Service Channels posts, articles, and infographics

The future of TV is more than social, it’s a multi-screen experience that needs design

May 7, 2012 by Brian Solis
with 287 views

Many of you don’t know, but I ran some very interesting social experiments with top networks and programs for several years. The driving questions at the time are still more than valid today. How do you expand the reach of a network, program or personality beyond the reach of the existing audience? And, how do you use social media to drive tune-in? [read more]

Consumer Trust In Traditional Media Ads Fall, While Confidence In Mobile, Social And Online Rise (Via @nielsen)

April 12, 2012 by Erik Posthuma
with 104 views

Image: via marketingland.com

People don't trust mobile display/text ads. Is this because we're not creating good ones? [read more]

Valuable Lessons From United Airlines' Customer Service Fail

April 10, 2012 by Omar Zaibak
with 380 views

On March 3rd, United Airlines attempted to merge their reservation system with Continental. It did not go as planned, creating customer mayhem because of ensuing technical glitches on the website and ticketing functionality. The lines to their call center were jammed with irate customers who were dealing with extremely long hold times and problems booking their tickets. [read more]

Optimizing the Full Spectrum of Customer Interactions

April 9, 2012 by Brian Vellmure
with 165 views

As technology advances, and communication channels expand, decision makers continue to wrestle not only with how to best leverage each channel, respectively, but how to optimize communications with their customers and prospects across an ever complicated blend of channels. [read more]

6 Steps to Brilliant Social Customer Service

April 4, 2012 by Omar Zaibak
with 1,006 views

Social customer service is more important than ever. Follow these steps to get in the game. [read more]

Top 10 Call Center Trends for 2012

March 30, 2012 by Omar Zaibak
with 410 views

Photo: suravid/shutterstock

As the call center industry continues to evolve, here are 10 trends to watch out for in 2012. [read more]

Are Customers Driving Contact Centers Towards Social Care?

March 29, 2012 by Walter Van Norden
with 145 views

Image: Igor Petrov/Shutterstock

The emerging field of social care is being handled differently by different organizations. Some firms are using social media channels to ‘listen’ to customers to improve marketing, products and support. Others are ‘engaging’ with customers to address individual issues and reduce the volume of traffic to other support channels. [read more]

From the Long Tail to the New Normal

March 27, 2012 by Mitch Lieberman
with 44 views

The New Normal has been and can be used to understand many of the changes and challenges many people have been talking about for a while now. Ideas such as: The Social Customer, The Collaborative Organization, Social CRM, Social Business and more might be better understood with a simple illustration. [read more]

Making Sense of Amazon.com: Retail, Publishing, Digital, and TV(?)

March 9, 2012 by Robert Passikoff
with 27 views

In our Loyalty and Engagement Index, Amazon is #1 in terms of loyalty in the Online Retailer category, and #2 in the still-germinating Tablet category so all the brand and distribution values seem aligned pretty well. All they need now is content. [read more]

Getting Marketing and Sales Together

March 5, 2012 by Dave Brock
with 55 views

Image: Mark Hillary/Flickr(creative commons)

I commented on the results reported in IBM’s outstanding survey of CMO’s. The absence of concern about aligning and working with sales was alarming. It generated a lot of discussion an comments. My friend Bob Thompson at CustomerThink commented that absent anything else it would take 10-20 years for marketing and... [read more]

How to Integrate Social Media with Email Marketing

February 21, 2012 by Luke Brynley-Jones
with 296 views

Image: Courtesy of author blog

Firstly, a myth, that “businesses are turning away from email towards social media marketing.” This is simply not true. A recent Constant Contact survey revealed that 95% of companies still use email marketing while 81% use social media marketing. [read more]

How to Use Social Media for Service & Support

January 13, 2012 by SarahHedayati
with 73 views

Image: Courtesy of author blog

When getting started in using social media for service and support, the first step is to develop a plan of action. Your plan of action needs to contain a map for how to handle certain situations that may arise. [read more]

Earning Valuable Attention for Your Business

December 8, 2011 by Michael Cohn
with 12 views

There is a whole lot of online garbage that comes to you via the Internet. When you get garbage, your first inclination is to press the “delete” button ASAP. On the other side, you want your content to be valued. You want your content to be read, cherished, and shared with others by others and by others. The issue is that... [read more]

Who is the Beneficiary of Sales and Marketing Automation?

November 13, 2011 by Dave Brock
with 73 views

I had the privilege of participating in a fantastic roundtable at Focus.com this week. It was “A Sales View Of Marketing Automation,” with three of the smartest sales and marketing people I know: Alex Shootman, Chief Revenue Officer of Eloqua, Thor Johnson of Team Thor Marketing, and Carlos Hidalgo of The Annuitas Group... [read more]

Social Strategy and Crisis: A Video Interview with JetBlue

November 8, 2011 by Paul Simon
with 173 views

To learn more about JetBlue’s social media strategy and the thinking behind it, I interviewed Morgan Johnston, JetBlue’s manager of corporate communications and its social media strategist. [read more]

Writing Content and Tweets That Market

November 8, 2011 by Michael Cohn
with 36 views

The content that you share online is informative, educational, and valuable. However, it can also come from a marketing angle. Although your interactions with other people through social media are all about building relationships, ultimately, people will buy from you. [read more]

Making Sure That Your Web Presence is Social Media Friendly

October 24, 2011 by Michael Cohn
with 62 views

Your web presence is of vital importance to your business. It is a well-established fact that content is at the heart of your web presence. You need to write content and you need to share content with others easily. You will only be successful when it comes to your web presence if you are able to successfully and easily share... [read more]

The Social Customer Experience: Are You Adding Value?

October 19, 2011 by Anna Drennan
with 291 views

With the socialisation of the commercial world, the customer experience is taking up a central position in business. But what is a great customer experience? What do consumers really expect from brands in social media? Social media managers have a thing or two to learn from the call centre on how to nail customer satisfaction. [read more]

Sales and Marketing Automation Is Dead? Says Who?

October 11, 2011 by Adam Metz
with 65 views

The last few weeks have been pretty funky in the sales and marketing space. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff got basically booted from Oracle’s OpenWorld conference. Small-business software company Hubspot in a karaoke RV, proclaiming responsibility for a continent-wide unicorn shortage, and touting videos of profanity-spewing cartoon... [read more]

Social Media’s Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows

October 4, 2011 by Brian Solis
with 157 views

Image: Courtesy of author blog

There’s an old saying that carries renewed meaning these days: Give the people what they want. Brands are furiously creating profiles in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter in the hopes of building engaging communities with customers and giving people what the brands think they want. [read more]