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How Social Technologies Contribute to a Better Customer Experience

June 13, 2012 by 9 Comments
CustomerExperience_WatermarkConsulting

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

During each interaction with a brand, organization, or institution, the person on the other end of the interaction has a perception of how things went. Over time, the accumulation of these touch points deepen the customer’s perception of the organization. These perceptions influence actions (to engage, to buy, to defect, to complain, to share the experience with others…). These actions and interactions establish the long term relational value between organizations and their customers.

For these reasons, a growing focus amongst companies of all sizes is being placed on enhancing customer experience. The argument is that in a world where the journey towards products and services commoditization is brief, one of the last remaining competitive advantages is the customer experience. It is the one thing that is nearly impossible to duplicate.

Customers have confirmed its importance in multiple surveys.

A recent study by RightNow concluded that 86% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience, and 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.

Each year, Forrester Research compiles their Customer Experience Index, where consumers are asked about their preferences and experiences with brands. Companies are then ranked and categorized. Over the past several years, Customer Experience consulting firm, Watermark Consulting has been comparing the financial performance of the Leaders and Laggards from the Customer Experience Index. The results make a strong case that a better customer experience leads to better performance and profitability of organizations.

Customer Experience Leaders outperform by 22.5% while laggards underperform by 46.3%.

However, it’s important to remember that correlation is not always causation. It’s a data point, and a potentially valuable one.

Other research suggests that growing numbers of senior executives and boards are placing customer experience as a top strategic priority. According to surveys done by customer experience firm Beyond Philosophy:

  • 95% of senior business leaders say that the Customer Experience is the next competitive battle ground.
  • 85% of senior business leaders say that differentiating on traditional dimensions is no longer a sustainable competitive strategy.

Gartner, in its latest CIO survey, found that:

CIOs ranked customer relationship management (CRM) as their No. 8 technology priority for 2012, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.’s Executive Programs. CRM moved up from the No. 18-ranked technology in 2011.

Additionally, Gartner’s 2012 CEO Survey found that CEOs cited CRM as their most important area of investment to improve their business over the next five years.

Customer Experience vendors are benefiting from the increased mandate to improve the customer experience. In a recent survey by the Temkin group, more than eight out of 10 vendors expect their 2012 revenues to outpace 2011 by at least 25% and one-fifth of the vendors expect an increase of more than 75%.

An Explosion of Channels, Interactions, and Touchpoints

Complicating matters of orchestrating improved customer experiences is the proliferation of channels and digital interactions. Not only do customers now interact with organizations on many more channels than they did a decade ago, they also interact with peers, industry analysts, mainstream media, and citizen journalists on multiple channels as well. Each of these interactions contribute to the perception of the company or brand in the mind of the customer.

Customers are increasingly expecting organizations to respond quickly on their preferred channel in alignment with their increasing expectations. At each stage of their journey, there is a certain set of expectations. Depending on the stage in the customer’s journey, expectations might include more information, a resolved customer service issue, a technical problem solved, a purchase transaction, and then everything that happens while the product or service is put to use.

At the simplest level, a study by Bain & Co., found that customers who engage with companies over social media spend 20% to 40% more money with those companies than other customers.

There’s more to social than just gathering likes and follows.

As the interactions between organizations and their customers become more fragmented and dynamic, Social and Collaborative technologies can play a key role in helping organizations differentiate themselves.

(1) Listen across a wide spectrum of digital channels –> Deeper customer insights – enhanced Voice of the Customer (VOC) feedback
(2) Offer a wide array of preferred channels for customers to choose from, including real time unified communications –> Customer preference wins
(3) Creating and cultivating customer communities to foster interaction, and engagement through depth of resources –> Customer self service, value co-creation, open innovation
(4) Cultivating internal collaboration facilitates more nimble and accurate customer responses. –> Speedy access to people and information who can serve customer needs best
(5) Analytics across digital channels provides clues for customer journeys and expectations at each stage –> Deeper customer understanding paves the way for better product and service design, better marketing messaging and segmentation, and the crafting of a better customer experience.

How are you using or planning to use social and collaborative technology to enhance your customers’ experience? Would love to feature your stories here.

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

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Optimizing the Full Spectrum of Customer Interactions

April 4, 2012 by 10 Comments
Customer Journey

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

Last weekend I had the pleasure of introducing a movie for the first time to my 5 year old son – a movie that incidentally, I first saw when I was 5 years old.

In it, an iconic message was communicated via a channel that hasn’t quite been brought to the mainstream yet (though it seems we’re getting close).

The clip is below.

http://youtu.be/jLx0BCjtxx8

Considering the explosion of channels we have available to us now, I began to wonder “How would things have played out differently if she would have sent an email, a text, placed an intergalactic phone call, did a quick video conference, or simply waited to communicate in person?”

How would things have been different if she simply posted this message on her facebook page?
Would the response have been different on facebook if it was a video vs. text?

We could stop there, and simply consider the options, and their effect on the plot of the movie, but in the interest of time, let’s move on.

The multifaceted spectrum of human interaction

As technology advances, and communication channels expand, decision makers continue to wrestle not only with how to best leverage each channel, respectively, but how to optimize communications with their customers and prospects across an ever complicated blend of channels.

In a world where an increasing array of richer channels will become available, how will we optimize the exchange of information for the proper channel, taking into consideration the stage of the buying process, the preferences of the individual, and the desired intent, complexity, and nature of the content?

While many of us still gain comfort by placing confidence in the traditional marketing funnel, tell our sales reps to stick to the “sales process”, and check a box in our CRM system for our contact’s preferred method of communication, the reality is that human dynamics are far from linear and static. Technological advancements towards real time access to information and individuals across synchronous and asynchronous channels continue to complicate the matter even further. The line also continues to blur between our personal and professional interactions and habits.

From Joseph Walther in “The Handbook of Interpersonal Communication”

“Lore aside, technology sequences and their relational significance deserve an update: If a man takes an interest in a woman he sees in a class, he may want to scan the Web for information about her. If that search suggests potential reward, he may talk to her to establish a minimal basis of familiarity so that he can request access to her social network profile and be able to see how many friends she has, what they look like, what their comments have to say about her, and how she interacts with them in turn. If results are encouraging, a face-to-face conversation may come next, followed by a reinforcing e-mail or social network posting. Do increases in channel access signify relational escalation? Do we meet new partners’ Flickr family photo collection before we meet the parents, and why? Rather than resign ourselves to undifferentiated, massive multimodality, future research may begin to contemplate the strategic and interpersonal signification possibilities it presents as its users exploit the vast relational potentials of CMC (Computer Mediated Communication).”

This multi-channel, non-linear journey mimics how consumers and business buyers also court vendors today. What actions and interactions can be perceived as buying signals? Loyalty signals? Advocate signals? Detractor signals?

Below is a representation of a customer who makes two appliance purchases over four years, and twice shares content about it:


Image Source: MarketingProfs

While many organizations are venturing into the world of defining their customer journey and optimizing the experience by providing the relevant content for the appropriate stage, I believe these efforts can be further enhanced by beginning to overlay channel preference data across each stage in the customer journey, personalized for each recipient.

Savvy companies will be able to optimize interactions not only by providing the right content, but providing it in the most appropriate context and channel of choice for the intended audience. In other words, if fully optimized, the same content might be published to differentiated audience segments across multiple channels for optimized reach.

Make no mistake, the research and analytics to undertake such an effort would be significant. However, an unmatched customer experience leads to armies of customer advocates. Benefits associated with this type of loyalty and advocacy experience amplifier effects in a networked world.

This post is on behalf of the CIO Collaboration Network and Avaya

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Trust: It matters (more than you think)

January 25, 2012 by 44 Comments
Build Trust

“Organizations are no longer built on force, but on trust” – Peter Drucker

“Technique and technology are important, but adding trust is the issue of the decade” – Tom Peters

“Mistrust doubles the cost of doing business” – Professor John Whitney, Columbia Business School

“As you go to work, your top responsibility should be to build trust” – Robert Eckert, CEO, Mattel

“Transcendant values like trust and integrity literally translate into revenue, profits and prosperity” – Patricia Aburdene, Author of Megatrends 2010

————————————————————-

The quotes above were pulled from the book “The Speed of Trust: The One thing that changes everything”.

In the book, Steven M.R. Covey makes the argument with significant validation that establishing trust is the quickest path to success.

The economics of trust are simple

“Trust always affects two outcomes – speed and cost. When trust goes down, speed will also go down and costs will go up. When trust goes up, speed will also go up and costs will go down.”

Ponder that for a minute. In any relationship, personal or business, progress ultimately hinges on this one simple thing. When the presentation is over, when the proposal is offered, when all the due diligence and negotiations have been performed, doesn’t it ultimately rest on whether each side trusts each other to honor their stated obligations?

One could make a strong argument that the maturing customer revolt; the change in customer behavior that is driving the emergence and growth of Social CRM and Social Business has been birthed out of a general distrust of organizations, and institutions in general, for that matter.

Who the world trusts

Since the customer has lost trust in what marketers and sales people say, and since they can’t trust customer service to actually help them in a meaningful and timely way, they have moved instead to solicit 3rd party opinions about the organizations that may have a solution for them. They look to industry experts and peers for opinions, insights, and answers they can trust. This trend is expanding quickly. According to a study from Shopper Sciences, in association with Google “the average shopper used 10.4 sources of information to make a (purchasing) decision, up from just 5.3 sources in 2010.”

Edelman, one of the world’s largest and well recognized global PR firms has produced something called the “Edelman Trust Barometer” for the last several years.

In the 2012 edition, released this week, we see who the general population views as credible spokespeople – people they can trust. We see that ‘Academic or Expert’, ‘Technical expert in the company’, and ‘A person like yourself’ are bunched together in the Top 3. You’ll notice that CEOs and government officials absorbed significant hits to their collective reputation this year.

Another key finding is that social media grew significantly as a trusted information source, gaining ground on traditional media sources.

And in general, customer expectations are woefully short of being met. You’ll see in the graphic below a huge gap between what customers consider as important and how companies are performing in areas like:

  • Listens to Customer Needs and Feedback
  • Offers High Quality Products or Services
  • Places Customers ahead of Profits
  • Takes Responsible Actions to Address an Issue or Crisis

Where do we go from here?

The quick take is that TRUST MATTERS. It matters more than we think. As executives, as marketers, as sales people, as customer experience architects, and as customer service personnel, at the core of our job to create trust. Trust is the lubricant that speeds relationships and success, with people, and with organizations.

The key observations are:

- There is a significant trust void between customers and organizations
- People primarily trust experts and people like them
- People solicit lots of different opinions and tap lots of different sources when considering vendors

In the graphic below, survey participants have given us clues on how we can continue to build and deepen trust with our prospects and customers.

How do we do this?

The good folks at 1to1 Media summed it up with this tweet yesterday.

Is it just that simple?

There are a myriad of ways that organizations can respond to create trust. Content marketing, coupled with listening to and engaging customers through social channels are certainly a start. Organizations who do a great job of positioning themselves (and their employees) as experts in their field, and deeply embedding themselves within their respective communities and consistently adding value stand a great chance to do well in this shifting market.

Hiring the right folks, while establishing and nurturing a customer focused culture, and evolving internal and external communication channels and structures are all part of the equation.

The widening customer expectation gap and the pervasiveness of distrust presents a GREAT opportunity for those organizations who are able to respond in a way that resonates with their audience, as they will truly standout.

More resources

(1) Here’s a recent article by Don Peppers titled “The Only Lasting Competitive Advantage is Extreme Trust”

(2) Embedded below is the full 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer Slide Deck

2012 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Deck
View more presentations from Edelman Insights

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Six Things Customers Want

January 18, 2012 by 24 Comments
Six things Customers Want: Know Me

Often, when asked a question by media, existing customers, or prospective customers, I find myself answering with some version of “It depends.”

What’s the biggest priority in 2012?
Should we begin a Social CRM initiative?
What’s the first thing we should do?
Which software solution should we buy and implement?
Where should we spend our marketing dollars?

Inputs like organizational competence, customer jobs to be done, organizational goals and strategies, cost structures, industry trends, the competitive landscape all influence answers to questions such as these. In other words, the proper direction as it relates to defining and executing organizational or customer strategies are highly contextual, and depend on a comprehensive analysis to determine the right course of action.

However, in speaking with and working with lots of organizations spanning industries from service to manufacturing to distribution in both B2B and B2C environments, there are some common things that customers want. If these were to be front and center on the mind of every senior executive, and every customer facing individual, the customer experience would be improved, and the organization would benefit.

The levers and weighting of each of these things may vary by industry and company, but odds are your organization would benefit from adopting these 6 tenets into the fabric of your organizational culture and DNA.

What else would you add to this list?

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Customer Relationship Innovation for the Emergent Social Business

December 2, 2011 by 19 Comments
The Social Customer Profile

Speaking at an event hosted by SugarCRM and IBM Social Business this week, I informally polled the audience.

“How many of you are NOT on facebook?” No hands were raised.
“How many of you have a twitter account?” Most of the room raised their hands.
“LinkedIn?” Most of the room again raised their hands.

I repeated the same questions, referencing the people in the room’s businesses, and a slightly smaller number of folks raised their hands, but more than half still did.

I then asked – “How many of you know what to do with them?” Giggles. Laughter. Very few hands.

This is where we collectively find ourselves. It’s representative of a number of organizations that I have the opportunity to work with and speak to.

I didn’t even think of asking if any organizations in the room had created a tactical plan to listen and engage with customers and create a seamless (and amazing) experience across multiple channels and domains. Most companies are still trying to get the fundamentals right (as Filiberto Selvas pointed out here)

It’s easy to join a social network. It’s harder to engage. What should I say? What will they think? Do I have permission?

It’s even harder to engage with a coordinated strategy and accurately measure the results of your efforts. Blend activities on the social web with what’s happening in the rest of the organization…across departments…across silos?

If we’re not even on the same page internally, how can we communicate a unified message to the world that hasn’t been careful crafted by our marketing team and the agencies that they work with?

My anecdotal observation is that many companies get here and then acknowledge that it’s just too big of a challenge to tackle…at least for now.

“If you’ve got to start somewhere, why not here? If you got to start sometime, why not now?” – Toby Mac

New landscape.
New customer.
New roles.
New communication mediums.
New expectations.
New corporate culture.
New Focus.
New Critical Success Factors.

It’s quite a bit to digest when people are trying to keep their jobs and help keep the company profitable, when they’ve already just absorbed the jobs of 1-2 people who were laid off over the past few years. However, only focusing simply on the here and now is the path to extinction.

Those who understand how these new changes are affecting their marketplace (which in most cases is larger, more complicated, and more diverse than it was just a few years ago) will be hyper-rewarded. Those who fail to admit, understand, and adjust to these rapidly evolving new realities will be destroyed, or more likely die a long, slow, painful death.

Below are a few highlights from the presentation.

B2B Buyers

FOUR THINGS TO FOCUS ON NOW

While there’s no notes or audio to the full deck, I’ve provided it below. Hopefully it provides value, and helps to stimulate some interesting conversations on the social web and for you in your respective organization(s). Interestingly, Mike Fauscette touched on many of the same themes in his blog post “Customer Service – the new Marketing in the era of the Social Customer”. It’s definitely worth a read.

Customer Relationship Innovation for the Emergent Social Business

One other final fascinating tidbit from the event was that I met and had a good chat with a Director of Marketing from a Silicon Valley startup. I meet and talk with plenty of Directors of Marketing. What was interesting about this one was that she said that she was actually a social anthropologist. My ears perked up. Seems like someone is paying attention. While the roles of social anthropologist and Director of Marketing may seem to be world’s apart, they’re not. Here’s a link to an article I wrote highlighting why it might be the perfect fit.

It’s fun to be part of the greatest transformation since the industrial revolution? Are you in?

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Networks, Signals, Reputation and Delight

April 20, 2011 by 1 Comment
Networks, Signals, Reputation, and Delight

The era of mass marketing, sales driven information gathering and sharing, and being “just good enough to win” is being shattered by the rapid emergence of a smart, networked, and increasingly demanding generation of empowered customers. In the fragmented and fast moving world of concepts, buzzwords, technologies, and applications, most executives are looking for looking for answers to a few basic questions:

- What matters?
- What’s different?
- How can I and or my organization benefit?
- Where is the opportunity?
- What should I do now?

As I survey the evolving landscape, there are four primary things that stand out as emerging keys to sales and marketing success in an always on, attention scarce, information rich world.

  • Growing your network
  • Sending signals that are valuable
  • Building a glowing reputation
  • Focusing on delighting your customers

None of these are new tactics. They’ve all stood the test of time and have been employed by folks over the last several hundred years. However, the speed and access to people and information has made each of them exponentially more important. Take a look at the stats in the image below.

*** TAKEAWAY ***: When buyers want something, they’ll turn to search and their network to look for answers. Make sure you are there.

Why reputation and ranking is important

A great “human digitization” is taking place. Hordes of people and content are flooding into the web. Search engines and other content and people filters have to come up with a scoring mechanism to make results meaningful. Google, Bing, Facebook, and others are merging “people rank” with “page rank”. Search results are now being presented taking into account the “influence” and “reputation” of the messengers who are sharing it.

*** TAKEAWAY ***: Position yourself and your organization as a voice that matters (among those who know you, AND those who have yet to discover you)

Messenger as Important as the Message

*** How do you do this? ***

  • Build your network(s).
  • Send valuable signals – these could be blog posts, tweets, white papers, videos, comments, etc.
  • Focus on delighting your customers, prospects, partners, employees, suppliers, etc. It matters. It stands out. It breeds enthusiasm, loyalty, and word of mouth.
  • As your networks and signals expand their reach with positive sentiment, your reputation will increase.
  • As your reach and reputation grows, it provides an even greater platform to create moments of “delight”
  • Congratulations! An exponential and continuous feedback loop has been created.

Networks, Signals, Reputation, and Delight

For more on the concept(s), feel free to download/view the entire presentation below, or simply contact me directly.

[slideshare id=7541190&doc=networkssignalsreputationanddelight-110406175312-phpapp01]

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Social Media, Collaboration, and Customer Insights with an elite group of experts: April 4-6, 2011

February 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Paul Greenberg

When SugarCRM asked me to assemble the social track for SugarCon, the first thing that impressed me was the “spirit” of the track, and conference for that matter. It had little to do with touting Sugar; the company, or the products they make. Rather, it was all about creating a gathering of thought leaders, practitioners, and vendors to mutually work together in the effort of taking the next leap in improving customer relationships.

The great thing about working in collaboration with an open source company is that they “get” stuff like “open”, “collaboration” and “community”. It seems to be just naturally in their DNA and has been since their inception.

SugarCon 2011

I am excited about the lineup. The quality of speakers is amazing, and contains a diversity of perspectives that is hard to emulate, especially at a vendor conference. If you are free April 4-6, 2011, please mark your calendars and plan to attend SugarCon.

Considering that the price for the entire event is far less than what these folks normally charge for an hour of their time, plus the invaluable benefit of networking with other executives, marketers, sales folks, and technologists, it makes it a no-brainer if you can attend. Add to that the additional keynotes, 5 additional tracks, and it’s truly an event you won’t want to miss.

***** To make it even sweeter, mention the special discount code #SCON040511 and get $150 off. *****

Here’s a quick breakdown of the presenter’s lineup, chalk full of folks who have a reputation of keynoting on their own.

Paul Greenberg

Paul Greenberg


Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe)

Paul will be keynoting the event. If you don’t know who Paul Greenberg is, you probably “have been very busy”. He’s written four versions of the best selling book, “CRM at the Speed of Light”, is an independent analyst, and a well respected consultant to some of the largest and well known CRM vendors in the world. He coined the most used definition of Social CRM, and has energized an industry with his research, intelligence, signature writing style, inquisitive mind, and kind and generous nature. Paul was the mastermind and primary catalyst behind one of the most unique and powerful events I have been to almost exactly a year ago, which has since quite literally propelled an industry (Social CRM) that Gartner is now saying is greater than a $1 Billion marketplace. Paul is well worth the price of admission alone.

By the way, there’s another one of these now famous #scrmsummit events coming up next month (March) in Madrid, Spain if you can make it.

Esteban Kolsky

Esteban Kolsky


Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky)

If you clicked on the Madrid, Spain “Social CRM Strategies for Business” link, you probably saw a picture of Esteban dropping knowledge in a purple shirt and a shiny blue tie. While he likely won’t be wearing a suit, he most definitely will be dropping knowledge about the evolution of social and CRM to this point in time, and will be leveraging his extensive research experience (former Gartner analyst) to paint his view of the coming “collaborative enterprise”. Esteban is one of the sharpest minds in the space, and possesses a great blend of experience (analyst, consultant, practitioner), and background (an Argentinian of Eastern European descent that floats around Silicon Valley). He’s also got a great sense of humor. You won’t want to miss his session.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff


Dr. Natalie Petouhoff (@drnatalie)

One of two PhDs. in the lineup, “Dr. Natalie” made quite a splash last year when she jumped from Forrester Research as a Customer Service analyst to take a role as “Chief Strategist” for Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading global public relations firms. In fact, Weber Shandwick was just named global agency of the year, for the second year in a row. In addition to being an actual rocket scientist, Dr. Natalie has written multiple books, is a university professor, and has led organizations in a wide variety of capacities as an analyst, consultant, and senior executive. Bringing together a depth of varied experience and a warm and entertaining style, Dr. Natalie will inspire new thoughts and ideas for you to take back to your organization.

Adrian Ott

Adrian Ott


Adrian Ott (@ExponentialEdge)

There’s not many people who have been called “Silicon Valley’s Most Respected Strategist”. Her consulting work is rooted in 18 years of corporate experience, and Adrian recently wrote and published her award winning book “The 24 hour Customer” which takes an intriguing look at why time is more valuable than money, and why and how to work with attention deprived customers. She’s appeared on Bloomberg TV, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post, and other major media for her research and insights about growing businesses in today’s exponential economy. Seriously good stuff. That’s all there is to it.

Dan Zarrella

Dan Zarrella


Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella)

Dan is the original Social Media Scientist. Beneath the hype and hyperbole of the social media evolution, one guy has a reputation of looking deeply into the numbers and producing insights and takeaways that often fly in the face of the mainstream cheerleaders. He knows why certain tweets gets retweeted, and when and why to post certain messages on your facebook page. He is the author of The Facebook Marketing Book and the Social Media Marketing Book. Based on his research, he knows what day and what time you should blog, or tweet. Hubspot is leveraging guys like Dan to fuel exponential growth. Take copious notes when you’re listening to Dan because they’ll translate to success and dollars when you’re back in the office.

Dr. Michael Wu

Dr. Michael Wu


Dr. Michael Wu (@mich8elwu)

Speaking of scientists, Dr. Michael Wu is taking some of the most complicated subjects underpinning the social web, social business, and social networks, dissecting them and then educating the masses with detailed yet digestible explanations of how things really work and how successful organizations can leverage networks to thrive. As the principal scientist of Lithium Technologies, a leader in Gartner’s Social CRM Magic Quadrant, and the pioneer platform provider for customer communities, Dr. Wu has access to a boatload of data, and he slices and dices it with precision. The output is keen insights into why some communities, organizations, and individuals thrive on the social web, and others don’t. Dr. Wu will teach you how seemingly far reaching concepts such as influence, gaming dynamics, and other factors can be key differentiators between marketing and customer service success and failure.

Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll


Becky Carroll (@bcarroll7)

What Becky Carroll is working on now could be enough for most people to complete in a lifetime. She’s a professor at UC San Diego, an NBC news correspondent, book author, consultant, and manages the Verizon customer community. She’s long been an author of one of the most popular blogs in the world focused on customer service and customer experience. Entertaining, multi-talented, and engaging, she understands the social world well, and knows what works with customers. Soak up her wisdom and add to your bottom line.

Christopher Carfi

Christopher Carfi


Christopher Carfi (@ccarfi)

Christopher started his blog called “The Social Customer Manifesto” in 2004! He saw today’s reality nearly a decade ahead of it’s time, and is now looking ahead at the future and the impact of the perfect storm mashup of social, mobile, and cloud computing and what it means for consumers, and in turn, the organizations that seek to earn their business. After nearly a decade at Anderson consulting, he founded Cerado, Inc. to provide software and services that enable businesses, organizations and associations to better connect and understand their customer and member communities. He recently joined Edelman Digital, the digital arm of the largest, independently owned communications firm in the world, Edelman, the publishers of the Edelman Trust Barometer, the subject of my last blog post.

Brent Leary

Brent Leary


Brent Leary (@brentleary)

Another guy who was early to the game, Brent literally started the social crm conversation on Twitter back in 2008 by creating the #scrm hashtag and bringing together a community of thousands to discuss the topic. He co-authored Barack 2.0, chronicling how Barack Obama leveraged Social Media on the way to the presidential election. Brent is the principal and founder of CRM Essentials, and is a well respected analyst, consultant, and thought leader. His thoughts are regularly featured in Inc. magazine, OPEN by American Express, and he’s been quoted in several national business publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and Entrepreneur magazine. Brent specializes in the SMB market and always has unique, relevant and actionable insights to share.

Laurence Buchanan

Laurence Buchanan

Laurence Buchanan (@buchanla)

Laurence heads up CRM and Social CRM within the UK for Capgemini (Technology Services). In his current role Laurence is responsible for Capgemini’s CRM & Social CRM go-to-market strategy and business development across all packaged vendors and industries. He is passionate about helping clients articulate their customer-centric vision and strategy, and enabling that through the smart use of technology. Prior to Capgemini, Laurence spent a decade with SAP, where he was global vice president for SAP CRM. He is a recognised authority and evangelist on CRM, Social CRM and customer experience transformation. He writes regularly on Social CRM at The Customer Revolution and is a member of the CRM advisory board at the Rotman Centre for CRM excellence in Toronto.

Matthew Rosenhaft

Matthew Rosenhaft


Matthew Rosenhaft (@mmrosenhaft)

Matthew Rosenhaft is the Principal of Social Gastronomy and Co-Founder of the Social Executive Council, an elite group of global CxOs, focused on leveraging social technologies in their organizations. He is a former marketing executive who specializes in Social Business, Marketing, and Architecture Strategy. He also has founded several early-stage venture-backed technology companies and holds a US patent for a mobile marketing technology. You won’t want to miss Matthew’s session as he unveils the research findings of his firm, and provides an ultra-tangible example of how companies can leverage social market research to provide insight into strategic customer focused initiatives. The subject of his research? SugarCRM. Come attend this no-holds barred session as Matthew unveils clues to Sugar about what the marketplace and prospective buyers think about them, and offers some suggestions about how they might respond.

That’s the lineup. What are you waiting for? Register here, save some cash with the #SCON040511 discount code, and let’s setup a time to connect while you’re there.

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It’s a 2.0 World – Part One: A recap of the Sales 2.0 conference

November 16, 2010 by 5 Comments
Crew Rowing

It’s a 2.0 world. Everywhere I look, there’s either a 2.0 on the end of a word, or social at the start of it. Hype and hyperbole bombard us with new shiny toys, and snake oil to cure what ails us.

However, beyond the rah-rah and kumbaya, there IS INDEED a shift going on around us. The shift is happening in the way that humans communicate, in the way that business is done, and in the way that technology opens up new opportunities for arbitrage.

Last week, a drive up the beautiful California coast from my home in Orange County, with temporary stops in Redondo Beach, and idyllic San Luis Obispo, ultimately landed me at the first of two immersive destinations, the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown San Francisco for the Sales 2.0 conference.

Given the Four Season’s iconic reputation for customer experience, it made perfect sense for approximately 500 sales and marketing leaders to converge and discuss some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing customer executives today.

Key Takeaways

Illumination is starting to take place
Anneke Seley pointed out during her breakout session how 2 or 3 years ago, the concept of purposely telling your sales people to spend time on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn was heresy to many in the sales world. It was unheard of, and an utter waste of time. Today, there is a growing interest, and more and more stories are emerging like that of Dan Harding, who says that he achieved 25% of his quota from leveraging social tools, or as one person from the crowd shared that they make all their sales people check LinkedIn profiles prior to making outbound phone calls.

Sales is lagging other business functions in social media adoption.
Early adopters were blogging in the middle of the web 1.0 era. Hundreds of thousands have rushed to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn over the last half decade. From my vantage point, the majority of sales people still don’t see value in bringing this into their daily routine.

This doesn’t necessarily tell me that sales people are ignorant, technophobic, or just don’t get it. It tells me that the technology isn’t quite valuable enough yet to make a meaningful difference in the day to day lives of sales people. As with the previous adoption curve of core CRM functionality, if any tool, idea, framework will not “help me sell more”, I won’t adopt it. More so than any other role, the “time is money” adage is never more applicable to any other group than the hardworking professional sales person. They are a true litmus test of value as they don’t have the luxury to “play” or “experiment” with new tools. As illustrated above, however, the tide is slowly changing.

Social Media is forcing alignment between sales and marketing (or making it more uncomfortable for those who aren’t aligned)

  • 50% of materials marketers are creating aren’t being used by sales
  • 70% – 90% of leads generated by marketing are never followed up with by sales – Marketing Sherpa

Mark Wilson, VP of Marketing for Sybase, provided dozens of valuable insights during his keynote on Sales and Marketing alignment. The metaphor that sticks out most in my mind is the transition in mindset from the traditional concept of marketing passing a baton to sales to the mental image of a crew rowing together.

Crew Rowing

The role of sales will continue to evolve

For those who have been around sales, and especially in a complex, consultative type sales environment, the necessity of establishing the “trusted advisor” role will be nothing new. However, the emergence of the social customer has introduced a dramatic change to something right before our very eyes. According to a study from Sirius decisions, 70% of the buying journey is completed prior to speaking with a sales person. That’s pretty staggering, considering that sales used to be responsible for most of the education. I shared some additional thoughts with Adam Metz, in “The 5 Things most sales people don’t know about the Social Customer”.

According to Forrester Research, only 38% of sales people understand prospects’ needs and how their products/services can address those issues. According to IDC, only half of all sales people reached their quota in 2009. There is a slow and steady shift underway for the role that sales plays in customer acquisition strategy.

Customers no longer need sales people to provide them with product and company information. However, buyers are still looking for people they like and trust to help guide them through the evaluation process. As a guy who’s spent a significant amount of time as a sales person and as a consultant, it’s fascinating to watch the roles blur.

The shift of power to the customer
Gerhard Gschwandtner briefly touched on the growing importance for sales organizations to raise their head from the persistent focus on internal efficiencies and redirect their attention to the customer. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him even mention co-creation as a theme growing in importance.

Underscoring my previous thread of sales people morphing into true trusted advisors and consultants, imagine today’s typical sales person actively participating in a co-creation environment that might involve significant engineering and/or business design influence. There is a definable gap between where we are today and where things are heading.

This transition to the customer is illustrated by the rapid shift and evolution in strategy and tactics from CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to Social CRM, which is rapidly gaining traction across organizations of all sizes. For more on Social CRM, feel free to visit The Ultimate Social CRM Resource Guide, Part 1.

Other highlights

Jim Dickie of CSO Insights shared an amazing array of deep insights and anecdotes about increasing revenues through well researched and systematic insights and subsequent operational adjustments and improvements.

During a fireside chat with SAP executives, one customer shared her companies’ challenge and painful journey with implementing SAP’s ERP solution. In a somewhat awkward exchange (which by the way, Jonathan Becher, EVP Marketing and Chris Ball, RVP Enterprise West, did a nice job of handling), it provided a fitting metaphor for the current societal transition underway. The customer has a voice. The crowd is listening, and the company is on the hot seat and is forced to present a transparent and unified message.

The Vendors
While I was familiar with most vendors at the event (see a full list here), a new name for me was iMeet, created by PGI, one of the biggest companies you’ve never heard of (according to them powering more than 75% of the worlds conference calls).

iMeet provides a platform that takes web conferencing, social networking, and video technology, merges them all as one, and in my opinion provides the intermediary step between today’s web conferencing technology and ambient presence technologies of tomorrow.

Peter Stewart of PGi showed a number of witty spots and video segments that highlighted the challenges of today’s remote meeting environments.

Some interesting trends shaping the future of remote meetings are:

  • Ave. phone meeting is 4.5 people for 45 minutes, Add a visual and ave. is 5.5 people and 55 minutes
  • Over 1/3 of virtual attendees join from their mobile phones
  • Web conferencing has been around for 15 years. Only 10% of meetings include more than voice.
  • Having access to profile data in the midst of a meeting actually may provide advantages over meeting face to face by providing a deeper context of the person you are meeting with outside of the nature of your transaction.

It was a great time of seeing some familiar faces, and meeting several new ones. Kudos to Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power magazine, and the entire Sales 2.0 conference team.

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The Evolution of Customer Acquisition at CRM Evolution #CRMe10

August 11, 2010 by 11 Comments

Last week, I had the privilege of attending and speaking at the CRM Evolution Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis. It was a great couple of days. Big hats off to Paul Greenberg, David Myron, the rest of the team at Information Today, and the unsung heroes that race around behind the scenes to pull off an event such as this.

Instead of providing my own analysis, check out the fantastic write ups from Paul Greenberg, Esteban Kolsky, Chris Bucholtz, Andrew Boyd, Denis Pombriant, and Marcio Saito for more coverage of the event and mark your calendars to attend next years event which promises to be even better.

The Accidental Community was well represented by Mike Fauscette, Brent Leary, Jesus Hoyos, Prem Kumar Aparanji, Mitch Lieberman, Esteban Kolsky, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, and Michael Krigsman.

On Tuesday morning, I spoke on “Evolving Customer Acquisition for the Social Business”. By show of hands in the room, probably 2/3 of the attendees stated that they were marketing folks, followed by some sales people, senior execs, and a couple of customer service people.

I started off telling the story of Hazel Bishop, and how because of the ability of her company’s ad firm, they were able to harness the rapid widespread adoption of the television to transform a struggling $50,000 a year company to a high flying $10,000,000 a year company in less than 3 years. That triggered a surprising response from one unnamed woman from the lively crowd which set a great tone for rest of the presentation. There was some compelling question and answer after the presentation related to trust and privacy and what it meant to be social in this era. It was a fascinating and unexpected conversation which elicited some strong and insightful opinions from the audience.

During the presentation, I highlighted four examples of companies that are doing innovative and interesting things in attracting new customers, and are being rewarded for their efforts.

The Old Spice Man
The Pepsi Refresh Project
Eloqua
HubSpot

There are too many people to thank for making it a great event for me personally and professionally. A very heartfelt thank you to those of you who attended my session, and especially to those who live tweeted. To those I was able to meet and talk with throughout the conference, I look forward to continuing the dialogue. Please feel free to view and download my presentation below. Just please attribute the work if you publish and use it according to the Creative Commons license attached.

[slideshare id=4937947&doc=crmevol2010vellmure2-100810105355-phpapp01]

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The changing face of Marketing

June 17, 2010 by 5 Comments

As the social web evolves and we collectively turn off our ears to unidirectional ads and messaging, the face of marketing continues to evolve. Prospects continually seek to find and pull valuable information and content without wanting to give up much in exchange. How do marketer’s respond?

The new goal is to provide something of value…something so valuable that folks who have never even heard of you or your brand want to share it with their friends. The content that you provide might be a public webcast, podcast, video, white paper, etc. It might be funny, proprietary and valuable research, or something else that will resonate with your target demographic. The idea is to get something interesting and valuable in front of the eyes of some key buyers and influencers within your demographic.

An interesting thing happened this week. Eloqua, a leader in marketing automation, drip campaigns, marketing analytics, and all the traditional fundamental building blocks of marketing did something different.

They created and shared freely a couple of pieces that most marketers will find value. No opt-in. No forms. No registration.

Not only is their content valuable, especially for those marketers just getting started and trying to wade through the variety of tools and how to incorporate them into their marketing mix. More significantly, a marketing automation company just became another living example of how marketers must evolve in order to gain Attention - the first step in the 5 Stages of Customer Acquisition for the Social Business.

AIPEE Pyramid

The Content Grid
This graphic creates a framework for creating and distributing content to align with the demands of the new marketplace. Personally, I have some questions and don’t totally agree with or understand everything in it, but it’s a fantastic piece of reference and valuable as a framework as organizations begin to organize their content strategy.

The content grid

The Social Media Playbook

Click on the image below to download the playbook. It’s built and designed for those new to the Social web, and provides an overview of all the tools out there. It doesn’t speak too much about the strategy of participation, or corporate strategy for actually bringing customers into the corporate ecosystem (critical first steps), but it does provide loads of tactical tidbits and an overview of the many of the leading publicly available tools for use on the social web.

Eloqua Social Media Playbook

Social Media Playbook

Both pieces were done in collaboration with Jess3, the creators who worked in collaboration with Brian Solis to create the now ubiquitous Conversation Prism and the video embedded below – “The State of the Internet”, which contains a dizzying array of facts about today’s internet (or yesterday’s as it is now a few months old, but helpful nonetheless)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpAW0yRaKws&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Need more examples of valuable content that went viral, or why every company should be creating and providing valuable content? Check out “Three New Roles for your company: Media Mogul”

Have more examples to share? Please post them below.

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