CRM - December 2008 - (Page 29)

YEAR IN (P)REVIEW Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies, is among those who harps on the subject, saying that customer feedback is a critical pillar to his company’s philosophy—and critical to transparency. Closing the feedback loop—linking that information back to processes—is essential, he says, and equally important is letting customers know it’s happening. it scheduled. If it’s going to be a longer story, I’ll say, ‘Hey, send us an email.’” The Comcast digital care team has been dealing with customers via social media for close to a year. Though not referring to specific social sites such as www.ComcastSucks.com, Eliason says it’s important for a company to know what’s being said about the business before engaging in social media activities. In other words, think before you tweet. Eliason says Comcast hasn’t yet attributed any anyone wasting their time—and they’re generally sophisticated enough to know that personalization requires the collection of personal information. At some point, however, the customer forking over data and information by the bucketload will say,“Hey, I know you have data about me, but I want to know what you know and how you’re using it.” Many analysts suggest that point may have already arrived. Nelson, for example, says that security will be a huge issue in LETTING THE LIGHT IN A company can say it’s transparent until it’s blue in the face, but who’s to say whether it’s actually true? In fact, customers are more likely to tell you which companies are not transparent rather than those that actually are. And they aren’t afraid to tell their friends—or complete strangers—about it, either. Take Comcast, for example, where customer satisfaction has been a sticking point for years. (In 2004 and 2007, the provider of Internet, cable, and telephone service had the worst customer satisfaction rating of any company or government agency in the country, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey.) It was a Twitter-based contretemps, though, that brought a new twist. When Michael Arrington, the founder of industry blog TechCrunch, was having trouble with his Comcast service, he voiced his frustration on his Twitter feed. “Within 20 minutes of my first [tweet] I got a call from a Comcast executive… who wanted to know how he could help,” Arrington wrote in his blog. “He said he monitors Twitter and blogs to get an understanding of what people are saying about Comcast, and so he saw the discussion break out around my messages.” The executive was Frank Eliason, Comcast’s director of digital care—perhaps better known by his Twitter alias, @ComcastCares—who says now that the fact the complaint was aired by a high-profile subscriber didn’t matter. When he sees Comcast mentioned in any RSS or Twitter feed, he intercepts and answers as any contact center–based customer service would. “On Twitter, I’ll say ‘IM me your phone number so I can pull up your account.’ Or if we need to do it locally, I’ll send a technician out and get www.destinationCRM.com Customers want personalization and they don’t want anyone wasting their time. customer satisfaction metrics to its Twitterific efforts, but its profits are on the rise. Comcast’s newfound belief in the power of transparency serves as a lesson to all other businesses: Be clear on your motives. At Oracle OpenWorld, Lye revealed that one particular tool is very reminiscent of Flickr, the consumer photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo!.“I’m a ‘fast follower,’” he told attendees. “I’m not afraid to copy what works. We’ve tried to take what’s been well received on the consumerbased Internet and leverage those technologies in context of a relationship.” Be as transparent as you like, but your customers don’t care where the idea for your technology came from. They just care that it works and that it helps build their relationship with you. 2009 and beyond, and that transparency and security are bound together.“A lot of it is going to come down to allowing people…[to know] what you know about them and [to give them] a sense of controlling that information,” Nelson says. “It’s more than sending them a privacy statement. It’s about letting them know, ‘This is what we know and we think it’s accurate, will you fix it if it’s not? And here’s how it’s being used and if at any point you feel that it makes you uncomfortable, here’s how you get rid of it.’” Gianforte, who says he made 180 customer visits over the summer, notes that customer permission will become a bigger issue as ever-more-targeted marketing incorporates privileged customer data. As an example, he cites a company that, upon receiving a change-of-address form from a customer, immediately sends along marketing materials about home-security products. This may or may not cross the line—but the consumer, not the company, should be the one to make the call. We may be at the transparency tipping point: Customers are trying to tell the businesses they interact with that they want a new kind of relationship—one that may require a new kind of thinking. That, in turn, may unlock the real beauty of CRM. Contact Editorial Assistant Lauren McKay at lmckay@destinationCRM.com. 29 THE MORE YOU KNOW “We have seen an increase of our site utilization based upon delivering relevant messaging,” says Debbie Doran, manager of CRM operations for travel Web site Travelocity.com. “I think our customers appreciate that more. They know that we know who they are—and that’s driven customer loyalty, and has led to people coming back.” In fact, Doran reveals that showing visitors relevant and compelling data and site promotions leads to a fivefold or sixfold increase in clicks. This relays the fact that customers want personalization and they don’t want CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DECEMBER 2008 http://www.ComcastSucks.com http://www.Travelocity.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - December 2008

CRM - December 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Rave Is Over CRM on Twitter Financial Frenzy Will Customer Experience Survive in a ‘Soft’ Economy? Holiday Humbug Empowered Consumers Are Ready to Flip the Switch Required Reading Transparency Spiff Up Your Site! They Aim to Please Mixing In a Little Sugar Sweetens the Deal A Newsletter Employs New Tactics A Site Stops Feeling Overtaxed Make ’Em Laugh—Personally Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - December 2008

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