April
21
2008
There’s an interesting conversation going on over at the Web Analytics Demystified blog around the utility of Twitter and it’s place in the Marketing mix. I started to respond in a comment but it was way too long and too disorganized so I’m trying to organize my thoughts here.
Essentially, one group – to a varying degree – are challenging Twitter’s utility to the marketing organization and others are defending said usefulness.
Jim Novo seems to be the most vocal of the former group and while his points are well taken I think that his POV is somewhat skewed. To wit:
Thanks for responding. I’m not saying Word of Mouth isn’t important, we get a ton of it for the Lab Store, and it’s everywhere – Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, all of it. And, I’m happy to say, it’s very positive, because we take really good care of our customers, and they don’t hesitate one moment to contact Service if they have any issues.
Jim goes on to say,
So I guess my question is this: why in the world would a company create a relationship where customers “seek support or “service” from peers, whom they trust, rather than from the company”?
That’s insane, in my mind.
And
We love all the social commentary about the Lab Store but we don’t “do anything” about it, because it just is what it is, it’s a result of smart Marketing and great Service. This kind of chatter has (hopefully) always gone on about great companies. The only difference now is there exists a public, crunchable record of it.
In a perfect world, yes the customer service logs are going to have all the information you need and you can act on them instantaneously. The thing that gets me about Jim’s comments is that his company apparently enjoys the enviable position of being loved by most, if not all, its customers. Apparently, he can afford not to be involved in this channel – instead he can sit back and enjoy it. So why, indeed, track what’s going on out there and use it to your advantage? Why engage at all?
Beyond Jim’s colored perception (and kudos to Jim for having that luxury) most companies aren’t in the same position with their customers and I’m sure that most companies don’t go out and try to create a negative relationship with their customers. None the less, customer distrust is out there and while the customer is on the phone with Customer Service, they are also spreading the word … and increasingly doing it on Twitter, at least that’s where the influencers seem to be. Gone are the days when one disabused customer is telling 20 friends about her bad experience, now she’s sharing it with thousands or millions of people at a highly accelerated pace.
Remember "Dell Hell"? These kind of customer service nightmares are now playing out on Twitter and savvy companies are there trying to listen, engage and remedy. Two incidents recently with @davewiner and @techcrunch (Michael Arrington) stand as evidence and @comcastcares certainly seems to be having a mostly positive impact on perception as well as customer satisfaction.
I’m not sure that Twitter is usable as a quantitative tool yet but certainly the qualitative impact (positive or negative) shouldn’t be ignored. Arrington mentions Tweetscan as an easy way to keep track of buzz …
So, Jim, to summarize
- You may have a very rare or even unique POV based on your reputation among your customers
- Influentials are on Twitter and are tweeting their experience with your customer service team as it happens, so which do you pick – the call logs or twitter?
- Twitter is relatively opaque to J-I-T quantitative analysis but the qualitative impact of what is happening there shouldn’t be ignored
- In light of the examples above (just how many people listen to what Arrington says?) companies can’t afford to ignore Twitter or other social media channels, don’t believe me? Ask @jowyang (Jeremiah Owyang, Sr. Analyst – Social Computing at Forrester Research)
Tags: customer service, marketing, Twitter, Web Analytics
Thanks for this.
Not every person nor company needs to twitter. You first need to analyze if your audience/market/customers are there, and/or if those that influence them are there. If you’re trying to reach senior citizens, twitter isn’t the tool for you.
If the market you’re trying to reach is there, then you should start to experiment, listen in, and prepare to engage.
At the very least (even if your market isn’t there) you should monitor your brand, and those of your competitors using the search tools, such as tweetscan.
“None the less, customer distrust is out there and while the customer is on the phone with Customer Service”
You’re so willing to start with this as a “given”. Why?
All I’m saying is this: You’re advocating a re-active stance. A customer-centric company is pro-active. They already know the customer, they’re already fixing these things before they are even worth a tweet.
The social commentary is a symptom of a larger problem – a lack of customer-centricity in the first place. I’m suggesting it’s much more efficient to fix the root cause of the problem, rather than chase it all over the web.
Now, if your company is completely incapable of being customer-centric, then fine, “listening” on the web is better than not listening at all. But if you’re not going to do anything about what you hear, then why bother?
@Jim Novo: Jim, thanks for stopping by! A laudable goal certainly but I doubt that for most companies that the reality you suggest is not their.
Also, if the social commentary is a symptom and a company isn’t considering that symptom when trying to improve their customer service program aren’t they likely more likely to misdiagnose because they have incomplete information?
Dell is actually a very good example right? They built their company on, among others, the strength of their customer service and yet they still ended up with Dell Hell because they ignored the symptoms they were presented with.
To your last point, I agree, if you’re not going to do anything about what you hear then why bother (a curious inversion of your comments on ETP’s blog don’t you think?) My point is that companies should listen so that they can do something.
The Comcast examples seem to indicate that Comcast has an endemic CS issue but that there is one guy out there trying to make a change and rather than just listening to Twitter he’s responding there, publicly, to show that change in Comcast CS group is happening