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

sponsored item

Most Popular

• BBC's Adoption of Semantic Web Technologies: An Interview
• Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management: Mobile, Cloud & Composite Apps Take Priority
• The Current State of Social CRM [Infographic]
• 12 Common Patterns that Make Some Companies Successful with Collaboration
• iPad Mini Reviews Out as Nexus 10 and iPad 4 Clash

Editor's Picks

• Collaboration and Communications on the Intranet
• A Look at Documentum's Early Days; Will EMC Disrupt Content Management Industry Again? #MMTM12
• ROI of Social in a Crisis
• Microsoft Announces End of Messenger With a Move to Skype
• The Future of SEO and Content Marketing: Author Authority

Around the Web

• Connecting by Subtraction
• The Ladder of Inference
• In A Social Business The Marketing Nerds Will Win
• The state of global innovation: idea generation, idea conversion, and crowdsourcing
• Great Storytelling Violates Expectations

Featured Events (all events | post your event)

• Nov 14 — Forrester's Customer Experience Forum West Los Angeles
• Nov 20 — SharePoint Connections Amsterdam 2012
• Nov 27 — Gilbane Conference in Boston
• Nov 28 — Tweet Jam: Socializing Customer Relationship Management #CXMChat
• Dec 12 — Big Analytics New York 2012

Featured Jobs (all jobs | post your job)

• Project Manager in Cupertino at Ensighten
• Project Manager in San Francisco at Siteworx
• Copywriter in New York at Digitas
• Director of Mobile Product Management in San Francisco at Twitter
• Interactive/Web Manager in Charleston at Blackbaud

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

The Social Science of Your Social Business #socialintel2012

The science of digital media proposes to translate abstract qualities into numerical values. Influence, sentiment and loyalty are all major factors in determining the impact of social media on your business, because hard numbers and ROI come later. Should we really rely on these algorithms, and will we ever be able to trust them completely?

Are they just a new way to automate the customer experience, like auto replies and automated phone menus? The consensus is that the human element will always dominate in the practice of interpreting human interactions, at least in terms of reliability. And you can manage to operate a social media presence for your business without putting all of your eggs into that basket.

Social Media Tools of the Trade

The other problem is that sentiment analysis is almost entirely useless. Even among massive companies with huge data sets, hard negative/strong positive sentiment is a very small percentage as compared to "neutral" interactions. So, if you have the "luxury" of being a small enough company, maybe try to measure these things manually. Combining Google Analytics with the built-in measurement tools of Twitter and Facebook can give you a very good idea where you stand at no cost at all, especially if you're tracking month-to-month growth and incorporating multivariate testing into your basic social strategy. You can use Klout to gauge influence, or just rely on that good old common sense you've got lying around somewhere.

If you're getting too big to leave things to chance, a few significant companies in the market of big data keep popping up. Radian 6 is an industry leader in social media data collection/analysis. Metrica does the same, with a slightly more human-centered approach. Hadoop is a recommended file management system to store and organize your data. You'll pay real money for these services, but you'll be doing it because you're at a point where you have no choice but to invest in that side of the business, and you don't want to throw money at a crap shoot.

Analyzing the Ever Changing Social Network

Scientifically speaking, you'll be analyzing an environment that is in constant flux, and the action of observing it has an effect on it. People are more likely to complain when you make it that easy. You'll have your chin out there taking blows and you'll need to react swiftly. It's important to have a solid advocate at the top of the company and a direct line (Bat-phone) that can allow you to solve any problems immediately. If your social media director is not completely empowered, then they must have close contact with the CEO or someone who is. Red tape destroys a company's ability to operate an effective social presence.

Also, don't spend countless hours or excessive dollars trying to determine the "why" of every negative interaction. There's a vast spread of strange stuff out there and we can't attach meaning to everything and everyone. When negative reactions start to add up, you can begin to understand a common theme within your data or from your observation that can result in a business action. Prior to that, the most you can do is treat people like people, not digital units. You might find them reacting in kind, and you'll start to see that intangible quality of loyalty creeping in.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Next Generation CRM: Combining Power of Live Chat with Online Communities

When businesses engage in customer service, there is a unique thing that happens: science and art collide. Satisfying customers and creating ongoing loyalty is a true art form, while ensuring that call center representatives are highly efficient falls more on the scientific side. Blending both of these worlds can be very challenging.

Fortunately, it is possible to increase the productivity and efficiency of customer support staff, while also expanding customer satisfaction at the same time. There are solutions that streamline online customer interactions by having customers complete a short pre-chat survey, which then serves up automated lists of related topics and answers.

But where do these answers come from? We all know that customers have unique problems and a list of canned responses can only go so far.

Your Customers Know the Answers

Fortunately, there are next-generation CRM solutions that actually mine responses from communities to ensure accuracy and customer satisfaction. Organizations with a broad, active and vocal communities of users, can fully embrace these types of data mining solutions that increase efficiency of call-center support staff and help with sales conversions.

In addition, unique social media feedback tools can now mine customer insights and serve them up in real-time to the call center specialists.

The way these new tools work is very simple. Online customers and prospects fill out a pre-chat survey. Based on the responses, the call center support person is provided with a real-time response from the overall knowledge base. So, as opposed to having canned answers at their fingertips, these live chat operators are armed with the right knowledge and insights required to meet the customer’s expectations.

In addition, the insights from the crowd-sourced knowledge base are also provided to the customer once they complete the pre-chat survey — allowing customers to have the information they need even before the chat begins. Or if the data provided is sufficient, the customer can move on with their purchase online without corresponding with call center personnel.

Making the Most of What You Have

These new CRM tools really help with one important thing: helping companies maximize the use of live chat software. While many organizations make the investment in live chat software, they often lack the tools and training to leverage it fully.

Most organizations simply don't have the tools and training to take full advantage of live chat’s full capabilities. According to Gartner Group, nearly 42 percent of CRM related software licenses are never even implemented.

One of the biggest e-commerce challenges is dealing with high shopping cart abandonment rates. According to Forrester Research, 88 percent of website visitors abandoning the shopping cart at the payment stage. Each abandoned shopping cart equals lost revenue.

In addition, 44 percent of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is highly important, according to Forrester Research. We know that shipping and pricing are the main drivers behind shopping cart abandonment. By knowing these issues in advance and being able to mine the right information, e-commerce sites can greatly enhance overall sales conversions.

Unlike a retail outlet like Nordstrom, where they provide top-level service in a face-to-face environment, it is much more difficult to satisfy customers online. By arming themselves with these new CRM tools, along with the right guidance for usage, organizations can go a long way in increasing customer satisfaction, and drive more revenue in the door.

Editor's Note: You may also be interested in reading the following:

— The Disconnect Between Real and Perceived Customer Service

About the Author

Jeff Mason is the Vice President of Marketing for Velaro and has more than more than 20 years of technology marketing experience in the nonprofit software, CRM and e-business systems sectors.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com