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Cheating the Customer?

After speaking recently at the SN4BW Online Global Training Event, I was asked if I recommend small businesses hire Virtual Assistants to respond to business tweets on Twitter. My initial reaction was a strong negative. I reasoned that outsourcing your social interaction on Twitter is equivalent to sending a secretary in your place to a cocktail party or a networking event to which you have been personally invited. The value and the beauty of social media as a marketing tool is that business participation in the media feels personal to the customer, makes the customer feel special and valued. I suggest that the use of “auto-tweets” while generally used for promotion and information, are not good practice for developing relationships or enhancing the value of your brand to a customer.

I tried to think of how and why you would want to outsource responses to your tweets if you are a small office/home office so I decided to consult with Carle Henry , CEO of Chrevian, Inc. and a TeleWeb Service Consultant. Carle is one of the first executives I worked with whose focus was on looking at the business from the outside in, viewing everything in the business from the perspective of the customer and then designing processes and systems around the customer’s perspective and needs. Carle has worked with companies like Harrods, Eddie Bauer, Monster.com, and Sealy to create multi-channel customer experiences. He pointed out several issues with the concept of having a VA respond to auto-tweets.

“The whole cache of social media, what makes it cool and clever is the personalization of the customer experience. My first reaction is that it is way too personal an interaction to outsource. Essentially, the challenge is that most cannot keep a VA knowledge base up to date for traditional inquiries. Once you apply this concept to the Social Media world, it’s as if you’ve put the somewhat acceptable flaws on steroids. The result will be an obvious, exaggerated ‘cheat’ on what should be an intimate, personal experience.” Carle went on to say, “The knowledge base is the most relevant point. If a customer gets a bad answer from a VA, they will search your website for a 1-800 number until they find a way to contact a real person to respond. In other words, customers who interact with you using twitter want a personal exchange: knowledge bases won’t cut it.”

Carle acknowledged he projects most customer service outsourcers of the future will include responding to Tweets (and some do already) from within large corporate customer service departments. The key to making it successful is to train the VA or outsourcing agency (with a long-term commitment in mind) in order to transfer relevant brand knowledge, product knowledge, and company culture and policy. Companies who do not properly train their outsourced service providers suffer the consequences of lost customers, reduced loyalty and brands with tarnished reputations. Some large brands such as Comcast are using Twitter and other social marketing tools to repair brand issues and poor customer service reputations.

If you are a small business, you have a natural desire to build your business with social marketing tools. But, if you are going to use tools such as Twitter, Facebook status updates and such to promote your business, think twice about the frequency and content of your status updates. Too much promotion comes across as Spam. So much self-promotion that you cannot respond to your own tweets is definitely Spam. Outsourcing your status updates and social marketing to a VA can be done ONLY if you have invested enough training so you trust the VA to represent your brand, your products, and your culture in a seamless way. Are your customer and your brand reputation worth the risk?

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Is your Brand Boring?

In my last blog post, I talked about how many social media efforts fail to bring profit because the small business does not ask the customers how and where they want to engage with their brand. Does your customer want to be a part of a community? A Facebook page? A blog? A Twitter follower? What is in it for them to engage with your business on one of those platforms?

Check out this blog post from Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research that I ran across this morning. It suggests your social marketing strategy must consider whether your brand is a “boring” brand or a”talkable” brand. Combining your knowledge of the type of brand along with the customer’s engagement requirements leads you to a better social media mix for your business.

For those who are developing a social marketing strategy for your small business, I highly recommend you subscribe to Josh’s blog. I further recommend you read “groundswell” by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. The book gives a great overview of social technologies, statistics, and case studies of companies who are winning the social marketing game. The case studies are primarily for larger companies and brands but you are certain to find great inspiration for implementing social marketing programs in your business.

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What About the Customer Experience?

No, I did not abandon my blog series! Pneumonia struck me in April and it took a few weeks to recover but I am back to my full schedule. Thanks to everyone who expressed concern!

This is the third installment in my ten part series regarding the biggest mistakes small businesses make when it comes to implementing social media technologies. Mistake # 3 – many small businesses forget to develop and implement a participation marketing strategy that engages the customer and enhances the brand message at every stage of the customer experience.

Traditional marketing and advertising programs focus upon creating awareness via a variety of shout techniques: advertising, promotions, public relations, etc. The concept is that the more the prospect hears your message, the more they trust you and the more inclined they are to buy. But social technologies empower the prospect in ways unseen until this time. Most people research your name and your brand on the web before they make a purchase decisions. Most prospects consider ratings and reviews as influential in their purchase decisions. For you to be successful with social technologies, you must have a marketing strategy that creates awareness, educates the prospect through consideration and preference, encouragers purchase, and ultimately fosters loyalty.

Awareness: You may have a Facebook page and a website and a twitter account. Are you using these platforms as a way to engage in 2-way conversation or are you simply sending status updates all day long? Again, are you taking traditional shout marketing and transferring it to the web? Expect to be blocked and dropped from friend’s lists. Try joining groups and twitter chats. Provide value in the conversation so your readers want to know more about you.

Consideration: By this point, you are connected in some way. They know your name and may consider buying from you. Your target prospect is a “friend”, or “follower” and they may have actually subscribed to your newsletter. Again, making connections is not good enough if all you are going to do is send sales messages all day long. Ask questions. Create surveys and ask your readership for feedback. See who is following your competitors and who the influencers are for your industry. Befriend them and engage them. Determine what kind of information and content you can provide to help them make a purchase decision. Educate them with product information.

Preference: Follow-up on your conversations. Thank them for their ideas. “I enjoyed your participation in this class or this tweetchat.” Comment on their blogs. Send them bookmarks and articles that provide value, content created by yourself or others. Your prospect has given you permission to begin a conversation so inform them about ratings and rankings. Let them know what others are saying about your company and brand. Follow-up on prior conversations.

Purchase: Ask for feedback on the purchase process. How do you like our product? How has using the product been for you? What uses have you found for the product that we did not consider? Consider a targeted promotion for the customer asking for their feedback and providing a discount on one future purchase. Ask them to join your loyalty program!

Loyalty: At this stage, the customer is a fan. Whether they purchase from you or not, you want create campaigns that encourage them to make future purchases and refer others to your brand. Develop a loyalty program that provides customers increased value for engaging with you as a member or affiliate. Their value to your business increases as they refer you to others and become a repeat purchaser – make it worth their while. Continue to survey. How is the brand working for you? Target promotions for loyalty members only. Create an affiliate awards program. Encourage them to write online reviews. Ask them to join a focus group, a collaboration team to develop new products. Create communities and engage the membership! Remember their birthdays and anniversaries or provide other personal promotions.

Keep in mind all the systems and processes of your business that touch the customer experience from pre-sale awareness campaigns through point of sale emails and communication and finally through distribution and reflect a consistent brand message at every customer touch-point. At every stage, ask the question – how can I provide value? Better yet, ask your customer.

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Are Marketers and SMB’s disconnected?

Just finished reading “Marketers and SMB’s Disconnect over Online Tactics” by Marketing Charts detailing results from study completed by Bredin Business Information. Two separate groups were interviewed in 2 separate studies: “Marketing to SMB’s in 2009” was a survey of 50 marketers in large companies such as IBM, Cisco, Comcast, Dell and other banks and technology companies who market to small and medium businesses. The second survey was for over 700 small and medium businesses to understand their marketing preferences entitled “SMB Media and Brand Preferences.” There is some great information and you can draw your own conclusions. I will be fascinated to see the results of the same studies performed a year from now.
My initial take-aways (based upon my own anecdotal evidence combined with the statistics) are that there is not so much ” disconnect” in the results as much as there is a lag in adoption between the groups simply due to resource limitations:

1. Both SMB’s and Marketers are looking for high value and low price in purchasing decisions. Not a surprise in the current economy.

2. Considering the marketers and the companies they represent, I am not surprised that they have been putting a full out effort in online advertising and marketing. They have the resources to a) understand the technological options, b) apply significant enough technical and marketing staff to create and manage social networks and technologies. Today’s SMB’s are stressed from the standpoint of resources, more so than I have ever seen. As a result of credit lines diminishing, resistance in adding to payroll and the plethora of technology options they are unable to fully understand, SMB’s are stretched thin – how many ways can you divide a small staff?. Marketers are simply making the shift to online faster than the SMB’s because they have the financial and people resources to make the shift quicker.

3. The study says “Marketers say their biggest challenges in 2009 are funding new projects (24%), growing business with limited resources (15%) and increasing awareness (15%).” These are the exact issues I hear from SMB’s every day.

4. I think the wager marketers are making to invest in online marketing while reducing off-line presence is a smart bet to make especially with constant reports validating a huge increase in adoption of social technologies across all demographic groups.

5. Old habits die hard. SMB’s are still reliant upon old methods of learning about potential suppliers. However, the growing trends towards increased online research of brands among consumers before purchase are also showing increase in SMB’s. The more marketers actually “engage” potential customers online, not just with traditional awareness programs but with education and connection programs, the more the SMB’s will become retrained to rely upon online resources.

Who will the winners be? Marketers who use their social technology presence to teach the SMB’s not only how to use their products but how to implement social web technologies to achieve strategic objectives such as leads generation, customer awareness, brand loyalty and as always, increased sales and profits. Dell and Intuit are two of my favorite companies whose marketers are using the web to educate and engage SMB’s with their social applications. As a consequence, both companies are well positioned to benefit from increasing loyalty between SMB’s and their brands.

What are your thoughts? Which large company marketers are earning your loyalty as a SMB? What is preventing you from a quicker adoption of social technologies?

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Is Social Media a Waste of Time for Small Business?

I am the first to admit that I have easily lost days of my life investigating the features and benefits of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media sites. Yes, they can be time wasters for the small business owner, the last person with extra time on his or her hands. But, I think the opportunities for new and developing markets far outweighs the risk of lost time as long as you surf with purpose. Remember, if we are mesmerized with the new media (just as we previously have been with web surfing and the greatest time waster of all, the television), doesn’t that mean hordes of customers will be wasting their time there? So, if you can remain slightly detached in your interactions, just enough to look at the new mediums as potential new markets, you may unearth a new possibility for profit for your business. My suggestions are the following:

1. Become a purposeful lurker. Surf without guilt for a specific period of time. Consider it “brainstorming” time, market research. Observe who is in the social media world and what they are doing. How are other businesses using YouTube, podcasting, blogging, social networks?
2. Keep notes on whether your customers are currently using social media and consider new ways they might be interested in using it.
3. If your customers aren’t there, are there potential new markets for you? Perhaps Facebook doesn’t reflect your current demographics, but have you ever considered how you could reach out to that market?
4. Get involved in the discussion. Join some of the small business groups on Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning. Follow Twitter conversations regarding small business or your products (I use tweetchat.com to monitor certain phrases). It’s a virtual chamber of commerce out there so join the conversation.
5. Start small. Blog. Create a newsletter. Podcast. Test market. Evaluate results.

Remember social media is all about the conversation. What message do you want to communicate to your customers? How do your customers want to engage in conversation with you? Introduce yourself!

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