Notes

Customer Experience 2.0 - 7 Steps to operate a vehicle Customer Loyalty and Sales
Social Media (Blogging platforms 2.0) is fast becoming the most important and powerful influences running a business today. It really is evolving at record speed and gaining broad adoption - it isn't just for the technology industry any more. Using its foundation built on sharing information, collaboration, and relationships, it can transform the way organizations attract and retain Customers.

Customer Experience 2.0 is really a unique and new way of thinking. It marries and leverages the various tools and concepts of Social Media with the needs and wants of your customer - developing a much more engaging and rewarding customer experience. This combination leads to increases in customer loyalty and retention, sales and market awareness. It creates a far more innovative and personal way for you to engage, understand and support your prospects and customers.

The experience a business provides to its customers reaches the heart of creating customer loyalty. Research demonstrates if you can keep the promises your customers want and deliver the knowledge they want, you may be rewarded with deeper and more lasting loyalty. With the introduction and availability of SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING tools, organizations can now deliver a much richer and more transparent customer experience than ever before. This improved experience will undoubtedly be vital to an organizations survival and/or growth down the road.

To illustrate how "top-of-mind" this topic is today, I recently gave a speech on "Developing Exceptional Customer Loyalty." a quarter-hour into the speech a lady asks the question, "How can we use Social Media to build stronger customer loyalty?" The focus is shifting - organizations everywhere and in every industry are needs to ask exactly the same question. We have been entering a "white hot" space for businesses - leveraging these innovative tools to provide exceptional customer experiences - Customer Experience 2.0.

If I could have written this article or with all this speech even a year ago it could not have gotten the attention it is today. There's now more excitement on how best to "integrate" Social Media into Business than we have ever seen. The main element is not just having the tools, but leveraging these tools to create better interactions with your customers and drive increased sales and loyalty. What used to be some cool tools for the "techno-savvy" (developers, bloggers, etc.) is currently moving at light speed into the forefront for businesses of all sizes and in any industry.

Here is the first in some articles designed to give business owners, top executives, marketers, sales teams and anyone else thinking about building stronger relationships with their customers a significant advantage over their competitors. This is the business issue, not a technology issue. By concentrating on the business and their customer, organizations can make use of the tools in the "Social Media Suite" to create a differentiated customer experience. By adopting the idea, tools and approaches of Customer Experience 2.0, you can reach more customers, supply them with more transparent information way, have them talking positively about your company, and also have others refer more customers.

First, let's eliminate mystery and mystic that surrounds Social Media. Web 1.0 may be the world most people reside in today. Since the inception of the internet and websites, people now do online searches to find your business. Websites were originally designed to "push" information with their customers within an "electronic" format. It is up to an individual to find the home elevators your website and find out about your products/services and organization. This is the MONOLOGUE - information and communication primarily delivered in a single direction, from your own company to the prospect, customer or other interested parties. Web 1.0 is known as "Company Centric" since the company has more control over the information and the interaction with the customer.

There is a dramatic shift when Web 2 2.0 (Social Media) came on the scene. It started as a way for software developers among others to collaborative, share information and comment on the information being shared. People also wished to be more linked to others so "SOCIAL MEDIA" was born (MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN, to mention a few). Now people can create a sense of "community" with one another predicated on similar interests. They're instantly connected to friends, family, co-workers, classmates, and almost any other kind of imaginable relationship. VISA, for instance, has generated the "VISA Business Network" on Facebook for their small business customers.

Now the customer "has a voice" that could be shared with anyone thinking about listening. This has become both an enormous "threat" and an "opportunity" for organizations. They are able to still "push" messages with their audience however now the audience is with the capacity of "commenting" and "discussing" the products/services or information on offer before they create a purchasing decision. "Transparency" has become the word of the day and is something almost every organization will be wrestling with in the foreseeable future. Suddenly, the Web evolved from the Monologue to a DIALOGUE - communication and information sharing in both directions. Here is the essence of Social Media.

Your customers, employees, partners, suppliers and other people can now "discuss you" and "share their thoughts and feelings" and "learn about you" well before they ever do business with you (or continue steadily to do business) - and the information they get is from their friends along with complete strangers. The world went from being "Company-Centric" to "Customer-Centric" and the client experience has turned into a vitally critical component. In accordance with Marta Kagan, Social Media evangelist, customers believe what they hear from complete strangers more than they do you (only 14% of individuals trust advertisements, but 78% trust recommendations from other customers they may not even know - Source: Marta Kagan ).

What impact do you consider this will have on your own business today and in the foreseeable future? Are you considering a "leader" in dealing with these tools or wait and "follow" your competition? Coming to the forefront will give organizations a substantial competitive advantage over their competitors. The opportunity to build a community with your customers will be paramount. For me, the train has left the station - you have the choice to get up to speed, watch it go by or get stepped on by it - but the train is moving and won't be stopping anytime soon. The power is in the hands of one's customers, partners, suppliers, shareholders and everybody else. For example, Advertising spend on social networks went from $15M in 2007 to $40M in 2008 and projected to be $80M in '09 2009 and $125M in 2010 2010 (source: e-marketer August 18, 2008).

As you commence to find out about how Customer Experience 2.0 can play a role in your organization, consider your customer. Consider WOM (Word-of-Mouth) marketing. Consider referrals and recommendations. Consider customer evangelists. Think about trust and loyalty. Consider ways or areas that describe the way you would like visitors to talk about you as well as your business. Now consider, "What exactly are they saying about me and my organization today?" "How do I know?" "Am I being transparent in their mind?" "What are they saying about my competition?" "Is what they are saying based on fact, fiction or simply rumors?" "Is this helping me or hurting me?"

Some interesting numbers provided by Marta Kagan say that 34% of individuals post opinions about products/services on the blogs; 36% think more positively about companies that have a blog; and 32% trust bloggers opinions on products and services (Source: Marta Kagan). Today, you could have more insight into what experience your customers truly want - in ways that were impossible before. Over 57 million Americans read blogs and 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs could be more important within the next five years (Source: Blogworldexpo).

With that as an introduction to Customer Experience 2.0 and the world of Social Media, so what can you do today to create this work for your own organization? Listed below are Seven Steps you can follow to truly get you on the way. These will all be discussed in greater detail throughout the series. Here are the Seven Steps:

GATHER CUSTOMER DATA - gain a deep understanding of what "experience" your customer really wants from you - not only products and services. What "Promises" do they want one to keep? What experience(s) do they want throughout their relationship with you? Since most products and services are an easy task to duplicate today, developing a truly differentiating customer experience is still unique.
DEFINE CUSTOMER SEGMENTS - they are groups of customers, using the experiences(s) they want from you. Notice I didn't say "demographic" or "product based" segments. Exceed traditional segmentation and add the "experiential" component. This should be based on how your customers desire to connect to you at different points with time in the relationship.
CREATE A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE 2.0 PLAN - focus on the desired experience(s) and the use of social media tools. This will support your organizational strategy. The program is designed in conjunction with the information you collected in Steps #1 and #2 above and the method that you plan to execute on delivering these experiences.
DESIGN THE CONTENT - what information, education, tools and resources will you provide to your customers? What do they want? What content is it possible to offer which will engage your customers and solicit their input? This consists of both content and the messaging necessary to communicate the information.
CREATE A BLOG - get started doing more info accepted and trusted tool that is foundational for both Social Media and Customer Experience 2.0. Get it started and improve upon it over time. The Blog(s) you'll set up is definitely the windows into your business where you can interact and communicate with your customers.
EVALUATE OTHER TOOLS - assess the value of other SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING tools and determine those have the largest payback to both you as well as your customers. These might include social networking, communities, Twitter, audio presentations (YODIO), podcasts, among others that could be useful to your customers' experience with your organization.
TEST IT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS - after you have launched a specific tool, test it with your customers. Is this improving their experience? How could you improve upon it? It should always pass the test of being relevant, important and helpful either personally or to their business.
Now you've got a roadmap and Seven Steps to creating Customer Experience 2.0 for your own organization. Embrace it, utilize it and continually improve upon the experience your customers want. This is exactly what creates lasting differentiation and a rock-solid competitive advantage.

Blaine Millet is Co-founder and Principal of Customer Experiences Inc., providing consulting services in your community of Strategy, Customer Innovation, Sales and Customer Experience 2.0. CEI is centered on Execution and is targeted on the relentless pursuit of helping others achieve higher degrees of Revenue, Customer Loyalty/Retention, Differentiation and a Competitive Advantage. He could be also the co-author of the leading edge book, "Creating and Delivering Totally Awesome Customer Experiences."

Blaine spent some time working with and for companies from start-ups to the Fortune 50, including the Big 5 and IBM. He has held various positions in the areas of leadership, management, sales, and as an individual contributor. His primary areas of expertise are Sales/Business Development, Customer Management and Consulting. He also holds an MBA in marketing and finance. He's got worked in the following industries: Telecommunications, Software, Professional Services, Financial Services, Hi-Tech, and Manufacturing/Distribution.

If you would like to discover if your organization could benefit from this sort of innovative thinking and solutions, give Blaine a call (425.881.8504) or send him a note at: [email protected] to see how this approach my work for you.

Visit their website at: http://www.customerexperiencesinc.com and their blog at http://www.customerexperiencesinc.com/blog to learn more and the latest articles and updates.
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