On Wednesday, November 28th, it will once again be Tweet Jam time. This month we'll be concentrating on Socializing Customer Relationship Management and have lined up a great group of panelists.
The Questions
Businesses are moving beyond using social media to gather followers and likes. They are turning to social media channels to engage their audience in dialogue, take care of customer questions and concerns and personalize the customer experience with their brand. Take a look at the questions our experts will tackle below:
How do you define the core mission of Social CRM?
What are the key technologies/practices changing customer service today?
What role does Social CRM play in a larger Social strategy? Is it necessary to have the one before the other?
List 3 reasons why Social CRM projects fail to achieve expected value.
How do you see customer support strategies changing in 2013?
The Panelists
Anyone interested is welcome to join the event and connect with our panelists. The easiest way to join the conversation is by following or including the #cxmchat hashtag.
This month's knowledgeable participants will include:
Denis Pombriant — CEO, Beagle Research Group — @DenisPombriant
Hyoun Park — Principal Analyst, Nucleus Research — @hyuonpark
To hear our expert's weigh in, join us Wednesday, November 28th, at 10 am PST / 1 pm EST / 1700 GMT. The easiest way to follow is to use the #CXMChat hashtag. We will be setting up a chat room and sending out the details via Twitter on the day of the Jam. See you on the 28th!
CRM + Social = Power. Social media is the latest and greatest tool for customer relationship management, learn how to use it to your advantage.
Believe it or not, there are still naysayers out there who believe that social media and social media marketing are fads. Obviously I disagree. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and LinkedIn, and even Reddit, have changed — forever — the ways that people communicate with one another and the ways they share all kinds of information, including advertising.
Of course we are still in the early days of this revolution so social media companies will come and go, just like technologies do. But one thing is certain:
The bottom line: businesses can use Facebook and other social media efforts in the context of customer relationship management so that they can nurture relationships over the long haul. CRM + Social = Power. Here are a few ways businesses can leverage it.
1. Make your marketing relevant (and you’ll increase your conversion rate).
One of the reasons you want to learn about your clients and customers is so that you can better target your products and services. This helps you put them into the “correct” channels so they receive more accurate messages and less spam. Ultimately this makes customers and prospective customers more receptive to your outreach.
Let’s say you have a user who fills out a form to sign up for your company newsletter. Perhaps in the form there is a field asking the user if she has small children at home, or is expecting a baby. If she answers yes to either, you have the opportunity to send her coupons for diapers a few months down the road, or send her housecleaning services or information about college savings plans. She appreciates the focus of your efforts — and that you’re not sending her ads for online dating services!
2. Whenever possible, target your ads.
I’m just going to come right out and say it: I love Facebook ads. I think the way Facebook serves me ads that are totally relevant to my interests is super cool. Let me give you an example.
I’m really into triathlons right now. I participated in a few over the summer — triathlon relays are great team-building exercises, by the way — and they were all within about 30 miles of where I live.
Now that I’ve Liked the events I participated in, Facebook “knows” that I am ripe for information about this type of event. So I expect that I might soon be seeing some ads for triathlons, or maybe bike races and marathons, that are a little bit farther away.
In all likelihood these are events that I might not know about, but I’m still interested in. What’s more, it’s unlikely that Facebook will be bombarding me with ads that are not relevant to me.
3. Make your social efforts another collection point.
Your business’ website is no longer the only place to collect data about your customers. In the past, the verbiage went something like: “If you want to download our whitepaper, fill out this form” or “If you want to know about my newsletter, sign up here.” But thanks to Facebook and other social channels, you can make it more fun. You can use apps (more on this later) to create games or contests for users to enter in exchange for a little bit of information.
In the past it was very expensive to create contests and custom apps but thanks to third party apps, these options are within reach of virtually any small business.
You can also use Facebook questions to gather data beyond your existing fanbase. When your “Likes” answer a question, their friends (even the ones who don’t Like you) have the opportunity to answer the question — this is a good way to expand your data sample size.
In today’s IT alphabet soup, why would something as ordinary sounding as “customer experience” become a hot topic? Haven’t “customers” always experienced using computer systems? So what’s different?
The answer lies partly in the Internet’s evolution from information resource to transaction platform, and partly in its transformation from “system-centered” to “user-centered.”
Growth of the Transaction Internet
Historically, the Internet was like a virtual library. If you found what you wanted, fine; if you didn’t, you kept looking or gave up. User experience was a “soft variable” and if users didn’t succeed, they seldom complained.
Then, in the 90s, the Web evolved from information/research tool to transaction platform including functions previously available only via mail, phone or at the “next window please.”
Beginning with simple e-Commerce, the Internet expanded to new accounts, licenses, contributions, payments, permits and all manner of transactions. Unlike research, when transactions fail, there are tangible impacts, some quite serious.
Rise of the User-Driven Web
Beginning with Web 2.0 in 1999, the Web refocused Internet based systems from designers and managers to users and consumers. Users began to demand systems that function as they wanted, and were willing to retaliate when things didn’t go as they expected. This changed the way system developers had to approach their design and development efforts.
Needed: A New Development Model
Web development, from it outset, had been a “soft system” activity largely lacking design or development rigor.
But with user demands escalating and organizations adding more transactions to their Internet presence, increased rigor in the Web development process became mandatory. With little available on the Web-centric side, it was only natural to look to the business system community and it’s stable of rigorous, proven development methodologies.
The Web system community began applying various system development tools to their tasks … with end-to-end results often less than they had hoped for. What could be wrong?
The answer has only lately become clearer: the methodologies work as they should, but the challenges they face often fail to meet the core assumptions on which the methods are based.
Finding Rigor in a Messy Content Life Cycle
Unfortunately, the content life cycle with which Web-based systems must deal doesn’t come close to the level of predictability or symmetry possible, or expected, in business systems, including the following:
Business system design is normally controlled by the designer, but Web-based systems are often controlled by their intended users and, to a lesser degree, by the providers of the information involved.
Business systems, supply chain management, A/R-A/P, payroll, etc., are normally internal to their organizations; every involved group is expected to help make the system successful, but Web-based systems must often deal with outside users and providers, with their own goals, preferences and prejudices; and with a range of computer savvy and resources from high to virtually none.
Business systems are often — and previously always — designed with an implicit assumption that a support group will be available to help users cope with system problems, but Web-based systems increasingly cannot assume that level of support, requiring that whatever support the user gets is built into the system.
Getting the Context Correct
Facing the two-headed monster of uncontrollable providers and users on one side, and the need for rigor in system design on the other, the Web world has struggled, often ignoring whichever side the particular designers are least familiar with.
One of the really big announcements this week from OpenText’s customer conference in Orlando is the release of the OpenText Cloud, which according to OpenText CEO Mark J. Barrenechea in his keynote speech, is the only cloud on the market at the moment specifically for enterprise information management (EIM).
It’s hardly surprising that OpenText Cloud should focus on EIM — after all OpenText is an EIM vendor, if nothing else — but it is the breath of what it is being made available that is really surprising.
OpenText Cloud
From the word go, Barrenechea says, the new cloud will provide all OpenText’s offerings as cloud products and services that will run in parallel to its already extensive list of on-premises products. The result is, that as of this week enterprises will have access to more than 20 ready-to-use OpenText applications and services.
The difference with other cloud vendors, he says, is that the vast majority of them focus on providing infrastructure and applications in the cloud. OpenText, in contrast, is focusing on providing its full stack as well as specific knowledge and contextual support for deployment and maintenance, management, monitoring, security, optimization, upgrade and application management of all aspects of the cloud.
It also provides a service-level agreement on application availability, which we have seen in the past is one of the things that enterprises considering a cloud move need to look at from the very outset.
But the 20 applications and services are only the start, Barrenechea says:
The OpenText Cloud is purpose-built for EIM. Over the next two years, all OpenText software will be available both on-premises and in our Cloud. With over two million end users and 21,000 customers already in our cloud, we are making great progress."
OpenText EIM Stack
That’s a pretty impressive statement and probably the kind of thing that we’re going to be hearing a lot more of from vendors in the near future as enterprises take the advantages of cloud to heart and forget about concerns around security and the availability of applications.
For OpenText, the services it provides will be divided into four core areas:
Infrastructure Services: It provides an infrastructure that runs the cloud from 10 data centers around the world along with storage, networking, backup, virtualization and monitoring abilities.
Hosting Services: The provision of complete IT services that range from deployment to disaster recovery. Along with service-level agreements, current hosted offerings include: Tempo Social, Tempo Box, Content Server, Records Management, Content Lifecycle Management (CLM), Business Process Management (BPM), Web Content Management (WCM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM).
Information Services: Information exchange from any device to any device and includes seamless business process integration across the entire global infrastructure of any data format. Current services include: fax, message archive, EDI VAN, capture and recognition, notifications and telex.
Social Collaboration Services: Provides a pervasive layer of collaboration, social marketing, synching and sharing abilities across all applications through the OpenText cloud.
OpenText Cloud Financials
This is such a major project that there is really not a lot more to be said about it until it is actually running for clients. The initial offerings are available already, but the idea of a whole stack up in the cloud is a pretty interesting idea.
Social CRM Tweet Jam We're in CXMChat Tweet Jam mode. Mark the date: November 28th at 10am PT, 1pm ET. The panelists are lining up at the door, but it's the Tweet Jam questions we want to show you now.
Remember the good old days when customer interactions were between you and the customer?
Those days are over. It used to be easy. They bought your product, took it home and liked it or they didn't. Sometimes they'd call to complain, but that was between the customer service rep and the customer. Now dissatisfaction or appreciation of a product or service is between the customer, the business and all of their friends and followers. Competition is high, choices are plentiful and the end product is only part of the package.
So why do businesses think they can still ignore what their customers say on social media?
Jan Rezab is out to change that.
Jan is CEO of Socialbakers, a social media analytics firm that tracks the level of customer engagement on social media platforms. He believes that social media is the marketing game in today's world, saying "it is cheaper, more targeted, more engaging and more effective than traditional channels."
From Liking to Engagement
But it isn't just about listening to your customers or gathering followers. Those are just continuations of the one way method of communications used in the past. The key to the game in Jan's mind is engagement. He defines engagement as "communicating effectively so that your audience (your customers) becomes involved enough to interact with you and your brand," or as Socialbakers terms it, being "socially devoted" to your customers.
Content plays a key role in this engagement. By providing customers with unique, compelling content and sending it out on the proper channels in a timely way, businesses differentiate themselves from competitors and start conversations. This is the evolution of traditional marketing in Jan's eyes, "Similar goals, different channels, more interactive customer behavior with a greater willingness to participate."
It Doesn't End When You Get the Customer in the Door
Engagement doesn't end at the point of sale. It is a conversation that needs to be continued throughout the customer journey. We've all heard the statistics of the higher rate of return from retaining customers than acquiring. Jan agrees with this strategy:
Social media is a key customer service channel; if handled correctly, social media can become one of the key drivers for companies' positive reputation growth or product advocacy and savings on call center costs. Social media can and in many instances already do play a role in acquiring new customers. However, before any brand goes down the route of acquisition, we'd recommend to get the basics right and ensure current customers are being attended to at least as much as new ones."
As for the future, it is just becoming clearer that businesses who ignore social channels are doing it at their own risk. If you want to be where your customers are, you will develop a social media strategy (if you don't already have one) right quick. I'll give Jan the final word:
Given that social media channels are still growing and more and more people are connecting, it's only logical that these channels will be more and more interesting for brands. Any successful marketer or communications professional has to have social media skills simply because the vast majority of their target audience spends a significant amount of time on social networks."
The trend towards greater and greater customer empowerment requires a deeper and deeper understanding of customer needs.
“When people, teams, and organizations develop new products and services, they tend to have endless discussions about what users or customers need, who customers are, and what features the design of their offering should have,” Tomer Sharon, Search UX Researcher at Google and author of recent book, ‘It’s Our Research’, states. This is what I call designing with five smart people in a room drinking lattes syndrome.
“Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur from Silicon Valley and a Stanford university professor, says there are no facts inside the building,” Tomer says. “Development teams cannot make decisions without developing customers first. Not products, not technologies: Customers. He coined the mantra, "Get Out of the Building". What he means by that is that developers of products should get up from their comfortable chairs and proactively seek opportunities to learn from their customers about their needs to be able to understand what the company's business model should be.”
Tomer cites “intuition” as one of the primary reasons people don’t get out of the building. In a modern, complex, constantly changing world, intuition is a dangerous thing. Intuition is essentially learned behavior patterns. It speaks to the past. If the same basic event keeps recurring then intuition is great. But if the world is changing rapidly, intuition can be disastrous.
“Some people are just scared of what they'll hear,” Tomer states. “They are afraid of failing and of invalidating their assumptions. Actually, they don't consider their assumptions as such. They think they are facts. It is our jobs (UX practitioners) to help people recognize their assumptions.”
One very interesting technique Tomer uses to combat ‘stay in the building’ syndrome he calls Field Fridays. “Field Fridays are an excellent opportunity for software engineers to meet users face to face, see how they use their products, and learn about their behavior. During these events, a team of engineers moderates 20-minute interview sessions with real users, speed dating style, on a Friday morning once a month. I started this program since I was amazed to learn that some engineers work on products for 3 years without meeting a single human being who actually uses their code.”
Tomer says that divergence between what the team thinks the customer will do and what the customer actually does happens on a daily basis. And don’t trust what customers tell you, either.
“Navigational search queries are ones where users use Google to search for websites or webpages,” Tomer states. “For example, when I enter "netherlands wikipedia" into the search box, I am conducting a navigational query. When I am entering "population size netherlands" into the search box, it is not a navigational query since I don't have a specific site in mind. When you explain this concept to Google users and ask them if they conduct navigational queries, they usually tell you they hardly do them. Yet, when you ask them to complete a certain task or if you analyze usage logs or even the same person's web search history (after getting their permission of course), you find they do many navigational searches. Humans are very bad at analyzing their behavior (past, present, and future) and they tend to rationalize it so they look good, reasonable, and smart. I try to focus my research on observing behavior rather than listening to what people say.”
Adobe has released their Q3 2012 Global Digital Index Report, which analyzes and reports the findings on social engagement and paid searches.
Adobe is pretty focused on the customer experience. The provider of digital marketing solutions conducts a lot of research into trends in its industry. In August we saw research pointing to the growth of mobile for online shopping.
Now we dig deeper into the what's happening in the digital advertising industry today and where it is headed next year. The data in this report (Q3 2012 Digital Advertising Update) came from over 260 billion impressions for 338 companies and the activity of 70 million fans — taken from Adobe AdLens and Adobe Social.
Search Trends
Web traffic has started to shift in more of mobile route with the increase of smartphones and tablets. At the same time, search spend is also increasing in the US, UK and Germany, despite a bad economy, demonstrating how important search still is in the marketers arsenal of advertising tools.
ROI and Spend
Searches and ROI has been growing in the U.K, U.S and Germany over the past year. In the US search spend was up by 11 percent, and ROI improved by 26 percent. In the UK and Germany spend was up by 36 percent and 25 percent, respectively, YoY.
The percentages that were related to specific search engines in the last quarter didn’t change much. Bing/Yahoo! increased by one per cent, while Google declined by one per cent.
Click Volume and CPC
Click volume had a surge of activity over the last quarter. Google, which was down in the last quarter has slowly been improving. Their average for this quarter was up 21 percent YoY, while Bing/Yahoo decreased to 11 percent YoY.
Google CPCs were down 10% YoY, and the report points to the increase in mobile clicks as part of the reason for this.
Mobile Devices
Overall search spend has increased across all devices, but conversion rates, CPCs and ROI varies widely. Conversion rates vary by device and OS, with iOS nearly double those of Android. This supports the idea that marketers need to organize their search spend differently across devices.
Social Engagement
Facebook has become a key source for companies to spread their brand. According to the advertising update, engagement, which is defined as likes, comments and shares, on the social network grew about 896 percent YOY. It was determined that increased engagement is partly a result of platform updates (specifically Timeline), new metrics for acquisition and engagement, and more effective social marketing.
Forecasting Search
Adobe is expecting search to have a strong retail season, with a prediction of 15-20% growth in both the US and Europe. It also expects CPCs to increase due to the holiday season and to Google Shopping transitioning to a paid model. Paid search clicks are also expected to continue to increase from mobile devices (smartphone or tablet). And finally, expect that Facebook advertising will grow.
Report Conclusions
Social Engagement is becoming a key and valuable tool that should be used when marketing a product to a general or specific audience.
Search should also continue to be part of the marketing tool set as it continues to grow, especially on mobile devices.
Marketers should spend time forming a plan on how to make search spend part of their tool set, as it is becoming important to digital marketing.
Written Amazon reviews aren't pretty enough in the age of Pinterest. Customer Images are the new way to discover portable potties, unicorn masks, and bunny jackets.
But we're all about Pinterest, Instagram, Photoset, and picture apps that let us express ourselves in images now. Amazon, it turns out, is way ahead of the curve here--and we may have discovered the service's potential pivot. Lurking a few clicks in on a large number of its e-commerce treasures is a feature called Customer Images. It's not new. But given its subtle presence, it might be new to you. What you've more likely never realized is that it's a semi-secret treasure trove of user-generated, sharable moments that just happen to involve props you can buy. Here are some of our favorites.
For those reading this story in the year 2032, before The Lord Supreme Mitt II and the Romney Fraternal Dynasty brought about a lasting peace and benevolent absolute rule upon this planet we call BainEarth(TM), foolish people once tried to make what was then called a "meme" out of a progressive, insightful glorious comment by the All Powerful Prophet Lord Dr. General Mitt Romney The First, a remark made in what was then known as a "debate" in the dark times of The Great Satan Hussein Obama. The words were "a binder full of women." It has sense gone on to mean the luxurious and most gracious accommodations afforded to unwed mothers, free of charge, courtesy of the Mitt Dynasty Administration. Can you believe there was a time when people went to such great lengths to make fun of the idea?! [ Source] [ Source]
Again with the Romney. Honestly? Look at this face. It totally doesn't look real. The teeth are too perfect. The smile looks Photoshopped. The hair looks plastic. The mask is dead on, though. [ Source]
In the interest of equal time ... Wait, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Supergroup! Romney on skins. Barry on the lute. Ah-one. Two. Ah-one, two, three, four! [ Source]
"[Name omitted] never seems to mind just where he uses his new potty so long as it isn't a public bathroom stall," writes the Amazon user we hope is the parent of this future middle school wedgie recipient, who will, at least on our site, go nameless. We wish this lil grunt's parents were the only ones squeezing off shots of their kids dropping their kids off at the proverbial portable pool. Sadly this is but one in a several similar images. Hey, wait. I recognize the roadside spot pictured here. It's a dump! [ Source]
"Little known fact," says Amazon user Nappy "Nappy" "Nappy" from York, PA, "Unicorns love Vans." Perseus is totally loaded, passed out in the back. The band on the stereo? Wings. [ Source] [ Source]
Bro. We fully rocked Bongzilla at two of the last three DMB shows, and we CRUSHED it at the county fair. We saw someone with a seven-tube version, but when they tried to use it, a hole tore open in the time-space continuum and they folded infinitely inside themselves until there was nothing left. Whooo!! [ Source]
Key to understanding the hilarity in this the set of mostly adorable wabbit shots is that they're the "before" versions of the "after" products being sold on Amazon by a person we presume is Glenn Close's bunny-boiling character from Fatal Attraction. Or the worst. Magician. Ever. [ Source] [ Source]
Of course there are plenty of ways to enjoy your rabbit that don't involve digestion. Perhaps it would like to cruise or be cruised in this shiny blue leather jackrabbit jacket. "Fits nice but barely fits my holland lop. He's an exception though because he's overweight ... this is my dwarf," writes Customer Image uploader "crawdaddy." No, don't stop, go on! [ Source]
... And if bunny's tired, kitty's surely eager for a workout! Writes this photo-sharing user: "Let your cat enjoy the outdoors in safety" ... without the stress of ever having to meet or like a companion in its owner's lonely life, that is. The marketing genius that naughtily named this product clearly has a cruel sense of humor. [ Source] [ Source]
We've all been there. Blown a mile out to sea by an explosion. Stranded. Clinging desperately to the set of hulking, matching wooden trunks that, when you first agreed to throw yourself into a volcano on the Island of Waponi-Woo, seemed like an indulgence. And while you were able to bind those trunks together and fashion yourself a life raft, the raft is hardly maneuverable, and, holy Christ here comes a massive container ship! What to do?! Cap'n John W. Trimmer has 112 pages worth of answers--in the second edition of the wildly popular 1982 original. (No, lots has changed.) Or, you could save yourself $507.52 (at post time) and 111 pages of effort and follow the supplemental diagram provided by Amazon Customer Image uploader Lisa Krause. [ Source]
When he's not collecting art (see: wall), Amazon Customer Image uploader S. PAULSON "sociallyskilled "sociallyskilled" is a semi-professional maker of cat-flight art in his own right. Just a typical friday night here. A dude. A laptop. A beanbag chair. And a two-part, easily storable feather pole for giving his furry felines "Da Bird." [ Source] [ Source]
Apple no longer supports this shirt. For a host of breathtaking new features, please download the "Three Mountain Lion" shirt. [ Source] [ Source] [ Source]
Martha! Some Tuscan's hawking his milk on Amazon again! And the damn wolves won't shut up about it! (We did not Photoshop and upload this ourselves.) [ Source]
Delivering customer experiences that are engaging, relevant and persuasive is a key competitive advantage in today’s business environment. Recognizing that employees are the driving force that can make or break a great customer experience is the first step. An effective change management initiative is the second step necessary to ensure that employees have the knowledge and structure to deliver.
There are many factors that determine the success and influence the implementation of a robust customer experience management program (CXM). Technology has become a primary enabler. It allows you to target the right audiences with sophisticated campaign management tools, publish content with complex management systems, and measure and optimize the results using analytics. Combined, these capabilities make up an enterprise marketing platform or EMP.
The true potential of EMPs is often not realized. One aspect that is often overlooked or underestimated when it comes to deploying EMPs is the organizational readiness. From the onset, a CXM/EMP rollout requires various groups such as product, channel, brand, operations and analytics, to work across silos, share a common vision and leverage shared processes and tools.
Getting everyone to work together, share common goals and agree on metrics for success within this new model inevitably results in drastic changes to individuals, groups, teams and entire organizations. Change management can help organizations to control the potential implications (such as resistance and concerns) of such changes.
The Need for Organizational Change Management
Real and lasting change only occurs when employees alter their thinking, beliefs and habits. While it may be easy to recognize the need for change, putting it into practice is an entirely different story.
Humans are, by nature, resistant to change. Resistance takes many forms: unwillingness to learn a new system, disagreement with management decisions and uncertainty over changing job requirements including job security. It is the primary reason enterprise initiatives fail.
Uncertainty can grow when management hires external "experts" to support the organization as can not being "selected" to participate in the project team. Secrecy and lack of communication further contribute to dissent, as employees immediately become fearful when they perceive management withholding information.
Organizational Change Management Fundamentals
Leadership and change authority John P. Kotter defines change management as a set of basic tools or structures intended to keep any change effort under control . The goal is to minimize the distractions and impacts of the change, while maximizing the potential the change intends to bring.
During the initial phase of a rollout, the following areas need to be addressed as a part of the change management process.
Roles & Responsibilities
Internal roles and responsibilities will change. Team structure, employee interaction and workload will all be affected. It is necessary to define where one employee’s responsibilities end and another’s begin. A "RACI" chart is a great tool to drive and provide clarity across the organization.
As the world moves from a product-centric economy to a customer-centric economy, marketers must move in tandem to ensure the customer experience is always at the heart of their efforts. Tim Gilbert, Chief Marketing Officer of Campus Management, a provider of enterprise software for the higher education industry, addressed this issue during a session at today’s Revenue-Driven Marketing Summit held by Aberdeen Group in Boston, MA.
Appropriate for a presentation involving college, Gilbert took the stage to the strains of hard rock superstars AC/DC and began his explanation of customer-centric marketing by using Apple as an example. “Apple used to be a product category for graphic designers in the art department,” he said. “Now I don’t know an executive who doesn’t check their iPhone regularly.”
Gilbert said Apple made this marketing breakthrough with an iterative process that kept the needs of customers at its core, developing services such as iTunes as well as devices such as the iPhone to provide a complete branded experience.
Marketing in the Age of Self-Advocacy
In the customer-centric economy, Gilbert said the entire experience from seller to buyer has changed. “There must be a meaningful interaction,” he advised. “We’re in an age of self-advocacy. Complaints go on Facebook. And our customers must compel college students. It’s a strange relationship where the customer pays a lot of money, gets judged every term, and incurs a lot of debt when they’re done. Colleges are having trouble maintaining that relationship.” (also read: Customer Experience: Serving the Customer, Building the Brand)
To help higher education clients place their customers (students and parents who often foot part or all of the bill), Gilbert said Campus Management helps them create a single, unified view of a student across all channels of interaction. In addition, since rejecting applicants is not good for the school’s brand (although necessary), Gilbert said Campus Management software helps colleges locate, attract and maintain relationships with the “right” students who possess the “right” qualifications, such as SAT scores in a specific range.
In a specific example of how colleges can put the customer at the center of their marketing efforts, Gilbert said the University of Ottawa collects testimonials from current students in the local area of a prospective student and compiles them in a personalized e-book.
CRM Case Study: Ball State University
Gilbert concluded his remarks by reviewing the CRM objectives of Campus Management client Ball State University in Indiana, perhaps best known as the alma mater of late night talk show host David Letterman:
Enhance recruitment/admissions efficiency by X, Y and Z within 12 months.
Improve student experience by A,B,C.
Train and empower non-IT users to do segmenting, prospecting and targeting of prospective students via automated and integrated marketing communications programs.
“Job number one is buy-in from C-level executives,” stated Gilbert. “Dream big, then write it, When you budget it, get real. Know the risks and prepare for the ‘domino effect.’ Use small steps rather than a ‘Big Bang’ approach. Set milestones and celebrate success. And always be transparent, whether good, bad or ugly."
Businesses are growing up on the Internet, and more and more, customers are used to self-service online. Businesses increasingly handle customer service via chat and social media channels. It's changing how we do business, Richard White, CEO of UserVoice said at the inaugural UserConf this week.
All Your Customer Support Belongs to Us
White pointed out that exceptional customer service is not new — we just call those companies luxury brands. But the majority of companies — who aren't luxury brands — have also seen their customers' expectations of service change.
"43 percent of people we surveyed said they could have solved a problem if they had the tools," White said.
White's company, UserVoice is a startup that provides online forums and support systems for companies to better understand their customers. White founded the UserConf to gather people — not from the sales management or IT departments — who are focused on customer experience and let them share their ideas.
Traditional customer service is painful, and poor customer service is the #1 cause of customer attrition.
When we call our airlines or wireless companies, we expect to have to enter in our 10-digit account number, wait on hold and then have to give the number again to an agent, White said. In the future, agents will be better equipped to handle multiple channels, nearly all will respond to tweets and it will all be done in less than one day, he said.
"As companies move to subscription-based models (Saas), customer support begins to look more like sales," White said.
Those customer support people aren't just solving problems but working with current customers to keep them coming back. The sales funnel indeed looks more like a loop in this scenario, but the kinds of problems being solved changes as well. In the subscription model, the more common problems are automated, so customer support is focused on dealing with more complex problems — even if they have fewer to handle overall.
The Digital Marketing Land Rush is Over
Companies can't simply build a Facebook app that tricks 10,000 people into handing over their contact info, and then raise a ton of money based on a gimmick, White said. Google AdWords bring in less money while the keywords cost more, he pointed out. In other words, as the Internet has grown up, it's become harder to bring in new customers in ways no one else has thought of. According to White, that means companies have to go back to old school tactics — like giving great customer service.
The rise of social media has radically altered the state of customer communications. Organizations now have unparalleled insight into customer wants, needs and — more importantly — into their perspectives. But consumers have gained a tremendous amount of influence, with social networks literally giving a global voice to every customer. This means that delivering a positive customer experience — tailored to individual expectations — is now a critical part of marketing and customer service.
Thus, the market for customer experience management (CXM) technology has grown significantly in importance in the past few years. CMSWire recently had the chance to discuss CXM technology and market trends with Michael Orbach, Managing Director of Cascadia Capital, a boutique investment bank specializing in private and public growth companies in the social and digital media sectors, among other markets.
CXM — What Is It?
Orbach began his commentary by briefly providing a firm definition of CXM, which can be a somewhat nebulous term.
“CXM fits into the marketing automation sector,” he said. “In this broader sector, you have solutions that perform functions like marketing surveys, customer polling and web content management. But CXM focuses on how businesses interact with consumers at the point of product.”
Although CXM solutions can be used in virtually any industry, Orbach used the successful coffee retail chain Starbucks as an example to illustrate how CXM actually works.
“Starbucks interacts directly with consumers at the store level and uses feedback to improve corporate performance," he said. "The segment is extremely dynamic, and it all starts with customer interaction.”
However, Orbach cautioned that customer feedback must be meaningful. “You need something more than, ‘The girl behind the counter is pretty’ or ‘This place is dirty,’” he stated. “That doesn’t really tell you much.”
How Does CXM Work?
CXM technology helps companies ensure they collect meaningful customer feedback in a timely manner. “Surveys often have a gamification aspect to create an initiative to participate,” said Orbach. In the case of a retailer like Starbucks, gamification might extend to the back end so local store personnel are also incentivized to encourage customer participation. Technologies such as mobile devices — along with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter — can also help organizations obtain instant feedback, which allows for faster response to any customer issues or concerns.
In addition to providing an adequate and timely customer feedback mechanism, CXM solutions also must provide a means of interpreting feedback once it is collected. “There is a complex analytics problem,” said Orbach. “You get a lot of data in a short time. In the case of Starbucks, they need to analyze feedback and then deliver results to the store manager and regional manager, as well as to the corporate entity.”
Orbach said the potential for high volumes of immediate data created by the ubiquity of mobile devices and social media also necessitates a strong analytics component to any CXM solution.
What Is the Market Like?
Considering how important CXM has become in an era of consumer empowerment and instant global communication, it’s not surprising that Orbach sees a very healthy market for CXM
“There is a lot of CXM activity in terms of mergers and acquisitions and financing,” said Orbach. “Oracle acquired RightNow, TPG invested $1 billion in SurveyMonkey, Fizzback was bought by Nice.”
How are customers using the Web to make their buying choices? That’s the key question in a new report from Oracle.
The report, entitled The Connected Customer 2012: Evolving Behavior Patterns, was based on an online survey conducted in April by Oracle Retail’s E-Tailing Group. The aim was to examine consumer browsing and buying behavior across Net, mobile, social and cross-channel options. It included responses from 1,033 consumers who shopped online four or more times in the past year. The report focused on respondents who owned smartphones and/or tablets.
Shopping in a Multi-Channel Environment
The report found that determining the path buyers are taking requires more research than it used to, because consumers have access to an ever-increasing number of device and channel options. Shopping within a multi-channel environment is becoming the norm with these buyers, the report found. Smartphones and tablets are increasingly part of the “shopper’s arsenal,” although device choice depends on need, timing and location.
Buyers are becoming much more accustomed to making online price comparisons, because of the increasing convenience in doing so. They also demand comprehensive product information along with education about a product category before making their buying decisions.
The top reasons for shopping online include:
More opportunities to research products (81 percent)
The opportunity to comparison shop (81 percent)
The ability to shop more conveniently (77 percent)
Buy Online, Follow Up in Store
Although more than half of respondents said they like to shop on the internet because it is less expensive, physical stores clearly fit into connected buyers’ shopping strategy. Nearly half, (48 percent) said that they often research online but follow up with a store visit. For a substantial number of respondents, in-store advantages include getting the best fit on clothing, touching and feeling the product, interacting with a “savvy store associate” and the ability to obtain a product right away rather than waiting for it to arrive.
Among the Oracle report's recommendations for both e-Commerce retailers and those who run physical stores, were:
Building a "comprehensive shopping experience" with all the information needed to make a sale
Using category-centric content — such as videos or how-to instructions — to engage customers
Making sure the shopping experience includes strong imagery, supporting copy and the introduction of social elements.
The takeaway for retailers: soon, pretty much every customer will be an educated consumer thanks to their smartphones, tablets and the number of channels available to them. Engage them — with information, social media outreach and a comprehensive shopping experience.
A customer represents two things: an immediate dollars-and-cents sales opportunity, and a store of valuable data, including buying habits, behaviors and opinions. Technical support company Support.com has some ideas on how to use this data to improve the way your employees influence customer experience.
When a Stranger Calls, Data Answers
We thought it was fitting to take a closer look to see how a tech support company uses data to improve the way their personal technology experts turn data into actions and the impact these actions have on customer experience and satisfaction. We spoke with Paul Vaillancourt, senior vice president of Contact Center Operations at Support.com to learn more.
Support.com provides remote technology services to consumers and small businesses directly via an online portal and channel partners (which include retailers and anti-virus companies). Personal Technology Experts must pass rigorous testing and training before helping customers.
Unlike other companies, everything at Support.com is analyzed. From the moment a call is answered to the moment the case is resolved, calls are recorded, scrutinized and archived on-site. Additionally, because one single system is used, data is instantly available, eliminating time it may take to transfer data from one CRM into another.
Influencing the Behaviors of Others
How tech experts are trained can determine whether companies meet their overall goals and whether customers’ problems get solved. As a result, when Support.com noticed a higher than normal attrition rate, they focused their attention on the training process to better understand how they can improve the effectiveness of tech experts.
First, they listened. Before tech experts get to answer actual customer calls, they undergo rigorous training and then a nesting period, during which they role-play. They listened to what those who decided to leave said in their exit interviews, as well as to feedback they received from others. They learned that experts were overwhelmed by the complexity of their tool set. As a result, Support.com changed how they introduced experts to calls, having them listen more to actual customer calls before they role-played (which they did more of as well).
Then they created a goal. Goals were actual behaviors, rather than a metric. Instead of saying that they wanted to decrease the length of the call by two minutes, they said: we want experts to solve problems quicker. In order to solve problems quicker, it was important to understand how experts could glean better information from callers. They determined that not enough probing questions were being asked. Sure, experts were active listeners, but they weren’t necessarily asking questions that could uncover useful information in a timely matter. Once experts were properly trained to listen for keywords and specific prompts, call times were shortened.
Finally, they give constant feedback. PTE’s are given score cards which contain six weeks' worth of data, including average call length, call disposition, contacts per hour, attendance and a quality score. The score card also compares an expert’s results to other experts as well as company goals, so individuals can see how their behaviors impact overall goals.
Creating a Culture of Intentional Actions (and Outcomes)
What Support.com’s process for listening, analyzing and producing actionable insights really highlights is the impact that a company culture built around data can have on customer experience. Every company says that they are dedicated to ROI — but not every company invests in the actions of their employees to really understand how behaviors translates into outcomes.
One of the really big announcements this week from 
Pretty sure this guy works out at my gym--and dominates the squat thrust area. 
A customer represents two things: an immediate dollars-and-cents sales opportunity, and a store of valuable data, including buying habits, behaviors and opinions. Technical support company 