Herewith my notes from this panel at C3:

Philip Soffer, VP Product Marketing, Lithium

Julian Aldridge, Founder/President, ENACT

Chris Carfi, VP, Digital, Edelman Silicon Valley

Pete Blackshaw, EVP Digital Strategic Services, NM Incite

Aldridge – Use communications to help your customers get value.  He used Nike Plus as an example of a product that helps you as a runner.

Soffer – Brands sometimes focus on the wrong metrics when it comes to social.  For example, the # of followers is not necessarily a sign of success.  The challenge is that a number of social metrics are obvious and public so companies tend to focus on them, even if they are inadequate.

Blackshaw – Employees are becoming a new advertising channel.  Brands need to look at not only did a you recommend them but why.

Sterling – Branding occurs even in the absence of a click meaning even if your Facebook ad campaign doesn’t generate a click doesn’t mean it didn’t work.

Carfi – The DNA of an organization will affect how they should invest in social

Blackshaw – The organization needs to change to focus on “brand advocacy”

Soffer – GiffGaff is a great example of a company doing social right.  A mobile telecom company – 20 employees – all marketing is viral.  They call their early customers “Founders”.  Bestbuy is an example of a big company doing it right.

Aldridge – Virgin America lives social values.  They project their brand through everything they do. I totally agree.

Carfi – Zappos indoctrinates every employee with social.

Blackshaw – Nordstrom’s customer service program rewards them in social channels.  “Satisfy the consumer at all costs” has exponential value when magnified through social media.  Anybody who is calling you has the potential to be an influencer.

Soffer – Client call center always gets email of callers so they can send them follow up communication to encourage them to engage with company via social.  Bestbuy trains employees has to use Twitter and “listening tools” to figure out who the customer is.

Carfi – Palm Hotels looks at an individual’s Klout score and gives them perks.  This is the kind of info that when it gets out can light up a reservation line.

Aldridge – Big financial client’s issue is that they are heavily restricted as to what they can talk about on social channels.  Everything must go through Compliance first so they think about the consequences of everything they say.

Blackshaw – Marketing generally treats customer care as an ugly stepchild.

Soffer – Marketing is usually not expert at handling customers once they get them in the door.  Customer Care needs to give Marketing access to the content to help them engage with customers.

Carfi – When marketers see that their jobs are being supplanted by social media, they will start to be nudged to think differently about customer engagement.

Soffer – Don’t confuse social channels with actually being social

Blackshaw – Boring business processes – product quality, etc. – are behind the conversations.  The right strategy for social media might be more investment in offline customer service.

Great discussion.

Share This Story!

About Author

One Response Comment

  • Jason Rudland  February 21, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    Customer care is part of marketing in my humble opinion. There are plenty of stories of how enlightened companies use it to impressive effect.