SCRM

Adobe Summit March 24-28, 2014 | Salt Lake City, UT

March 17, 2014 By Dr. Natalie 1 Comment

I’m looking forward to attending the Adobe Summit this year in Salt Lake City. Thinking about join me? Here are the top reasons why you should attend:

Make the most of every opportunity

Summit will give you the inspiration, tools, and know-how to find and maximize every marketing opportunity so you can increase your impact and your revenue.
Learn from the experts.

Summit sessions and labs are taught by some of the most innovative marketers from top companies around the world. This is your opportunity to learn from their years of real-world experience.
Find solutions to your specific marketing issues.

Learn how to tackle your own marketing and data issues as you see Adobe Marketing Cloud in action. You’ll leave with specific skills, best practices, and strategies you can put to work immediately.
Be among the first to know.

Summit is where we discuss the latest trends and news in digital marketing. Be the first to witness this year’s product announcements, news, and industry trends from the Adobe Marketing Cloud community.
Network with leading marketers.

Summit brings together the best marketers and advertisers from all industries, and we’ll showcase some of our most innovative partners in the Community Pavilion. Make time to stop by and learn about their new technologies.
Spend face-to-face time with Adobe Training Services, Adobe Customer Care and Adobe Consulting.

Upgrade your skills. When you register for Summit, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up for Adobe Marketing Cloud classes delivered by Adobe Training Services. Add an extra day or two at Summit and receive hands-on training that will help you get even more value from your Adobe technology.
Customize your learning.

With eight content tracks, you can easily organize and customize your week to attend the breakout sessions you need, so you can learn the latest skills relevant to you and your company.
Put yourself ahead of the pack.

Time invested at Summit will pay dividends to you today, and for your continuing career, as you gain valuable knowledge and skills. You’ll already be where your peers and competition are trying to arrive.
Enjoy evening parties and entertainment.

Once you’ve soaked in all you can from the keynotes and breakouts, the day will be far from over. Use the evenings to meet other marketers, and enjoy big name performers have the Summit Bash. Previous Summit performers have included Maroon 5, the Killers, Lenny Kravitz, Foster the People, and the Black Keys.
Unwind on the ski slopes.

Your Summit registration allows you to request a complimentary lift ticket for Friday’s Ski Day. (Ski rental equipment can be added during registration for a nominal fee; however there are a limited number of rental packages available).

Decided to join me? Register here!

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

How to work with Dr. Natalie — VP & Principal Analyst | Constellation Research, Inc.

How to work with Dr. Natalie at the Executive Success Firm

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Voice: +1.310.919.8467 | Twitter: @drnatalie |

Skype: drnatalie007 | LinkedIn | Google+

Catch my latest:

• Thoughts at www.DrNatalieNews.com

• Upcoming book series: “7 Steps To Digital Customer Experience Mastery” (working title)

• My Book: Like My Stuff: Tactics to Monetizing Facebook Engagement and

• 3rd Most Download ebook: Myths, Truths of Social Media ROI

SAVE THE DATE!
Constellation’s 4th Annual Connected Enterprise
The Executive Innovation Conference | October 29th-31st Half Moon Bay, CA | Ritz Carlton

Filed Under: Conferences, Events Tagged With: adobe summit, adobesummit, cloud, conference, customer service, Events, marketing, network, PR, ROI, SCRM, social media

April 7-9 2014: Marketo Marketing Nation Summit

March 9, 2014 By Dr. Natalie Leave a Comment

I’m thrilled to be attending the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014. Here is more information if you’re interested in joining me:

Conference Information

Without question, the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will be the Marketing Event of the year. Join the Marketing Nation as over 3,500 of your peers, colleagues and thought leaders gather to celebrate Innovation in the Nation. Located at Moscone Center – West , in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District, the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will provide an engaging experience to grow your expertise and network over two and a half days. Connect with ideas, marketers, and resources to help YOU achieve success faster!

Moscone Center – West , San Francisco California

Moscone Center – West is a visually stunning and expansive three-level exhibition hall, conveniently located near fine dining, shopping, museums and more. As the heart-center of the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014, Moscone Center – West will be buzzing with life and will serve as a vibrant backdrop where connections will be made over two and a half days.

Moscone Center – West
800 Howard Street
Located at the corner of Fourth and Howard Streets
San Francisco, CA 94103

Conference FAQ’s

Why should I attend?
The Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 will deliver dynamic and rich content along with key takeaways that will prove to be an incredible investment to your business. Learn how to implement and use the latest features and see what’s on the future horizon at Marketo. Develop deeper relationships with your contacts and marketing experts by gaining mastery over innovating lead generation, campaign management, social media strategies and analytics.

Social Networking Parties
Learn during the day, relax network and socialize in the evening! Registration opens Monday, April 7th followed by our Marketing Nation Kickoff Party. On Tuesday, April 8, join us for Happy Hour in the Marketing Nation Expo before being shuttled to our Customer Appreciation Party! We have an incredible night planned, so stay tuned for more information.

Registration Information

What is the registration fee?

Early Early Bird:$795 until December 15, 2013
Early Bird:$895 from December 15 until February 15, 2014
Standard:$1,195 until April 2nd, 2014
Onsite:$1,595

Can I register in person at the event?
Absolutely, however at this year’s event seats will be in high-demand so we recommend that you register early to secure your spot. Onsite registration is $1,595.

Is a group discount available?
Yes, simply email to info@marketoevents.com the names of the 10 or more attendees from your company and you get $200 off each registrant. You will receive a discount code of $200 off to register for each person. You must register all 10 people within one week of receiving the code.

Will Marketo close registration at any point?
Registration will close on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 5:00 p.m., PST. If seats are available after registration closes, onsite registration will be available for the price of $1,595.

What is included in my registration fee?
Access to the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit 2014 which includes keynote sessions as well as customer success tracks. The program begins at 5:00 p.m. on April 7 and will end at 5:00 p.m. on April 9. Registration fee includes admission, food and beverage during the daytime sessions and access to the Social Networking Parties.

Does the registration fee include travel costs for the conference?
All travel costs including air and hotel accommodations are the responsibility of the attendee. Marketo has secured a block of rooms at a discounted rate of $267 (Classic) / $277 (Deluxe) at the Hilton San Francisco, the host hotel. To reserve your rooms, please click here.

Is there an additional charge to attend Summit University Day?
Yes, there is an additional charge to attend Summit University Day. The registration prices are outlined below:

UNIVERSITY
Early Bird: $595 (until February 1)
Regular: $695 (February 2 – April 2)

CERTIFICATION
Early Bird: $100 (until February 1)
Regular: $125 (February 2 – April 2)

How is my registration confirmed? 
After completing registration, you will receive a confirmation email with your registration information and your invoice attached.

What forms of payment do you accept for the conference fee?
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, wire transfer and company checks are all accepted.

If I can’t attend, can I substitute my registration?
Yes. If you are unable to attend, you may substitute one colleague’s name per registration. All substitutions must be received in writing prior to Monday, March 16, 2014 and will incur a fee of $50. After this date, all substitutions are subject to a $100.00 (USD) processing fee. Please submit substitution requests to info@marketoevents.com and include the following information for the new registrant: Name, Job Title/Position, Work Address, Work Phone Number and Email Address. A registration confirmation will be sent to the new registrant once the substitution is confirmed.

What if I have to cancel? 
Registration cancellations received in writing by 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) prior to Friday, February 21, 2014, will be refunded, less a $150.00 (USD) processing fee. There will be no refunds for cancellations received after 5:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time) on Friday, February 21, 2014. Please send any information regarding cancellations via email to info@marketoevents.com.

Look forward to connecting

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

How to work with Dr. Natalie — VP & Principal Analyst | Constellation Research, Inc.

How to work with Dr. Natalie at the Executive Success Firm

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Voice: +1.310.919.8467 | Twitter: @drnatalie |

Skype: drnatalie007 | LinkedIn | Google+

Catch my latest:

• Thoughts at www.DrNatalieNews.com

• Upcoming book series: “7 Steps To Digital Customer Experience Mastery” (working title)

• My Book: Like My Stuff: Tactics to Monetizing Facebook Engagement and

• 3rd Most Download ebook: Myths, Truths of Social Media ROI

SAVE THE DATE!
Constellation’s 4th Annual Connected Enterprise
The Executive Innovation Conference | October 29th-31st

Half Moon Bay, CA | Ritz Carlton

Filed Under: Conferences, Events Tagged With: conference, Customer Experience, customer service, event, marketing, PR, ROI, SCRM, social media

Customer Conversations are Key to Your Business

January 23, 2014 By Dr. Natalie 3 Comments

This post is part of the Deep Thoughts at Dreamforce Series of candid interviews with customer experience thought leaders. You can view the other videos in the series here.

“Strategy that involves common sense is nearly impossible for large companies to do,” said consultant Dr. Natalie Petouhoff of companies that claim to be customer-centric yet fail to truly utilize customer feedback to grow the business.

“Leadership is the key,” said Petouhoff speaking to C-level executives. “If you’re not customer-focused, you need to be fired.”

Customers are everything. “If you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business,” said Petouhoff.

One of the issues that came up during the Dreamforce conference was the need to increase customer engagement. One theory states that if you can double your overall customer engagement you could double your business.

The problem Petouhoff identified is that there are still many executives who believe that customer service should only be treated as a cost center. Instead, you should relish every single customer touch point, even the negative ones.

Don’t stick your head in the sand to negative criticism, warned Petouhoff. Talk to your customers wherever they are. Hire people who are customer-centric who want to engage with your customers.

“Integrate that back into your company and you would have an amazing company,” claimed Petouhoff.

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

Click here to watch my videos on Social Media ROI:
Video 1: Building the Business Case for Social Media
Video 2: How to Measure the ROI of Social Media
Video 3: How Social Media Benefits the Whole Company

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

The Doctor Knows Social Media ROI & Our Business Strategies Rx Get Results!
Our Motto? Be Awesome by: Learning, Sharing & Growing!

What we do: We work with companies to deliver increased revenue and decreased costs:

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service Tagged With: Brand, Business, Customer Experience, customer feedback, customer service, Dreamforce, Get Satisfaction, marketing, PR, ROI, SCRM, social media

Reduce Support Costs With A Customer Community: Increase Agent Efficiency (Part 2)

January 18, 2014 By Dr. Natalie Leave a Comment

Reduce One-Off Requests

Your support agents are knowledgeable about every aspect of your

business. They have extensive knowledge about your product, your

processes, and policies. So it’s an ironic twist of fate that (especially

as your business scales) they spend most of their time answering

simple, one-off questions.

Don’t get us wrong—it’s important that your customers are

supported as they purchase, set up, and begin using your products.

You want them to be as successful as possible, so they have a

positive experience and brand association. But does this mean your

support agents have to hold the hand of each and every customer

as they look for the “on” button? Absolutely not…at least not

anymore.

As you scale your business, you need to make sure that you’re

doing everything you can to reduce the number of simple,

repetitive questions your support staff is answering. A branded

customer community is ideal for this. It acts as a living, breathing

conversation library, hosting all the questions, answers, praise, and

ideas that have come before, while constantly being updated with

the most current topics of conversation.

Because community is designed to facilitate engagement around

the topics your customers care about (as opposed to Facebook or

Twitter, which are optimized for engagement around recent content

only), all conversations, whether they began two years ago or this

morning, are easy for search engines and hence people, to find.

Get Satisfaction customer communities take this archive capability

a step further. They search the entire community to see if an

answer may already be tucked away somewhere in the ghosts

of conversations past, before allowing a new topic to be posted.

This means that customers are automatically exposed to existing

questions and answers before they can open new issues.

This is beneficial for all concerned parties—your customers are able

to self-serve their own answers quickly and easily, which is what

most consumers prefer these days. And your support agents don’t

have to answer the same questions over and over again, because

there is a huge repository of content that exists already.

Empower Your Support Champions

Increasing agent efficiency is really a fancy way of saying reduce

agent tickets, calls, emails, and instances, freeing them up to

put their support super powers to work on more complex issues.

A great way to do this is by identifying the customers who are

naturally knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and vocal about your

product, also known as brand advocates or Champions.

It may seem unlikely that there are actually people out there who

are excited to speak up on your behalf, answer questions, and act

as impromptu support agents, but anyone who works in social

media will tell you that there absolutely are! Your job is to identify

them, incentivize them (even with a simple web badge—these folks

love a little recognition!), and connect them with prospects and

other customers. A customer community, with its wealth of people,

content, and analytic capabilities, is a natural place to do just that.

Get Satisfaction offers a Champs program, which allows you to

publically designate champions so the community knows who they

are. You can even give them special abilities so they can moderate

and curate as you see fit.

Champions are not the only ones who can help alleviate

the load on your support agents. The people interacting in your

community naturally bring with them varying experiences,

perspectives, and skills. From highly technical developer

communities, to those of companies that sell basic consumer

goods, bringing your customers and employees together to share

experiences and solutions is a solid base to build on for innovation,

development, and collaboration.

Stay tuned for part 3!

You are here: Home / Blog

Reduce Support Costs With A Customer Community: Increase Agent Efficiency (Part 1)

January 11, 2014 By Dr. Natalie Leave a Comment

We love our customer support agents. Friendly, helpful, and patient by nature, these folks spend more time talking to your customers than
anyone else in your company. They truly understand the pain points of your business, and they’re the ones putting in long hours to resolve
them for your customers. It’s important, then, to ensure they have the tools and resources necessary to be truly effective.
This isn’t just a good idea from a warm and fuzzy perspective. Agent salaries are the most expensive part of a support center. By ensuring
that they’re using their time efficiently—helping people solve complex, technical or individual problems, not responding to the same basic
questions over and over again—you can do a lot to maximize the value of your support agents, the satisfaction of your customers, and
minimize stress and pain points for both.
This eBook is the second in a series of three explaining how customer communities can help companies realize significant savings and
revenue sources, along with the metrics and calculations to measure the results. The first eBook focused on customer community as a
valuable resource for customer self-service support. This book focuses on the way companies can leverage community to improve agent
efficiency. Stay tuned for the final, which will discuss community as a means to improve customer retention and acquisition.

Customer Community: The Basics
Since this eBook is all about how you can leverage a customer community to improve agent efficiency (and reduce costs as a
result), we figured it makes sense to give a quick refresher course on what exactly a customer community is, just to make sure we’re
all on the same page.
So what is a community platform? It all started with some of the first technology that emerged on the web—the forums and
message boards of the 80’s and 90’s. These technologies were built to create online spaces where users could have threaded
conversations about the topics, products, and services that interested them. To have an identity across conversation, users
typically created a profile with a nickname, so that they could build their reputation. This primordial community technology worked
well for engineers, developers, and early adopters, but it was not designed to be easy-to-use by a mass audience.
A lot has changed in today’s community platforms, but the core conversational functions have remained the same. At Get
Satisfaction, we have a strong point of view that, for a community to be most effective and beneficial for customers as well as companies, it should have the following:

❑User-friendly interface with a simple way for even tech-wary users to browse and search for relevant conversations
❑Technical flexibility that allows business to embed community content and functionality across customer channels … on websites,
social networks, in digital campaigns, and on mobile and tablet devices
❑Business features and tools (topic moderation, content curation, etc.) that allow for successful community management
❑Ability for the community to be branded by the company that owns or sponsors it
❑Content that is highly indexed by search engines (through SEO) and naturally appears in top search results
❑Analytics tools that allow business users to assess community health and performance, determine the most relevant content, and
identify the community members who are mostly likely to become brand advocates
❑Formal Champions program that allows you to identify, recognize, and allocate simple moderation capabilities to the customers who
act as informal leaders in your community

When equipped with these features and moderated and curated effectively, communities are great assets for customers to research
products, find answers to their questions, and act as resources for others. These conversations drive customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, while helping companies deliver great support, gather feedback to build better products, and acquire more customers.
Effectively, community allows you to deliver a better customer experience, while reducing costs and bringing benefits to multiple
departments across companies.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service Tagged With: agents, Business, customer community, customer satisfaction, customer service, Get Satisfaction, marketing, ROI, SCRM, social media

Video Interview: Thought Leadership with Mitchell Levy and Michael Procopio

January 6, 2014 By Dr. Natalie Leave a Comment

Thought Leadership with Mitchell Levy http://MitchellLevy.com and Michael Procopio http://MProcopio.com covers all things around thought leadership, how to become one, how to use it as a form of communication, how to help others become one. I got to sit down with them for a Google Hangout and discuss customer service, social media, real-time marketing and more!

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service Tagged With: agents, Business, customer community, customer satisfaction, customer service, Get Satisfaction, marketing, ROI, SCRM, social media

Reduce Support Costs With A Customer Community: Increase Agent Efficiency (Part 1)

January 11, 2014 By Dr. Natalie 1 Comment

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service Tagged With: agents, Business, customer community, customer satisfaction, customer service, Get Satisfaction, marketing, ROI, SCRM, social media

Video Interview: Thought Leadership with Mitchell Levy and Michael Procopio

January 6, 2014 By Dr. Natalie 1 Comment

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Leadership, Social PR, Marketing and Advertising Tagged With: B2B, brands, Business, C2C, customer service, Michael Procopio, Mitchell Levy, PR, product reviews, Real-Time Marketing, ROI, SCRM, social media, thought leadership

Social CEM: Moving Beyond Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy (Part Final)

December 14, 2013 By Dr. Natalie 1 Comment

Thanks for checking back in, lives dive right back in to the final part of this study!

3. Get Credit for Delivering Great Experiences

Social media isn’t just for fun anymore; it has evolved into a critical channel for

customer outreach and customer feedback. Social CEM allows brands to monitor,

listen and take advantage of social trends. By engaging with customers across

all channels of communication brands can now engage in customer dialogue in

an integrated fashion. Engaging in this dialogue is the first step towards a plan to

co-create your brand with your customers.

Some brands now have their own fans run their fan pages for them with minimal

oversight. This is just one of the ways that you can mobilize advocates on social

networks. Look for other opportunities to create social advocates. There are

many! And you want to look at technology providers like Empathica to help you

deploy and scale advocacy development programs.

Once you have delivered a great experience make sure you get credit for it by

making it easy for your advocates to share their stories on social media. Once

improvements are made and consumers know about those improvements, many

will often respond in kind by recommending the company to friends; driving positive

word of mouth conversations, posting positive comments online and blogging

about how the company moved heaven and earth to respond and provide great

service. This is the turning point when a consumer becomes an advocate.

It is in this moment that it is important to capture that customer’s positive emotions

and thoughts about their experience. In today’s instantaneous landscape, mailing

out surveys and hoping the customer remembers to post online their great

experience is not efficient or reliable. From the point of view of the consumer, great

customer experience memories can be fleeting. Companies who use technology

to enable the consumer in the “moments of truth” of the transaction to brag

or recommend instantly, enables their customer’s voice to be heard about their

great customer experience are leaping ahead in building and retaining consumer

advocates.

4. Ensure Your Whole Organization is Committed

Consider who the stakeholders are that can affect the Social CEM program. To

do this requires a dialogue within your company about the next steps for Social

CEM. Realize that different people and groups will have different points of view on

the program need and value.

Change is good and should be embraced. Often changing current operations

and processes can seem like a monumental effort. The wisdom of the old

question “how do you eat an elephant?” applies. (Answer: one bite at a time.)

Organizational changes such as a shift to Social CEM are complex processes that

take place one step at a time.

Larger organizations are often daunted by the magnitude of the implied changes

they will need to make in their operations and technology infrastructure to deliver

great customer experiences in today’s socially networked world. Empathica’s

approach to Customer Experience Transformation (Figure 11) maps out a pathway

to reach customer advocacy. This transformation process focuses on how leaders

can shift their organizational culture, put people, process and technology to work

and deliver a consistent and differentiated customer experience.

The first stage is viewing the data from which decisions can be made. While gut

instinct will always play a role in business, astute leaders will always look to data

to validate any key decisions before moving forward. Once the data is collected

and reviewed, the next stage of evolution is managing the outcomes. This is

where decisions become actions and the outcomes of the insights uncovered by

the data are put into play. As the actions begin, integrating the changes across

the entire business is the next phase of program evolution. When complete,

then a brand reaches the final stage of evolution where the customer experience

becomes a key aspect in engineering the brand, and brand identity itself.

What can set this approach apart is the focus on the endgame of brand engineering

(or re-engineering). The end goal is to have the entire company culture focused

on the customer experience. When that happens, improvements in the customer

experience can be measured as business outcomes – and brands can predict the

financial impact of improvements in customer experience scores.

A particular capability of leading Social CEM vendor solutions is the ability to

provide, (through financial linkage analysis an example of which is shown in Figure

12) the impact of higher customer satisfaction scores on return visits. In addition

it has been statistically shown that a 5% increase in customer satisfaction can

reflect the growth of sales by ~0.7%. This can translate into tens of millions of

dollars each year for large enterprises.

For organizations interested in quickly acquiring new customers as well as

supporting the current ones, long, drawn out transformation programs may not

work. Today many organizations need to take action quickly or their companies

will cease to exist. The goal of most organizations is to build customer advocacy

quickly with a short-term Social CEM strategy.

5. Social CEM Readiness Checklist

Below is a checklist to help start to evaluate where an organization is with respect

to Social CEM. How many of these questions does your organization have solid

answers and practices for?

√ Are we delivering superior, emotionally-connected Customer and Brand

Experiences across all channels and touch-points?

√ Are our Employees sufficiently engaged and performing to advance our

Experience and Brand goals?

√ Are we doing enough to leverage our “Moments of Truth” efforts?

√ Are we clearly standing out in the mind of the customer compared to our

competitors, especially with respect to customer service?

√ Do we have the technology and analytical resources in place to make dynamic

new decisions on a daily basis (i.e. things change, every day)?

√ What are we doing to move beyond customer satisfaction and loyalty to

cultivating and measuring Customer Advocacy?

Conclusion

Customer Experience Management is evolving into a social experience for customers

and brands alike. In an “always on,” changing and connected world, the game

to engage and interact with consumers in real-time regarding their likes, dislikes,

wants and wishes is “on” in full force. As a consumer facing company, the challenge

is to respond to social consumers, and perhaps even change how the company

operates when consumers point out their disappointments and suggestions.

In this new world, one thing is clear. Companies that continue to embrace new

consumer behaviors and develop new approaches to engaging with their brands

will be the market leaders that forge deeper connections and build active advocacy

across all brand stakeholders – owners, employees and customers.

When it comes to Social CEM, don’t feel you need to go it alone. Reach out and get

help. The Customer Experience Management industry has been around for more

than ten years and there is a treasure trove of knowledge available. Companies

such as Empathica have a wealth of information from current consumer research

and trends as well as technology that can help at http://www.empathica.com/

resources/.

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service, Dr. Natalie's Blog Tagged With: Advocacy, Business, CEM, CRM, Customer, Customer Experience, marketing, media, SCRM, service, social, social media

Social CEM: Moving Beyond Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy (Part 5)

December 7, 2013 By Dr. Natalie 3 Comments

The Consumer Advocacy Stage

Research shows that while a customer might be temporarily “loyal,” that loyalty

may not necessarily translate into consumer advocacy, the last stage in the new

customer lifecycle. If the customer experience is good, often brand

advocates want to share their customer experience with others.

Brand advocates are built through a series of positive experiences with the

brand. Some social media technology solutions offer the ability to reward true

advocacy when brand advocates exhibit behaviors that affect top line metrics. By

measuring who the most engaged and active advocates are, the brand can make

sure to reward those advocates each time a new campaign begins. Social CEM

technologies can enable a brand advocate to share great experiences online

immediately with a friend or en masse to many friends and followers through

Facebook and Twitter.

Over time, various customer interactions can result in the customers seeing

brands as “great” (likely to advocate/promote), “passive” (personally loyal but not

necessarily a promoter), or “negative” (a detractor – likely to defect or complain).

Research shows that if your customers feel they have had a great experience with

your company, they are more likely to re-purchase and even tell others about their

wonderful experience in a quick moment over social media (Figure 9).

Studies from Purdue University also show the direct affect the customer experience

has on branding, customer loyalty and propensity to repurchase:

One of the big challenges brands have is getting credit for their efforts. Experience

with over 150 brands using Empathica’s GoRecommend™ social media

advocacy solution has found that most brands have a silent majority of potential

brand advocates. What’s required is simply a gentle push or simple ask to convert

their positive sentiments into a powerful marketing message, as well as validation

for a job well done. Making it easy and seamless for customers to go beyond

just providing survey feedback and later “liking” the brand on Facebook, creating

immediate brand advocates can be transformational.

Recommendations for Managing the Social Customer Experience

The following sections contain recommendations to drive social customer experience

success. It is important to understand that the very nature of customer experience

is constantly changing because of evolving consumer behavior. With ever changing

market conditions, companies must be nimble and able to constantly tweak their

approach and strategy.

1. Get a Deeper Understanding of What Drives Advocacy

As you decide on your customer experience management processes, begin by

looking at whether the people, process and technology enablers you are choosing

are in the best interest of engaging with your best customers as social advocates

(Figure 10).

Focus on the total customer experience. In good times and bad, there is one

constant – people expect a great experience when they come into your stores

and locations – the people, the product, the facilities, etc. If they don’t get it, they

have a lot of other choices – and their social networks will be more than happy to

point them to your competitors. If you do deliver on a great customer experience,

customers will reward you time and time again through increased visits, higher

spend and they’ll tell their friends. Focus on training and knowledgeable, friendly

staff.

Before designing a customer experience map, conduct the appropriate

research to understand customer needs from across all traditional communication

channels, including social media. Examine not only the rational (logical) part

of an experience (e.g. the product comes with a carrying case), but also

the emotional aspects (e.g. the carrying case fits with the lifestyle needs and

“brand” of the buyer).

Continue to get to know your customers all over again with a deeper understanding

of their experience through customer journey mapping, and loyalty and advocacy

modeling. This exercise will allow you to map out in detail the customer interaction

journey and the key points where you can enable technology, people and process

to drive customers toward customer advocacy.

Finally, analyze the way your customers are served and process map all aspects

of your business, key processes and integrate third party suppliers and partners

that serve your customers. This thorough evaluation of each component of your

business can ensure that the way work gets done always serves the customer.

Drive Focused Actions in Your Locations

As you begin to evaluate your social customer experience program, it is also

important to consider the critical role played by the locations and staff. Take an

honest look at where you are with respect to standard operating procedures and

best practices. If you have mapped out an ideal customer journey, have you also

mapped out and created systematic plans for locations to deliver against it? Have

your front line staff been thoroughly on-boarded and trained to do so?

Remember that all locations are NOT created equal. Don’t treat all your locations

the same – each location has its own challenges based on the local clientele,

customers, as well as the skill levels of the people who work there. Instant mobile

and social media consumer interactions are driving geographically dispersed

brands and locations to adopt technology to provide the information necessary

to guide each location to operate in a way that is unique and driven by its local

patrons and local social commentary. This information enables brands to shift

local operations, to take corrective steps in product/service development,

product/service delivery, product/service offers and customer service based upon

local preferences. Technology from solution providers like Empathica can also

automate the sharing of best practices among locations.

Focus on the total

Social CEM: Moving Beyond Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy

This can be advantageous especially for new managers to get up to speed quickly

by learning from more experienced managers.

Following the brand leaders can provide all locations with additional coaching.

Often times other high-performing stores or locations have had similar experiences

or made similar improvements when faced with particular challenges. In a lot of

cases, you can leverage that information and those best practices. You do not

have to reinvent the wheel.

Finally – Focus. Focus. Focus. Every employee who is focused on the customer

experience should be given consistent direction. These employees in turn build

your culture and your brand even when you are not there in person to oversee

every interaction. Every interaction point serves to give the customer an opinion

of your brand. Give staff the tools and information they need to focus on the right

interactions for the operation of their store or location.

Make sure to check back in for the final part of this series!

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service, Dr. Natalie's Blog Tagged With: Advocacy, brands, Business, Customer Experience, customer service, Facebook, marketing, PR, SCRM, social media

Social CEM: Moving Beyond Customer Loyalty to Customer Advocacy And Customer Experience (Part 4)

December 1, 2013 By Dr. Natalie 1 Comment

Welcome to Part 4 of this topic! I hope you’re finding it informative so far.

3. Deciding When (and When Not) to Take Action on Customer Feedback

Almost all businesses collect feedback from their customers. The problem is that

few incorporate that feedback into their operation or follow up with customers on

their concerns. This is often discouraging to the customers that provide feedback

in good faith that it will be used by the brand (Figure 6).

As we can see from Empathica research on the big box retailer experience in

Figure 6, survey results showed that 85% of consumers have provided some

form of feedback to big box retailers, yet only 46% of respondents believe that

brands actually use this feedback to make constructive changes to the customer

experience. In addition, only 52% believe that feedback is shared with individual

locations.

Consumer feedback overload can be a problem as well. In an attempt to be

more responsive to customers, brands often provide their staff with data but

stores/locations can be overwhelmed with the data they get from head office.

For instance, what should be done with negative reviews on Yelp or Google?

Should they direct my staff to focus on an issue because of one or two negative

comments received in the last month? Location managers don’t have the time

or expertise to digest and interpret the data. This causes a lack of focus and the

advent of social media can only make things worse. The answer lies in using

information from different sources at the right time.

Unstructured data (for example reviews from sites like Google or Yahoo) can be

very useful to observe trends at the brand level, but often contain an insufficient

volume of location specific data to be helpful to individual stores. Structured data

sources (e.g. survey responses) can be highly instructive for location specific

issues. Semi-structured data (like that from social review sites like Yelp or open ended

survey responses) can also be useful for locations as they may point to

specific issues with service or product when taken in aggregate. It is important

for brands to realize data from unstructured sources should not be given undue

weight versus feedback from semi-structured and structured sources (see Figure

7) like the customer satisfaction survey which relates to the individual location.

This is critically important to avoid location managers wrongly interpreting one or

two bad comments (that may or may not apply to their location) and changing

their approach without looking at feedback in aggregate for their location or

understanding how this impacts customer loyalty.

4. Consistently Delivering Customer Experiences That Positively Affect

Your Brand

With the advent of social media, ecommerce and global Internet shopping, your

customers are always just a click away from purchasing from a competitor. While

some customers, on occasion, will buy a company’s products or services even

though they have had a bad experience along the way, this has become the

exception not the rule with the variety of choice now available in the market. The

old mentality of “build it and they will come” worked in the past if the company

devised a way to completely lock up the marketplace. However, locking the

market is no longer possible in today’s globally connected competitive landscape.

Companies need to pay attention to the customer experience they deliver because

customers will post their experiences online and affect the opinion and shopping/

purchasing habits of other customers.

However, consistently delivering a great customer experience across all locations

remains a challenge for all multi-unit brands as seen in a restaurant example in

Figure 8.

As much as overall improvement is key, just as important for brands as they grow

is to develop a consistent experience. Being good every time is far better than

being great and terrible, each some of the time.

5. Going Beyond the Loyalty Stage to Drive Active Advocacy

For many years, one of the primary goals for brand marketers has been driving

customer loyalty and thus one of the 20th century customer experiences goals

was to create loyalty (i.e. generating higher customer lifetime values as customers

are consistently delighted and buy more over longer periods of time).

The 21st century goal is to add an additional step to the customer lifecycle

called customer advocacy (see Figure 4).Why? A study entitled “Inside the Buy”4

revealed that the very idea of loyalty has changed for 97% of consumers and that

a new consumer behavior, “contemporary loyalty,” is redefining loyalty.

It was a widely held belief that consumers who bought a brand and liked it

would potentially become brand loyalists. In the past, brand marketers felt that

the demonstration of preference for that brand over competitors or even generic

store brands meant loyalty. The wake-up call for proponents of brand loyalty is

that because consumers are exposed to so much more information, especially

with the penetration of mobile devices, they are more open to a wider range of

choices in the marketplace. The study showed that consumers do a fair amount

of research (primarily online) prior to purchasing a product, from a high of 64%

before buying electronics, to a low of 25% before purchasing food or fashion.

Of those surveyed, 94% indicated that their decision to buy was “positively

influenced” by research. Around half of consumers visit a brand’s website to

research the brand prior to purchase, and 40% said they go to third-party review

sites, but almost 75% rely on general consumer reviews as their first choice for

research intelligence.

At the click of a mouse, consumers can be persuaded by all the online content,

especially content written by other consumers, to become interested and even

purchase from another brand. Because of the proliferation of online reviews and

content, purchase consideration has dramatically changed. Brand marketers

must re-examine their views on brand loyalty because this online world has lead

to constant competition to get “wallet share” from the consumer. This presents

brand marketers with a new challenge to make sure they get their products in

front of real influencers (reviewers and consumers alike) and can result in costly

outreach “blogger” type programs. In fact, bloggers sometimes expect to be paid

for their endorsement of products and services.

Look out for Part 5 soon!

Dr. Natalie: voted Top 20 In Social Media HuffPo
Dr. Natalie’s ebook: voted as one of the Top Ten Most downloaded Social Media ebooks- On smROI

–
Dr. Natalie’s Executive Success Acceleration Firm™
Executive Business Strategy Advisor & Social Customer Experience Industry Authority & Consultant

Executive Leadership Guidance on Strategy and Business Use of Social Media
Social Media / Business Benchmark Assessments – Tell you what you got/ what you might consider
Social Media ROI – set-up measurement capabilities and dashboards
Workshops on Business Strategy: Customer Experience, PR, Marketing, Customer Service & Internal Employee Advocacy
Instructor MEMES Summer Institutes at UCLA Anderson & UCLA Extension
Customer Experience / Social Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking Assessments & Advisory
Software Company Visualized-ROI, Persona-based Solution Selling w/ Targeted USP & Messaging / ebooks, White Papers, Webinars…
Social Media Training, Organizational Change, Motivation and Goal Setting

My book: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

Follow Me Here:
Twitter: @drnatalie
LinkedIn: DrNataliePetouhoff
G+ : Google Plus posts
Facebook: DrNatalie Petouhof

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Service, Dr. Natalie's Blog Tagged With: Advocacy, Business, CEM, CRM, Customer, Customer Experience, marketing, media, SCRM, service, social, social media

Mari Smith Interview – NMX – TheSocialNetworkShow.com

May 18, 2013 By Dr. Natalie Leave a Comment

I had a chance to “sit down” with top social media expert Mari Smith. It was a pleasure and a privilege to chat with Mari while we discussed the future of Facebook (Brands, you don’t want to miss Mari’s insight here, especially on what she would like to see on fan pages!)

Mari Smith is passionate about people! She is a Relationship Marketing Specialist and one of the worlds foremost experts on how to use Facebook for both business and personal reasons.

Fast Company dubbed Mari, the Pied Piper of the Online World. With her popular blog at MariSmith.com, and her large loyal following on both Facebook and Twitter, Mari is considered one of the top resources and thought leaders in the world of new media. She frequently appears in media locally and nationally. She also travels the United States and internationally to share her wisdom and provide social media keynotes and in-depth training. Through her consulting and training business, Mari helps individuals and business owners to understand and integrate proven social media marketing strategies.

Make sure to follow Mari on twitter: @MariSmith

At Social Business Builders,
we work with brands & software companies to deliver increased revenue and decreased costs.
Our Motto? Learn. Share. Grow!

@DrNatalie L. Petouhoff
310-919-8467

Want to see how to get an ROI from Social Media? Check out these fun videos:
Video 1: Building the Business Case for Social Media
Video 2: How to Measure the ROI of Social Media
Video 3: How Social Media Benefits the Whole Company

Here’s My book on How Businesses can Drive Sales on Facebook: Like My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

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