Managing Customer Service & Employee Privacy
After the LIMRA Social Media Conference in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago, one of the attendees who downloaded the presentation deck used for the Customer Service Meets Social Media panel posted this question: “One of the points made in this panel is that front-line employees are often recorded (audio and video) and the results can be posted on social media sites immediately. How do I stop people from doing that? I could be held liable if one of my employees is photographed or videotaped without their permission.” In following up with the person who drafted the question, we found that Read More
Repetition, Transparency, Multi-channel Communications Help Rebuild Trust
One of the daily challenges for marketing is building trust among consumers. It’s never been easy, but it’s gotten harder over the last two years. Luckily, multi-channel marketers have a clear path to reaching out to the public through web, social media, PR, and trusted local agents or managers. Building trust in difficult economic times is all about repetition, transparency, and multi-channel communications. Consider the three tables included in this blog post, all from Edelman’s 11th Annual Trust Barometer study, released earlier this year. Then there’s this table — where consumers look first for information. It may be a little misleading because Google Read More
What to Do When Customer Service Meets Social Media: 5 Basic Lessons
In June 1984, the first online customer support forum for computer users sponsored by a computer maker opened its virtual doors on CompuServe on a Tuesday morning. Around noon on Thursday, the volume of inquiries was running about five times what the company planners had projected, and by the end of the day on Friday, it was over 8 times the anticipated volume. Although the volume has been going up steadily ever since, less than 20% of customer service inquiries were submitted digitally before 1998, and as recently as 2005, just 45% of technical support inquiries were submitted via email or landing page. Read More
Why Channel Agnostic Marketing Works
No matter what industry you work in, your target audience is probably channel agnostic. That is, they don’t put their faith in any single channel — online, offline, mobile, social. Instead, they put their faith in human interactions that are relevant, accessible when they want information, and positive. That’s the conclusion that Ian Michiels, chairman of the research advisory board at Gleanster and director of the Marketsphere Marketing group, reported in a recent webinar titled: Connectivity: The Secret to Success in Distributed Marketing Environments. Edgar Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Distribion, echoed the Gleanster research with Read More
A Casket Salesman’s Lesson on Infrequent Customer Loyalty
Brand marketers invest billions creating an emotional connection between their brand and prospective or current customers. In fast food, packaged goods, entertainment, fashion, automotive marketing and many other industries, brand loyalty is the Holy Grail for marketing. For any distributed marketing organization – companies who rely on franchise networks, VARs, dealers, agents, or chain store marketers to take the brand’s corporate messages to the local level – loyalty among every link in the chain between the brand and the buyer is vital. In a conversation overheard while standing in line at the multiplex last weekend, two friends were comparing their Read More
Marketing is Dead
Marketing is dead. Before rejecting the idea, think again. The truth is that only a tiny fraction of a marketer’s time is actually spent on marketing – that is, on creating demand for a product or service, shaping the brand, and supporting sales. How is that possible? Just look at the number of communications channels a marketer has to manage in today’s multi-channel world – and add to each communications channel the necessity for planning and budgeting, delivering or implementing, tracking and reporting on each one. Add managing the process of distributing marketing and sales support materials in an indirect Read More
Creating an Effective Distributed Marketing Process
In 1898, an insurance salesman named E. St. Elmo Lewis wrote a pioneering marketing textbook called, Financial Selling. In it, he created a tool he called the “AIDA Sales Funnel”. That four step model for customer engagement is still valid today. Back then, Lewis thought that each sales rep would be responsible for all for steps in the sales funnel – including paying for their own advertising to reach potential customers. Today, the traditional “AIDA” marketing model helps to assign appropriate roles, rules, and responsibilities for the four stages of customer engagement. In a distributed marketing model, the AIDA cycle Read More
