One company listens, generates passionate word-of-mouth, more referrals, is a success.
One company...what...is deaf to not only their customers, but their own experiences...and they're closed.
From Brad Shorr, Word Sell, Inc. a Tale of Two Companies.
The best customer-loyalty metric is the Net Promoter Score. Fred Reichheld, its creator, asks if your NPS, or Net Promoter Scores, should drive your compensation.
I'm in the pro camp, obviously, especially with Net Promoter Score. Of course.
( Ultimately, every business uses customer loyalty to drive compensation. Really? Without customer loyalty, returning customers with repeat purchases, your business is either a ponzi-scam, an investment scam or out of business before you can reply to this post if you've even had time to read this post. )
Building on customer loyalty is the only foundation for a sustainable business. Your business grows to the extent you build on customer loyalty. NPS is one of the most, if not the most, accurate means to measure customer loyalty in a way that everyone in a company, from CFO's to customer service reps, can understand. So, yes, NPS should drive compensation.
The big concerns of the con camp Mr. Reichheld shares seems centered around the fear that employees would game the system. They would manipulate it somehow. Brow beat customers, beg 'em for a high score, threaten retribution unless...
If that's the concern, then it's not the fault of the Net Promoter Score's implementation. NPS won't change the corporate culture from one of trust and openness, to one of deceit and manipulation. If you have a corporate culture where gaming the system is a standard procedure...that's the issue, not the system you use to score customer loyalty. And for those who worry about employees gaming the system...I'd encourage you to look at the source of that fear and ask yourself why you think that or why your employees would be motivated for that.
Here's some notes from Andy Brudtkuhl's conversation with me this morning on BlogTalk Radio. You can listen to our conversation at www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.
Andy created IowaFlood.com to share with the masses the stories with the still ongoing Iowa floods.
Twitter. Twitter was the most important social media technology for Andy’s platform, IowaFlood.com.
Twitter was the meeting place for members in the Des Moines Iowa area to share their stories on the Iowa floods. It was these conversations that drove Andy to create IowaFlood.com.
His first goal was to centralize the coverage by all the traditional, mainstream media. And then share it with his community members on Twitter.
Then he saw a broader, more personal, real-time coverage with his members on Twitter and their use of Flickr and YouTube and blog posts.
He expanded his vision to instead share THEIR stories with the masses, along with the coverage from traditional, mainstream media.
2 hours. That’s how much time he needed to launch the site from idea inception to buying domains to going live.
Kudos to Andy for not waiting for perfection instead choosing to get something up that worked and be open to ideas and suggestions for the site from the community members.
Resource Used:
Domain names: GoDaddy.com
Blogging Platform: WordPress.
Hosting: Mosso.com ( Shouts to them for their proactive customer service call to help optimize his site.)
Social Media Firehose: Yahoo Pipes. This pulls in to one feed the content from various feeds with various social media resources based on key words. (Upper right corner on his site. Embed code is there to share the feed on your blog or website.)
Photo-sharing. Flickr. It’s easy to find photos about the floods in Iowa with keyword tags.
Content-sharing: wufoo.com. It’s a template you can add to your site to allow users to submit content directly to you. (Right, Andy?)
Video-sharing: YouTube. (duh)
Site Power: Community Members. Andy says: They power the site.
3 Indispensable Resources:
* WordPress
* Community Members.
Shouts: Des Moines Register for their help with content and feeds. We both agreed it’s nice to see them embrace the social media community and resources. Their Twitter Id is: dmregister.
Template for future events. Andy’s created a template for future platforms devoted to events: conventions, concerts, art fairs, emergencies, disasters.
Andy’s Contact:
* Business: 48 Web Consulting
* Blog: Get a New Browser
Prediction: Michigan football roars bak in 2009 with some Florida-like speed and creativity. Looking forward to it.
Andy’s Takeaway: Get on Twitter and Embrace Your Community.
Shouts to Andy: Without getting all sappy, a lot of shouts go to Andy, and his community, for building the site. It shows a lot of technical savvy. And it shows a lot of heart for his community. Kudos, Andy.
I find myself fascinated by Twitter and its community of users, the content found there, how it's used, not used, who uses it for what...And at the same time, I sometimes have the impression it's where the cool kids hang out. There's an unspoken (untweeted?) etiquette for posting, grammar, frequency, even a little bit of a pecking order for who can comment on what topics.
Having said all that, I find it indispensable, really for broadening my networks, clarifying my thinking in real-time, showing me new uses of social media from people way out in front with its power and who've chosen to share their expertise with the community.
Here's a Q&A with Twitter's Biz Stone from Jennifer Leggio.
Link from Chris Brogan at, where else, Twitter.
Here's some notes from my BlogTalk Radio show with Jackie Huba from The Swom and Church of the Customer.
• Word-of-mouth vs word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth is a strategy; word-of-mouth marketing is a tactic. The first is a mission; the 2nd is an after-thought.
• DNA. Word of mouth is generated from the DNA of a company, when they give a reason or inspire their customers to talk about them, to volunteer to be their loyal sales force.
• Kudos to the person asking it. That's what Jackie answered when I asked her what’s so important about the Net Promoter Score from the Ultimate Question Survey. Ok, now what. You've found out the customer will/won't recommend you. Now what?
Exactly. Kudos to the person daring to ask a customer their opinion. Neither one of us are being facetious. Jackie pointed out so many companies are scared to even talk to their customers, so let’s give kudos to the person asking it. That’s such a huge step. And once taken, you can’t really go back to ignoring the customer.
• Badge of Courage. Employees at Enterprise Rental wear their Net Promoter Score as a badge at company events. That shows how important it is. It’s measured and celebrated and heroes are made from that score. Heroes and careers.
• Customer Service is pro-active now. Using examples from Salesforce.com and their use of Yahoo Pipes (link and link) and comcastcares at Twitter and Dell’s Ideastorm and blog response team, she points out that companies (the smart ones) are pro-actively seeking customer experience opportunities by engaging the customers where the customers live on social media.
• 4400 Tweets. Frank Aliason at Comcast began using Twitter (comcastcares ) to reach out to their customers. In less than 3 months he’s posted about 4400 tweets to Comcast customers in response to their needs for service. That’s roughly over 1500 per month direct responses. Happy customers tend to tell 3-5 people about their experience. Now, multiply that message spread rate by the power of Twitter. And multiply it again by proactively reaching out to solve their issues before they become a dell hell-like firestorm.
• We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline businessWe’re a customer service organization who just happens to fly airlines. - Colleen Barrett, CEO of Southwest Airlines. Church of the Customer Link
• Social networks’ growth comes from niche-markets, niche or specialized communities. Ning has over 250,000 communities. The most popular are very niche-oriented: firefighters, Lisa Nova (youtube), alumna, scrapbook makers.
• Employee Engagement Comes First. Dell built an EmployeeStorm internal community site to enlist their employees in creating solutions and understanding the need to reach out to their customers with the Ideastorm site. Very smart. See 2nd point about corporate DNA and its role in creating word-of-mouth.
• TheSWOM. Their current project. 835 members, great conversations from the members, great solutions for generating word-of-mouth from the members. And these solutions are happening nearly every day. And it's free. And it's helpful. Get over there. Become a member.
Thanks, Jackie.
As usual, Seth Godin has a great post: Why Word of Mouth Doesn't Happen. He lists 9 reasons. The first is fairly descriptive. And at the end he adds this:
First, understand that people talk about you (or not talk about you) because of how it makes them feel, not how it makes you feel.
Changing their day, changing their perspective, changing their attitude, changing the way they look at their world is how you generate word-of-mouth.
Seth suggests changing the game:
What will change the game is actually changing the game.
That's a Google or a Twitter-like game changing experience.
Sometimes, it's the simple things that can generate that feeling. Flowers to a new customer or to a customer for their referral worked at my previous company. Simple, inexpensive, personal. WOW. So were our mission to answer the customers' calls in person. My office extension was in that loop.
Granted those things were done delivering a commoditized service. It worked; we grew successfully.
Had we done that with a game-changing service ala Google/Twitter, etc, we'd have conquered the world.
All in good time...All in good time.
Conversation. Conversion. Cash-flow.
Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow
Change. It might be the 4th C.
Change in conversation (quality or quantity) > Change in Conversions > Change in Cash-flow.
You can't control the conversation. You can influence it. You can feed it material.
You use your cash to do that. You can commit cash to create a product, an experience, a company, a day-to-day experience, that will fuel an inspiring conversation.
Change in uses of cash > Change in conversation> Change in conversions > Change in Cash-flow.
Or you cannot.
Either way, the cycle is perpetual.
Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...> Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...
The Three-C's of Word-of-Mouth.
UPDATE: Angela's not able to do the show. She's on the way to the hospital. Not life-threatening, but it needs her attention. We'll reschedule. You can leave your get well wishes here or on her blog at Angela Maiers.
My weekly BlogTalk Radio show has a special guest this morning: Angela Maiers
Angela has a passion for creating engaged teachers and creating an engaged learning environment. And THAT's the foundation for our future: engaged teachers creating engaged students.
And not just for our school years, but for life. Her vision is we create a habit, a lifestyle for learning. And more than vision, she has skills and programs that will bring her mission to life for many.
And, she's grown her business solely through Word-of-mouth.
I'm looking forward to our talk, this morning.
Our conversation is live at 9:30 AM, Central time, here in the US. You can listen streaming at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.
And you can call in and ask questions at:
US: 646-915-9212
Code: 19978#.
And a link will be up later so you can listen at another time in streaming mode.
Ben and Jackie sent me a free copy of Groundswell last week. Ben and Jackie are Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. They are the Grand Swomies behind The SWOM, The Society of Word of Mouth. And I’m a member of The SWOM, defined as one with aspirations of Swominess.
I was one of 5 members, aspirants, at The SWOM to receive a free copy of Groundswell.
I gotta confess right here. I hadn’t planned on buying Groundswell. I’d read about it. I’d read all the gushing praise for it; seen all the hype and buzz going on about it. All of it forming a veritable groundswell, if you will, of conversation about it.
Whatever.
It’s the standard book of the moment, right? You know the kind? A fairly well-written book, better than I could write certainly, that articulates a hot trend that lasts a few fleeting moments, maybe 3-6 months and then disappears. And so does the book and its value.
Academic at best. And after 6 months, I can’t say my life is better for having read it.
And the other thing, (baring my soul, now) is I’ve been blogging daily for 4 years now. I’ve done podcasts and YouTube. I get the part about customers controlling at least half of your brand. Word-of-mouth and great employees were the saving graces of the company where I was CEO. I’ve evangelized ‘em all. I GOT IT. My mission now is to get more companies using their resources, embracing their power, y’know?
And when I looked at the book's cover I thought…And you’re going to tell me…what?
That’s what I thought. (Ok, I tend to be judgmental and I can be quick to judge. And sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes REALLY wrong.)
I was REALLY wrong with Groundswell. Maybe, not 180 degrees wrong. But a good 165 degrees, definitely.
Groundswell…where to begin. It’s well-written. It’s pace is pleasing, satisfying. The authors clearly love their topic. Their writing shares their love of social media, and in a measured, intelligent way. It's captivating, engaging. THough they're doing all the talking, somehow you're part of the conversation, contributing to it in someway as you read their words.
And they weave in data with stories or profiles of company’s experiences with the groundswell.
That I admire. It shows they’re masters of their area. It’s a labor of love, really, that, they can weave back and forth from data to specific stories or anecdotes and weave me into their story.
They’re not looking to grandstand on this thing called social media, citizens media, grassroots media…ride the wave to a couple of speaking gigs and be gone. No, they’re adding usable intelligence and profiles and actionable suggestions. They’re adding value to this conversation about the conversation. And…and…not only that but they use those examples and data to then push the conversation further and eventually ending up with a plan whose basics any company of any size in any industry could implement. OMG. Yes. They not only describe the trend to you, they walk you through all the cool resources you've maybe never heard of, splashcast and buzzillions, but then shows you how you CAN use them to join, foster, ride this groundswell for fun and profit!
Sure, they’re going to reap the rewards from their book and their employers will be very happy, too.
But these rewards will be greater for offering insight and help for those companies still looking to understand what’s changed, what’s not changed (them, probably) and how to listen to their customers and employees and connect with them. And that’s a very, very good thing for them as companies and for their employees, for their customers, too. For all of us.
I hate being proved wrong. On the other hand, I love taking a position and learning what I overlooked and having that ‘aha’ moment when I see things more clearly, more broadly.
That’s what Groundswell did for me. And I’m thinking…it’ll do the same thing for you.
Thanks, to Ben and Jackie for the sending me one of 5 free copies of Groundswell. Thanks to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff for your love of this topic and being so articulate in sharing it with us. Now, go enjoy your just rewards!
(Written in the dark with no internet connection while a morning storm passes…)
Update:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Recent Comments