Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

Here’s an excellent recent overview video on Social Media statistics. It is oriented towards executives and marketing departments. But there are lessons for Customer Satisfaction, customer service and public relations professionals as well.

It appears that a standard is starting to form in the world of Social Media. Twitter seems to be the social media vehicle of choice for handling complaints, and squeaky wheels while Facebook is for cheery news, fans, and brand boosters. See specific corporate examples: AT&T, McDonalds, Microsoft and Vodaphone.

In Tom Peters’ book, The Little Big Things, 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence, Tom speaks of the value of listening to customers. Why should an organization listen, what is listening anyway, How to listen and What to Next are covered. According to Tom, the return on investment for Listening is higher than from any other single activity.

Companies who want to foster customer loyalty and sustain high levels of customer satisfaction have to move beyond simply meeting customer expectations to delighting the customer. Why is this so important? What exactly is ‘exceeding customer expectations’. Learn how your organization can exceed customer expectations and a road map to get started now.

The recently released Social Media Revolution 2 video shows some very surprising statistics for Facebook and Youtube. Will traditional customer survey processes survive in the consumer market place?

Six topics dominated the feedback from a reader survey on the Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management blog. Tied for first place were “Customer Satisfaction Strategy and Implementation” and “Best Practices from Other Organizations’. Read the full list in this article.

One of the techniques Toyota has used to try to minimize the customer satisfaction hit they took earlier this year is a new Social Media technique – Digg Dialoggs. Digg Dialoggs allows users of social bookmarking site Digg, to pick leaders they would like interviewed, then recommend questions they would like answered and have the top 10 questions (voted by users) asked of the leader by a Digg Correspondent. The top 10 questions asked of Jim Lentz, President and COO of Toyota US were a big surprise. Digg, Digg Dialoggs, the top 10 questions asked of Toyota US and the video of the interview itself are included in this article.

Nestle is undergoing criticism from Greenpeace for its use of Palm Oil in its products on the grounds that it damages the environment. It has tried to publicize its position and action plans. Nestle has used a Facebook Fan Page with over 92,000 fans as one of its vehicles of communication but the handling of the issue by the community manager on Facebook has become a Facebook Storm with customers and non customers. The dialogue from customers, fans and non fans has taken on a life of its own.

Everyone once in a while a person or organization makes a big mistake. Customer satisfaction takes a hit and the problem goes viral in the press and on the internet (blogs, social media, websites, etc). Why this is important and what to do about it (how to recover) is covered. Three examples are reviewed: Tiger Woods Infidelity scandal, Toyota Recall and Safety issues and the Roman Catholic Pope and the child sex abuse scandal. Videos of apologies and action plans are included in the article.

Is Big Brother watching you? Remember George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eigthy Four? Well Big Brother isn’t watching you but everyone else is. Almost everyone with a cell phone has a camera in it that can take pictures and movies. These pictures or movies can be posted to Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, or Youtube and be very embarrassing. Lately this has become very visible in the media as well. Recent newspaper articles about Transit workers and Local Politicians highlight how cell phones cameras are changing the visibility of employees working with or out in the public. Customer satisfaction can be impacted by negativity that is now very visible.