Vision - March 2009 - (Page 12) Social Media Is helping businesses connect with consumers in new ways. By Natalie Hope McDonald hen Frank Eliason started at Comcast two years ago as customer service manager in Philadelphia, like most companies, the cable TV provider was still doing things the old-fashioned way: by phone, e-mail and snail mail. But when Scott Westerman, a vice president of Comcast’s Southwest region, told Eliason about Twitter.com, everything changed. “For a long time, Comcast paid attention to what was being said in the blogosphere,” says Eliason. “But when we started actively posting to websites, it showed tremendous success. We started doing customer service throughout the Internet.” Eliason has since expanded his department from one to a team of almost 10 who are dedicated exclusively to posting messages, answering questions and reaching customers on websites like Twitter and Facebook. With hopes of improving customer relations, Eliason says he and his team regularly respond to online questions and complaints. “We post very simple messages,” he says, “like, ‘Hi, I’m Frank from Comcast. Can I help?’ It gives customers the ability to engage if they want, but they don’t have to.” Eliason describes this new territory as “meeting customers where they are.” He says, “To me, this is just another commuMarch/April 2009 W nications channel that customers utilize. When people are posting to blogs and websites, they want to be heard.” Eliason’s digital outreach has become a hot-button issue throughout corporate America these days at a time when many companies are being forced to rethink their image as the struggling economy makes doing business a much more competitive experience. Often referred to as social networking or Web 2.0, these online communities have been receiving high marks as a way to not only reach tech-savvy consumers in an interactive environment, but also for personalizing the business experience in a fun way. Being able to respond to a customer in the same arena where he or she also talks to family and friends is an advantageous opportunity, especially as more consumers of all ages go online to communicate, do research and make purchases. One of the prerequisites for joining most sites is sharing personal information that could be considered essential, yet often unavailable, to companies, including things like personal interests, education and work history—all of which can be used to customize marketing and advertising more than ever before. A New Model Billy Bicket, co-director and community architect of NetSquared in San Francisco, an umbrella group for the nonprofit TechSoup Global, has been analyzing social media since its humble beginnings a few short years ago. Defining social media as Internet and mobile-based tools designed for social interaction, Bicket admits the phenomenon is still in its infancy. “From 2004 to 2008, Facebook went from being a college network to a global phenomenon,” he says. “And YouTube was created and sold within 18 months after development. So things are changing very fast.” Social media’s impossible to ignore as all forms of media converge online these days, whether it’s voting for the next American Idol or sending a Tweet to 300 of your closest friends. “With the decline of the traditional newspaper business happening all around us, it’s apparent that a new media model is under construction,” Bicket says. “How that business model will shake out is still up for grabs.” Within the last few years, different companies have been using these websites in very unique ways across the globe. Comcast’s Eliason’s approach is pretty straightforward by addressing tech troubleshooting on a one-to-one basis, like helping people use their digital video recorders or walking them through a setup for their new wireless routers. Overall, he estimates his team has helped 12,000 people directly and an untold number of others indirectly through forums, blog postings and word of mouth. Many of these experiences are memorable, like the time a frustrated Comcast customer posted to Twitter about trouble she was having connecting her wireless Apple router. As an admitted Apple user www.ce.org 12 Comstock Images/Jupiter Images http://www.Twitter.com http://www.ce.org
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