Social, to Knowledge Management's Rescue?

Knowledge management — as most people think of it — never existed. So anyone proclaiming its "death" can't be right. How can something that never existed die?

Let me explain.

Knowledge Management Meets Enterprise 2.0

Last week I read an interesting article by Nick Inglis (@nickinglis), “Knowledge Management rises from the dead.” In it, Inglis suggests the resurrection of KM is due to Enterprise Social Networks (ESN), which got me thinking. In spite of what I said above, I do believe knowledge management is alive and kicking in various forms and doing very well in specialist niches across a number of industries. I use Claire McInerney's definition for KM: “KM is an effort to increase useful knowledge within an organization. Ways to do this include encouraging communication, offering opportunities to learn, and promoting the sharing of knowledge objects or artifacts.”

The post argues that many KM initiatives fizzled out in the late 90s or early 2000s because the technology tools could not facilitate the capabilities required for a broader uptake. My take — what many people consider to be KM is actually Information Management, and that in the late 90s and early 2000s, many organizations were doing good things on the unstructured information management front. That time saw the introduction of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategies, many ECM suites and platforms, a focus on metadata and taxonomies and web based collaboration tools. And then came Enterprise 2.0.

MIT's Andrew McAfee coined the phraseEnterprise 2.0 in early 2006 to describe the use of new web 2.0 tools and techniques to internal enterprise systems. This concept worked for me because McAfee provided us with the SLATES model for assessing systems and their use. Move forward one year and a lot was going on in the E2.0 world:

• Dion Hinchcliffe (@dhinchcliffe) expanded on the original E2.0 model with his expanded FLATNESSES model
• David Gurteen (@davidgurteen) coined the term KM 2.0, suggesting that E2.0 “social” technologies would push us into a new way of looking at KM
• Microsoft release SharePoint 2007, a huge improvement over the 2003 version and introducing basic social tools like blogs and wikis to many enterprises (and with add ons such as NewsGator, even more functionality).

So eight years ago we had a major KM luminary like David Gurteen suggesting E2.0 / social would push us into a new way of thinking about KM. In the eight years since, not only has SharePoint moved on by two major versions (both of which have been somewhat deficient in social collaboration functionality), but the market has proliferated with tools and platforms like IBM Connections, Jive, SalesForce Chatter, TIBCO Tibr, Yammer, ThoughtFarmer, ThreadKM and many, many more, reaching new levels of maturity, and being joined by start ups on a regular basis.

Nothing That a Teaspoon of Social Wouldn't Help

Back to the article. Inglis states that knowledge serendipitously captured in a social collaboration platform is in essence "feral knowledge" (as opposed to well classified knowledge). This concept doesn't work for me. Writing something down in a platform doesn't constitute “knowledge capture.” I believe knowledge is mostly tacit and in our heads. Efforts to capture and share knowledge generally turn it back into information, which brings us back into information sharing and information lifecycle management. 

Inglis goes on to write:

“One major problem that ESNs have is not the capture of knowledge, but the transfer of knowledge from the individual to the collective. Yes, ESNs are searchable, but they often live in a disconnected space, separate from primary systems for managing information. To move from Capturing Knowledge to Transferring Knowledge throughout an organization, ESNs need to continue their march from fringe outlier systems to connected enterprise systems.”

On this we agree. Social collaboration functionality does need to be embedded in business processes and into the major business applications that facilitate them. And enterprise search platforms can provide an enhanced capability for linking information content residing in various silos.

Let’s take a look at Hinchcliffe's FLATNESSES E2.0 model with a KM viewpoint, to see how social is continuing to change our view of KM. 

• Freeform: “Old style” KM platforms were criticized for making users jump through hoops to enter additional content. The freeform nature of social tools helps with usability and user experience while enabling information capture
• Links: Link to content and perhaps more importantly to people, through rich profiles or content they published, their comments, likes, etc. Finding the right people (expert finding) has always been a key KM concept
• Authorship: The egalitarian approach to content creation. Although I don’t necessarily agree that “capturing” your every working moment in a blog constitutes knowledge capture and transfer, it certainly can build up the searchable corpus of useful information
• Tagging: Potentially one of the most useful elements of E2.0, the use of simple and situationally appropriate metadata without recourse to overly broad or complex taxonomies is highly important to KM
• Network Oriented: Small pieces of information, that are re-usable, but are also easily discoverable an addressable across the network, that can be surfaced in a news feed
• Extensions: “Other customers who purchased this book, also purchased these ones” — extending the references to an individuals previous transactions or operations. In a KM context this can be useful for gauging both provenance and authority of a source and assisting in navigation towards other useful information
• Search: A crucial element from a KM perspective, the search capabilities of a social platform, or its abilities to open up and be indexed by an enterprise search platform actually under pin many other functionalities. There is no point in capturing all this stuff if search cannot surface it for re-use
• Social: The truly transparent exchange of information either within groups, or across the enterprise as a whole — this can only benefit a broad KM strategy
• Emergence: “The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” In other words, patterns and structures which have a meaning at a higher level of abstraction than at the lowest levels of detail. In a KM context, harvesting valuable insight from those high level perspectives may illustrate patterns or trends that constitute knowledge objects themselves
• Signals: RSS, email alerts, news feeds and other elements which can send signals to users that something of interest is taking part makes for highly contextual KM

So can enterprise social collaboration platforms help push KM? It depends on your definition of KM, and what models and concepts within the broad academic area of knowledge management and related studies you subscribe to. I believe “social” has a very important part to play in information capture and information sharing. Social collaboration platforms democratize content creation and information sharing, in smaller “bite size” chunks, which may in some situations constitute McInerney’s “knowledge objects.” I also firmly believe that you cannot enact a knowledge management enabled strategy without good information management, and that social collaboration platforms or social intranets have a role to play.

Has social resurrected KM from the dead? Not really! KM was, in the words of Miracle Max from the Princess Bride, only “mostly dead” — but it can certainly be invigorated by a dose or two of social.

 Title image by  James Loesch 

SOURCE: CMSWiRE

How does social customer service affect contact centers?

While traditional customer service often takes place over the phone between customers and agents, social customer service -- or social CRM -- is new and becoming increasingly popular. In this dynamic, trained customer service agents answer customer inquiries and handle customer support issues over social media -- at least initially.

Many customers, particularly those who are younger, may prefer the medium of social media to phone calls, and some inquiries may be resolved more efficiently in this customer communication channel. On the other hand, social platforms may be best suited to addressing customer concerns only initially. Subsequently, it may make more sense to have a one-on-one conversation in email or over the phone to best resolve questions or concerns.

Organizations must outline strategies for responding to inquiries via social media, including when to take conversations private, how to communicate to consistently promote the brand image, and how to monitor social media for both positive and negative interactions. Contact center agents often need to be trained in social customer service, from the proper tone and level of support to provide in these communication channels to being trained in social media monitoring and metrics platforms that can monitor customer service issues and gather analytics on the information there.

Social customer service has had a significant impact on organizations in general, and contact centers in particular:

Social media can affect the brand. Social media comments are visible to a large audience, and brand images can be adversely affected. Contact centers have expanded their ambassador role for the organization, handling both one-to-one customer interactions and addressing highly visible and potentially risky customer comments.

Social media forces heightened urgency. Social media comments can spread instantaneously or, as is often referred to, virally. Typical contact center key performance indicators (KPIs) such as speed of answer or response time are no longer sufficient. Social media comments must be responded to quickly to minimize a customer's -- or lurking group's -- perception that a customer has been ignored.

Social media usually assumes the customer is right. Social media comments from customers may not always be correct, but an initial assumption of many followers is that it is correct. Organizations need to develop strategies and communications to fix incorrect perceptions.

Social media is an opportunity to fix problems. Social media is bringing a new focus on fixing customer issues throughout an organization. Organizations have focused their attention on identifying the root cause of customer issues and fixing problems to eliminate breakdowns and improve the overall customer experience.

Using metrics to resolve issues. Social customer service enables companies to be even more responsive than they were with phone- or email-based methods and to get a more complete, 360-degree view of customers. The following are just some of the metrics that experts suggest companies enlist in social customer service strategies:

• Time to first response.
• Average handling time of issues -- overall and by agent.
• Percent of inquiries managed by social channel -- such as Facebook and Twitter.
• Changes in sentiment among customers.
• Changes in customer satisfaction.

The impact of social media on organizations has been significant: It has expanded the role of the contact center and also forced companies to re-evaluate how they treat their customers.

SOURCE: SearchCRM

Improving customer engagement strategies with CRM tools

Staying aligned with the needs and expectations of today's customer is a challenging task for organizations of all sizes. There are many more moving parts to customer engagement than in the past, but less time to string together enough meaningful interactions to create full-blown relationships. That's why organizations are turning to customer relationship management (CRM) tools to implement repeatable, consistent strategies for customer engagement.

CRM focuses on helping organizations systematically manage the processes involved in acquiring customers and maintaining good relationships -- or, in basic terms, how they go about finding, catching and retaining good customers for as long as possible. While it's still critically important for CRM to optimize internal operations and systems of record for customer information, organizations also want them to be systems of engagement that proactively help build and sustain ongoing relationships with consumers.

Who needs CRM tools?

Creating and sustaining good customer relationships today requires organizations to have a philosophical model geared toward putting the customer first: Be FAIR -- flexible, analytical, interactive and responsive. Customer behavior, needs and expectations are changing as fast as new technology is being introduced. And as these changes accelerate, companies with FAIR customer engagement models will already be set up to be aligned with customers for an extended period of time. This means modern CRM tools and strategies will play an increasingly important role in the success of most, if not all, businesses today. As companies use content to target customers with shrinking attention spans, there are fewer opportunities to turn clicks into customers and brand advocates. This is why CRM has become a necessary technology and strategy that companies can't afford to ignore.

The foundation of CRM

Today, there are three main foundational areas of traditional CRM: marketing automation, sales automation and customer service.

Marketing automation involves the finding part of CRM and centers on identifying potential customers, nurturing them and using software to prioritize those efforts. To that end, marketing automation involves methods such as lead generation, lead scoring; lead nurturing, which tracks leads and develops them into sales-qualified leads; and lead conversion, which converts those leads into contacts, accounts or sales opportunities. Targeting content to the right audience based on analyzing social data is important for companies' marketing efforts. Employing content (email, SMS, video, blogs, display ads, etc.) to attract the attention of prospects searching for solutions to their challenges is just the first step. Turning that first interaction into a convertible lead requires processes and systems that use data to determine what leads to pursue and which to avoid, how to nurture different lead types and when a lead is ready for the sales team.

While list building, creating landing pages and blasting out email marketing campaigns comprise the basics of marketing automation, there are more sophisticated technologies and uses. Adobe's Marketing Cloud enables organizations to send a contextual email that can be updated as a recipient opens it. For example, an email sent on Monday to a person living in Atlanta would include an offer to make a purchase at a local store. But if the recipient doesn't open the email until Wednesday while in San Francisco on a business trip, the message is updated to include an offer at a store located closest to his or her location. The email could include a Save to Wallet option that would digitize the offer and put it on his or her phone via Google Wallet or Apple Passbook, increasing the likelihood of the offer being redeemed. Just as important, marketing automation products from companies such as HubSpot, Marketo and InfusionSoft are integrating with services such as GoToWebinar and video marketing platform Vidyard to streamline the lead generation and qualification process, making it easier to exploit lead activity and data from other important systems-driving acquisition activities.

Sales automation. The sales process must be as efficient and effective as possible. Sales and marketing must work together to figure out how to use marketing's information about what activities and content was used in order to provide valuable context to the sales cycle. Using a system to track the stages involved, activities performed, which resources to use and the likelihood of closing all help to manage the process. This also helps sales professionals and sales management get a better handle on what's in the pipeline, when to expect deals to close and what activities win more deals. Tools from vendors such as Lattice Engines, SalesPredict and Infer help companies understand which deals are ready to win and what it will likely take to close them.

More than ever, CRM is a part of the overall customer journey ecosystem.

Sales today is also about aligning the sales process to the buying process of savvy customers who are doing their own research and determining which vendors they want to engage further. Understanding where they are in their customer journey and having systems and processes in place to send them the right content at the right time help the sales team anticipate the kinds of information buyers want to make their decision. From a more foundational perspective, modern sales automation systems still must handle the basics such as managing contact information, tracking tasks and activities and facilitating general account and territory management. These systems should also make it easy to manage pipelines at the individual level while providing the big picture at the management level for forecasting purposes.

Many sales force automation applications, such as those from Salesforce.com, SugarCRM and others, enable companies to transfer leads from marketing activities into the proper sales processes at the optimum time in the sales cycle. Additionally, these systems are also integrating with sophisticated pricing and quote management systems from companies such as Callidus Cloud, PROs and Aptus, providing even more sales intelligence and efficiency during the process.

Customer service. In many cases, customer service is the most important piece of the CRM puzzle. Studies have shown that acquiring a customer is several times more expensive than retaining a current customer. Additionally, the benefits of turning one-off customers into loyal ones and possibly brand advocates can extend well beyond the value of individual transactions. Providing fast, accurate responses to customer questions and the ability to proactively guide them to more efficient ways to use products or services are critically important to extending the customer lifecycle.

Implementing the right service processes to handle customer issues, assigning them to the right person and having the right escalation procedures in place are important pieces of the service puzzle. Providing libraries of content to guide customers on support issues (or knowledge bases), live chat or mobile apps may be what customers need to get the level of service they expect. Or possibly an active customer support community where customers help one another is needed to scale your service reach. There are many approaches and options for creating great customer service experiences, and it's important to put the right ones in place to reap the benefits.

To underscore the importance of weaving customer support processes into highly used engagement channels, Zendesk, which provides a cloud-based support platform, recently partnered with Facebook to allow customers to receive order information and interact using Facebook Messenger. Conversely, companies can engage with customers and manage support requests directly from Facebook Messenger.

The evolving CRM tools market

The role of technology in delivering CRM has also evolved with the times. Although there are several on-premises CRM tools available, most of the best technologies today are cloud-based, making it easier and less expensive to get started.

If you have minimal integration and customization needs, cloud-based products can be managed from within the business unit. But if you require a product that can be integrated with mission-critical back office systems such as ERP, or your company requires deep customization to your system, you'll probably want your IT staff to take the lead in administering the system. And if you don't have the internal IT expertise or resources available, finding certified service partners to help implement and maintain a CRM tool should be an important part of the selection process.

Companies such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft, SAP and Oracle provide the full suite of CRM and related products that cover marketing, sales and service. However, this kind of encompassing functionality isn't only for enterprise-level organizations; companies such as Zoho provide a full suite of CRM-focused apps for small and medium-sized businesses. But, as noted, many technologies address the specific needs of companies that are in specialized markets.

More than ever, CRM is a part of the overall customer journey ecosystem, where systems of record, systems of engagement and systems of intelligence need to work together in near real-time to help companies meet customers' growing expectations. CRM, ERP, content management, E-commerce, data analytics and other systems provide each other with certain pieces to the customer engagement puzzle, making it critically important to put the right systems and frameworks in place to stay aligned with customers as they evolve.

Finally, mobility is a major consideration when determining which technology is needed to implement your CRM tool. How much needs to be done via mobile devices and which mobile device types will be used? This could be incredibly important to the success of your CRM implementation, particularly from a user-adoption perspective, and especially with the sales team. Making it easier for sales reps to enter valuable information about their interactions with customers and prospects can be addressed with mobile apps that automatically associate emails and phone calls to contact records. This creates a solid win-win, as sales reps get to focus on relationship building -- and not data entry -- and management gets the data it needs to make better decisions from a forecasting and resource allocation perspective.

People, process and technology

CRM has always focused on having the right people involved, using the right processes, implemented with the right technologies to manage relationships with customers. While it's imperative you select the right tools to help your company implement CRM successfully, the strategy you develop to engage customers will play a primary role in deciding which technology to invest in. A follow-up article will address these strategies and delve into various use cases to help you determine your specific CRM tool needs.

SOURCE: SearchCRM

Time to Bring Knowledge to Knowledge Management

I got a sinking feeling when I read a recent article entitled Why the Timing is Right for Knowledge Management Portals. 

"Been there, done that" — a reaction both to the idea of resurrecting the failed portal concept and to the thought that respectable folks still see knowledge as manageable, in this, the Internet era, when facts, opinions and expertise move at light speed.

Not the Whole Story

There's little exciting in KM as it has long (although serviceably) been defined, as the industry has long conceived it.

Industry's idea is that an enterprise can beneficially manage knowledge by a) storing and organizing documents and providing a search function and b) cataloging employee abilities and facilitating collaboration. This approach works for some, but in my view, it delivers half-truths.

It ignores the information inside documents. It ignores enterprise-relevant knowledge and expertise that resides outside an organization's boundaries, out in the wild-and-wooly online and social universe.

It largely ignores the social voice of the customer, business partner (and competitor) information, the wisdom of communities of practice and industry authorities, and the like.

KM's short-comings aren't going to be overcome solely, or primarily, by better data hygiene or consistent approaches to applying metadata, or by putting a new face -- a reworked portal -- on the same old searchable document sets. What's needed?

A NewKM Need

My view: It's time to bring knowledge to knowledge management, via:

1. Analytics, specifically, exhaustive information extraction (and not just searchable documents) and then data mining to identify links and associations; 
2. An end to artificial boundaries, to neglect of extra-mural information; 
3. Purpose-driven, ad-hoc communities and collaboration (and not just rosters of experts); and 
4. Actual facts and connections, as captured in social and knowledge graphs.

Information extraction (IE) is the resolution of entities, pattern-based information such as events, topics, concepts, sentiment, and relationships of interest within source media, whether text, images, audio, or video.

IE may involve structural, statistical, and machine learning (ML) methods, that is machine intelligence or AI. Whatever the method applied, the aim is to discover relevant data wherever it occurs.

The graphs I'm referring to are network and property graphs, data structures that capture entities of interest — whether people, places and organizations or products, components and parts or something else — and their attributes and interconnections, as nodes, annotations and edges.

Two Paths

Seth Earley, whose portal article I cited (and who is a CMSWire contributor), is deservedly a recognized information-management authority. His views and mine do align to an extent, judging from a concluding line in his article.

He observes that "organizations are weighed down with legacy technologies" and that access difficulty stems primarily from "the underlying structures of corporate content and data."

He expects that "knowledge management portals will continue to evolve with machine learning, natural language processing (NLP) and social collaboration integration."

Replace "management portals" in that sentence and you're golden. It's knowledge we should focus on!

In other words, knowledge discovery will continue to evolve with machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP) and social collaboration integration.

As for portals as an access mechanism, they will remain a choke-point, given all the enterprise-relevant information they can't get at. And while the tired document-centered data structures that sit behind KM portals will become more flexible via ML, NLP and collaboration, what you get out of them will continue to be records rather than knowledge.


Knowledge — search-retrieved, interrelated facts — as captured in Google's Knowledge Graph

Some Get It - Somewhat - and Some Don't

Judging from the agenda of last November's KMWorld conference (where I spent a day), the broad KM community — unlike Seth Earley — largely doesn't get analytics, openness, network or knowledge bases.

SOURCE: CMSWiRE

Blockbuster's Business Process Management Failure

In a rapidly evolving and increasingly intense global marketplace, accurately anticipating market changes and consumer desires is paramount to maintaining longevity.

Utilizing technology to collect data, track and respond to trends and expand employee collaboration helps businesses succeed in turbulent times. To secure a competitive edge, many companies use a responsive business process management system (BPM) to help them meet profit goals.

Blockbuster’s Lesson

Some companies that enjoy great success seem to ignore the fact that the business environment will change making it necessary to adapt or be challenged.

At one time the most successful movie rental company in the marketplace, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. The rising popularity of streaming movies opened the window for Netflix to outpace Blockbuster, which remained primarily a DVD rental company despite data indicating consumer trends were driving growth in another direction.

Understanding the data available through monitoring a company’s workflow process can give indicators about what customers want and are responding to most readily.

Connecting employees in different divisions with a good business process management system can allow them to view information and create reports most applicable to their work situation. Also, providing a companywide framework for accessing and sharing data can lead to better innovation and more creative problem-solving.

When the whole company is on board in solving problems and sharing ideas, new opportunities unfold and more agility is possible.

Business Process Management Supports Resilience

Smart business executives know that in order to stay ahead of the competition they need to make business process changes that reflect consumer trends. Reading data and listening to customers are key elements of success.

When data is available as needed through centralized and easy to access processes, employees can be more responsive to market trends and customer feedback. Reducing response time when there is a customer service issue is vital in an age when consumer reviews on social media sites are important for repeat business and word-of-mouth marketing.

Investing in business process management can mean a larger return on investment when the data provides a solid basis for a good decision and when employees can be more productive and innovative.

Any technology that can assist a business in getting the strongest market trend pulse possible is worth a second look. Reviewing your company’s business process management strategy may be just what you need to shift resources more effectively.

Technology Meets Leadership

Even companies like Netflix that seem to have figured out how to optimize their business process management still learn their own lessons along the way. Communication with customers remains the key factor in maintaining trust.

When Netflix used data indicators to raise rates and rework its services, it isolated customers. The lesson for savvy business professionals is that any business process management system is only as good as a leader’s ability to interpret the data with the customer’s needs in mind.

A service change or rate increase that looks good on paper also might be received positively by customers with the proper communication in advance. Employees who work directly with customers can be surveyed about the best way to communicate change to loyal clients. In addition, having data available through cloud computing can let employees show clients directly why a change is necessary and how it can improve services.

Connecting employees through a more efficient business process management system offers businesses the potential of being more responsive to market trends, which increases their chances of outpacing the competition.

SOURCE: University of San Francisco

Social media customer service presents new challenges

The adoption of social media has empowered customers to have a "louder" voice when they speak to an organization. Customer complaints are no longer restricted to phone-based communication between customer and company. Instead, customer frustrations can be aired on social media and be displayed for all to see.

Organizations have to be ready for the new challenges that social media customer service presents, including deciding how the organization should interact with customers on social media, which sector of the company should handle those communications and what kinds of skills customer service representatives should have to effectively handle issues on social media platforms.

Companies must determine whether a separate, standalone group should handle social media-based communication or whether agents in the contact center should take on the responsibility. Deciding on a division of labor in this way comes with its own requirements and special challenges. Regardless of where social customer service lives in your organization, you must make sure whoever is handling it has the right skill set and tools to ensure the quality of service mirrors that of every other channel the company is present on.

Challenge No.1: Where does social customer service live?

A standalone social media-focused group. Many organizations, especially those new to social media customer service, have decided to isolate the handling of social media communications. With this avenue, the organization recognizes that social customer service requires a focused approach and, therefore, must incur an additional cost of staffing a separate entity in order to get it right.

Social media communications provide another set of data points supporting a voice of the customer program.

Social media customer service is a relatively new practice that companies are still trying to figure out, so many companies see the value of isolating the work to a separate group. This allows for extensive oversight and management and may be a good course of action for companies that are just instituting social customer service.

Handling customer issues on social media is much different from interacting through traditional channels, such as phone or email. It oftentimes requires the agent to have specific skills and it may be more effective to hire staff that has these specific skill sets. Social media is a volatile channel that can build or harm your company's brand and reputation and, thus, needs "white glove" attention.

Contact center. Many organizations have handed the social media reins over to their contact centers, which is a method that has its own benefits and challenges. If an organization wants to ensure their service is consistent, regardless of channel, it makes sense to put the responsibility for all channels under the same roof.

In their ongoing battle against employee attrition, contact center managers are continually trying to provide exciting career paths to entice agents to stay. Since social media customer service may require additional skill sets from agents, managers can set up a structure that rewards agents who learn new skills. In this way, contact centers create incentives for agents to develop new abilities and reap the rewards of a workforce of agents who can multitask and are adept at multichannel customer service.

Social media communications provide another set of data points supporting a voice of the customer program. Having a single place for the collection of data helps to assure the data is collected in a consistent manner.

Challenge No.2: What tools/skills are needed for social customer service?

Regardless of where social media interactions are handled, a set of common practices and tools are required to provide the best customer experience.

Agent attitude and skills. The first requirement is to have agents with the right demeanors and communications skills handling social customer service. Agents should be empathetic, able to deal with complicated customer issues and can interact with customers through a variety of communication methods. Agents handling social communications often deal with harsh criticism of the company that can spiral out of control if it isn't resolved -- or at least responded to -- in a timely and efficient manner. A good agent will be alert, quick to identify the posts that need the most attention and choose his words carefully when corresponding with customers.

Invest in a knowledge base. Even the best agents need a place to refresh their memories on key skills and workflows, which is why a knowledge database that contains a "single version of the truth" is critical so that all agents, regardless of which department they work in, have access to the most up-to-date and accurate information for resolving customer issues. The knowledge base should contain relevant articles and training documents that agents can access whenever they have questions on how to handle an inquiry.

Integration with CRM, other systems. Embarking on social customer service means nothing if a company can't connect consumer exchanges to other key customer data, which is why having a CRM system where all customer interactions are recorded is critical to any organization. Companies must have a history of each customer's journey throughout the entire relationship to improve marketing and customer retention practices. Companies might even invest in a business intelligence (BI) tool to support the compilations of data from various sources, such as CRM data, surveys, etc. Investing in a BI tool can provide data-driven insight into key issues and process breakdowns to improve customer satisfaction.

Social media has empowered customers to have an influential voice in how the public perceives a company. It is up to organizations to address customer concerns on this channel and control the conversation so their reputations aren't damaged and provide a consistent customer experience. For some companies, this might mean a complete re-evaluation of their customer service infrastructure and technology investment in order to do it right.

SOURCE: SearchCRM

Post-sale interaction helps to build customer relationships

Companies want to build customer relationships and craft an experience that keeps customers and prospects coming back.

For many organizations, that means not treating customers like simple financial transactions and instead showing them that their interactions are valued. Developing rich online experiences and offering special perks and discounts are key elements of a well-rounded customer experience management (CEM) strategy. But with companies spending time and resources on pre-sale marketing and other activities, it pays to emphasize post-sale engagement to build customer relationships.

Voice of Customer research findings from Ernan Roman Direct Marketing Corp., indicates that customers who have already bought something welcome ongoing communication with brands, but only if those interactions are relevant and reciprocal. When characterizing post-sale relationships with companies, deeper levels of personalization and targeted offers top customers' wish lists. Here are three types of company-customer conversations that research identified as critical:

Reviews as conversations

Customer reviews should always be seen as conversation starters. The customer is proactively communicating with your business. Whether the tone is good or bad, it should not go unnoticed or without at least saying "thank you" or responding with a full reply.

According to the annual Local Consumer Review Survey by BrightLocal, nearly nine in 10 consumers have read online reviews and 88% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. Research from Bazaarvoice indicates that companies can reverse the negative effects a bad customer experience can have on their brands, as 95% of dissatisfied buyers said they'll buy from a brand again if a complaint is resolved quickly.

Customer reviews should always be seen as conversation starters.

For paint manufacturer Valspar, swiftly responding to online reviews is a top priority and helps it connect with customers and resolve issues before they develop into problems for the brand. The company responds to reviews, comments and questions within 12 hours and trains all customer service representatives on "brand voice guidance," which includes answers to common questions and concerns.

Social media interactions as conversations

Social media interaction is perhaps the most important two-way conversation companies can have with both prospects and existing customers. People go out of their way to find your business on social media and comment on your pages, an action that deserves both respect and a timely response.

Moving equipment and storage rental company U-Haul uses social media to connect with customers and inject itself into conversations to improve the customer experience and resolve issues quickly. "It's extremely important for us to have an open dialogue with our customers and potential customers online," said Toni Jones, U-Haul International's social media director. "When our customers are talking directly to us about our products and services, we find those to be the most important to engage in -- immediately … We have escalation cues … [and] we're going to address those quickly because we're able to track those messages."

The company categorizes common topics of discussion on social media with tags -- or subject codes. During operational hours, U-Haul's marketing team responds to complaints and comments on social media within 30 minutes. The company reports that about 70% of all issues are resolved in that time frame and about 49% get a response in fewer than 15 minutes.

Seamless cross-channel conversations

Consumers rarely use a single channel to exclusively communicate with a company and often mix their interactions across multiple different channels. Companies must be available to converse with customers on multiple media platforms, letting consumers know that they are making the effort to be accessible.

The Accenture report "The Secrets of Seamless Retailing Success" advises that companies need to rethink their approach to CEM if they are struggling to provide a seamless, cross-channel experience. The report indicates that shoppers are both researching products online, then buying in stores, as well as researching in-store before buying online. Consumers value the ability to reserve a product online before trying it in-store and they want the ability to check product availability across channels in real time, according to the report.

Beauty retailer Sephora employs a cross-channel strategy that uses its online experience to enhance the in-store one. With its ColorIQ program, consumers in stores can interact with sales reps using a digital facial wand that provides personalized feedback on the consumer's skin tone to assist in product recommendations. Sephora stores this information online where customers can access it anytime for shopping online or in-store.

Key takeaways

All companies want to serve their constituents and build customer relationships, but this kind of goal needs to be reinforced constantly by organizations paying diligent attention to the timing and quality of their communications with customers.

Companies must monitor online reviews to gain insights about issues that must be addressed to improve brand image and consumer experience. Responding to consumer inquiries, questions, comments and complaints quickly demonstrates a high level of customer service. Being available to consumers online, via mobile devices and in physical stores promotes an easy and seamless customer journey. While there are countless ways to engage in meaningful conversations with your prospects and customers, make sure that you are having these three critical conversations daily and effectively.

SOURCE: SearchCRM