About Social Media Today
May 23, 2012
Take Our Customer Service Survey So We All Can Learn
Image: Stuart Miles /Shutterstock
To quote Robin Carey, our fearless leader at Social Media Today LLC and this site’s creator, social media and customer service are getting better acquainted these days. To what extent are they intimate? [read more]
May 23, 2012
Is Every Employee Responsible For Customer Service?
I’ve always said that there should be more customer service classes taught in universities or it should be mandatory that students take a psychology class. In many business classes we are often taught about business being a numbers game and how to market a business, but we are never thought about the human side of business, like how to make that personal connection. [read more]
May 23, 2012
McDonald’s Metro: Lipstick On a Pig
Upgrading the ancillary aspects of the experience is far less important than optimizing the core. For McDonald’s and other quick serves, that means the food. For retailers, that means the product. For banks, that means the service. For products, that means the core functionality. [read more]
Social Metrics: Market to the Head? Impossible.
Analytics give us feedback that allows us to marry the right brain, or the emotional side of marketing, with the left brain, or the rational, side. It’s easy to get excited about 10,000 likes on Facebook, but what if you’ve only really engaged with five of those people? [read more]
Getting the prospect’s attention doesn’t cut the mustard
“Gain attention” has become way too easy. Internet tools and Google have made it absurdly simple for your weakest, dumbest competitor to become highly visible. [read more]
8 Ways To Utilize MMS To Rock Your Sales Process
Far too many of us aren’t as familiar with, and certainly don’t really use MMS, or Multimedia Message Service. And that’s a shame. Because honestly, it can be a potent communications weapon in your sales arsenal. [read more]
Trustworthiness. Socially speaking, of course.
I wrote a post last week about trust that was prompted by a study I had read earlier in the week. This study suggested a causal relationship between CEOs' and other top business executives' personal participation in social media and the perception of trustworthiness of them and their companies. I was skeptical. [read more]
Social Media Marketing and the “Lack of Time” Myth
I gave a presentation last week to an audience of event managers on “How to Optimise Events for Social Media“. It was a lot of fun and, along the way, I quoted from a report by German events company, Amiando, which listed all the reasons event managers give for not using social media more in their activities. [read more]
Cloudforce Calling London Social Businesses
Image: Ben Piddington/Flickr
Every company now lives in the social spotlight, whether business leaders know it or not. But if you’re new to the social business–or as Salesforce.com dubs it, the social enterprise–concept, don’t get caught up in terminology or messaging. [read more]
Collaboration–Now More Critical Than Ever
Those of us who sell complex B2B solutions to large companies live in a world that is increasingly complex. Our customers face very challenging problems. Our solutions are very complex. Gone are the days when a sales person could handle everything with the customer herself. [read more]
3 Most User Friendly CRM's
Image: Sean MacEntee/Flickr(creative commons)
There is a huge market for CRM management tools. There are several companies that promote products for small to medium size businesses to improve their CRM skills. None are perfect, but many have the capability for customization or offer add-ons to integrate all departments into the system. [read more]
Take Lessons from the Leaders in Customer Service
Image: Paul Stevenson/Flickr
Customer service needs to be more than just a smile and a representative having memorized the instruction manual. ... but there’s a world of difference between organizations that step out of the “box” and those that plod along just humming from day to day. [read more]
Choosing Your Social Networks Carefully
Image: Nasirkhan/Shutterstock
Just because some of the less well-known social media channels are more specialized doesn’t mean that they are not valuable to you and your business. In fact, at times, they hold more value for you than some of the other social media channels that are broader and far more generic. You should look at them as designer social networks [read more]
You Be Nimble, You Be Quick [To Better Serve Customers]
I do EVERYTHING I can to run a business organization that is light, nimble, simple, and minimalist.This enables me to sell better, sell faster, and sell more effectively.It allows me to position myself as a partner, rather than some larger organization that requires my potential customers to adapt to a bunch of rules, policies, and... [read more]
Is an Employee the Same as a Customer?
A strange question you may think. If you are the leader within an organisation you should read on.The comparison I am trying to make is between an employee who loves their job and a loyal customer who loves your company.A loyal employee will be the one who comes to work and loves every minute of it. They are someone who feels so glad... [read more]
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Frictionless Sharing and the Implications of ‘Intellectual Privacy’
Image: katherha/Flickr
Frictionless sharing will share information about your activities amongst your Facebook friends without you even knowing that it is happening. But if we are subconsciously sharing something that we might not want to share, should this give us cause for concern? [read more]
Joshie The Giraffe – A Remarkable Story About Customer Delight!
Ritz-Carlton Hotels are renowned for their brilliant customer service, and I often refer to them in my presentations on customer delight. Well, here’s a wonderful story of this in action, and it involves Joshie The Giraffe! [read more]
Connections, Channels, and Collaboration: New Imperatives for Today’s CIO
Image: Helder Almeida /Shutterstock
Not only are we simply becoming more “connected”, the myriad of ways that we can connect are broadening as well – in our personal and professional lives, whether we are the customer, or whether we’re communicating with our customers. Additionally, as technology advances, we’ll be communicating with computers and machines more often, further adding to communications opportunities and challenges. [read more]
Help your customers “just in time”
Image: Digitpedia.com
In today’s fast world, everyone is constantly on the go and they rely on their mobile devices to provide quick information and fast answers. Are you ready for when your customer uses their phone to find out the information they need from you? [read more]
The Top 10 Things You Never Want to Do with Social Media – avoid like the plague
Image: zwola fasola /Shutterstock
You've heard it said before, what you put on the web, stays forever! But how many people really heed this sort of advice? I have been trolling through the internet in my research for the top 10 things that you NEVER want to do with Social Media. I bet you're already doing some of these things. [read more]
Don’t Fall into the Deadly Trap of Call Center Metrics
Guest Post: Brian Cantor
This might be a world of “strategic calls” and revenue-driven customer service, and it is true that metrics like average handle time are losing meaning for many organizations, but do not dare assume that successful call center leaders are leaving performance metrics in the dust! [read more]
Hanging Up on Landlines
We estimate that by mid-this year nearly a third of U.S. households will have gone totally wireless. But happily, we do measure loyalty and engagement among the national wireless phone service brands, and here’s how they rank. [read more]
If Content is King then Context is Queen
If Content is King, Context is Queen. Three tips for GM in wake of their suspending Facebook ads. [read more]
Work Environment Helps Create Company Culture
Cartoon: Cartoonresource /Shutterstock
The physical layout and design of workspace may not make your culture, but it does make a statement. Take advantage of the opportunity to make that statement, for both your employees and your customers. [read more]
A Tale of Two Facebook Pages – Macy’s & Nordstrom
As brands compete for every Facebook user to captivate them with their content, offers, promotions, contests, quizzes, several questions arise – are the overall brand strategies working? Are they winning? What specifically is performing the best? The worst? [read more]
Succeeding Through Social Media's Trough Of Disillusionment
Social Media is regularly being misunderstood and misreported. The digital social dynamic is in it's formative young teen years, and in the interest of growing business and driving investment we as a society may have over-promised. [read more]
Exceptional customer service is not complicated
Cartoon: Cartoonresource /Shutterstock
What’s remarkable to me about this finding is that it’s consistent with consumer research from three decades ago. I recall TARP statistics (1978) and research from Dr. Michael LeBoeuf (1987) that exposed poor treatment by employees (rudeness or indifference) as the number one cause for customer defection. [read more]
11 Common Mistakes Small Business Owners Make
photo by: jomcleary
Mistakes are part of the learning process but when it comes to owning or running a small business some mistakes, made at the wrong time, could threaten the long term viability of the organization. Because of this, it is important to identify those things that should never be overlooked or neglected. [read more]
A Heroic Story – and a Powerful Social Business Metaphor
While the daily triggers and challenges in most of our business lives aren’t remotely as dramatic as what happened to the twin towers that day, we DO live in a business (government, education, NGO, Ministry) climate where cycle times are increasingly compressed, and never explored frontiers of opportunity are literally emerging every few years, instead of every few decades or centuries. [read more]
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Social Media Results Conference: Engage. Communicate. Measure. Profit.
When: Wed, 2012-05-23 08:30
Interactive Communication for the Transport Industry
When: Tue, 2012-07-10 08:23
INBOUND 2012
When: Mon, 2012-08-27 08:00
Excellence in Customer Service: Supporting Better Quality and Delivery of Service
When: Wed, 2012-09-26 08:00
Book Now Book Now Excellence in Customer Service: Supporting Better Quality and Delivery of Service
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“Great article! You have really given us a lot to think about here. Employees are like customers sometimes and managers and business owners do need to learn to define who they are and what they are about. When looking at employees as sports betting owners can have a brand new perspective on how to handle them and treat them at times. id = "ap19r"; bgcolor = "#943465"; showstats = "den"; n ...”
“This is a great article that depicts the world as it really is today concerning technology and how customers use it. Businesses should be ready at the drop of a hat to provide the right information. The academy that knows how to utilize technology such as smart phones to provide relevant information that their customers are looking for will be the ones who are most successful. id = ...”