Voice of Customer 2.0: Social, Agile and Integrated

Sponsored By: CustomerThink Corp..
Voice of Customer 2.0: Social, Agile and Integrated

Bob Thompson
CEO, CustomerThink Corp.

Executive Summary
Not very long ago, social media was viewed as a fun way to keep in touch with friends and family. Many business leaders considered it a time-waster best reserved for kids.
How times have changed. With incidents like United Breaks Guitars now commonplace, it’s painfully clear that social word-of-mouth has tremendous consequences when brands fumble a customer encounter. Of course, there’s upside too. Social media is a veritable goldmine of insights that can help a company innovate and improve its competitive position.

Participating in social media—via online communities, blogging and networking sites—is now thought of much like the Internet a decade ago. A company is conspicuous in its absence of a social media plan, especially if it sells to consumers.
So, where to start? Well, marketing is one obvious application for social media, to amplify communications and to gain insight. Customer service is another key application.
With Comcast and JetBlue leading the way, customers increasingly expect that complaints aired on Twitter should be handled promptly by company representatives.
This paper will provide a perspective on the growth of social interactions with businesses, Voice of Customer pitfalls and the role of sentiment analysis to mine insight from unstructured data.
The main point, however, is that the age of Social Customers means that it’s time to rethink Voice of Customer (VoC) programs in three key ways.
♦ First, social media is an important new source of feedback, not only from customers, but also from market influencers. Use it!
♦ Second, enterprises must capitalize on dynamic unstructured and unsolicited feedback to spot emerging trends and flashpoints before they turn into a public relations nightmare.
♦ Third, and most important, executives must translate insight into action. And that requires deep integration into existing customer support processes.
The age of Social Customer is here. Are you ready to engage?

Bob Thompson is CEO of CustomerThink Corp., an independent firm specializing in customer-centric business management.