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Your Customers Are Truly In Charge
By Kelly Feller
Expert Author
Article Date: 2008-12-01
One of the favorite parts of my job at Intel is to learn from other industry leaders who are doing this social media stuff. And it's fascinating what you learn when you pull back the layers behind a company's external efforts. For example, this week I had the pleasure of meeting with Sean McDonald, Director of Communities & Conversation at Dell, to learn how they have evolved their social media efforts over the last year and a half or so. What I learned was truly eye-opening, and something I aspire to emulate as I attempt to build a similar program at Intel.
Unlike Intel and many other companies, Dell didn't embark on their social media efforts in an attempt to "reach new audiences" through social marketing practices. On the contrary, Dells' program was built around their customers and the desire to provide them posivite experiences with their brand that they would evangelize. This move is apparent in the fact that their social media team is built from customer support and service representatives, as opposed to marketing professionals or agency staff.
With a customer centric strategy companies have nearly limitless opportunities to create brand acvocates and-as Rohit Bhargava calls them in his groundbreaking book Personality Not Included-accidental spokespeople. These are folks who have such brand affinity and loyalty to a brand that they socialize this affinity and attempt to at least communicate their positive sentiment toward your brand, if not evangelize to create other brand loyalists out of folks in their social networks. Whew! What a mouthful! What I basically mean is that these customers tell their peeps how much they love your brand/product/service in hopes that their friends will like it too. Neato, right?
Many companies think they are building customer focused strategies when in fact they are merely implementing new marketing tactics dressed up to look like customer centricity. Evolving to a customer centered company is a huge undertaking and one a company must grapple with in all nooks and crannies of the company. It's not about launching a new campaign or hiring an agency to manage your relationships with your customers; it's a total organizational overhaul that requires flattening hierarchies, breaking down corporate silos, and empowering employees at every level to do whatever it takes to delight your customers.
There are many great resources out there for companies wishing to evolve their customer relationships including one of my favorite blogs: Customers Rock! Another funny post I just found today likened customers to family members: Five Reasons Your Customers Are Like Your Family (And You Should Eat Turkey With Them).
To conclude I'd like to tell a little story. A very close friend of mine works at at GINORMOUS software company (did I mention it is huge?). Prior to being assimilated this customer support analyst was part of a team of superstar customer support reps at a smaller company. Year after year this team won awards for knocking the socks off their customers and received accolades across the company and throughout the industry. In fact, more than one customer cited the terrific customer support as the primary reason for their business.
Enter the new rules and restrictions of aforementioned giant multinational company. Can you guess what I'm going to say next? That's right…customer satisfaction scores started to slide-even for the team of stellar superstars with a history of wowing their customers.
So what happened? What caused this new level of customer dissatisfaction? My friend and I talked at length about why the team no longer shined like they used to and discovered some of the reasons they were do good at providing great support in the first place:
- They could be themselves. The smaller company gave them lots of flexibility with how to express their individuality at work. They could utilize free software tools on the web that helped them see their customers' screens. Ot they could take occassional breaks from the demands of solving customer problems and connect with friends and family using instant messaging services. In contrast, this new company implemented severe resctricted access to anything outside the firewall. And spirits of the employees were thrust into negativeland.
- They were encouraged to socialize. The smaller company understood how to create a great to work place by allowing workmates to connect with one another as human beings. They had a Wii, sponsored get togethers, and made going to work an enjoyable experience for them. The new giant corporation cut out all personal connection tools, including requiring that all dishes in the kitchen sport the company logo. They even stopped paying for kleenex.
These are only two of the attributes we identified that contributed to the previous success of the team. They demonstrate how important it is for companies to treat their employees like human beings. And when that happens, employees are more likely to treat customers like humans and give them the personal attention needed to make zealous brand advocates out of them. When employees and customers are treated as easily replaceable automatons-with a mere corporate or case number-the relationships suffer across the board.
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About the Author:
A savvy marketing chick and professional writer for over 15 years, Kelly Ripley Feller is a social media addict and outspoken proponent of change and marketing evolution. She has worked with a variety of technology companies including Intel, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Intuit, SAS Software, Symantec, and IBM. Today she manages social media programs for Intel and writes about social media, marketing, business, Second Life, and politics, including a column on social media and politics for a literary magazine. She is also a contributing writer for ConversationsMatter.org.
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