free presentations from Gina Debogovich, Director and Social Media Leader from BestBuy – on how BestBuy have rolled out Twelpforce and made it company policy. And Baochi Nguyen, PR and Social Media Manager from Boingo on the best ways to create a customer service centric policy at your company – all interesting stuff!

You can grab a copy of both presentations by heading here.

Or if you would rather talk than read – then connect with me at @HRollasonUSM or drop some feedback in the comments below!

This book has actually been a long time in the making – not so much from the perspective of how long it took to write it (see The Story below) but from the perspective that I have had this book in mind since before I began this blog in December of 2006. In fact, one of the reasons I started Customers Rock! blog was that I wanted to see 1) whether I enjoyed writing (I do) and 2) whether anyone else would enjoy reading what I wrote (you do!). So in a sense, this book has been over 4 years in the making!

This book is also one of the main reasons that I have been so quiet on my blog the past few months. I have definitely missed writing for all of you, and many of you have been encouraging me to get back out here and post. I am finally ready, and what better way to start back up than to introduce you to my book.

The Book

The Hidden Power of Your Customers is a book about how to focus on your current customers so that you can lengthen and strengthen your business relationship with them, thus bringing about increased customer loyalty, customer advocacy, and ultimately increased referrals. It is not a social media book (more on that in The Story below), but social media is woven throughout the book (as it should be woven throughout a company’s marketing and customer service strategies). It is also not a customer service book (but that is an important tenet). It is a book about growing your business through one of your company’s best assets – your existing customers.

Here is a short excerpt from the introduction:

It has been my experience that many companies spend most of their time and budget focusing on selling to new customers and end up neglecting their existing ones. This might work in the short term, but eventually these companies will find themselves losing more customers out the back door than they bring in through the front door. Additionally, the onset of social media is driving a major change in customer behaviors and habits, making it highly risky not to focus on existing customers. Social media has brought the customer experience to the forefront of discussions, so it is important for companies to be more vigilant than ever before.

As a result, some people will tell you that you need outstanding customer service. But customer service is not enough. You also need marketing that connects with your current customers. In fact, you need to consider the entire customer experience, and support it with a customer-centric culture, one that promotes an equally exceptional employee experience. And, of course, you do need outstanding customer service.

The Hidden Power of Your Customers is based around the principles of Customers Rock!, and the sections of the book follow the ROCK acronym:

R: Relevant marketing – Organizations need to market to their customers in a way that is relevant to them, including recognizing them as customers, using their language, and meeting their needs.

O: Orchestrated customer experience – Every place a customer interacts with a company needs to provide a consistent, planned experience for the customer that is beneficial to both parties. We can’t leave the customer experience to chance.

C: Customer-focused culture – We can’t just expect that a company will become customer-centric because it hires a few great customer service personnel or states that it cares about customers in its marketing. We need to ensure that customers are part of everything that our company does so that customer-focus becomes part of the company DNA.

K: Killer customer service – Companies need to take customer service to the next level, and it needs to be an integral part of the customer experience. Customer service is where the rubber meets the road, as many buying and renewal decisions are based upon this critical touch point. It has to ROCK.

The book is also supported with many case studies (based on personal interviews I conducted with company leaders), lots of practical tips, and fun personal stories – all written in the Customers Rock! style that you are familiar with here on this blog.

The Story

This past summer, at the end of my Marketing via New Media class which I teach at UC San Diego, my students were encouraging me to take what I know and write a book. I told them I had a book in mind already, I just hadn’t made any inquiries about it yet. I went home that evening and tweeted out that I was thinking about writing a book. Less than a week later, I received an email from an editor at John Wiley & Sons. In it, he said that he was interested in working with me on my book. He said he enjoyed this blog and felt that I had good material, and good credentials, to write a book. I actually had already written a book proposal the year before but hadn’t tried to do anything with it. I asked the Wiley editor whether this should be a social media book, and his recommendation was no, it should not be; he felt there were already quite a few of those out there (and I agree).

So, after giving Wiley’s offer some thought, I agreed and signed the contract. The book was off and running!

I then spent the next four months doing interviews, pulling together information, and writing the manuscript. It was completed on February 1 (I think I missed out on most of the family holiday activities this past season). Since then, I have been working with Wiley on a few rounds of edits, approving cover artwork, seeking “blurbs” (endorsements) for the book, and getting a top-notch thought leader to write the foreword (Thank You, Brian Solis – author of Engage! for being so gracious).

The book is now just about ready for prime time, so I felt it was high time to share about it with you all. The attendees of my recent session at SugarCon got a sneak preview of some of the concepts, and I will be giving more talks in the next few months before the release where I will have the opportunity to sign some pre-release booklets and get the word out about the book.

Will You Help Me Share About It?

I am thrilled that the book releases in just a few months (July 20), and I plan to continue blogging, speaking, and sharing about it on my social networks. Will you help me? Here are a few ways you can get involved in sharing the Customers Rock! philosophy that is in The Hidden Power of Your Customers:

• Share about the book on your own blog or social networks. Here is the link to the book on Amazon.
• Go to the Amazon page and click Like (right under my name, at the top of the listing)
• Pre-order the book
• If you are in San Diego, come to one of my Book Launch Parties (more info on these as it gets closer)
• If you are not in San Diego, you can help sponsor me for a Book Signing/Event in your city. I will gladly come to your city for a signing if you help arrange the event; please contact me for details.
• Submit to write a review of the book on your blog! I will be reaching out to bloggers for reviews to take place in early July; please leave me a comment or drop me a note at becky at petraconsultinggroup dot com if you are interested.

Again, thank you all for your support, encouragement, and loyalty over the past 4 1/2 years of this blog. Customers DO rock, and I can’t wait to show you more about that in the book.

Let me know what you think!

Customers Contribute

Some companies have been engaging with their true fans for years. For example, at Jones Soda their bottle labels are actually photos submitted by their customers via the Jones Soda website. Customer photos appear on the Jones Soda gallery, and a lucky few get theirs put on a bottle. Even though there is no fame and fortune to be received from this activity, Jones Soda fans love to contribute to the Jones community in this fashion.

Spice it Up in B2B

Spiceworks is a great example of letting customers contribute in the B2B space.  Spiceworks is a free set of tools that helps over 1 million IT professionals manage their network, helpdesk, and “everything IT in small and medium businesses.” They have a very active online community which answers questions for each other and shares what they think on a variety of topics. Spiceworks put together a photo contest asking IT professionals to share some creative pics that contained the Spiceworks logo, brand name, or simply a red chili pepper. From that contest, a community mascot was born, SpiceRex. Submitted by one of the members, SpiceRex grabbed the attention of the Spiceworks team and the hearts of the community, and he travels the world to visit various members (he is made of paper, so he travels light). He has become so popular that Spiceworks will be featuring the red orange T-Rex in a series of ads, created by community members, to tell the IT world about their free software. Spiceworks recently won a Groundswell award for the way they have energized their customers and created tremendous word of mouth through them.

When you have information about your customers and their passions that your competitors don’t have, you have an advantage.  When you use what you know about your customers and let them play a role in the experience, such as featuring a community mascot in your ads, now you are building on the customer relationship and increasing the likelihood of loyalty.

(Credit: SpiceRex created by akp982 @UnofficialSpice)

Other customers started their own Cyber Monday on Black Friday and decided to stay home and shop online. Armed with their own lists, and easy access to their social networks, they shopped and Tweeted heavily on both days.

Tealeaf, using advanced sentiment analysis from Crimson Hexagon, took a look at the tweets which occurred between Black Friday and Cyber Monday about the online customer experience, and here is what they found:

• Twitter conversations about online shopping increased 256 percent on Black Friday and 202 percent on Cyber Monday compared to a regular shopping day.
• Shoppers were not shy about sharing their victories and failures as they strived to beat the in-store crowds.
• 38% of customers were delighted with the online shopping experience.
• However, nearly a quarter, 24%, of online shoppers cursed and complained their way through the process.
• 50% of the frustrated shoppers tweeted about the specific issues they were having, such as website errors, out of stocks and other classic online customer struggles.

Here are some examples of the frustrated tweets:

· well, so much for THAT christmas present. couldn’t even figure out how to order. Thanks. *rolling eyes*.”

· Why doesn’t the website work!!!! Need to buy my ticket home. -___-

· I was going to go nuts buying lots of stuff on the website, but it’s been down all day – lots of angry comments on their facebook

· I tried! website won’t let me checkout! I keep hitting refresh!

· I would love to buy the album, but there are issues with the website

I spoke with Geoff Galat, VP of Worldwide Marketing for Tealeaf, to learn more about the social media report they conducted. Geoff shared with me that these numbers are similar to the percentage of customers that experience online shopping frustrations on non-holiday occasions; there were just a lot more of them over the last weekend. More importantly, we discussed how the expressed experience of online shoppers might affect the perceptions of others. In a previous customer survey, Tealeaf found that 51% of online shoppers said social media had influenced their online transactions. When they read a negative comment online, 74% of consumers said it influenced their likelihood to do business with that company; 56% said they would avoid a particular vendor after reading bad reviews. Yikes!

On the other hand, 52% of consumers said they would use a particular vendor after reading good reviews.

What is the key takeaway? Social media has made the consumer online shopping experience one that everyone shares, at least vicariously. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all out in the open for anyone to read – and it is impacting their perceptions and potentially their behaviors.

It is important for companies doing business online to take a closer look at their online experience – not just for purchasing, but across the entire customer lifecycle. Each of these little website experiences might not look like much to the enterprise, but when they add up over time and across many customers, they could result in “death by 1000 cuts” for the website, and for the customer base. Companies need to understand all aspects of their online customer experience, including how customers use the site as well as customer expectations (which could be set by other great websites!), in order to make sure they are delivering the best service to prospects and customers over the holidays – and every day.

What are you seeing happen in the online customer experience that is best – or worst – practice? Please share some thoughts in the comments.

To see the Tealeaf presentation of the report, go here.

(Photo credit: YanC)

Richard’s colleague, and CMO of Satmetrix is Deborah Eastman, and she is our guest blogger today. Deborah shares with us about considerations when listening to customers, whether online or offline, and how technology plays a part.

Delivering Voice of the Customer to Enable Customer Delight and Financial Gains

I hope we can all agree that delivering a positive customer experience is the key to building customer loyalty and achieving financial success. Countless reports and case studies have proven this linkage. A recent report that caught my attention is Watermark Consulting’s 2007-2009 performance analysis, which examines Forrester’s 2007 Customer Experience Index and shows how customer experience leaders outperform laggards in the stock market.

Now, it’s likely that the CEOs of customer experience laggards will tell you that their companies strive to deliver an outstanding customer experience. However, understanding the principles of customer experience and actually delivering them do not necessarily go hand in hand. In 2008 Bain & Company found that while 80 percent of companies believe they deliver a superior experience to their customers, only 8 percent of those companies’ customers report having such an experience. Similarly, a CMO Council study found that fifty-six percent of technology vendors perceive themselves as being extremely customer-centric, compared with only 12% of their customers.

There is a clear disconnect between the experience companies think they deliver and what customers experience, perceive and – more importantly – desire. It’s not about what you think… it’s about what your customers think.

In order to determine whether you are disappointing, meeting or exceeding your customers’ expectations, you need to continuously listen. And it’s not as easy as it sounds. It goes far beyond monitoring the chatter on Twitter and other social media platforms or performing your annual customer satisfaction survey. It requires soliciting customer feedback on a regular, ongoing basis at multiple touch points, and closing the loop to address issues and understand root cause.

You should know what your customers are experiencing every time they interact with your company. Take, for instance, a bank. You must consider your customers’ experience when they open an account, deposit or withdraw funds, overdraw their account, receive quarterly statements, use your online banking tools, request technical support, purchase savings bonds, apply for a mortgage, refinance a mortgage, and so on and so on….You get the picture.

My point is that your customers’ experience at each touch point will form their overall impression of your organization, resulting in a financial impact in terms of retention, repurchase and recommendations. In order to improve, you need to continuously listen and deliver real-time data to empower employees to take action. To gain sustainable competitive advantage, you need view data in a way that reveals trends and helps you to identify structural areas in need of improvement (i.e. policy, process, pricing, products, etc.).

So, as you can see, managing your customer experience means monitoring multiple customer interactions, aggregating and analyzing a plethora of data, and distributing role-based information across the enterprise in a timely manner.

It’s harder than it sounds. No matter how well you understand these concepts, you can’t make them work to your advantage without the help of technology.

And yet, a December 2008 study we sponsored with the CMO Council reveals that most organizations have not adopted the technology necessary to support their customer experience programs, and therefore have major deficiencies in the way they respond to customer feedback. In fact, only 23 percent of the senior marketers surveyed said they were using enterprise technology to engage, listen and respond to customers in real-time.

First-rate technology can and should:

• Bust organizational silos and provide an enterprise view of the customer experience.
• Capture information from multiple touch points and distribute it in real-time to initiate required action.
• Provide sophisticated, interactive analytics and role-based reporting that allow you to quickly identify and act on performance gaps.
• Allow you to segment data to identify trends and performance gaps across business units, customer segments and product lines.
• Incorporate your CRM and financial data to provide a big picture view of the direct correlation between customer experience and business performance.
• Be user-friendly. Employees will be more likely to embrace the system if it is intuitive and integrates seamlessly into their everyday tasks.

Developing and maintaining a customer experience platform demands time and resources, but there is little doubt that it will pay off. One example of this pay-off is Experian, a company we have worked with for several years. They successfully leveraged voice-of-the-customer technology and processes to identify key loyalty drivers and improve the customer experience resulting in increased wallet share in a highly competitive market. Experian’s customer experience efforts were so successful that they were awarded a Forrester Voice of the Customer Award in June of 2009. If you’re interested in other case studies of companies achieving business results by focusing on customer experience, visit satmetrix.com or netpromoter.com.

(Image credit: TommL)

Service is the New Marketing

Been hearing that for ages; I even spoke at  a conference of that name 2 years ago! But what I believe is really trying to be said by this statement is that each interaction with the customer (each customer touch) has an impact on the customer’s impression of your company. That impression often imparts more about the brand than any marketing campaign. The contact center/customer service team/retail clerk is usually the place in the company with the most direct customer interaction (this is especially true for B2C companies). Hence, each customer service “touch” is an opportunity to “market” to the customer – or to leave them with a positive impression of your brand. In that sense, customer service is marketing – but I wouldn’t consider this to be new!

Community

My current role is in this area, and it is indeed a complex one. There are many types of communities: branded, customer-run, service-focused, etc. Interestingly, customers who are part of an online community are even MORE sensitive to “corporate marketing” than other customers, and they have a strong voice that will ring out over it. The main thing to remember here is that many of these communities have been around long before social media (for example, the customers participating in the San Diego Chargers forums are much more loyal than other customers participating in their other social media outlets), and the communities belong to them. Brands need to be aware of this type of “social customer” and realize that they cannot take-over these groups. They need to collaborate with  their communities to be successful.

Customer Experience

The customer experience is very important to understand across the organization. There has been talk about whether various departments will merge together in the future as social media begins to blur the lines of corporate siloes. However, I don’t believe the customer experience can or should be managed just through one department; our customers don’t see us that way! There is indeed a place for separate functions within the organization. There is also a place for metrics that will help companies understand how well they are doing with the customer experience and how well they are performing against customer expectations. Companies that are customer-focused tend to have customer-focused metrics that bring disparate business functions together, working towards one common goal: customer retention, loyalty, and evangelism. When these metrics are corporate, everyone wins.

The Social Customer

Yes, customers are much more socially connected in this day and age, so many of the aforementioned “marketing” activities are now taking place between customers (ratings/reviews/blog posts/tweets/etc.) rather than being broadcasted by the company.  However, that does not mean that each customer doesn’t want to be treated as an individual by the company. One-to-One Marketing has less to do with sending separate direct mail pieces to each person as it does with treating different customers differently. Having worked for/with Peppers & Rogers Group for many years, the 1to1 marketing process is mostly about managing the entire customer experience – which may be different for different customers (and likely is!). In order to do this properly, one needs to understand the needs of the customer. Now that many customers are interacting online, it is easier to listen and hear what they need. Companies just need to make sure they act on what they are learning – before their competitor does.

Your Turn

What do you think? How does an organization’s view of their customer need to change in today’s “social” world?

(Image credit: sqursozlu)

I have been spending more time lately on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as I continue to build a Customers Rock! presence on those sites. I also created a Customers Rock! Facebook Fan Page and have been testing out a new Customers Rock Twitter account where, daily, I am sharing POSITIVE customer service stories and experiences I find on Twitter. Please feel free to come and chat with me at any of the above places where you also hang out!

I have also started a new radio program, Customers Rock! Radio. This came from my appearances on nationally-syndicated The Big Biz Show, where the hosts suggested I spin-off my own radio show focused on customer service, marketing, and social media to create rockin’ customer experiences. I have had some fabulous guests including Jeanne Bliss, Michael Brito, Don Peppers, Amber Naslund, and Tony Welch. You can listen online at wsRadio.com or download the mp3 files to your computer or iPod. Please check it out and let me know what you think! (I am also actively looking for sponsors for the show. Give me a shout for more info or if you have clients who might be interested.)

Again, thank you for everything, my faithful readers. For your holiday reading pleasure between now and the New Year, here are some great links to posts that I think you will enjoy. Some are newer posts, some are older, but they are all worthwhile reads.

Holiday Reading

MediaPhyter features a guest blogger, David Hauser of Grasshopper who shares five ideas for how to build loyal customers.  I wholeheartedly agree with you, David. I especially like #3, Create a Culture of Responsibility. Taking care of customers goes far beyond customer service!

One of my favorite customer service bloggers, Meikah Delid, wrote about the new report showing how much poor customer service affects global business. How many billions are lost per year due to bad service, and why do customers leave? Read this post and find out.

Steve Woodruff, fellow speaker and consultant, writes about a great customer service experience he had at Chick-fil-A. Even the simplest acts can make a huge impact.

Terry Starbucker’s post on 15 Basic Steps to Mind-Blowing Customer Service is fun to read – and it hails from his recent experience in a Parisian produce shop. Merci beaucoup, monsieur Terry!

Enjoy, and Happy New Year to all of you!

As many of you know, I teach a popular class at UC San Diego Extension on Marketing via New Media. I help my students understand how to look at social media as an opportunity to build relationships with customers rather than just as a campaign or tactic to “increase buzz”. This summer, I had Joel Price from the San Diego Chargers as a guest speaker. He shared with my class how the football team has been using social media to get closer to its fans and create a “virtual tailgate party”. Joel took us on a historical journey of fan interaction during his presentation.

Die hard fans – 300,000 of them.

Facebook Comes In
The Chargers next started a Facebook Fan Page. These 75,000+ fans tend to be people who like to be affiliated with the team but are not as deeply into Charger knowledge as the fans interacting on the forums. Interestingly, these also seem to be people that were not being previously reached online. Demographically, they are about 60% male and 40% female.
These fans are more likely to come to games, and they are quick to react to new information. For example, just before coming to speak to my class, Joel posted on the Chargers Wall about the throwback uniforms the team would be wearing at a few games this season. Within the hour, there were already hundreds of people who indicated they “liked” this information, with over 100 comments as well.


Tweet, Tweet
The most recent addition to the Chargers social media efforts is their Twitter feed, @chargers. With over 15,000 followers (and counting), the Chargers were the first NFL team to be on Twitter. In addition to the main account, there are several players that Tweet including @shawnemerriman and @kassimosgood. The latest Tweets were around items such as EA’s latest Madden Football 2010 video game (who is in it, what are their ratings, etc), open practices, and the upcoming Chargers FanFest.

Social Media Goals
According to Joel, it is rare for an NFL team to communicate well with its fans. The San Diego Chargers want to break through that barrier and do their marketing by communicating closely with fans – and not in a “hard sell” mode, but in a fan appreciation mode. When asked how social media is currently being measured in the organization, Joel described it this way:

“How do we measure social media? How can you measure a hug? We are giving back to our fans.”

Thank you, Joel, for giving back to us and speaking to our class. It was extremely interesting. Go Chargers!

(Professor’s note: The alert student will notice this blog post was taken from the class blog Teaching Social Media. There one will find some of the student blogs as well as posts from previous class sessions.) 

Photo credit: San Diego Chargers Facebook Fan Page