Author: Christopher Carfi

I was interviewed for a just-published Knowledge@Wharton article entitled "Social Marketing: How Companies Are Generating Value from Customer Input," which provides a high-level look at some of the different ways that organizations have attempted to use social media to connect with customers over the past couple of years.  Particular companies/approaches covered in the article include:

• Southwest Airlines
• Dell (including Dell IdeaStorm)
• Dove’s "Campaign for Real Beauty"
• Captain Morgan (and the fake Captain Morgan character blog)
• CareerBuilder’s "Monk-e-mail"
• SprintNextel
• Chevy Tahoe (and the Chevy Tahoe video campaign)

The article provides a nice survey of a number of well-known organizations and their social media-centered efforts to connect with customers, and wraps up with some sage advice from Paula Amunátegui Perelló, project manager for new media at General Motors Europe.  Says Perelló,  "It’s a slow process, not a revolution. We have to have a
discerning approach, and not just grab every new tool that comes our
way. But we recognize that social media is no longer a fad. It is a
larger evolution of society."

Exactly.

Nancy White points us to "Conversation As A Radical Act."

Key Link: Conversation As A Radical Act (watch the video) and Nancy’s post on the session.

Key Quote:  "Change comes not from grand plans or edicts, but from the repetition of millions of small acts carried out throughout the system, regardless of scale."

My take:  "Conversation" is just that…communication between actual human beings.  This process of real conversation happens millions of times, and is only successful when the interactions are real and genuine, transparent and truthful.  Conversation is the "root act" that creates transformation.

The takeaway is very simple:  If an issue or story is not worthy of conversation between actual individuals as they are going about their lives, it won’t ignite conversation.  If the issue doesn’t ignite conversations, it won’t effect local change.  If local change is not effected, then global change cannot be effected.

If you try to start a campfire with huge logs straight away, it is
impossible to do.  The fire doesn’t catch.  Even applying great
quantities of accelerants will only singe the surface; once the
accelerants are consumed, the logs you hoped to ignite sit cold and
impassive, singed on the outside, but fundamentally unchanged.

The most important thing:  there are no shortcuts.  One can bombard "the market" with "messages," one can try to shortcut the process…but IMHO those tactics don’t cause, can’t cause, long-term change.   It’s analogous to creating a roaring campfire.  How do you start a roaring campfire?  You start with kindling, then add some more, and over time the energy can be awe-inspiring. 

(hat tip: deb schultz)

Related: Facebook Privacy Improvements Overview

When a vendor says that they provide "amazing customer service," what do you, as a customer, expect from them?  Neville Hobson writes:

"[I am] wondering what Virgin Media’s goals are in terms of customer service.

David may or may not be a typical Virgin Media tech support
supervisor. His approach and manner were disarmingly positive and
helpful. In fact, my experiences so far with his company’s phone
support indicate he’s definitely not typical.

And the engineer (whose name I didn’t get). A pleasant and
knowledgeable guy and the second Virgin Media engineer I’ve met. Both
professional and knowledgeable and able to sort out problems.

But how does Virgin Media really want to engage with their
customers? Do they even want to do that? Is insisting on speaking to a
supervisor all the time the only way you can get satisfaction?

According to their website, when you become a Virgin Media customer, this is what happens:

[…] we promise you’ll be getting the best technology, great value and amazing customer service.

I have no disagreement with the first two, but "amazing customer
service"? Definitely not if you ever have to phone Virgin Media tech
support at 25p per minute."

So, two questions to you, readers.

1)  When a vendor promises "amazing customer service," what is your expectation?
2)  How do you communicate those expectations to vendors today?

A 90 second video overview of the improvements to privacy controls in Facebook Beacon.

RSS readers:  Click here to view the Facebook Beacon video.

More on Facebook Beacon:
NYTimes: Coke is Holding Off on Sipping Facebook’s Beacon
Dan Farber: The Canary in the Social Networking Coalmine
DVICE: Facebook’s Beacon Now A Dull Bulb
Stealthmode: Facebook Needs A Mother
Valleywag: Facebook Founder Redefines "Opt-in"

Social networking is moving beyond its consumer roots and into business,
according to CRM Magazine.  Mark Angel, the senior vice president of corporate development and strategy for Kana Software states

"About three years ago, we started seeing high-tech customers with
complex products talk about richer collaboration.  Now we’re starting
to realize the effects.  A lot [of Kana customers] are beginning
to experiment, trying to roll out blog and wiki initiatives, figuring
out how to use reputation, how to change the knowledge-creation
process.  Customers are asking, ‘How can I use this wiki
stuff? How can social networking be useful to drive loyalty? What does
a collaborative Web site look like?’ "

Angel and others such as Brent Leary and Paul Greenberg
agree.  Leary sums it up best, saying "Social networking will continue to be big. It is absolutely critical
for CRM vendors to reach out and roll their own social network and
trackbacks, or to work with Facebook, LinkedIn, and the rest."

Random tip for Microsoft Office Word 2007 users that I just learned:  MS Word defaults to saving documents in the new .docx format, which is incompatible with all the existing versions of Word that are out there.  So, to send a file to someone who has the older version, you have to go through an annoying "Save as…" loop every time (which you’ll invariably forget when it’s most important).

However, my friend Korbett just alerted me to the fact that there is a four-levels-deep setting that can make Word 2007 default to save in the friendlier .doc format instead of .docx.  Here’s the sequence:

"Office" button =>
"Word Options" button (it’s hidden down at the bottom) =>
"Save" link =>
"Save Files in this Format" = Word 97-2003

There ya go.

Conversation evolves humanity’s software.  This has a larger reach than the "traditional" kind of evolution, which merely evolves our hardware.

Related: "What we call ‘authority’ is the right we give others to author us, to change us."

As retailers crank up the marketing machine, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday and BuyMoreStuff Tuesday come to pass, it warms my heart to find a site like this:

http://isitchristmas.com

(Note to Dave Winer:  you’ll be pleased to know isitchristmas has an RSS feed.)

One of the primary models for "customer support" is the triage method.  While the definitions vary, these three support levels are usually defined as some variant on the following:

• Level 1: The Level 1 support team is the first point of
  contact in the incident response process. Customer service personnel
  are responsible for call handling, triage, problem characterization,
  and resolution of basic problems. Oftentimes, Level 1 Support answers
  questions by consulting lists of frequently-asked questions (FAQs).

• Level 2: The Level 2 support team is staffed with
  support engineers assigned by product type. The support engineers are
  responsible for lab-based simulation, difficult problem resolution,
  defect correction or escalation management to Level 3 support.

• Level 3: The Level 3 support team is staffed with
  senior analysts, program managers, and development engineers dedicated
  to working on the critical problems. They are responsible for
  confirmation of defects, including complex failures, performing
  interoperability studies, and enacting engineering level changes to
  permanently resolve any issues in released products.

But, there are other, customer-centric models that could exist (raise the VRM flag here, charge the hill, etc.), other models that do not inflict the vendor’s silo and processes on the customer who just wants to get the damn thing fixed.  Paul Sweeney asks:

"To post a blunt example, I leave a comment on the recent Service Untitled post
about a poor experience he had with Toyota. How does Toyota sense this?
who should get a call, what "interaction opportunity should be
offered"? Could they "sense" that this particular post was about the
fact that a particular part did not function well, or that a particular
dealer wasn’t all that friendly? How could Enterprise 2.0 solutions
re-design how this is handled?"

Great question.  This is a logical progression from the thoughts I had ("We’re Listening") and Alex Barnett ("Support Tagging") Stowe Boyd and Greg Narain posited as well ("Support Tag Beacons") on the idea of "support tags" (or "beacons" as Stowe and Greg call them, although the "Beacon" term has been co-opted by Facebook these days, more here and here on that).

Extra credit:  The Consortium for Service Innovation on swarming as a customer support model