By Don Peppers
Hey, I've got an idea! This Halloween let's all dress up as wild, uncontrollable customers, set loose on a business!
It’s no secret that customers have more influence and “voice” in the marketplace than ever before, largely on account of social media. Whether it involves posting a YouTube video showing baggage handlers tossing guitars around, or launching a Change.org petition to persuade retail banks to reverse their debit-card fee policies, customers are way more empowered today, largely because they are way more connected today.
If you’ve ever feared what could happen to your own business if your customers were to launch an attack, then Paul Gillin and Greg Gianforte have authored an extremely useful book, appropriately titled Attack of the Customers. It is well written, and chock full of real examples and sound advice.
First, tap the benefits of social commentary
Most companies are virtually unarmed when it comes to defending themselves from irate customers, because they have completely neglected the real power of social media. In 2010 and 2011, for instance, 28 of the world’s top 50 brands didn’t respond to even a single customer comment on their Facebook pages! It’s really hard to overestimate the social-media incompetence of some of these companies. Some 60% of the 329 North American businesses surveyed by the Economist persist in treating this customer-feedback, dialogue, and research tool as simply another marketing channel, to be managed by the market department and used primarily for disseminating freebies and discounts!
But the world of social media isn’t just a “channel.” It’s an important avenue of customer service, intelligence, and relationship-building. One study found that “seven out of eight businesses using social media for customer service have seen a positive impact. Less than 1% described the experience as negative.”
Moreover, the authors say, social media can be like a “free global floating focus group,” providing enormous insight into customer motivations. This customer insight continues to accumulate at a faster and faster rate, along with Moore’s Law. By 2020 there will be 25 to 30 times as much social media commentary available on a daily basis, and the trick, Gillin and Gianforte say, is to have a process in place now for synthesizing and making use of this proliferating feedback.
You could start, they suggest, by hosting objective customer reviews on your own web site, a policy Martha Rogers and I strongly advocate in our own book, Extreme Trust. Objective customer reviews have been found to stimulate sales – even if they are negative reviews, which tend to lend credibility to positive ones. Epson, for instance, launched reviews on its site in 2010 and found that visitors who took the time to read reviews spent nearly double the amount spent by those who didn’t! And AlpacaDirect.com, the authors say, “saw sales jump 23% on reviewed items. Sales even grew for products that got negative comments, such as a golf cardigan that was described as ‘kinda sweaty’ and a ‘poor fit.’”
Always treat complaints as the opportunities they really are
A customer attack can cause a great deal of damage if a brand isn't treating customer complaints as opportunities to get better, but as costs to be minimized. The truth is, complaints can be “an important source of improvement and even word-of-mouth marketing.” When handled properly, in fact, 40% or more of “ranters,” the most serious complainers, can be converted into “ravers.”
And Altimeter Group analyzed 50 significant customer attacks and concluded that a full third of them were precipitated by a single customer’s negative customer experience!
Our ever increasing inter-connectedness does give individual customers enormous potential leverage today. Molly Katchpole, for instance, was the 22-year-old who launched the online petition calling on Bank of America to reverse its monthly $5 debit card usage fee in the fall of 2011. Her campaign soon attracted national media attention, as she staged events like cutting up her debit card for television cameras, and moving her $2200 savings account to a community bank. After 300,000 people signed her petition, and some 650,000 people opened new credit union accounts (eight times the normal rate), Bank of America reversed its policy, and its competitors soon followed suit.
Just a couple of months later, according to the authors, “Verizon Corp. quietly began charging a $2 fee to customers who paid their bills online.” This is the classic kind of untrustable “stealth” fee that will soon become a thing of the past for most legitimate companies. The Twittersphere took notice, and Katchpole took action – again. She launched a new online petition (against Verizon’s stealth fee) which quickly gathered 166,000 signatures and led to a reversal by the carrier.
Take preventive action to avoid future problems
Another point Gillin and Gianforte emphasize is the importance of preparing for these customer attacks in advance, by taking the time now to institute the right internal social media policies. They include some very helpful advice on what ought to be included in those policies, governing the behaviors and authorities of individual employees. I suggest that for this reason alone, Attack of the Customers is worth having on your corporate bookshelf.
Your own brand is probably already represented on a number of different platforms, and my guess is – if you’re like the vast majority of companies out there – no one at your head office actually has a complete inventory of them. Do you know just how your brand is represented in the following forums? (Does anyone at your company know?)
- Facebook accounts
- Facebook pages
- Branded Twitter accounts
- Independent Twitter accounts of people who represent themselves as your employees
- LinkedIn company profiles
- LinkedIn groups
- Pinterest accounts
- YouTube accounts
- Flickr accounts
- SlideShare accounts and pages
- Instagram accounts
- Managers of communities you own
- Authorized representatives in communities you don’t own
- Forum administrators
- Authorized company bloggers
- Independent bloggers who represent themselves as your employees
This post contains a powerful message. It's time this message went viral. Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis
0 komentar:
Post a Comment