Michael Maoz

Most of the buzz that we have heard on social networking is focused in two directions: the first is for tools to allow employees of organizations collaborate, chat, blog, and share ideas, while the second direction is looking at how communities on the internet interact (the classic example would be FaceBook).  However, an emerging focus for the business will be the application of social software to foster improvement of the customer experience. The simplest reason is that billions of dollars, Euro, Yuan or whatever currency a marketing organization spends is squandered because online forums and communities send out messages that undercut the brand.

Through poor recommendations, or negative peer review or remarks or postings, or YouTube content, consumers – especially those in the key younger demographic, can steer customers and prospects away from your business or service. But the corollary is also true. By understanding what is said about your organization, you have a tremendous opportunity to improve. We are looking at dozens of systems that help with this issue. Some examples? Software that searches forums and communities and your website for comments about your company, or speech analytics software that analyzes all of the content of voice response systems or phone logs, is being used today by leading businesses to uncover broken customer service processes. Other software looks at the types of interactions that are carried out through which channel: SMS, chat, standard telephone, email, kiosk, web self-service. Other systems analyze the age and social profiles of the individuals. The results are used to better design interaction processes and to target messages that appeal to each type of customer.

IT projects that focus on social networking outside of the context of the business of marketing, selling, and servicing the customer better will face greater scrutiny in a down economy. The closer the project gets to improving a measurable outcome (more customers, more buying, lower interaction costs, higher effectiveness of marketing), the greater the likelihood that the project will find success.

Follow our upcoming research on the eCustomer from myself and colleagues such as Gene Alvarez, Adam Sarner and Ed Thompson – these are exciting times!!