Tweet Up schedule–Social Customer Service ROI

Starting on Monday, June 6, 2011, Dr. Natalie and I will host a 3-session tweet up series on the Social Customer Service.

Over the 3 sessions, we’ll discuss topics related to thought leadership we shared in our recent white paper Calculating the ROI for Social Customer Service.

Our end goal with our recent paper and coming tweet ups is to help people combine strategy with ROI to accelerate executive approval of social customer service programs.

Of course, each of you have your own experiences and thoughts to share so it won’t be complete unless you join in the discussion!

Mark your calendars and join the discussion on:

  1. How to Build the Business Case for Social Customer Service – Monday, June 6, 2011 at 3 pm EDT.
  2. Calculating ROI for Social Customer Service – Week of  June 13 - TBD.
  3. How Social Customer Service Benefits the Entire Company – Week of June 20 - TBD.

The hash tag for each session will be #smROI.

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Shaping Customer Service in the Social Era

I love talking about collaboration almost as much as I like doing it.  When people come together, one idea spawns others and before you know it, greatness erupts into the world.

The reason social media is transforming business today (and in years to come) is because it allows us to team together in ways we could never achieve in our traditional, proximity-based societies or companies.  And that includes collaborating to meet customer needs.

Your customers know as much or more about the “real world” use of your products than your service reps or even product engineers might know. 

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The True value of Social Business – Free white Paper

Focus recently released a white paper I wrote on The True Value of Social Business.  Check it out.

It blows through various misconceptions circulating about ROI.  For example, results such as influence, engagement, impact or customer satisfaction are not values but benefits.

Use the white paper to arm you to gain the green light on your social initiatives by discussing the value with your executive team in monetary terms. This paper will tell you what you need to know, and explain the benefits of social business including:

  • Extended influence with prospects and customers.
  • Improved branding.
  • Improved customer service.
  • Heightened customer loyalty.
  • Better insight into customers.

The white paper is free.  Click here. 

SCRM’s dirty little word is really not so dirty

Lawrence Buchanan wrote a dandy article about the importance of understanding the dollars and sense impact of social business. 

While he values determining the return on investment (ROI) for social business initiatives, he also expresses a preference for the Return on Customer (ROC) which is a means to determine the total customer equity.

To me, ROC is the little brother to smROI because getting to the latter is influenced by the former.

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Simplifying Social Business - How real people work

The social business model exalts engagement and collaboration with customers, partners, and employees. 

Strip it back and the reason why the social business model is fundamentally important is because it supports how real people relate and do real business.

Why then are companies still confused about the social business model?  Why aren’t they rushing to implement it in their own companies?

I’m going to explore these issues in this white paper, although I’m going to come at the discussion from a little different perspective than most other thought leaders in the social business space.

Along the way, I’ll explore why the social business model is so important for companies today ─ and the potential impact on failing to pay attention to it.

 

Click here to read Simplifying Social Business or you can view the slideshow format.

 

Who owns the customer relationship?

I struggle with this question.  Crowd wisdom in Social CRM (SCRM) circles says in today’s world the customer owns the relationship.  That’s the power of social media.

True confessions, though, I’m not completely comfortable with this idea.

The reason? The inequality in a relationship where one party holds more power than the other.

Some will say the point of social media is to give customers power back.  Yes, it’s true – and it’s one of the great things about social media.  However, I also have concerns about the pendulum swinging too far to the left, in which case a new problem arises.

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Sensemakers versus Skynet

Esteban Kolsky makes me think.  Like today, he posted a provoking article on Sensemakers versus systems – and he was stimulated, in turn by Venessa Miemis, another favorite thinker of mine.  Let’s hear it for people who make us think.

I started to post a response to Esteban’s article but as I watched the length of my comment grow, decided to post it here instead.

Esteban postulates:

[D]o we need Sensemakers, people who can make sense of the data — or can we trust the systems to make sense and make the decisions for us?

Esteban’s essential argument is the world is too complex and the data volume so high that computers are needed to handle such high volumes of information and then act on them.

My thought?  I agree in part with the Esteban...but with a big qualification.

 

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Chris Bucholtz reviews ValueRight

Chris Bucholtz, editor-in-chief of Forecasting Clouds, wrote a review of ValueRight, a social business valuation tool developed by Pathlight Solutions, our sister firm.

Chris wrote,

[ValueRight is] an application that takes a stab at applying the numbers involved in Social CRM – both the expenses and the revenues – to draw a clear picture of the impact Social CRM has.

…

[The] presence of such an application is great news for the Social CRM space; marketing suffered for years without the ability to associate costs and revenues with their efforts. Social CRM is an even trickier nut to crack.

Read the full review here.

 

You can also follow Chris on Twitter at @bucholz.