Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

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.

Most Organizations measure customer satisfaction with surveys. They can be tracked, and measured and compared year over year, month over month, quarter over quarter. But what techniques are available to raise early warning flags? Three types of measurements can help: Predictor Metrics, Prevention Programs and Social media / Blogs / Complaint Sites.

The Canadian Government has announced that the Budget Speech on Mar 4, 2010 will be tweeted to the public as it is read in the Canadian House of Commons. In an effort to communicate better with constituents (improve their customer satisfaction) in real time, the Finance Department will start its communications on Twitter with the budget speech. Wonder how they can do that? Will this be a trend with other governments?

A Forbes article about a dissatisfied customer with a million followers on Twitter that forced an organization to change their customer satisfaction policies is a poster child for why customer service personnel need social media sensitivity training and management needs to adapt to the new age of marketing and public relations.

I have seen several questions on customer satisfaction forums about what is the right ‘metric’ for customer satisfaction that will predict future outcomes. Often this question comes up in respect to ’surveying’ customers . Is Overall Satisfaction the right measure; willingness to recommend; or repurchase intent?

I think customer satisfaction measurements are a mosaic of possible measurements and the ones that should take priority should be the ones where the executives feel there is a need to improve.

Customer Satisfaction is meeting or exceeding expectations. Social Media can be used to show how your dealership satisfies customers and can add some new ‘expectations’ customers never knew they had. Think of social media as making a dealership a more friendly place to come to, whether you are coming for a new car, a used car, or service.

Here’s an interesting video about Dell and their attitude towards Social Media and how they are going from Dell Hell to Dell Swell. Jeremia Owyang, Partner Customer Strategy at Altimeter Group interviews Bob Pearson, Communications and Conversations at Dell. Dell is using Social Media to gather product requirements, notify customers of deals, create platforms for customers to help each other and monitor social media for negatives comments. Watch the video.

Two videos on the impact of Social Media on business also highlight several gems about customer satisfaction.The data is from the book Socialnomics. 80% of Twitter usages is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, any time. Imagine what that means for bad experiences. 34% of Bloggers post opinions about products and brands. Do you like what they are saying about your brand. Do you even know? Watch these thought provoking videos. What is your organization doing?

If you want to monitor what is happening on the web with your brand, your organization, your executives or your name, the challenge is enormous. Some excellent data exists in a blog post called Internet 2009 in Numbers on a site called Pingdom. These numbers are staggering and surprising and highlights the need for monitoring.

1. 126 Million Blogs
2. More internet users in China and in Europe than in North America
3. 350 Million people on Facebook
4. 27.3 Million Tweets per Day in Nov 2009

A volunteer network is trying to satisfy their customers (those in need in Haiti) by coordinating the movement of water and other supplies around Haiti using Twitter and a relatively new mapping software called Ushahidi, which allows text messages to be mapped by time and location. When buildings are destroyed and street signs are gone, volunteers don’t know where they are or how to get to the place they are supposed to deliver the supplies. Rachelle Houde from Montreal is part of a massive volunteer effort over coming that challenge. Read her story!