A couple days ago, Eric Jacques wrote a post called How to Listen to Your Customers which was an excellent complement to my Listening to What Isn’t Said. In the post, he made one recommendation that really struck home for me:

Everyone in your organization needs to learn how to honestly and completely listen to customers (and remember the internal customers).

In particular, it was his reminder about internal customers. How many times do we focus so intently outside the organization that we forget about the folks we serve inside? And if you don’t think you serve anyone inside your business, take some time to reconsider. We’re not talking about employees serving managers and the execs at the C-Level. We’re talking cross-functional, about departments like IT and HR. We’re also talking about the sales manager who counts on marketing to support his or her efforts. And we’re talking about the engineer who depends on product managers to relay crucial strategic info from and to customers. No matter which department you fall into or what level you’re situated within the organizational hierarchy, there’s a good bet you serve someone else inside your company at least once in a while.

Here’s the million dollar question: Does your organization have a customer experience design that includes both external and internal customers? If not, why not? Making sure your internal customers are not only satisfied but have a remarkable experience is the bedrock of smooth teamwork and operations. Here are a few suggestions for creating a better internal customer experience:

Listen intently for needs and expectations. You can’t underemphasize the importance of listening. Your objective is to listen for understanding which transforms the action into an active process. Ask for clarification when necessary. Listen for what’s not said.

Help them become even better customers. When in the act of listening, don’t be a drone content with just collecting information. You know you have needs and expectations, so reveal them. And you know you have limitations so be clear about your own workload. Constantly ask yourself, “What can I do to help this individual be a better customer?”

Keep the bigger picture firmly in view. This requires an understanding of how the organization operates and your place within it. It also means that your service objectives should be in tight step with those of the whole organizations. They should resemble a bit of the holographic that I discussed a while back.

If you’re thinking that each of these suggestions can easily apply to serving external customers, then you’d be right. Any examples of organizations getting it right in terms of creating remarkable internal customer experiences?

photo credit: wonderlane (via flickr)

How much do you know about your customers…I mean really know? Get beyond the demographics, beyond the statistics, beyond the purchasing numbers. How much do you know about how your customers interact with their everyday world? And more importantly for you, how do your customers interact with their world using your product or service? It’s in understanding this interaction where your brand can go from ordinary to extraordinary.

Enter anthropology and the expertise we anthropologists offer. The way we humans behave is deeply rooted in our everyday culture. It influences how we make sense of our reality. It also explains why we consume what we do and what we’re ultimately trying to communicate to others around us. Because sense-making is largely a symbolic process at a cultural level, anthropology is ideally positioned to help explain the relationships customers have to a brand. In other words, if you want to know more about what your customers really think and actually do, bring in an anthropologist.

As humans, we interact with things in order to make sense of our world (if you’re unsure about this, watch a young child for a few minutes). We’re also trying to make sense of ourselves and our identity in relation to others around us. I’ll even argue that most of us want the businesses and brands we interact with to understand us better and help us in our sensemaking process.

So here’s my question for you: what is your business doing to understand your customers and help them make sense of their world through their interactions with you?

photo credit: courtneybolton (via Flickr)

Last week, Reuters published an article called Americans more loyal to brands, country than company. For employers, it poses a wake-up call. But what I found most interesting was this statement at the end:

When asked how companies could improve loyalty the top answers included offering cash awards to consumers, replacing automatic answering machines with real people, making good products and not raising prices.

I think this shows why consumer opinion and sentiment shouldn’t always be taken at immediate face value. The way we think about things is complex and requires us to go exploring for more specific answers. This is were doing more qualitative work is an important complement to the quantitative work of surveys and polls.

Thinking about the snippet above from the Reuters article…What does making good products mean? How about not raising prices? Before you go thinking you know exactly what the answers are, take a step back and consider how many different possible answers are possible here. A good product can have a multitude of meanings in the mind of the customer. Now amplify it by hundreds or thousands of customers. And the desire to not raise prices may be contradicted if there is the possibility of adding more value to the product.

As an anthropologist, we’re trained to not just look at what’s said, but also look for what’s not said. Interestingly, what’s omitted here is listening. Well, sort of. We might be able to extract listening from the desire to talk to real people instead of answering machines. But…

What would happen if our companies set up experiences that encouraged customers to talk, to share ideas, to voice frustrations?

What would happen if we genuinely listened to what was said and not said?

What would happen if we took all of those opinions and sentiments and put them to action so our customers would feel heard?

Can you imagine how powerful that might be? Forget short-term buzz. Think long-term customer movements.

photo credit: abrinsky (via Flickr)

Most businesses that know they need to create a customer engagement program start with good questions:

• How do we establish our brand promise and get it in the forefront of our customers’ minds?
• How do we become an essential partner with our customers?
• How can we best understand their everyday needs and challenges?

What’s missing here, though? Most questions and objectives that drive customer engagement programs focus on the external but give little thought and planning to the internal…you know, those people you might know as “employees.” I’m probably preaching to the choir if you’re a community manager or in a similar role where your success is tied to gaining internal buy-in (if this is you, feel free to share this post with your manager, CMO, or CEO who needs a good prodding).

Okay, so if you or your company is intent on implementing a customer engagement program think about how it will integrate into your organizational cultures and dynamics. The question that needs to be asked is:

• How can we generate acceptance and adoption of this program throughout the organization?

Success in your program begins with making sure your entire organization and workforce is aligned to your program’s goals. Here are a few ideas to make that happen:

Get internal buy-in. Yeah, I know…easier said than done. But consider this: your customers are savvy enough to know when they’re being conned and even a whiff of insincerity will trigger a nasty visceral response that will only get amplified through the web and social media. Avoid that insincerity by making sure that each one of your employees – not just the ones who are customer-facing – know the objectives and expectations of your customer engagement program. Each employee needs to embody the soul of your program. If they don’t, they might as well just answer the phone with “Hello, how can I lie to you today?”

Identify prospective employee evangelists. Just as you’re going to want to locate your customer evangelists, you need to figure out who among your employees are going to be crucial to successfully launching your program. Not sure? Conduct a social network analysis inside your organization. That will help you determine who your prime influencers and connectors are. These folks are not always managers and execs…they could be your receptionist or mailroom guy or junior salesperson. But whoever they are, you need to encourage them on-board, get knowledgeable about the program, and give them all the tools and resources they need to evangelize your program from the inside.

Understand and build competencies. Don’t assume all your employees are techno-wizards and social media smarty-pants. Many are not so it’s your mission to figure out which individuals need training and then deliver it. If you’re developing an online community, give your folks a chance to get their mitts on it. If you’re using video to connect with customers, make sure your employees know what’s happening so they don’t sound like ignorant buffoons. Nothing is worse than developing a slick new program but not having all your employees reading and working from the same playbook.

And for heaven’s sake, BE REAL. I’m going to level with you about something you probably already know: trust in corporations is at a pretty dismal place right now. Customers are on hyper-alert for any phoniness so if you’re thinking you can glide your way through an engagement program, you might want to let your PR folks know up front. Your program will only be successful if your business and brand are real, honest, transparent, and caring about your customers. Get that right and your customers will be open and willing to build a great relationship with your company.

photo credit: pdxdiver (via Flickr)

Is your business still thinking of marketing as a set of campaigns? It might be time to switch gears and start thinking more about connecting with prospects and customers via community. Today, we learned that two major brands are rethinking their strategies (also read here):

Coca-Cola and Unilever are shifting their digital focus away from traditional campaign sites and towards community platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as social media begins to dictate their marketing activity in 2010.

Yes, these are the big kahunas of the corporate branding universe…but can their strategies work for small and medium-sized businesses? Not only do I think the answer is a resounding “100% yes!”, I believe that building community over campaigns is an absolute must for nearly any enterprise today. Why?

Read the full blogpost at BaileyHill Insights…

photo credit: scoobay (via Flickr)

Prompted and inspired by Jay Ehret (@TheMarketingGuy), I thought I would take a look at which blogposts were the most popular in 2009 based on total pageviews. Here they are, ranked by popularity and with my own reflections:

1. The Power Of A…So Close Yet So Very Far Away
Nothing like a good controversy to drive traffic to a blog. Earlier this year, the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) decided to create a new campaign called The Power of A. I didn’t like it at the time and am still not convinced it was well executed. However, it did provide a rather pointed example of what happens when you engage a major PR firm with little prowess in online social media to run your campaign.

2. The End Of The Industrial Age And Social Media
This was a useful example of what happens when a highly visible and well regarded twitter user promotes a post. In this case, it was David Armano and I am very appreciative of him sharing his popularity with me.

3. VIDEO: Building Your Brand Ambassador Program
Crikey, every time I see this post I ask myself in an exasperated voice, “Why the hell don’t I do more multimedia posts?” Probably because it was twice as hard to produce than a typical written post. The presentation that forms the basis of the content is one that I gave to a local nonprofit group. Maybe I’ll pitch the presentation again in 2010 with some subtle refinements.

4. Five Steps To Make Employees Your Best Brand Ambassadors
Technically, this post was written in 2008 but it makes for a nice followup with the Brand Ambassador video above.

5. Micro Center And The Art Of A Good Apology
I enjoy coming back to this particular post because it reminds me of what can happen when a company gives a damn about customer service. Whether Micro Center continued its good work or not…I can’t say. All of which is why one example of good customer service is fine, but it has to be demonstrated on a consistent, company-wide basis.

It’s always interesting when my favorite posts aren’t exactly the ones that are most popular with readers in terms of pageviews. Here are two of my favorites from the past year:

Beyond Engaged Community Members…Think Stewardship
I love the comments and dialogue that this post inspired. The idea of online community stewardship is one that continues to resonate with me. I hope I get to make more time in 2010 to explore this concept in more detail.

The (Weak) Ties That Bind: The Jobhunting/Social Network Connection
2009 marked in interesting year for me. I started up a new business and also had a hand in helping unemployed folks find new work. This post combined my interests in social networks and job hunting.

Over this past year, I’ve been blessed to make many new friends and build relationships that will only become stronger in the coming years. I hope that if you’ve been reading this blog for a while that you’ve found it useful and insightful. And if you’re brand new, I hope you’ll come back and engage in the dialogue.

Best wishes for a successful and kickass 2010!

I hate the holiday shopping hoards and the inevitable battle against the sea of over-tired and under-patient humanity. Thank heavens for the internet. I try to do most of my Christmas shopping online these days, but it’s almost unavoidable that I’ll need to pick at least one gift up at an actual brick-and-mortar store. So it is that I found myself at one of the local upscale outdoor shopping centers that are prevalent throughout Austin. These places are far more than your everyday, pedestrian strip malls. They have immaculate boulevards and well-landscaped walkways to entice us weary shoppers out of our hard-earned money by convincing us we’re far more cosmopolitan than we might actually be. These shopping centers also have their typical upscale retail establishments like J. Crew, Coach and Burberry with their artfully designed storefronts. But as I entered another of these stores, I found myself faced with a parallel to something I see frequently in my work.

The store’s windows and exterior were creatively developed to be eye-catching. I imagine someone painstakingly took their time to design and arrange the various props to entice casual shoppers like me to open the door. It was all so neatly done that I felt compelled to go inside and see if they had a gift for my wife. And here’s where the disappointment hit me like Santa himself swinging a bag of coal at my head. Not one of the sales staff welcomed me, not one asked if I was looking for anything in particular, not one did anything that would potentially complete a successful transaction. As easily as I entered, I left. What the hell was the whole point of the work devoted on the outside if it all goes to waste inside?

Now before you think this is just a problem with the retail buying experience as a whole, let’s think about a similar experience in the online world. Most businesses know they need a web presence to compete and so they go through the exercise of creating a spectacularly beautiful site. It has all the bells and whistles we associate with business or e-commerce websites. It’s chock full of animation and sliding panels and dancing kittens and all the usual links to every single social media network known to man. You look at it and think, “My word, this is the most impressive website I have ever seen and will likely see ever again!” And then what? Well, this is often where all that wondrous and creative design talent goes straight down the crapper. No one ever thought to ask about business objectives or about generating a sale. In other words, your customer just walked through the door based on an artful exterior but doesn’t know what to do next…so they wander aimlessly and likely leave.

Most consumer-driven websites unfortunately don’t focus on the all-important Ask, which is the primary funnel for directing visitors toward taking an action. But there are a few things you can do to ensure that your site not only looks great but fulfills the investment you’ve made in your web presence.

Know your goals before ever thinking about design. Don’t spend all that time on the external window dressing only to ignore the reason why your customers enter in the first place. I can’t say how many times I’ve seen clients get wrapped up in the design process without a clear vision for what they want their site to achieve. It’s the classic case of putting the cart before the horse. Before building a new site or committing to a redesign project, get clear about what you want your site to do to drive business to you.

Be crystal clear and inviting with your Ask. Think of your website’s Ask as the warm greeting your customer receives when they enter the store. If you know your audience’s needs, then your Ask should be a knowledgeable sort of “How can I help you today?” What does your business do and how does your website help you do it better? If your business is built to sell directly to your visitor, then develop an Ask that guides your prospect toward making a purchase or bundle of purchases. Or perhaps you’re a B2B company that uses your site to offer product information and generate leads; if so, then create an Ask that funnels visitors toward a lead generation form. Whatever you choose for your Ask, make it not only clear, strong and tied to your business goals, but focused on the psychological needs of your customer.

Measure your results. You just can’t assume that your Ask is going to be automatically successful. That’s like having a great storefront and a greeter at the door only to take whatever money you receive from purchases and toss it in a bag and forget about it. You have to know whether what you’re doing is leading to achieving the key objectives you set for your business at the beginning. Same thing for your site. Know whether your Ask is funneling prospects toward completing a goal. There are several tools to help you like Google Analytics. It’s free so you have no good reason for not incorporating measurement into your plans for success.

Your website isn’t just there to look pretty. It has a purpose. Help your customers achieve their purpose through a great Ask and you’ll see successful results.

Yesterday, Matt Singley (@mattsingley) asked a simple, but rather provocative question via Twitter:

What ensued was an interesting mini-conversation about how to successfully and effectively engage with a competitor’s customers through social media.

The set-up
Let’s say you work for Company Y in Matt’s scenario and have a social media/online monitoring program that watches not only for mentions of your company’s name but your competitors’ names, as well (and if you don’t already have such a program in place, I happen to know a very good agency that can help you).  In the course of your monitoring, you discover that Company X has screwed up and now has some royally discontented customers. What do you do?

Your first instinct may be to jump on this golden opportunity quickly so you can grab some new customers…and I’m going to suggest you squelch this instinct. By being overzealous in your online efforts, you can actually do more harm to your company’s online reputation than good. Don’t be the jackal eagerly waiting to pick off the discontented carcasses of your competitors’ customers.

What should you do, instead?
First, listen, do a little legwork, understand. Find out what happened. In our online world, it’s not that hard to uncover what’s going on when a competitor screws up. Do not – REPEAT, DO NOT – wade into any tweetstream or blogpost until you figure out what’s going on. Failing to grasp an initial understanding of how the customer feels will only make you appear insincere and predatory.

Second, be a human being. Sorry if that seems overly simplistic and obvious, but its astounding how often we forget that long-term sales relationships starts with treating customers like humans with respect. After gaining an understanding of the situation, practice some empathy. Ask yourself, “If I was this individual, would I want someone to start aggressively hawking their wares under my nose right now? Or would I prefer someone to treat me better than I’ve just been treated by Company X?” A little empathy goes a long ways.

What might this look like? Here is a fresh scenario from Twitter:
A customer becomes irritated with a rival’s product or service. Here’s an example from @Dotpage who is calling out @logitech’s slow driver updates:

Let’s say you work for Altec Lansing and uncover a tweet like this. Now maybe no one – including your own company – has drivers ready for Snow Leopard, but here’s a prime opportunity for you to approach a competitor’s disgruntled customer. A course of action might be to research the social media chatter coming from Twitter (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=+to%3Alogitech) where you’ll find this issue is significant source of irritation among Logitech’s customers. Then, your first @ reply should be to note the problems faced by the individual – in this case, a lack of updated drivers. Perhaps send a tweet such as “Sorry to hear about the problems you’re having with speaker drivers…it sucks to not be able to hear sounds from your Mac.” Resist the urge to openly sell your product on first tweet. Remember, your aim is to build a long-term relationship not make a quick sale.

Not everyone you send @ replies are going to respond and that’s okay. For those individuals who do reply, here’s the opportunity to guide your competitor’s customer toward your own products and services. Ask what they want from a product, what drives them crazy, what a company can do to improve their experience. You now have a personal, one-to-one conversation with a buyer that can turn them into a raving fan. People become passionate about purchasing from other people, particularly those who genuinely want the best for them. This interaction can be a catalyst for introducing a customer to your own products and services without the need for even making an open sales call.

After you’ve made contact with the individual on Twitter, then follow them. Don’t make following the first course of action – this is the type of behavior that bots employ and again can be seen as an overly aggressive predatory tactic that will turn off the potential prospect.

Third, make sure every single person in your company is working from the same playbook. This is where breaking down silos and cross-functional planning cannot be under-emphasized. If just one person from your company leaps in like a jackal, then there’s a better-than-average chance your company’s image will be tarnished along with that of Company X.

Any thoughts or counterarguments here? What’s worked for you as a disgruntled customer? What’s worked or hasn’t worked for your company in having conversations like these?

As much as it may offend our current animal-loving sensibilities, the spectacle of bear baiting was once a very popular form of entertainment (and in certain areas of the world, it remains an attraction). Basically, it involved tying a bear to a post in the middle of an arena and attacking the beast with large, trained dogs. It was also common to provoke the bear further by poking it with long, sharp prods. Cruel? Without a doubt.

But I argue that the very same mentality that conjured this sport into creation remains with us today. We still love to sit around and watch corporate C-Levels get skewered for their mistakes or whole brands get mauled when they screw up. And now with social media, it becomes a full participation sport. (And lest you think I’m pointing a finger outward, there are indeed three pointing squarely back at me…I’m unfortunately guilty of this behavior, too.)

So what does this actually say about us? Have we really civilized ourselves and evolved out of our barbaric and bloodthirsty selves? Perhaps not. Perhaps we still love a good show where we can easily provide instant judgment of missteps, quick criticism of poor decisions. Hopefully, we’re not doomed to this quest for base entertainment…hopefully, we have the potential to be better. Here are a couple of ideas for how we can exit the arena and leave the poor bears in peace:

Let’s interactively communicate with the C-Levels, the corporate brand managers, the folks who do exist behind the actions we’re itching to criticize. For Pete’s sake, its as if there’s no room for error anymore. One foul-up and you’re an incompetent hack who deserves to be standing on a street corner begging for some spare change. What has happened to giving space to learn from mistakes? Fewer and fewer executives and brands are going to try to be innovative if they think their efforts are going lambasted by anyone with a Twitter account or blog. So instead, I suggest we be a bit more constructive, offer a bit more feedback, try to act as part of the solution.  Yeah, it may mean we have to try to be a little less cynical. Hell, you might just be able to chalk it up to your one-good-deed-for-the-day. That’ll feel good.

Perhaps the hardest of act of all is not giving in to the pressure of instant judgment. Yes, this means going against the grain and choosing a different perspective in a hypermobilized social media world. But look at it this way: in an increasingly homogenized world where everyone is seeking a way to be unique, your decision to withhold criticism until all the facts are known could be a critical personal differentiator. So, next time Amazon deletes a book from a Kindle, let’s help them learn from this action because they’re maneuvering in uncharted waters. Or next time the CMO from a retailer forgets he’s still responsible for customer satisfaction, let’s offer not only some constructive feedback, but acknowledge that she or he is actually a fallible human being capable of forgiveness.

I’m game for making the attempt if you are. What do you say?

In David Armano‘s post for the Harvard Business blog, Debunking Social Media Myths, he writes:

It’s worth noting that seeding, feeding, and weeding all take place after any social initiative has been launched. But not taking into account the manpower that’s involved in these as you develop your social business design strategy can lead to a lack of adoption or participation–essential elements to any social initiative. Ignoring these realities will continue to propagate the myth that social media is fast, cheap and easy. As organizations look to grow or scale their current initiatives, it’s proving to be anything but. (emphasis added)

This post brought to mind something I thought about this past weekend: that social media is serving as a leverage point for guiding businesses away from the industrial/post-industrial practices that guided them in the twentieth-century. The new way forward is in the comment I made to David’s post:

David, I think what you’re noting here is one significant aspect of the upheaval social media tools have put into play. Thinking back to when the internet first caught fire around 10 years ago as a business tool, most of the activity was centered around doing what organizations had been doing for decades – just faster and more efficient with less overhead. The early internet held incredible promise to enterprises wanting to continue to operate with their industrial/post-industrial practices of engineering the human out of the service and delivery equation.

Now, enter social media which puts the human back in the center of the equation and these same organizations now are confronted with a problem: try to continue with legacy operational thinking or enter a strange (though somewhat familiar) environment that means changing some core processes.

There’s going to be a sort of cognitive dissonance that propagates the myth that “social media is fast, cheap and easy.” It’s because it tramples on the promises of an industrial/post-industrial age that’s passed. We’re entering a whole new territory where business growth isn’t the hare, it’s the tortoise who knows that relationships (which, at times, can be slow to evolve and challenging to maintain) between people are always at the core of every single transaction.