Tag Archives: business

June 10, 2015 · 12:11 pm

I Can Hear You, I’m Just Ignoring You

This social media stuff isn’t exactly new anymore, right? I mean businesses have been immersed in it for at least 5 years and many for longer than that. So why do we keep screwing it up?

This crossed my screen earlier:

Thirty-three percent of consumers who contact brands on social media with a customer service question never get a response, according to a new study released today by management consulting firm The Northridge Group. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 respondents, the study finds that 26 percent of consumers choose social media for customer service when they can’t reach a representative through another channel. When companies do respond, more than 30 percent of their responses do not meet the customers’ expectations. In fact, social media has the lowest percentage of issue resolution and follow up of all the channels.

Seriously?  Well, maybe the data isn’t as disappointing as the headline:

The survey also found that just 3 percent of consumers cite social media as the fastest channel for issue resolution, and only 2 percent cite it as their preferred channel. Additional findings from the survey include:

  • Sixty-three percent of consumers have to engage with a brand two or more times on social media before a customer service inquiry or issue is resolved.
  • Forty-two percent of consumers expect resolution within one hour when using social media for customer service inquiry or issue.
  • Thirty-nine percent of consumers say that companies resolve their customer service issues or inquiries on social media within a week or longer.

Oh.  I know from lots of experience that businesses are spending precious marketing resources listening to what’s going on out there in an attempt to understand their customers’ needs.  Bravo!  But as with any activity, if we’re just going to ignore what our customers are telling us – especially when they’re telling it to us proactively – we might just as well spend the money elsewhere.

You can get the report here but don’t bother if you’re not going to use it to improve how you’re providing service via social media.  No one likes to be ignored, especially customers with a problem.  Maybe you should be digging into how many contacts have been initiated by customers?  Maybe you should keep score on how many have been addressed and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction?  Actually, this is one instance where if you ignore something – your customers – it will go away.  Is that the result you’re after?

 

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May 11, 2015 · 9:39 am

What Did You Learn Today?

On those rare occasions when the entire family would gather at the dinner table when I was a kid, one of the inevitable questions posed by one parent or the other was “what did you learn today?”. My brother or sister or I would launch into a minimalist explanation of whatever was shoveled our way in school, trying desperately to give a quick answer and let the other kid get grilled. The question, however, has stuck with me and it’s a good one for each of us to ask ourselves.

Business is constantly changing. Obviously so are the tools with which we attack our business issues. I routinely use a number of them – social media, web analytics, SEM, and CRM – which didn’t exist several years ago and the digital world in which I work most of the time didn’t exist at all (save for in science fiction novels) when I left my formal schooling several decades ago.

I use that question when I interview people –  “tell me something you’ve learned recently.” I’m not really looking for a specific skill. I want to be sure that the candidate feels an imperative to keep learning and to continually grow their skill set to keep up with a constantly changing business world. It’s even better if they don’t tell me about a program their employer sent them to – who knows if they went willingly. If they’re willing to invest in themselves the odds are that I can safely make an investment too.

So let’s start the week by asking ourselves that question – “what did I learn today?”  If you don’t really have a good answer, maybe it’s time to think about the blind spots in your skill set and to put together a plan to fix them.  You might not like analytics but I can pretty much guarantee they’re having an impact on your business.  I’m not particularly fond of accounting but I’ve learned how to read financial statements as well as how they’re put together and why.  One of the best things about our connected world is that much of the world’s learning is accessible to anyone, or at least to anyone with a motivation to absorb something new.  You?

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April 29, 2015 · 11:58 am

Rivers

I have rivers on my mind today.  Maybe it’s because I spent a lot of time over the last couple of days talking about streams of information and of video.  The nature of media these days is that we’re on a mostly self-directed rafting trip immersed in these streams.  Except that they’re really rivers since “streams” speaks to something much smaller than the torrents of content with which we deal every day.

Coincidentally, I came across something in the Phi Beta Kappa blog that resonated on both the nature of our content world and our business world:

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said that you can’t step into the same river twice, giving us a memorable illustration of the principle that things change. The very nature of things is change.

Amen.  I’m not the only one to have written about FOMO – the fear of missing out on something changing in your social or other streams because it happened while you weren’t paying attention.  There are lots of tools available to assure that doesn’t happen by sending you alerts when a significant person posts or an important bit of data comes to pass.  Nevertheless, I’m sure many of us feel a need to dip our toe in the river constantly, both to stay in touch as well as to take the temperature.

It’s more the change that occurs in business which is my focus.  I laugh when people talk about five-year plans.  Where were your video marketing plans back in 2010?  How about mobile?  Is what you’re doing today what you contemplated then?  I doubt it.  That’s not a complaint; it’s a recognition that the river keeps flowing and the water you photographed when you did your strategic plan is long gone by the time you’re ready to implement it.

Keep the notion of a river in mind as you approach business.  While it runs within the same banks it’s never exactly the same.  You need to embrace that flow and learn how to swim with a changing current.  There is a reason that so many songs and literary works deal with rivers as central to a community and to life.  How you deal with it is the difference between a wonderfully exciting ride or drowning.  Your call!

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