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Showing posts with label customers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customers. Show all posts

Nov 14, 2012

Customer Experience Meets Classical System Development

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.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Nov 10, 2012

This Week: Creating Loyal Customers + The Latest Mobile Stats

Customer Loyalty
Did you know that engaged employees create loyal customers? Or that in addition to your sales people, brand advocates also drive sales?

It's also important that marketing and sales work together to ensure the best customer management strategy is in place.

It's a Mobile World
Studies show that 50% of US adults own a smartphone or tablet, and that Generation C is best reached via mobile. This is all good news for mobile advertisers (and explains all those smartphone sales).

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.

2012 Gartner Web CMS Magic Quadrant Report
Gartner identifies three trends that have altered the web content management market since 2011.
> Download Now

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Nov 6, 2012

Eloqua Partners with Brainshark to Offer Videos in Marketing Campaigns

Brainshark aims to improve how Eloqua customers use videos as a marketing tool, by improving their overall consumer appeal.

Video Marketing is Popular

Brainshark, is a cloud-based video marketing tool that provides users with the ability to share, track and improve their video marketing campaigns.

In a statement, Chief Marketing Officer of Brainshark, Andy Zimmerman explained that it's becoming harder for marketers to promote products. They not only have to present themselves in unique fashion, but create content quickly that's readily available for not only PCs, but mobile and tablet devices. With the addition of Brainshark Presentations into the Eloqua AppCloud, Eloqua users can use these video enhancement tools to improve on their consumer relationships and subsequently, their overall company sales and consumer reach.

Some of the features include:

  • Video content from Brainshark can be used with campaigns and landing pages created through Eloqua.
  • Users are able to track their video content and see who’s viewing it and what their reactions are.
  • Video can not only be created in Brainshark, but based on consumer feedback, Eloqua users can easily update and re-purpose the content.
  • Eloqua can use Brainshark’s in-depth analytics tool to have a broader sense where their marketing focus should be.

A Year of Changes for Eloqua

Eloqua , which recently became a publicly traded company, introduced a an automated marketing tool last month. The tool, called Eloqua Asset Management, is compatible with the Eloqua AppCloud and focuses on enabling managers and marketers to make their marketing automation solutions relevant to specific markets.

This new partnership with BrainShark isn't the only partnership venture for Eloqua, In July they integrated with salesforce.com’s Chatter. Eloqua users, whether or not members of salesforce.com, are able to use this feature without leaving the Eloqua platform. This new partnership between the two companies will give marketers the chance to develop more skills for communication and collaboration with their colleagues.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Nov 1, 2012

Built-In Customer Support Turns Feedback into Conversations

Modern businesses need to do more than just provide customers with a way to provide feedback, they need to drive their customers to engage in a conversation about their product.

In March 2012, Apple announced the 25 billionth download from their App Store, giving away a cool US$ 10,000 iTunes gift card. Apple reported approximately US$ 5.7 billion revenue on those 25 billion downloads, so it is easy to do the math: the mobile app landscape is dominated by free and low-cost downloads. Mobile App analytics firm App Annie reports that the average revenue per download for iOS games in the US is just 67 cents.

Changing Dynamics

For mobile apps, having such a low price point changes the purchase dynamic. Users are skeptical of apps that charge too much up front, which has given rise to “freemium” services and in-app purchases. These sort of models lower the threshold for downloads, making it easier for customers to try before they buy. And while there are avenues to request refunds, many consumers may find it is not worth the hassle to get their US$ .99 back. Instead, they might just write a spiteful review and give the app a low rating.

This creates quite a predicament for mobile app developers, who have no way to reach out to the users behind those arbitrary star ratings and three-word reviews like, “this doesn’t work.” How can they intervene with a user who sees no other avenue for venting frustration than a one-star rating and a spiteful review?

Consider also that we are rapidly entering a world where, for many young people, talking to people is not the primary use of their phone. Even if they reach out for customer service, they might prefer Twitter or Facebook to calling in or sending email. Yet they expect all of those options to be available.

Built-In Customer Service

To succeed in the mobile app marketplace, businesses need the half-inch square icon on a customer’s mobile device to stand for a great customer experience. Which means, in part, exceeding expectations around service and support. Move beyond the baseline of Facebook, Twitter, phone and email to create a positive customer experience, even when an app fails.

  • Give customers the ability to express themselves from inside the app they are using. Create a seamless customer service experience.
  • Use an in-app feedback mechanism to leverage contextual information and create a personalized customer service experience. Help your customer service agents understand who the customer is, their usage history and usage preferences.
  • Aggregate usage and personalization data from your app for a data-driven customer service experience. Analytics can help developers understand how users interact with an app, and assist with debugging.

When an app provides ways to reach out for service and support, it can deflect some of those bad ratings and spiteful reviews. It can also help you identify potential advocates who love your app, but aren’t necessarily thinking, “I need to go write a review.”

Research into consumer behavior in app stores suggests that the number of reviews matter: more reviews encourage more sales. And analysis from NYU and the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that reviews and ratings are of particular value for the types of things that are difficult for consumers to evaluate prior to purchase: books, movies and apps. The higher your rating, the more likely you are to pique the interest of potential customers.

Customer service strategies can be slow to evolve. A company that pays attention to app store feedback and reviews is one step down the path. But simply listening is not the same thing as engaging. That requires being open to feedback and responding.

Modern businesses that drive their customers to engage in a conversation about their product will have a competitive advantage. Techniques like in-app feedback and usage analytics will yield better ratings and more positive reviews, which in turn can result in more sales, and engaged customers who love your product and who want to talk about it.

About the Author

Joshua Ellis works in the marketing department for Apptentive. He is a strong advocate for customer service with a focus on improving the quality of mobile applications and creating connections between developers and customers.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Oct 19, 2012

Spread a Positive Brand Message Via Social Media Influencers #rdm12

Whether you are operating in a B2C or B2B channel, the odds are your customers no longer look to you as a primary source of information about your products and services. Instead, they look to social media to find “other people” to tell them about your brand. You need to identify and connect with these “other people” to help ensure they are saying the right things.

Everyone Is a Publisher

At a late afternoon session during the Revenue-Driven Marketing Leadership Summit hosted by the Aberdeen Group in Boston, MA, Alan Belniak, Global Director of Social Media Marketing for manufacturing software provider PTC, described how marketers can tap into third-party social media influencers to help spread positive brand messaging and gain credibility with consumers.

“Conglomerates used to produce content,” he said. “Now anyone can publish about anything.” Belniak used the immensely popular online news site Mashable, founded by a 19-year-old in his mother’s basement in Scotland, as an example of how individuals can use the Internet and social media to establish themselves as authorities without any outside support or assistance.

Influencing the Influencers

The job of the modern marketer, according to Belniak, is to elevate their brand’s status with the social influencer community — and to focus on providing thought leadership in that space. While brands ultimately have less control over influencers than they do over media channels such as brand journalism or paid advertising, Belniak said influencers offer more credibility, because they are seen as more independent.

Belniak advised companies to connect their subject matter experts to influencers. “You need to respond to inquiries from the right people,” he said. “The typical PR response is not sufficient. You need to nurture and maintain the relationship.” By creating relationships with influencers, Belniak said companies can then reach out to the influencers’ networks.  “Take influencers along for the ride while you introduce yourself to new characters,” he said.

All Influencers Are Not Created Equal

Whether an influencer is providing positive or negative commentary, Belniak said it is crucial for time- and resource-strapped marketers to focus only as much attention on them as their sphere of influence justifies. "Look at their reach (number of fans/followers), resonance (how often they are reposted/retweeted, etc.) and relevance (how often they are cited as an expert by other media outlets),” said Belniak.

As an example, Belniak told the story of a “wildly negative” blogger who was consistently bashing PTC online and praising their competitors. At the CMO’s request, Belniak and his team investigated the blogger’s influence and discovered that rather than having a “pulpit,” he actually had a fairly small audience. “So we let him go,” said Belniak.

Measuring Social Influence

PTC uses a combination of online influence-measuring tools and manual scoring to determine the importance of influencers' comments on the company. Belniak cautioned that automated sentiment analysis tools are mostly “junk,” but said third-party online influence/measurement services like Traackr and Klout can be highly valuable in helping to determine which influencers are most worth focusing on.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Oct 16, 2012

Cisco Takes WebEx to the Private Cloud, Expands Hosted Collaboration Solution

Cisco announces changes to its collaboration portfolio, with a strong focus on improving collaboration in the cloud.

WebEx Heads to the Cloud

Let's start with the web conferencing. Customers now have choices for how to support their meeting needs. Prior to this release, WebEx was an on premises solution for organizations. Many organizations also used the Cisco Public WebEx cloud offering (usage has increased 38 percent year over year according to Cisco). But for those who want to take advantage of the cost efficiencies of the cloud and keep control of their own content, something new was required.

Cisco has announced the Cisco WebEx Meeting Server built to run in private cloud environment where organizations can ensure data privacy. It's also a great solution for those who are still tied to a capital expenditures model as opposed to the new utility model that comes with cloud-based hosted solutions. This is a virtualized server solution that is designed for the Cisco Unified Computing System, so deployment and management is simplified.

Cisco WebEx Meetings Server_1.png

If you also have Cisco Unifiied Communications Manager, you can extend IP telephony to your web conference. And this is a nice capability coming in January of 2013: if you are doing an IM session using Jabber, you can quickly turn that into a web conference directly from the Jabber interface.

Cisco Host Collaboration Solution

Whether you have the entire Suite of capability or only a couple of modules, there are some updates to the Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) that you will be interested in hearing about:

Telepresence capabilities have been enhanced: This includes enabling partners to conduct meetings at any time without a reservation, expanding intra- and inter-company collaboration with video experiences. The Cisco TelePresence Exchange (CTX) is now integrated into HCS which means partners can manage their infrastructure across all their customers. It also means that customers can now connect multiple locations at the same time.

HCS for Customer Collaboration (Contact Center): The workflows and management capabilities for each customer contact center can now be integrated together offering a more seamless way to support clients across the board. This includes a new Web 2.0 customizable desktop that supports call center agents.

Advancing Unified Communications: Enhancements for HCS here include supporting third party SIP endpoints and an expansion of the IMS Jabber integration to support third party phones in the Cisco UC environment.

Taking Collaboration to New Levels

Sometimes we talk about collaboration like it's something we've not been doing for years. The tools have changed though to support quicker ways to work together, often more efficient ways. And that's what we are seeing with much of the Cisco announcements today. This "collaboration" as Cisco clearly notes is not just internally focused, it's something we need to get better at with our partners, our suppliers and our own customers.

Much of the functionality announced today is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of this year. 

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Oct 15, 2012

Customer Experience: Serving the Customer, Building the Brand

As customers become more powerful, organizations need to become more flexible and responsive. 

“Yes, consumers are more demanding, time-starved, informed and choice-saturated than ever-before (we know you know),” the Trendwatching article entitled "Servile Brands" states. “For brands to prosper, the solution is simple though: turn servile. This goes far beyond offering great customer service. Servile means turning your brand into a lifestyle servant focused on catering to the needs, desires and whims of your customers, wherever and whenever they are.”

Consumers are more demanding today than ever before. However, this gives rise to a paradox. On the one hand, they feel much more in control and empowered. They want to make the news on social media, not just consume it. On the other hand, they feel under pressure. “A survey by research company Datamonitor found that 44% of consumers across 14 countries now say that it’s difficult to manage their daily obligations and find time to relax,” Trendwatching states.

So, consumers need help. But they need it on their terms. They want it all and they want it easy. They want to free up more time so they can be more engaged. They want to communicate more with family, friends and peers. The more they learn the more they learn to distrust official sources, whether they be governments, media, religions or brands.

Trendwatching quotes a range of studies which show a sharp decline in consumer trust. For example:

  • Only 47 percent of consumers around the world say they trust paid media (television, magazine and newspaper ads), a decline of over 20 percent since 2009.
  • Only 29 percent of consumers in Brazil, China and India say that it pays to be loyal to favored brands

At the heart of most organizations is a belief that they are special, unique, that they are the center of the universe. The potential customer is an unbeliever who needs to be converted to the right path. Once they see the light and purchase the product they will be forever loyal. It’s all about conversion.

“Understand that the days of revered brands are over,” Trendwatching states. “It’s not about telling your customers that you are important, and they can have a slice of you if they pay for it. Instead, it’s about telling customers: 'Whatever you need or want, we’re here to help' (or even better, 'We know what you want, here, we’ve already done it for you').”

Service is hard. It requires a degree of humility. Focusing on being loyal to the customer rather than trying to make the customer loyal to you runs against traditional organizational thinking. To be a servant in the world of the customer is just too hard for many egos.

Walking with the customer on their journey and making things better along the way is not nearly as exciting for many marketers as sitting there as some maestro defining the journey that you will then convince the customer into taking.

We now live in the customers’ world. Brands are at best guests at the table. It’s a world of peers and sharing, of comments, ratings and reviews. It’s a show me world. It’s a world of service. 

About the Author

Gerry McGovern, a content management author and consultant, has spoken, written and consulted extensively on writing for the web and web content management issues since 1994. His latest book is titled The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

E-Commerce Tracking Tips for Google Analytics Users

Do you have an e-Commerce website? If you do, you're most likely using a web analytics tool to gather actionable insight from your current customers. Beyond straight sales numbers, I use the various e-Commerce reports within the Google Analytics interface to determine where our customers are coming from and what marketing campaigns are paying off. I'm going to go through a method I use to help track these items.

But, first, if you are brand new to the idea of tracking Ecommerce on your website, I highly recommend using Google Analytics. It's free and pretty easy to navigate. The setup can be a little confusing, but Google provides a great help article with all of your instructions.

Campaign Tracking

The first step in successful tracking of what marketing campaigns are driving the most sales is setting up a custom campaign. Basically, you want to tag your links so that we can see which campaigns are bringing your site visitors, and in turn, sales. Google has developed their URL builder, which makes this pretty easy. For example, here is what a URL might look like for a newsletter we're sending out: http://www.webucator.com/go/course-of-the-month/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=webuNewsOct12

Of important note, look at the campaign variable, webuNewsOct12. Now, we can track how many sales were a result of this campaign.

e-Commerce Overview Report

Once logged into your Google Analytics account, you can navigate over to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview > Source/Medium. As seen on the attached screenshot, you can see that our newsletter campaigns were our fifth biggest source of sales in the given time period. (Please note that most of the information is blurred out for privacy reasons, but you can still see the main point.)

CMSWIRE-OCT-1 (2).pngThis general report will give you that high-level perspective of which sources/mediums are helping your business grow. And again, tied back to the campaign variables you determined in the step above. Maybe you also see a source/medium you didn't know about? :) 

e-Commerce Product Performance

After viewing the Overview report, you might want to tie specific product sales to specific campaigns you are running. Right underneath that Overview report, you'll see the Product Performance report. Now this report will be tied to how you setup your initial e-Commerce tracking code on your site, and will show specific products that were purchased.

To add in a level of campaigns, head over to the specific category group you're interested in, and then click on the Secondary dimension tab. Under the Advertising group, you'll see your Campaign option. Take a look at the screenshot below:

CMSWIRE-OCT-2.pngI sorted the campaigns in alphabetical order and now I can see exactly what products visitors purchased from exactly which campaigns I started. This is a great avenue to see if there are any ways to either optimize current campaigns or start focusing your product messaging on different campaigns!

Campaign Tracking

Lastly, one very quick note on campaigns. If you are ever curious to which campaigns are simply bringing you the most traffic (after you've tagged your links), navigate over to Traffic Sources > Sources > Campaigns. This will give you a combined report of any AdWords campaigns you might be running coupled with any manual campaigns you setup with the URL builder.

And that's a wrap for this article! I hope you learned a few, new actionable steps for your Google Analytics account. If you have any questions on these steps, please leave them in the comments below and I'll get to them. And stay tuned for another Google Analytics blog coming up next month! Happy Analytics!

Editor's Note: Bob provides a great foundation for getting started with Google Analytics in his Google Analytics series.
 

About the Author

Bob Clary has over eight years of marketing experience. He is currently the Marketing Manager and Google Analytics Trainer at Webucator and is a Google Analytics Qualified Individual. Bob has also created Webucator's online Google Analytics courses.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

UserVoice CEO Richard White: Users Expect 'Luxury' Customer Experience #UserConf

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.

image-userconf-2012.JPG
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.

Editor's Note: For more insight into customer support strategies, read 5 Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Contact Center.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Oct 11, 2012

Optimizing Organizational Effectiveness Through Social Business

Many organizations today are seeking opportunities to be more responsive and effective. Typical goals are to improve sales efficiency, accelerate innovation and increase responsiveness to customers. As companies have leveraged the benefits of external communication using social networking, leading organizations have recognized the potential for similar impact through full transformation into a social business.

Collaboration in Demand 

IBM's 2012 CEO Study identified that collaboration is the number-one trait CEOs are seeking in their employees, with 75 percent of CEOs calling it critical. A new, unprecedented era of internal knowledge sharing, catalyzed by “digital natives” entering the workforce, brings expectations of connectedness and contributing to the overall organization. Becoming a social business drives both the cultural change as well as technology adoption required to meet the expectations of employees as well as customers, partners, and suppliers.

The largest potential for improved collaboration is insertion of social into business processes. Inside the organization, this can lead to measurable improvements in the responsiveness and close rate of salespeople, faster delivery of new products and shorter cycle time in providing customer service. There are efficiency benefits as well, as organizations turn from sending information in private channels such as email to sharing information through social file repositories, wikis, blogs or profiles.

Putting Social to Work at IBM

At IBM, we have proven the value of social business tools in several ways. Here are a few examples:

  • Our inside sales organization has increased its successful conversion rate for leads and opportunities, based on utilization of internal social tools. Salespeople now have direct access to product expertise and information, which they can then utilize to address customer requirements and objections more quickly. We have measured a several percentage point improvement in results which can be directly correlated to the use of internal social networking.
  • Project teams at IBM increasingly are comprised of talent clouds, where the best subject-matter experts and skilled leaders are assembled for a particular activity. To help identify and leverage expertise, employees create and maintain their own organizational profiles, including much richer data than the typical corporate directory. IBMers document their technical skills, spoken languages, customer affiliations, interests and previous employers, all of which feeds into an expertise location system.
  • Unstructured activity tracking has replaced formal project management for group-oriented task management. The activity-centric model provides significant improvements versus email oriented approaches, which tend to focus on individual to-dos and keep most of the knowledge hidden in individual user mailboxes. 
    Shared activities store everything from meeting minutes to presentation material to document templates, all in a outline-oriented shared repository. Activity contributors typically can be added by anyone already involved, ensuring that new contributors are enabled organically.

In my own experience, the motivations for participating in internal collaboration through social business tools are clear. My daily email volume has decreased over the last three years, despite greater responsibilities. The constant inbox assault of requests for current presentations, attempts to locate me or determine the status of current projects or activities has all disappeared.

By providing all of that information through our use of social business tools, those IBMers who I normally interact with or influence can find useful information on their own, by utilizing tags, search tools or notifications. This has resulted in a transformation of email into a social mail experience, where only relevant content arrives in my inbox with a faster path to action.

 

Continue reading this article:

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Oct 3, 2012

Most Marketers Are Curating Content, Whether They Know It Or Not

Most Marketers Are Curating Content, Whether They Know It Or NotMany companies are actively sharing content with their customers in an effort to better assert themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Sharing others' content is often referred to as content curation — but Pawan Deshpande, CEO and founder of Curata, says that you won't hear companies describe it that way.

You Say Content Curation …

Recently we spoke with Deshpande, whose company specializes in content curation software, to discuss the benefits and challenges of deploying a content curation strategy and to provide insight on the future of the expanding curation market.

Earlier this year, Matthew Ingram wrote, “It’s called curation if you like it, aggregation if you don’t.” But according to Curata's recent Curation Adoption Survey — which included responses from more than 400 marketing professionals — most people don't know what content curation is.

But many — if not all — of these marketers are engaging in content curation activities. According to the survey, of those marketers who identified themselves as non-content curators, all of them had, in fact, curated content in some way — by finding and sharing "an article, blog post or other content with a prospect in the past six months."

curata_survey.png

Additionally, these self-identified non-content curators are sharing content for the right reasons: to position themselves as authoritative resources within their industry.

Most Marketers Are Curating Content, Whether They Know It Or NotBenefits & Challenges of Content Curation

If the intent is to establish credible thought leadership, is it working? According to the survey, these unknowing content curators are not only recognizing the importance of sharing fresh, relevant content with their audience on a daily basis, they are seeing tangible outcomes as a result. According to Curata’s Curation Habits Report, people who curate content to a website on a daily basis enjoyed 18 percent higher click-thru activity than those who curated content on a weekly basis.

Still, the benefits of sharing content are directly related to the quality of the content you’re sharing. Where are these marketing professionals finding their content? Social media is the preferred channel for finding online content, but email newsletters are also gaining popularity.

  • More than three quarters of marketers (79 percent) cited social media as a preferred service for finding third-party content to share.
  • Almost two thirds (63 percent) indicated that they also used email newsletters to find third-party content, which represents a 29 percent increase over 2011.

Marketing professionals noted that while they enjoy the benefits of content curation, finding the time to discover the right content is among their biggest challenges. Many are still employing manual strategies to scan online sources to find content — and it’s only getting harder.

Most Marketers Are Curating Content, Whether They Know It Or NotThe Future of Content Curation

As the number of marketing channels increase, the amount of content to be gleaned also increases. This makes it even harder to find better, more reliable content that's worth sharing.

Deshpande says he is confident that, by making it easier to discover, organize and share content around specific topics, content curation will continue to benefit companies — and also help them work smarter. Curata is continually adding channels through which users can find and share content — as well as supplementing content with rich resources like pictures and quotes — in an effort to provide a more robust experience.

Overall, if companies are sharing content with the intent of promoting their thought leadership, who are we to complain about what they're calling it? But it stands to reason that, with a little more awareness about what content curation is, those who do it could have access to better tools and best practices — which would help them become more efficient.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 29, 2012

This Week: 3 Big Data Rules & 5 Cool Collaboration Tools

How to Get (and keep) Customers
Go beyond acquisition thinking — good CXM keeps your customer coming back. This is something that every CMO needs to understand.

Big Data Noise
Overwhelmed by your data? Cut  through all the noise and build strong customer relationships by using your analytics information wisely.

Additionally this week we looked at the future of analytics and customer data, and word to the wise — here are 3 big data rules to live by.

CMSWire's Next Webinar
Join us on Oct 4th for our free webinar: Smarter Web Engagement Strategies.

Collaboration in the Enterprise
Looking for ways to work smarter? Check out these 5 productivity and collaboration tools. 

Automated Content Migration
Reduce project costs by 80%.
> Download the White Paper

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Around the Web

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 27, 2012

Oracle Report: Buyer Choices Depend on Device, Channels

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.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 26, 2012

Book Review: Learn How to Lead With Story

lead with a story.jpeg Who doesn’t love a good story?! Over the past year, we’ve heard about the role that storytelling plays in social business, whether it helps connect with customers, relate to employees or otherwise promote your company in the global marketplace.

Tell Me a Story

In his book, "Lead With A Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire", Paul Smith, director of consumer and communications at The Procter & Gamble company outlines a comprehensive, yet very practical guide to telling stories in business.

What I like best about this book is that its chapters can be read in any order — it’s not a step by step guide, but rather different ways to understand how to craft the perfect story that not only encompasses your company’s objectives, but also vision and basic stylistic elements. What I also like about the book is that Paul Smith practices what he preaches. By using stories to emphasize key points, it’s so clear why stories are so helpful in getting a point across.

Winning Hearts & Minds

But what if he used a PowerPoint presentation? So many of us still think it's the best or easiest way to educate, promote or otherwise provide information (which isn't to say that PowerPoint isn't always useless) but what if you were able to set the stage first with a story that elicited an emotional or intellectual reaction?

Why Storytelling? Paul Smith gives his top 10 reasons storytelling is a better way to lead.

Paul Smith doesn't just tell us a great story, he gets us to understand what makes a story great. Stories that showcase a company's values or describe situations in which their integrity is tested and they prevail are always welcome, but just as our experiences in social media have taught us, authenticity and transparency are key. Furthermore, your CEO can tell a great company story, but if he and the rest of the company isn't living it, sooner than later, customers will begin to tell their own story — and chances are that's the one that's going to stick.

While stories are useful in getting people to relate to who you are, what you stand for and how you work — it's knowing when to use them effectively that matters. No one likes a long-talker. When you want a quick, immediate answer, being subjected to a story is probably not the best tactic. Storytelling is a tool, which should be used with strategic intent just as you would any other tool in your engagement toolbox. When used successfully, it can win the hearts and minds of those you want to reach.

However, just because you have a story to tell, doesn't mean you know how to tell it in a way that works. Which is why Lead With a Story is a must read for anyone who engages with customers, stakeholders and employees.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Forrester: Global Proceses for a Local Customer Experience

Managing customer experiences for any enterprise is a difficult task — and when customers are spread globally across numerous countries and languages, the difficulties are even greater. However, according to a new report from Forrester and sponsored by SDL, these problems can be resolved.

Planning is the Key to Successful Strategy

Like everything in IT, the key to resolving these issues is planning: first, identifying exactly what the problems are and second, developing a strategy to resolve those issues without too much disruption.

The paper's starting point is that because of the rapid development of new and (literally) far-reaching technologies, enterprises are facing the problem of having to manage customer experience in places and cultures that are unfamiliar to them.

This is clearly a problem. But it would be possible to argue that it is one that has always existed — and the real issue is that customers expect a lot more these days due to the development of CXM technologies.

But that’s a discussion for another day. According to the Forrester white paper  "Global Processes Help To Deliver Local Customer Experiences,"  the globalization of products and the increasing difficulty in distinguishing different brands of the same product has led to one real differentiator for enterprises — the quality of the customer experience they deliver.

The report also states that distinguishing different brands will be even harder in the future, as the widespread use of digital technologies will make customers more aware of the global landscape and give them higher expectations.

Connecting with Global, Local Customers

The development of global markets now requires that enterprises not only make physical in-roads into each market, but also that they provide a relevant customer experience in each market.

Localization has been an IT discipline for years, but the wider the market — and the further the reach of the company — the more difficult it is to do. Forrester suggests a framework for putting a plan into place:

  1. Local brands, local CXM strategy: Recognize that customer experience is the customers' perception of the way they see themselves interacting with a company. It is local by definition.
  2. Developing clear understanding of the local customer base: This is almost Marketing 101, but it basically means getting to know your local markets by understanding what the customers are thinking. Social media analysis might be considered a good example of this.
  3. Experiences relevant to local market: From the research into customer wants and needs, enterprises should develop local solutions — and translate insights into local action.
  4. Governance: Companies need to develop the best processes and practices, and apply them to local markets.
  5. Metrics: Enterprises need to have a collection of global metrics to compare results of initiatives across markets, and measuring the success of regional and local campaigns.
  6. Customer-centric culture: The key to a successful customer experience strategy and culture is putting the customer at the center of it. This can be achieved by hiring practices, socialization of customer experience strategies and a rewards system.

While the report suggests that companies need to rethink their approach, it would probably be more accurate to suggest that companies need to check that their approach has not deviated from the right path.

Many companies already have mature and developed global CXM strategies. But there is always room for improvement, especially as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries are generally regarded as displaying the most growth potential in the medium term.

In all five BRICS countries there are radically different regional considerations that need to be taken into account. But it is important to remember that each country has within it distinct local markets to be considered as well.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 24, 2012

The ROI of Digital Channel Shift

Today's businesses face the challenge of ensuring customers can access their services and products through whatever means they choose. Channel shift moves customer transactions to the most effective and efficient channel of engagement, creating satisfying customer experiences while delivering savings and increasing revenue.

In times of reduced budget and more savvy shoppers, channel shift is seen as an essential method of delivering better services and increasing sales to people looking to buy or seek information.

Channel shift, or web transformation as some people call it, is applicable across all industries. In this post I have highlighted the challenges and successes some businesses in the Financial Services, Travel and Transportation and Public sectors are experiencing.

Web transformation technology is not just about slick looking websites. Digital channels can:

  • Deliver more sales
  • Reduce the cost of sale
  • Reduce customer service cost
  • Increase customer conversion
  • Increase intelligence about customers.

The good news is that many vendors have proven success in this area. When selecting partner agencies, be sure to check that they can deliver at least 250 percent ROI. In other words for every £1/US$ 1 spent, you should aim to see a cash return or benefit of £2.50/US$ 2.50.

Channel Shift in Travel and Transportation

BF.devices.jpg

French ferry operator Brittany Ferries, prides itself on a commitment to provide an excellent online customer experience which has delivered increased bookings, outstanding levels of customer satisfaction and a reduction in contact center costs for this quality-focused cross-channel ferry operator. To date, the firm has moved 75 percent of ferry bookings online with a 275 percent ROI and have recently launched a mobile website to further assist travelers.

National train operator Virgin Trains faced a specific challenge — a significant increase in demand over the recent Olympic Games held in the UK. They quickly deployed a LiveChat facility before the games to enable customer service operators to chat online with up to 6 customers concurrently. This allowed them to help customers with quick questions they had about Virgin Trains’ operations and services whilst increasing conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Channel Shift in Public Sector

Within the public sector many organizations are facing very clear budget cuts. In the UK there are clearly defined channel costs. According to Socitm, a face-to-face meeting costs £8.62/US$ 14.00, phone contacts are £2.83/US$ 4.59 whereas web transactions can be as little as £0.15/US$ 0.24. This clarity has ensured that channel shift is now widely adopted, but sadly still remains under invested.

iphone_black_D4U.homepage2.jpg An example of an organization that understands the need to invest to save, and have a clear eye for tracking ROI is Basildon Borough Council, located just outside London. They are targeting over £1m/US$ 1.6m channel shift savings.

Like every local authority in Britain, Basildon Borough Council is under pressure to reduce its operating costs without effecting the quality of service delivery. For the council, that has meant exploring ways in which its website can work harder to reduce the administrative burden on council staff, whilst protecting front line service to the borough’s 172,000 residents. This channel shift project is achieving improved service delivery and has seen ROI well in excess of expectations.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Don't Learn Social Media on the Fly

Social media, when properly managed, can be a direct line to customers, opening a dialogue where customers' wants, needs, praise and complaints can be heard and responded to. Then why do so few companies provide their staff with the training to successfully participate on social networks?

Employees can Handle the Truth, Management Can’t

A recent research study showed that only half of employees feel as if they receive the proper training to successfully participate in social networks. Contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in "A Few Good Men," employees can handle the truth and senior management should as well. After all, how can you address your customers’ needs if you don't give them a chance to speak, even if it's online?

After working with some of the largest companies in the country, it’s clear that most employees desperately want to learn how to properly conduct themselves online as well as how to reach out to unhappy customers. They want to blog well, tweet responsibly and not break any Facebook laws so they can turn their “detractors” into Net Promoters, where they will change from stating negative comments about the company to recommending it to their peers and friends.

This should not be surprising considering 40 percent of companies hesitate to let their staff engage with customers online for fear that someone might say something negative about their organization.

Most Companies want Employees to Learn Social Media on the Fly

shutterstock_107891114.jpg This highlights the need to provide the proper guidelines, guardrails and guidance to help workers engage more effectively on Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks. The problem, however, is that employees usually have to learn social media on the fly and learn how to properly engage with customers through trial and error.

This is not the way to run a business. Social Media Training can help you and your coworkers engage in more constructive conversations online.

Why Is Training Important?

The Broken Window Theory: I was first introduced to this theory in 1990 when William Bratton cleaned up the streets of New York City by significantly reducing crime rates. He believed that without law enforcement, people would damage things, and if they knew they could commit these crimes without any repercussions, they would continue to break the law (and not just windows).

The same is true for un-moderated communities and social networks. So, it's important to have well-trained moderators working in your online communities and reading your blog comments. After all, it’s human nature to test authority figures.

You’ve Got the Whole World in your Hands: While everyone knows that mobile devices are increasing in popularity, people often forget that these are, what Peter Mass, ProPublica reporter calls, "potentially a gold mine of data-mining information for companies.”

The Internet Never Forgets: All you have to do is go to Waybackmachine.org and look up your company’s home page from the 1990s. If you work at Fortune 1000 company, it’s probably there; or you can start looking at your Facebook Timeline and see some pictures of yourself.

Those are just three reasons why it’s imperative for companies to develop well-thought out social media policies and training programs.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 21, 2012

Weekend Reading: Your Customers Know What They Want, Do You?

shutterstock_61758697.jpgCollecting information on customers is nothing new. But the quantity, variety and method of communications today makes for a slightly larger animal than the old surveys or focus groups. What started as a drop has become a deluge.    

This week we got some practical advice on how to tame that deluge to feed informed marketing campaigns. We heard why some of those campaigns fail, were led down the path of a customer journey and heard how all of these complexities are forcing changes in how we approach our work. 

Swimming in a Sea of Data

How to Untangle the Data Deluge

Phil Kemelor (@philkemelor):When did web analytics officially die? Perhaps a good benchmark was earlier this year when the Web Analytics Association renamed itself to the Digital Analytics Association to recognize that there is a lot more to the digital world than fixed web and that social and mobile channels also needed to be added to the mix. 

5 Tips to Improving Marketing Campaigns Using Data

Anil Batra (@anilbatra):Marketers spend millions of dollars on digital marketing campaigns every day. Analytics help marketers get the most of out of every dollar spent and drive great benefits for them and their organization. Data collected at each step of the way to conversion can help marketers and their agencies in optimizing each campaign's performance. Below I've outlined five tips on how to use the data to optimize marketing campaigns. 

The New Data Savvy Adaptive Marketing

Julie Hunt (@juliebhunt):Marketers for many organizations are facing evolutionary pressures to transform marketing practices and processes to the always-on state of Adaptive Marketing, a new iteration of direct marketing that wants to engender a unique brand experience for individual customers. 

At the heart of Adaptive Marketing is a customer-focused organization that is committed to constantly re-craft product offerings, sales initiatives and marketing tactics to match individual customer needs and wants. Adaptive Marketing is fueled by a matrix of customer intelligence analytics and maps into enabling continuously improved customer experiences.

Leveraging the Volume, Variety and Velocity of Business Data for Effective Marketing

Andrew Joiner: Analysts predict that within a few years, the CMO will have a larger IT budget than the CIO. Why is that? It’s because marketing is increasingly becoming a data-driven exercise and the organizations that can best understand and act on information will win the hearts and minds of customers.

Customers Know What They Like, Do You?

Lost at 'Like': The 10 Reasons Brands Fail to Convert Facebook Fans into Paying Customers

Mark Simpson (@markj_simpson): According to HubSpot, 93 percent of adults on the Internet are on Facebook, yet only one percent of a brand’s Facebook fans will ever make their way to the company’s main website.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 17, 2012

Customer Experience: From Customer Satisfaction to Customer Action

On the Web we need to measure whether customers are actually successful, not whether they are satisfied. 

Professor Jim Saker of Loughborough University writes about a presentation he was at where “the announcement was made that the franchise customer satisfaction index had gone up by a whole five percentage points in the past year. There was wild applause and self-congratulation until it was pointed out on the next slide that sales and profitability had gone down by an even larger percentage.”

I remember once testing a website with a woman who had a really hard time completing basic tasks. At the end of the test, I asked her how satisfied she was with the website. “Really satisfied,” she replied.

This sort of response is not unusual. The question is: what will most affect a customers’ likelihood of returning to a website? The fact that they were able to do what they needed to do quickly? Or the fact that even though they failed miserably at their tasks, they told the nice researcher that it was a nice site?

In an article entitled "Stop Delighting the Customer," Matthew Dixon, Lara Ponomareff and Anastasia Milgramm explain how a division of American Express found that “customer retention rates remained flat even as satisfaction rates rose.”

Often, satisfaction is not a good measure of whether a customer will do more business with you. However, it was found that American Express customers who experienced “low-effort or effortless experiences were more likely to complete future transactions than customers who had high-effort experiences.”

Reliant, an American energy company, became committed to reducing customer effort. As part of this new strategy, “Reliant removed the talk-time metric,” according to Dixon et al. This metric measures how long a customer support rep stays on a call. The result of such a metric is that “reps paid more attention to the clock than to customers' concerns, rushing customers off the phone when they had hit their limit and leaving the customer without full resolution.” By instead focusing on reducing customer effort, Reliant has significantly improved key metrics such as first contact resolution rates.

The equivalent of ‘watching the clock’ in the web content world is a culture of producing large volumes of low quality content. A great many content authors get paid based on the quantity of content they publish rather than on how many customer problems it helps solve.

Recent studies have shown that satisfaction with Facebook compares very badly with other social sites such as Google+. Does this mean Facebook is much worse than Google+? Or does it mean that when you have almost a billion members it’s hard to keep them all feeling satisfied? McDonalds has the same customer satisfaction problem. And we all know, of course, that nobody is satisfied with Ryanair. But if there is such dissatisfaction with Facebook, McDonalds and Ryanair, why are so many people still using them?

In many situations, satisfaction is not a good measure of future customer behavior. 

About the Author

Gerry McGovern, a content management author and consultant, has spoken, written and consulted extensively on writing for the web and web content management issues since 1994. His latest book is titled The Stranger's Long Neck: How to Deliver What Your Customers Really Want Online.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Sep 14, 2012

Touchpoint Dashboard Launches Customer Journey Mapping Tool

Touchpoint Dashboard Launches Customer Journey Mapping Tool How do you track customers’ interactions with your company? Touchpoint Dashboard has released an online customer journey mapping tool to do just that.

The Wichita, Kansas-based company said that the software is the first SaaS application of its kind. It allows a company to map all customer touchpoints, visualize how customers feel, and analyze where problems exist.

Touchpoints, Attributes

By using this mapping, Touchpoint said, a business can see where it fails to meet customer expectations, how that failure is affecting the bottom line, and what activities are costing the most in terms of loyalty, retention and profitability.

The Journey Map shows a grid where columns represent the customer journey or lifecycle, rows indicate company departments and the squares at the intersections are the touchpoints. Clicking on a touchpoint shows its attributes or details. Each one can be scored to determine cost, impact and ROI. Its colors can indicate touch type such as phone, email, in-person or web.

Touchpoint screenshot.png

Charts and reports can be generated that either summarize or detail the map and the attributes. Filters allow for touchpoints to be isolated by their attributes. In a pain point analysis of the same touchpoints, columns indicate importance to customer, rows indicate cost to fix, and colors indicate source of the pain point.

Multiple Users

The online application allows multiple users to participate in the mapping process without the need for additional licenses — according to the company, this is a key difference between Touchpoint and other mapping tools. Dashboard views of information and reports can be customized for specific needs such as presentations to executives or departmental teams.

Touchpoint co-founder Anne Cramer said in a statement that industry analysts and consultants are promoting customer journey mapping as an effective tool but “they are telling us that they are frustrated with the inefficiencies associated with traditional mapping methods”.  Her company, which began as a project to make journey mapping easier than it was on consultant-led customer experience projects, was filling a need for “an easy-to-use journey mapping tool that delivers action-oriented business intelligence".

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com