The Social Customer - The world's best thinkers on CRM and customer service

4 Ways Listening Can Help Your Business [Infographic]

KeithPaul — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:04:32 +0000

What are your customers saying about you? Your market? Listening and engagement is becoming a critical piece of the marketing mix. It affects everything from the sales funnel to customer support to media-mix modeling. Social media is the key to your digital strategy. Start those engines

A LinkedIn Rant (About Bad Behavior)

DaveBrock — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:05:07 +0000

I can’t imagine any business professional not leveraging LinkedIn as much as possible. It’s powerful in building your own brand and people’s awareness of you.

The Social CRM Process, And How Tropicana OJ Didn't Use It

AdamMetz — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:02:00 +0000

Case Study: Tropicana Orange Juice Tropicana Orange Juice, part of the PepsiCo brand family, learned the hard way, in January 2009, that not engaging the social customer could be very costly. The brand launched a full-scale package redesign, replacing their decades-old “straw in an orange” packaging with a minimalist, sans-serif design. Customer complaints ensued to the point where Tropicana eventually reverted to the original packaging the next month, in February 2009.

Making The Angry Hordes Work For You: Lessons From Ellen and JC Penney

Jon Burg — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:48:55 +0000

Over the past week, JC Penney has come under fire from certain "family values" organizations for adopting Ellen Degeneres as a spokesperson. These organizations didn't just make statements, they activated their base of outraged parents, utilizing both traditional and social channels to rally their communities. Classic social media firestorm, right?

Is Personal Customer Service Dead? (guest post)

Pretium — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:32:17 +0000

By Laura MeredithMaybe I am just getting older (I am forever 29), but I miss the personal service that used to be inherent in the customer experience. I can’t say from a former era because it’s really not that long ago! I’m not referring to the 1920s or 30s here – just the 70s!

Why Social Media Is Like a Raucous Bar (video interview)

PaulSimon — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:31:21 +0000

Social media is a lot like the activity at a bar. You know, the kind with drinks and sometimes loud music. That’s Dave Carroll’s take. Long before we started Linking In and Facebooking and Tweeting, he was playing his music in university-area pubs.

Does America Run on 'Dunkin’ Donuts'?

DouglasHanna — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:36:01 +0000

Brands Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index sets Dunkin’ Donuts as number one in customer loyalty for the coffee category. Second only to oil production, coffee is the largest commodity sold.

Analysis: Top Social Media Trends for Customer Services in 2012

lbrynleyjones — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:43:49 +0000

One of the biggest issues that got raised at my Social CRM conferences in New York, London and Paris last year, was stressed in the next highlighted trend: “Customers expect service to be cross-touchpoint — that is, being able to start an interaction in one communication channel and complete it in another.

Team Collaboration Secrets: Make Social Media Deliver

AdamHonig — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:18:22 +0000

Is it time to rethink your approach to collaboration?

‘United Breaks Guitars’ Launched Dave Carroll's Career in Social Media (video interview)

PaulSimon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:35:24 +0000

Within four days of the video’s posting on YouTube it had a million hits. Two and a half years later, it’s been viewed 11.5 million times and Dave Carroll’s name is synonymous with customer service.

Super Bowl XLVI Proves Increasing Use of Mobile Internet

Mac Ocampo — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:36:57 +0000

It was a great Super Bowl game again this year, and the digital world was once again involved in a big way. Super Bowl XLVI had the most number of tweets for a sporting event,

Swimming with the Smarter Customer: The Speedo International Story

BrentLeary — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:31:12 +0000

This post was written by Laurie McCabe of SMB Group.

'United Breaks Guitars' Sparks New Customer Complaint Resolution Model (video interview)

PaulSimon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:58:20 +0000

Musician Dave Carroll always has had a passion for customer service. So it’s not surprising that in the wake of his highly popular “United Breaks Guitars” video on YouTube, he’s become a one-man band in support of companies treating their customers fairly.

'United Breaks Guitars' Made Dave Carroll a Customer Service Celebrity (video interview)

PaulSimon — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:55:36 +0000

"United Breaks Guitars" went viral quickly after musician Dave Carroll posted it to YouTube. He talks about the experience in this video interview, the first of four segments.

The Real Winners of Super Bowl Ad Race

Jennifer Roberts — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:50:49 +0000

The 2012 Super Bowl was a great example of why moving beyond simple buzz and sentiment metrics is required to get a true understanding of what most resonates with consumers. CI’s engaged consumers metric (taking into account several levels of positive word-of-mouth as well as negative reactions), revealed the clear winner of Super Bowl advertisers (as of the end of game night, 11PM ET): M&Ms.

What the Social World Thought of the Susan G. Komen Debacle

MichelledeHaaff — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:22:20 +0000

What a week for the Susan G.Komen for the Cure foundation. An organization that I’ve supported for years faced a huge debacle related to an issue that has taken center stage in the conservative political debate,

Social Media Resolutions: Made Any? Kept Any?

Courtney Hunt — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:58:25 +0000

As 2011 faded from memory and 2012 came into sharper focus, people around the world engaged in the annual “resolution ritual.” This post invites folks to share their social media goals for the year ahead, evaluate the progress they have made so far in keeping the resolutions they have made, and refocus their efforts to ensure their goals are realistic rather than idealistic.

AT&T Proves It Knows Zilch About Positive Customer Experience

baileyworkplay — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:14:03 +0000

Want to know how to quickly turn a new customer into a vocal ex-customer? Offer pretty talk without delivering meaningful results. This is my personal experience dealing with AT&T.

What Customers Value, More than a Coupon

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:17:47 +0000

Everyone knows about the proliferation of the latest “deal” emails and offers (a.k.a. Groupon, Living Social, Google Offers, and the like). However, marketing is more than just offering a discount. Marketing that relies only on price cuts becomes a battle over the lowest price but that doesn’t help company grow or build long-term customer relationships.

Social Media Co-Opts the Super Bowl

PamDyer — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:45:51 +0000