Guest Post: Gartner Reflections – 1 Week (or so) Later by Dan Ziman

[#1]

In general I like guest posts, they provide an opportunity for some other folks to have a voice without committing to a full blog of their own, or to reach a different audience than they normally do. Better still, I love it when guest bloggers enjoy it so much that they come back again for more! So it gives me great pleasure to welcome backDan Ziman, returning with some takeaways from the Gartner CRM Summit:

It's amazing that it takes so long to recover from time out of the office these days. It used to be just recovering from the travel part, but it's become far more difficult because time out of the office just means there's more to catch up on by the time you get back.  It's taken me over a week. But, now that I've had (ahem) a few hours to reflect back on my time there and dozens of conversations I had with other attendees. Not to mention, some cooler weather to revitalize my senses.

What struck me at this conference was the wide range of experience and knowledge levels among CRM professionals when it comes to social marketing and Social CRM. Only a small minority of conference attendees appeared to be deeply engaged with social marketing, tweeting, or blogging regularly. However, the majority or people I talked to were seriously pondering "what to do". They know they need to do more social-somehow, some way. It seemed to strike a personal commitment and it seemed increasingly important to meeting their business objectives.

Here are the top 3 recurring questions and comments I received:

1)  How will a community initiative map to marketing objectives?

A:  In B2C industries, how important is real-time expert product assistance? It's huge. It leads to improvements in customer satisfaction and loyalty, but most importantly, a visitor completing a purchase. How often do you ask (or get asked) about experiences with particular products? If the community is part of an ecommerce stage/purchase, assisting customers in the midst of a new customer filling their shopping cart, it might be the difference of the cart being left behind. In both B2B and B2C enterprises, web visit duration and reducing bounce rates are critical in determining whether attention is being captured. If your community is being linked by others, your SEO ranking will improve, and returning visitors will enjoy the added customer experience and engagement with your online brand.

2)  I'd rather not let customers post negative opinions on my site. 

A:  Guess what? It will exist on the web regardless. You'll be far more successful with more engaged customers by embracing their feedback. Show you care. This is not just listening-you can use these opportunities to take action and make improvements. That's what your customers are *really* looking for. Is it that people *want* to complain, or is it that they simply want to be heard? Yes, and more.  Would you prefer they complained somewhere else and then purchased from your competitors next time? Or, worse yet - would you prefer they returned your product, which is now a loss, and you have no idea why? Branded communities on your site will give you much more control and insight in addition to keeping visitors browsing and clicking on your domain's web pages.

3)  I think we could just build this ourselves.

A:  Yes, you could, but to get a usable application, it will take you thousands of hours of R&D, QA and user-testing. Do you have those technical resources available? How will you address upgrades and APIs to key enterprise applications?  And, guess what?  That's not even the issue. It's the best practices & industrial strength proof points which will dictate success or failure. Ask anyone who's been successful with communities. Having the right expertise is the key to managing growing and engaging communities. A vibrant community with incentivized participation allows everyone to build their reputations and it fosters true brand advocates.

Hopefully this helps a few of those folks looking for answers. The real question you should be asking yourself, though, is "What business objectives can I address with social marketing and Social CRM?" Starting with clear business goals is your best bet to running a valuable customer community.

Thanks again Dan, you're welcome back anytime! If you're interesting in hearing more from Dan, you can follow him on Twitter at @lostintheflog.

Photo by Omar Omar