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Could Shopping in Social Networks Ruin Them? DrNatalie ‘s New Book: “Like My Stuff” How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans

December 6, 2011 By 6 Comments

Dr. Natalie’s New Book:  LIke My Stuff: How To Monetize Your Facebook Fans With a Facebook Store

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

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Facebook or f-commerce to some, may see like a dirty word. Whether you think that or not depends on what your point of view is on adding shopping to social networks. Will brands take the next step to social media ROI with Social Commerce on Facebook? That’s what I address in Like My Stuff.

 

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook

Image via Wikipedia

If you ask Mark Zuckerberg, he says social commerce is the next big thing… but of course he does…

The skill with which brands fulfill on f-commerce will directly affect the success not only for their own individual brand, but as an industry as a whole. If social networking shopping sites are not delivered in the spirit of what the customer wants, it will fail. If not for this point alone, brands need to pay attention to f-commerce as an example of how shopping can be integrated within a social network.

My book, Like My Stuff, is about the opportunity businesses have to combine brand interactions and social commerce on Facebook (f-commerce) to increase their sales and promote their brands. Using nearly 50 live, full color screenshots from major retailers such as Macy’s, JC Penny’s and Avon as well as medium to small businesses, LIKE MY STUFF shows why f-commerce is the fastest growing trend and how to do it right or piss your customers off for good.

Potential Pitfalls for f-commerce

Are there potential pitfalls to dealing in f-commerce? Yes, privacy, intrusion, relevancy, engagement and the social fatique gap. Those and other factors are why f-commerce and eCommerce are so different.

Privacy

Let’s look at privacy first. Remember back to 2007? Facebook tried Project Beacon. That process collected the eCommerce activity of Facebook participants on third party sites and then posted a user’s purchases on their friends’ news feed. That didn’t last long because users felt it was a privacy issue to disperse their information and data. There was backlash and many thought this might be the end of social shopping for Facebook. A study from JWT found the percentage of people worried about Facebook privacy and security to be in the 75% range. So if a brand is going to consider social shopping, it needs to be aware of making their customer’s feel secure.

Intrusion

What’s the issue with intrusion and consumers? The conflict for the shopper is when shopping feels likes it is an intrusion in a user’s social network lifestream. A lifestream is made up of the online posts and interactions a person creates in their daily interactions in social networks. Brands who go down the f-commerce path need to understand the nuances of social networks, what works and what doesn’t work.

This book is full of case studies of f-commerce that work. But brands should not just look at these examples for the mechanics of how a brand delivered an f-commerce solution. They must also understand what motivates a customer to click on a “Like” button and what it takes to go from just “Liking” a brand to getting them to redeem a coupon to getting a customer to become a loyal customer with repeat purchases and preference for the brand. To do that brands must become a social experience that is interesting and relevant to their audience. Social currency is the value a brand brings to a customer’s lifestream, i.e., providing relevancy and customer centric engagements that enhance a customer’s life. And social currency is where the return on investment in social media pays off. When brands don’t understand social currency, relevancy and engagement, they become an intrusion.

Relevancy: Know Your Audience

Often understanding what is interesting and relevant is best found by asking customers directly. Too many PR, Marketing

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and Advertising firms think they know better. They don’t take the time to do the account planning or research to really understand their audience, their behaviors, their motivations and drivers for let alone for traditional campaigns. Enter social media. If a brand does not listen and understand their online audience, the backlash can be devastating. (Think Netflix- check out my blog post on how Netflix wasn’t really listening or understanding why customers were upset ) That doesn’t mean a brand should not enter into the social media realm. It means they need to go back to school and understand the differences between online and offline customer interactions and the viral nature of a scorned customer.

Get To REALLY Know Your Audience

Brands need to make sure they have someone on staff who understands how to do primary audience research in both social media and traditional methods. Qualitative and quantitative methods of traditional account planning and audience research include:

  • Focus groups
  • In-depth interviews
  • Polls
  • Surveys, and
  • Ethnography / netnography (observations off- and on-line of the audience behaviors)

Social media monitoring tools like Radian6, Sysomos, Tracckr, etc… lend themselves to account planning and audience research, especially for:

  • Primary Research (research conducted by the brand itself)
  • Sentiment and share of voice online
  • Identification of the top influencers, advocates, customers, brand naysayers and press
  • Polls, surveys, netnography, etc…
  • Topics influencers and advocates are discussing about the brand
  • Customer issues, questions, suggestions and praise for the product, service and the brand…
  • Secondary Research (research conducted by other people than the brand)
  • Studies other research groups or institutions have produced on the brand, the or category that the brand falls into (consumer products, automotive…) and the customers associated with those groups.

In addition, conversations within online communities- either owned by the brand or third party communities, can reveal very interesting insights for the brand. In particular interest to this book on f-commerce is the use of community applications within Facebook. An example of a community application used within Facebook is Get Satisfaction’s Facebook Solution.

Because the Wall in Facebook changes so quickly, brands end up answering the same questions over and over. The Get Satisfaction Facebook widget allows brands to not only avoid spending time repeating the same answers on the Wall (because questions and answers can be searched on and retrieved), but instead can focus on creating relevant content and interactions that engage customers to participate and make that brand part of their lifestream.

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Most social media monitoring tools can only provide Facebook data that is on public pages. Because of the partnership between GoodData and Get Satisfaction, the brand can obtain intimate knowledge of the conversations on their Facebook pages between the brand and its customer’s. And, if the brand has included the Get Satisfaction widget on their website or other communities, that data can also be aggregated.

If a brand doesn’t take the steps to understand their audience, there is no guarantee that the social shopping experience will yield good business results. Why guess, when you can know?

Image representing Get Satisfaction as depicte...

Image via CrunchBase

Engagement

In the old days, Marketers counted on customers telling 10-20 of their friends about a product or service. Today with the social web, one customer’s comment, negative or positive, informs thousands and sometimes millions of people in nearly nanoseconds. And reports show that year after year, consumers generally trust the opinions of people they know more than they trust anonymous ratings and reviews posted online. And in comparison, they trust online banner ads and advertisements even less. Social commerce or f-commerce is the opportunity to leverage word-of-mouth to increase the awareness of brand and drive customers through the consideration and purchase funnel.

Social Network Fatique

Brands must begin to think from the social customer’s point of view. Customer’s who use social media are constantly being bombarded with invitations to new social networks. They have to decide where to spend the little free time they have. This means that a brand must provide their social customers direct engagement that acknowledges their understanding of their customers in the social web as well as reward them for that participation in the social experience created by the brand. Customers who do encounter great social experiences influence other customers. That influence can multiply across their social graphs and spark comments, conversations and purchases. To be good at this means that you are a student of “a day in the life of your customers.”

For instance, Nike  built a community where runners can share their experiences about running. There are tools to keep track of the number of miles you’ve completed, etc… This community provides something that runners need and hence they go there. The net-net for Nike is that the more people are inspired to run, the more shoes they sell. But the strategy can’t start with – let’s sell more shoes. Interaction strategy must provide something that customers need and want. Otherwise the brand’s social strategy will fall prey to social fatigue.

Many businesses, big and small, are wondering if they should go down this path? How is f-commerce different than the e-commerce they already offer? And does f-commerce mean that you have to get rid of your traditional e-commerce platform? I addresses these and other questions in the book… if you’d like to order it, click here… LIKE MY STUFF. So Check it out and let me know what you think!

Learn. Share. Grow!
@drnatalie

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FREE Chapter 1 – I LOVE YOU MORE THAN MY DOG! by Jeanne Bliss

April 25, 2011 By 4 Comments

This is the third post about the book, I Love You More Than My Dog, as part of my favorite book posts.

Jeanne Bliss tweeted me to thank me for writing about her book. And as we got to talking, she provided me with a link to the first chapter of her book, just for you:

http://www.customerbliss.com/pdf/Chapter%201%20I%20Love%20You%20More%20Than%20My%20Dog.pdf

(may have to copy and paste the URL)

Chapter 1: Your Decisions Reveal:  Who You Are and What You Value!

It’s very generous of Jeanne to provide me a link. I hope that you take advantage of it!

The chapter starts with a quote from Walt Disney:“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”

Walt Disney

Walt Disney, The Master of the Customer Experience

Companies that are loved by their customers make decisions differently than other companies.

The common denominator, according to Jeanne, is that these companies bring consciousness and humanity to the decisions they make.  When you make decisions that respect and honor your customers, your customers will grow your business by word of mouth. They will tell their friends, who will they their friends, who will tell their friends…

Remember that Breck Shampoo commercial back in the ’60s that used this as their tagline?

The most important thing a company can do is to form an army of cheerleaders and publicists urging their friends, neighbors, colleagues and strangers to get behind your company.

Have we ever seen this in action? Sure we have… Land’s End for instance. That’s where Jeanne started her customer experience career. The founder of Land’s End, Gary Comer, described Jeanne’s job as:  nurturing the “conscience” of the company through the decisions they made as they grew. And they experienced 20-30% grow per year. Their stand? Long-term growth was dependent on retaining their strong emotional connection with customers.

At that time, the stories customers told about Land’s End, revealed their values. They drove not only customers to the company, but also an engaged and loyal employee base. Land’ End need over 200 employee volunteers to answer all the, “I love you, Land’s End!” mail they received each month.

And have we seen this lately? Yes, at Zappos.com When Tony and Alfred started Aappos.com they didn’t have money for large advertising or marketing programs. They made the conscious decision that the way they would build and grow their business was to provide such great service, interactions and experiences, that they tell their friends, who will they their friends, who will tell their friends…

And 2009, Amazon.com bought Zappos.com for over $922 Million.  That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it.

And its not that these types of companies are perfect. It’s not that every single interaction is perfect. What is so is that they have a huge reserve of gratitude from their customers, that if and when a mistake is made, that customers are willing to be more forgiving. Especially when that tender, loving care is how they deal with the mistake or issue.

As Jeanne would say, “The decision is yours.”

 

 

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The Challenge of the “T” Executive

March 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you a “T” executive? I was recently speaking with my friend John Shiple and he told me I was a “T” executive. Someone who had vast cross-functional knowledge, but also deep subject matter expertise. I didn’t know that it had a name. Pretty cool.

Part of that has come from an innate knowingness of when people work together things work out better.

Having worked as a management consultant in CRM (Marketing, Sales and Service) meant that I had to work with three different departments that didn’t normally work with each other or even want to work with each other. It meant that I was faced with trying to creating cross-functional capabilities in organizations where there had not been any.

Some people think of me as a  Customer Service expert because of one of my most recent positions. But even in that position I worked directly with CMO’s, with PR Directors, with Product Managers and Brand Managers– I didn’t just cover Customer Service, I also covered CRM. And CRM means Marketing…. It’s interesting how you get put in a box… I’ve done everything from small PR initiatives… like just write a press release to designing the whole media buy… i.e., TV and radio spots…

What I can tell you is that while some companies realized the need for it, and some even realized their ROI would be higher, the ability for individuals to work outside their own functional capabilities is slow to none. And that’s part of why I was thrilled when Marsha Collier, in her new book, The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide, asked to interview me for the first chapter.

The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide by Marsha Collier

What Marsha and I discussed in the interview and what is in the first chapter is what companies are facing and need solutions to regarding cross-functional capabilities.

There are millions and billions of dollars being wasted because of the lack of interdepartmental collaboration. It should be a crime when they don’t collaborate.

Not to mention the facturing of the brands equity in the social sphere when the separately interact with the customer. Below is an excerpt from the first chapter of Marsha’s book; if you want the whole chapter, you can get it here: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/06/04706377/0470637706-152.pdf

The interview excerpt: “With your online presence, you are in the position to regularly interact with customers. You have the opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t. Knowledge gleaned from outside your inner sanctum will enable you to address key questions, such as whether your product or service offering is right for the market and up to date with current trends. This helps you motivate employees to deliver the level of service required and to identify what, if any, are opportunities for your company’s growth. Interestingly, that has been the main focus of former Forrester analyst, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff (@DrNatalie on Twitter). At Forrester, she covered not only customer service and customer relationship management (CRM), but by observing the new juncture of social media and those disciplines, she wrote the world’s first social media return on investment (ROI) model.

Natalie, now the chief social media and digital communication strategist at Weber Shandwick, is one of the truly brilliant folks in her field; her work is legendary at businesses whose budgets we can only imagine.

Her groundbreaking ideas in this arena can help to center our thoughts on exactly how this is all going to work for our own businesses. When I asked Dr. Natalie about my theory about customer service becoming the new marketing, and about how small business has an innate advantage today, here’s what she shared with me:

People asked me why I went from addressing customer service and its professionals to a public relations and marketing firm. What I found was that companies are fracturing their brands. This started to happen even before social PR and marketing departments were crafting amazing brand promises. But because the way those departments have been organized, they don’t interact with customers after the brand promise has been delivered. So who does have to deliver on the brand promise? Customer service. And because customer service has been largely trapped into the category of a cost center, it rarely is able, during those customer interactions, to deliver on the brand promise, or even have enough respect within the organization to have others accept the idea [that] they have to change products or services to better meet customers’ wants and needs.

This dynamic—the lack of interdepartmental interaction— has been happening since companies left the mom-and-pop model. Along comes social media, and what are consumers using it for? Among the many uses—to keep in touch with friends and family, find a lost love, shop—they are realizing they can broadcast to millions their disdain about how companies are not meeting their brand promise. As a management consultant back in the days of the top management consulting companies, (the “Big 6,” including Accenture, Price Waterhouse, Coopers & Lybrand, Ersnt & Young), as PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant, we were taught that more than anything, managing customer expectations was the key to success. And that lesson learned can be applied here today in business. That is the reason I joined a PR and marketing firm. I wanted to help companies manage their customers’ expectations. After many years in the corporate world, I realized the chasm in corporations needed to be healed. That chasm?

Interdepartmental disconnect and dysfunction. If I were to really help the business world make this huge change, I myself had to be the change.

I saw that PR and marketing had mastery over delivering a brand’s promise. And that their worth was based on the ability to help customers become aware, and to consider purchasing products and services from their company. Once sales “closed the deal,” customer service’s role was to help, answer questions, and solve problems.

The disconnect was that PR and marketing professionals were not always delivering a brand promise that customer service could consistently provide. And, note, none of this was the fault of PR, marketers, or customer service. It was an artifact of how companies organize themselves into groups of specialties; and rarely do they have leadership that has the intuition that continuing to interact as disparate silos not only is not in the best interest of any of those departments, [but that] it will actually be the downfall of companies, which will go out of business if they don’t “get it.”

Of the companies that do sense some of this, many of them may not know how to break down the silos in the politically charged situations they work in. And even in the best situations, they certainly would not be compensated for interdepartmental collaboration. What social media is doing for companies is essentially this: It is a source of real-time feedback.

That feedback is filled with information, if you are listening, that can be used to change your products and service to meet your customers’ needs. Imagine how much easier it would be to market and sell a product [that] your customers said they wanted. Imagine if you are listening to your customers and you are using [what they’re saying] for product innovation. Imagine if your competitor is not. Imagine the market advantage you’d have. And imagine if you used customer service as your differentiator. Why would your customers go anywhere else?

PR has now become customer service. Customer service in now PR. The question you have to ask yourself is, “How are you going to be managing the expectations of your customers, and how will all your departments deliver on your brand’s promise?” No customers, no business. Period.”

To get the whole chapter, click here: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/06/04706377/0470637706-152.pdf

To order the book, click here: http://theultimateonlinecustomerserviceguide.blogspot.com/

Thank you Marsha! For addressing a much needed discussion and for writing a wonderful book!

Learn. Share. Grow. @drnatalie

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“I Love You More Than My Dog”

April 11, 2010 By 8 Comments

Could it be that easy? Love I mean? The kind of love that you earn when you have nurtured the consciousness and congruence of the heart. Where intention and motivation match. Where you have decided to “be there.” Where you have clarity of purpose. Where you can be real.

You might think I am talking about a romantic relationship. I am. But not the kind that you might think. It’s a kind of love that is rare. That is cherished.

There is an energy that comes from being believed, from being trusted; its like coming home. We all crave it. We all desire it. We want to emulate it. When our intelligence, our creativity, our emotions and humor blend, and is acknowledged by another, we realize our full potential.

Amazing Authors: These are the words of an amazing author, Jeanne Bliss. And the title of this post is the title of her newest book. When I met Jeanne, at the Earth Cafe on Melrose, I met someone who created an indelible mark of kindness and passion that makes people want to be with her. She emulates what she writes about. She is someone you love more than your dog. (Or in my case, my cats!)

What is Jeanne’s book about? She writes about the kind of corporate America we all dream of. Of a place that we ourselves can believe in. Of a place we are seen, heard and respected. Of a place where customers are seen, heard and respected.

Book Reviews: One of the things I wanted to do in this blog is to share the amazing insights from the various authors of books that are creating the shift. So this is one of the first of many posts about amazing authors, their amazing stories and their ability to take words and fashion a story that moves from where we were to where we dream is possible.

Bliss_Jeanne_author_with_dogs

Author Jeanne Bliss and her dogs!!

If you haven’t picked up a copy, you need to. And when you read it, don’t just read it, absorb it. Use it as a way of evaluating how you and your company does business. Ask yourself, “Do my customer’s love us more than they love their pets?” And if not, why?

Follow Jeanne on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeanneBliss

Happy New YEAR! 2010! Dr. Natalie (follow me on twitter.com/drnatalie)

Learn. Share. Grow.

 

 

Partial List of Companies In Jeanne’s Book:

1. Rackspace

Container Store in Pasadena, California

Image via Wikipedia

2. Griffin Hospital

3. The Container Store

4. W. L. Gore

5. Zane’s Cycles

6.Trader Joe’s

Harley-Davidson

Image via Wikipedia

7. Customer Ink

8. Wegman’s Food Markets

9. Chik-fil-A

10. Harley-Davidson

 

 

Is your company on this list? Or mentioned in Jeanne’s book? If not, why not? And what can you do to begin the shift towards being beloved?

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Five Decisions That Will Change Your Company’s Customer Experience

January 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This is the second post about Jeanne Bliss’s book, “I Love You More Than My Dog.” As I read it over the holidays, I became intrigued with the idea that its in the decisions that companies make that determine what their customer’s experiences will be. As Jeanne puts it, ” Your company’s key decisions expose their true purpose, who you are and what you value.”

What’s important about that? Well customers today want to feel that you care about them. That you value their participation in your business. Customer’s evaluate whether you “care” about them from each and every action and interaction they have with you. They evaluate your company based on the interactions with customer service agents, with your website, with the IVR, with your email responses. They evaluate your company based on the experiences they have with those touchpoints.

And unfortunately most companies, when they deployed these technologies their values were focused on the company’s efficiencies. They were not thinking or even in most cases, considering how the technology deployment would affect their customer’s experiences. To them, that either wasn’t part of the decision process or it sounded too much like “motherhood and touchy-feely stuff” to even consider.

What’s happened is that those decisions, 20 years ago, to deploy technology to make the company more efficient has created a backlash from customers. After 20 years of very poor customer experiences, customer are mad as hell, and they are not going to take it anymore. What we see today is a reaction to the decisions made years ago.

Flash forward and what do we see? The backlash comes at a time when the evolution of the Internet is in its second phase, Web 2.0. Where customers don’t just tell 10 or 20 people when they are upset, they tell millions via a giant megaphone called social media.

customers are mad and they are vocal

Customers are mad and they are vocal!!!

Examples? Dell Hell, United Broke My Guitar and Comcast’s Sleeping Technician videos on youtube.com

If you haven’t seen the videos, here’s some links:

United Breaks Guitars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Comcast’s Sleeping Technician: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viw2TVBygBg

So what does this mean to you and your company?

Here’s the five decisions in: I Love You More Than My Dog:

1. Decide to believe

2. Decide with clarity of purpose

3. Decide to be real

4. Decide to be there

5. Decide to say sorry.

The decision is yours.

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