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Empower Your Employees to Help Your Customers

customerdantaylorYesterday Jason Falls over at Social Media Explorer wrote a post about whether brands were playing favorites on social media.  The problem is that many customers have problems, but often it seems that people who are influencers – who have a popular blog or twitter feed – will get responses from companies that normal people can’t seem to get through normal customer support channels.  I commented that right now many of the people monitoring social media at companies are higher up and actually have the power to fix problems.

Why is this exactly? Why do people have to complain on Twitter or their blog or to their influencer friends to get their problems solved?  Most of us have had an experience with a customer support system where the employee had to follow a script and wasn’t allowed to make any kind of decision. You usually have to try to get up to a manager or another department and even then there’s no guarantee that you’ll get any kind of decision.

What would happen if you allowed your customer support employees to make decisions?  You’d have to provide them with some guidelines, obviously, but what if they could actually help your customers? Many years ago I used to work a few hours a week at Bed, Bath & Beyond (ok, mostly for the discount).  They allowed their employees to give up to a 5% discount to any customer for any reason (usually having to do with a flaw in the merchandise).  Do you know how happy it makes a customer when they come up to you to show you a flaw in a product, ready for a fight, and you just give them a 5% discount without arguing?  How many of those customers were repeat customers?  I’d imagine quite a few.  I’m sure BBB made up the 5% discount with increased sales from happy customers.

All the employees at your company will influence your brand and reputation.  If you give them the power to make decisions that help customers, it will only help your company in the long run.

(photo by dan taylor @ FlickrCC)

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Online Customer Engagement Findings

cscapelogoAs a followup to yesterday’s post on online customer engagement, reader Sarah Woodbridge suggested taking a look at cScape’s report on Customer Engagement.  The report is well worth a look (and it’s free!).  They’ve been producing a report for 3 years so they have a bit of historical data as well.

Customer engagement is widely seen as a way of deepening and enriching a product or service offering and a method for gaining customer insight.  – The cScape Online Customer Engagement Survey Report 2009

Here are some of the key findings:

  • Only 42% of organizations surveyed have a defined customer engagement strategy in place
  • 41% of respondents said that deteriorating economic climate has resulted in a greater focus on customer engagement
  • There’s interest in creating relationships with customers to increase the long-term customer value and also to increase the value delivered to the customer.
  • Most organizations feel that sensitivity to price is a key customer behavior that will have to be addressed in the next 12 months (48%).
  • Email newsletters are the most likely tactic to improve customer engagement (59%).
  • Web 2.0 and social media such as user ratings & feedback (41%), user-generated content (37%), blogging (36%) and social networks (36%) will also be used to engage customers.
  • Very few companies (5%) have a strategy that uses mobile channels.
  • Lack of resources continues to be a barrier to successful customer engagement.
  • About a third of companies site problems with technology as a significant barrier to cultivating better customer engagement.

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Branding is Branding, Offline or Online

My post about branding on Monday got me thinking more about branding.  Many of our clients get very concerned about what they should do for online branding. I don’t think online branding and offline branding should be treated as different types of branding. Here’s why…

You may think you don’t have an online brand.

Even if you don’t have a business website or an online branding strategy, you probably already have an online brand.  With publishing online being open to anyone these days, your customers are probably already talking about you online.  You might be surprised what you find with a google search or two.

You are no longer sole keeper of your brand.

Because it is so easy for people to communicate and write online, your customers can say whatever they want to whoever they want about your company and products.  Especially for expensive business products and services, people are likely to turn to co-workers and associates for opinions during purchasing decisions.

Offline branding impacts online branding (and vice versa).

Whatever you do offline affects your online brand (and vice versa), so managing online and offline should be part of one branding strategy.  Keep both in mind while putting together branding and marketing strategies.  All offline branding campaigns should include website addresses (preferably unique landing pages for tracking purposes).  Use online branding to

Your brand is constantly evolving.

With online and offline branding feed off each other, your brand is now in a continuous evolution.   Understanding how your brand is evolving should be part of your tactical, daily plans, so you can be a part of the evolution process.

The speed of change is increasing.

It used to be that you would have days to strategize PR to combat negative branding offline.  Now, you need to respond quickly online, even if it just to say that you’re listening to concerns and will address them soon.  Lack of response = negative branding.

The best way to approach online and offline branding is in one overall branding and marketing strategy because they are so intertwined.  Viewing them together will present opportunities for positive branding influence and keep you out of trouble.

What are your experiences with branding? Please share in the comments below.

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