Brendan Read
TMC
E-Business
The (Social) Customer Isn't Always Right
June 8, 2011There appears to be a tendency with social media as a new and highly visible channel to overstock the value of the sentiments expressed in the posts and Tweets, that they do accurately represent the voice of customer and that the complaints are accurate and well-founded. And that those who made them must be supplicated to keep them as customers, lest they tell hundreds of others never to do business with one’s company ever again.
These set of attitudes with social media reflect the cliché “the customer is always right.”
Nonsense. Balderdash. Rot.
The New Customer Self-Service: Ourselves
May 19, 2011Leave aside well-trained live agents, subject matter experts reachable via presence and knowledgebase-connected automated IVR/speech rec and web self-service.
One of the best (and the most affordable) answers to customer service issues--from basic product information to fixing problems—may come from each one of us, which can be termed as peer service or peer support. That is provided that this method is set up and managed right.
Peer service/support is exploding in popularity thanks to social media which has taken it from the rarefied confines of IT bulletin boards, whose establishment predates the Web and whose participants were likeminded geeks to the hoi polloi in the virtual universe. The social media/channel has virtualized a core human behavior i.e. reaching out to others for help just as it has done for buying decisions.
Do-Not-Track Online Act Will Make The Web Less Creepy By Shooing Away "Nasty Sister"
May 10, 2011Going online and going mobile has become a creepy experience with companies tracking your movements: virtually and in-person. There is something disturbing about for example web ads for companies that one does business with (or the case of biz journalists, one covers) when they appear on general newspaper sites. Including when one is mobile and is at home. Equally disturbing are ads from one’s own country displaying on a site belonging to a firm in another.
Forget Government Big Brother, The Real Evil is the Private Sector "Nasty Sister"
April 15, 2011It is not the Orwellian government “Big Brother” citizens have to worry about in protecting their privacy and freedom. It is instead “Nasty Sister” i.e. private companies that aggregate vast amounts of data on individuals and track their every move.
Of the two Nasty Sister is more evil because “she” on the surface is sweeter and seemingly more benign. After all, “she” can’t put you in jail or rob you of your freedoms.
Well…that’s not exactly the case…because the data collected by “her” can and does impact individuals’ abilities to obtain and keep credit, pay bills, acquire housing and get and retain employment.
The Dangers of Social Media Commentary
March 29, 2011There is one cardinal rule of social media: that it is media. Anyone who comments on these sites and uses these tools is acting no differently than if they were facing a camera, have a mike in their face or are glancing at someone scribbling in a notebook. Employees or others who are acting on behalf of organizations who go on social media must have the same skills and discipline as those who appear on-camera, on the air and on the record.
I have been warning of the risks of having individuals who lack this training, discipline and experience, namely contact center agents, to go on social media. Why? Because I know firsthand as a reporter, as a spokesperson and as a political and community activist and as a onetime public office candidate how careful you must be when making media comments.
More Reasons to Question Loyalty Programs
March 22, 2011It is much more profitable to retain customers than to continually attract new ones. Yet I am deeply skeptical about customer loyalty programs to achieve that goal because the truest way to win and keep customers is by getting the fundamentals right. That is: consistently providing what customers want with high product/service quality and deliverability at the right price. Everything else is just a gimmick.
Mining The Social Channel for Customer Gold
January 25, 2011The social channel appears on first glance to provide a readily-extracted motherlode of information and insights that can help firms retain and build relations with customers and attract new ones. For in the huge volume of conversations: blogs, comments on sites e.g. TripAdvisor et al, Facebook postings and Tweets are concerns, complaints, experiences and ideas about companies’ products and services that are waiting to be mined, assayed, processed, refined and used.
Yet as one spends any time on the channel knows, going through it is akin to mining in another way: there is an awful lot of raw ore that must be processed to obtain a few ounces of valuable commodities.
I recently asked enterprise feedback management (EFM) solution providers for a story on EFM in the February issue of Customer Interaction Solutions about replacing customer feedback surveys with social channel comment harvesting and analysis.
After all if customers and prospects are already remarking about firms on social sites why not capture these comments instead of spending scarce resources on reaching out to and getting them to respond to questions?
The doubting responses from these fine suppliers’ executives would, if I could see their faces, no doubt be accompanied by eye rolling and eyebrow raising: or attempts to stop them from happening.
These companies have a point.
Governments' "Gifts" to Cisco, Citrix, InterCall, Polycom, Vidyo, et al...
December 23, 2010‘Tis the gift giving season. For the OEMers and resellers of audio-, web- and videoconferencing equipment their presents have come early thanks (unwittingly) to the U.S. and Canadian governments.
For their actions have pushed adoption and use of video especially to their tipping points where they start to become the norm in business but even in consumer personal interactions.
For if air travel weren’t a nightmare already what with painfully cramped seating, made worse by salt-laden food at airport concessionaires (airline food was for the most part remarkably healthy with sensibly controlled portions), long delays, frequent cancellations, high fares and other examples of lousy service…and if going through security wasn’t a hassle and humiliating enough…now there are the intimate “pat downs” that the overworked and customer-abused American and Canadian personnel have to inflict on fliers when the computers tell them to.
This procedure may well be the last straw for travelers and organizations that are already fed up with travel. Enough.
I suspect that for many travelers and their families even the thought of having their most private parts of their bodies and those they love—like their 80-year old grandmother--being “checked out” is enough to make them cry “Skype”…and start searching for conferencing equipment and services.
The public-perceived creepiness of this screening procedure cannot be underestimated.
Calling During the Holidays (and afterwards)? Be Nice, Not Naughty
December 17, 2010This is the time of year where all bells should be ringing in tune at and at the right times: church bells, those of the Salvation Army volunteers, those at the cash registers and those at the homes from telemarketers and other contact centers making unsolicited calls.
This is also the time of year where children are reminded to "be nice, not naughty": a reminder that grown-ups should be given too. That includes those who manage contact centers.
For the laws regulating calling hours, whom to call and what devices to be reach are strict and are enforced. The lumps of coal in one’s stocking for being bad is nothing compared to those received from publicity-seeking elected officials: which are in comparison mere taps to those that can be wielded from annoyed customers via comments delivered through Tweets and posts.
Here are some of the common areas that poor judgement in which can make good contact centers into bad ones:
* The U.S.
Making The Canadian Census Voluntary Is Ideology Trumping Business, and Privacy
August 30, 2010I am one of those individuals who enjoy his privacy. Maybe that's because I as a journalist and opiniongiver am the recipient of countless pitches over multiple channels. In my off-hours I don't like getting calls, marketing mail of any sort or being tracked online, nor do I fill out forms or surveys; LinkedIn is the extent of my open social networking.
If I have need for companies' goods and services I will determine that and check firms out first--including on social media sites--and contact them i.e. "don't call me/I'll call you." I hear about new items and deals via the Web first, TV second and the local free paper third.
My observation and reports say that more consumers are like me, or the other way around.
