When Conversation Becomes a Concern
March 11, 2011
How much responsibility should you take for your website visitors?
Clearly, when they visit your site, you’re responsible for their experience. You want them to take certain actions as a result of their visit, so the website needs to make this easy and desirable for them, whatever that action is.
But increasingly, as websites – even corporate websites – become more social, and as companies become more involved in social media activity across the web, then visitors may well reveal something of themselves in ‘conversation’. And what they say may be something that causes you concern…
I’m not talking about data protection, because obviously you take good care of that as part of your processes.
I don’t mean corporate social responsibility in the classic sense, either, which refers to how the company takes responsibility for its impact on the context in which it works (marketplace, employees, community, environment).
No, here I mean information revealed to you as part of the social interaction that your company has taken on, shared with your employees by individuals.
Often we get comments from people who believe that we represent the brands we discuss. If we have a post about a make of car, for instance, or a food-manufacturer, people respond as though we were that company. They pass on details of their complaint and ask what we’re going to do about it.
That’s easy enough: I find the customer service contact details for that company and pass them on – and I delete any personal contact information they’ve shared publicly. This is a simple misunderstanding of the nature of our site, and perhaps of the public nature of blog comments.
Then, this week we had an unusual email, asking how to find a former lover who works for a company we mentioned. At first, I assumed it was spam, though I couldn’t see where the gain for the spammer was. But when I investigated, the email came from an apparently genuine email address from a professional company.
I’ve done nothing. How can I help, after all? And it isn’t a serious problem (I hope). Or perhaps I would make it worse…
But it made me wonder about companies who are very active in the social space, having conversations with individuals.
Banks, for instance, very clearly and very frequently, warn people in their Twitter stream not to reveal any of their personal banking details.
What about companies in other markets? What if, for instance, you are using social marketing to promote tampons to young girls, or baby milk to first-time mothers – or any product to potentially vulnerable people – and a visitor to some part of your web estate reveals something about their circumstances that causes you concern for their health or wellbeing, or that of their family? Given your privacy policy, is it permissible to try to get them help?
Google puts up a phone number for the Samaritans if you search for various keywords likely to indicate that you are suicidal; some social media sites have panic buttons for people who believe they are threatened in some way. What should corporate community managers do if they are worried about a member of their community?
I don’t have an answer, other than to ask whether companies have a duty of care that extends beyond the use of their products, and whether companies should have a policy for how to handle such an issue – if at all.
What do you think?
Importance of Customer Geography to Internet Retailers
October 28, 2010
There is no question about the fact that internet retailers have the capability to reach new customers and clients that are far beyond the grasp of traditional brick and mortar establishments. Yet, despite the fact that anyone with access to the world wide web can reach an internet retailer, two recent papers published by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania suggest that traditional methods of advertising and marketing are still important in growing an internet retailer’s brand. These methods include local word-of-mouth recommendations and even consideration of where customers live and in what conditions they are living.
The research papers, authored by Wharton marketing professors David R. Bell and Leonard Lodish, as well as Yonsei University professor Jeonghye Choi, found that despite the internet’s worldwide appeal and access, locality still matters. When researchers compared the effects of online word of mouth recommendations and reviews on shoppers and the effects of offline word of mouth recommendations and reviews on shoppers, they found that offline recommendations tended to sway customer shopping habits more. Notably, this result was not only found in cases where the offline recommendation came from a trusted individual customers tended to be more swayed through offline word of mouth recommendations than online ones no matter who the recommendation came from. Customers buying from online vendors tended to buy more from those that have been recommended to them by people living nearby. This means that in the end, it all comes down to locality and geography.
Customers are more willing to trust the recommendations of someone who lives in their immediate area because they feel that they are experiencing similar living conditions, therefore the recommendation holds more clout. On the other hand, if they receive a recommendation from a trusted individual living in another part of the country, they will still give the recommendation strong thought, but not as much as they would if that recommendation had come from a next door neighbor. This is because the other individual lives far away, thereby making the purchaser feel as if the recommendation may not work out in the same way for the both of them because they experience different lifestyles and environments. This means that online recommendations are the least influential because not only are these reviews coming from strangers, but they are also coming from strangers who seem to only exist on the internet and therefore are not local at all.
One way that internet retailers can take advantage of this finding is by adding one extra little feature onto their customer reviews and recommendations: a location identifier. Some retailers have already done this, asking customers to identify where they live when leaving a review so that potential new customers looking through the reviews may be more influenced by the reviews if they happen to be from the same area as the reviewer.
Another thing for internet retailers to keep in mind is that the buying habits of customers vary from region to region. Retailers could find a wealth of new customers in areas where these customers are the minority. For example, if a town’s population is largely comprised of elderly residents, yet there is a sizeable amount of younger residents living there as well, Internet retailers could directly target these consumers. These consumers would likely latch onto an internet retailer because brick and mortar retailers in that area would cater only to the majority population, excluding the minority consumers. Retailers can research the demographics of specific areas and buy specific search keywords in places that have a trove of promising potential clients. This way, when potential customers in that area conduct an internet search for a particular product, retailers can ensure that their business will pop up in the search results.
Overall, retailers could benefit greatly from paying attention to where current and potential new customers live. This way, they can boost their brand reputation through localized product recommendations as well as tap into a wealth of new customers through localized keyword purchases. Though the internet is a decidedly global dominion, it still pays to think local.
This guest post is contributed by Olivia Coleman, who writes on the topics of online colleges and universities. She welcomes your comments at her email id: olivia.coleman33 @gmail.com.
The research papers are here:
Traditional and IS-enabled Customer Acquisition for an Internet Retailer: Why New Buyer Acquisition Varies over Geographies and by Method (PDF)
Local Preference Minorities and the Internet (PDF)
A New Landscape for Increasing Customer Loyalty?
August 10, 2010
These days most people are happy to carry a lot of processing power in their pocket – in their phones – and use it to connect with each other and with retail brands. Companies have a lot of information about the products people want, both their own data and that provided by their customers, such as reviews and comments. It makes sense to link the two.
I recently invited Neil Jones, head of marketing for eMobileScan, who are leading barcode scanner and data capture specialists, to write about a possible near-future for retailers. As you’ll see, some are already there…
No less than 2,000 stores spread all over the US, Japan, Brazil, and New Zealand are experiencing substantial growths in sales as a result of increased customer loyalty. What do they have in common? All of them are implementing mobile self-service shopping. What is it and how is it increasing customer loyalty? That’s what I’m about to share with you.
Why Gaining Customer Loyalty is Now Every Retailer’s Ultimate Goal
Most customers care only for one thing when deciding where to shop – that they get their money’s worth. But once a store manages to instill in the customer’s mind, “This is where I can always get true value for my money.”, that perception would be hard to erase.
Once you gain a customer’s loyalty, that customer will keep coming back no matter what. He’ll be awed at the little innovations you make. And he’ll even tell his friends, office mates, and relatives about it. So what should you, retailers, do to gain a customer’s loyalty? You simply make him happy … every single time he walks through your doors, whether in or out.
Well Informed + Full Control = Happy Shopper
Making customers happy – we know that’s easier said than done. But picture this:
How would you feel, as a customer, if you were able to make all the smart decisions when buying something? How would you feel if, each time you checked out, you know you ended up picking the best product all the time (or at least most of the time)?
To make smart decisions, customers have to be fed the right amount of relevant information when looking for something. That way, they can make intelligent decisions faster. In this fast-paced world, too little, too much, or simply unrelated information just won’t do.
Retailers who know this prioritise investments on CRM, speed through checkouts, inventory visibility, out-of-stocks reduction, workforce management software and hardware, cross-channel integration, fresh item management, PCI compliance, country of origin labeling, and so on.
Customers, on the other hand, already have their own criteria in arriving at a “smart buy”. That’s why retailers have to meet them halfway. There should be an interface between the two, and that’s where the concept of mobile self-service shopping enters the picture.
The Mobile Self-Service Shopping Experience
In mobile self-service shopping, a customer takes a mobile scanner upon entering the store. He then uses it to scan barcodes on items, interact with self-weigh scales, monitor his shopping list, and finally to pay in a checkout or self-payment station. All this time, he packs as he shops, making shopping a very personal experience.
Using similar mobile devices that are more advanced, relevant information can be fed to the customer through them. Information such as: nutritional advice (not just facts), warnings of possible allergens or forbidden food products (say, for those with diabetes), product age, relevant offers, and even suggestions for a preset recipe, can give the customer full control over his shopping.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the possible applications that can be fed to such devices. Finding out if another variant is in stock, reading product reviews, getting estimates (e.g. How many pieces of tiles are needed for a given floor area?), generating a project-based list (e.g. a list of products for replacing a door), and so on.
If this doesn’t make a customer happy, I don’t know what will.
Big Benefits for the Retailer
These systems are very beneficial to the retailer as well. Aside from enjoying increased customer loyalty, he would also be able to free certain personnel from the usual tasks of answering customer queries and have them do other important assignments instead.
Other related retailer-based mobile solutions can be used to support and enhance inventory management, price management, warehousing, point-of-sale, and staff connectivity.
If this doesn’t make the retailer happy, I don’t know what will.
Thanks Neil!
Over to you: as a customer, would you use such a scanner or would you rather use your phone? If you’re a retailer, what advantages/disadvantages do you see? What changes would you need to make to your web estate to make this work for you?
The Solar Plexus Punch of Targeted Marketing
July 8, 2010
The other day a flyer dropped out of a magazine I subscribe to. Yes, I do still read paper!
I tossed it towards the recycling pile, along with all the others that came with it, without a glance. No surprises there – open rates are very low, and action rates even lower.
However, in this case, one of my children picked it up and opened it, probably because of the image of two dirty, tired, and very young girls on the front. Inside, the names of the children: the same as the names of my two daughters.
Coincidence? Or very clever marketing?
Whichever it was, the message was very powerful indeed.
Rationally, targeted marketing like this would be expensive, but doable:
- Problem 1. The magazine already has my name and address since I’m a subscriber, but the advertisers don’t – but perhaps I gave permission to share “with carefully selected partners” at some time?
- Problem 2. They’d need to find my daughters’ names. More difficult, but not impossible, given the multiplicity of databases out there.
- Problem 3. Then merge, print, and get the flyers in the right magazines. This is really just a logistical problem, tricky but not insurmountable.
So not easy, but worth it, perhaps, for the impact.
What can you do to personalise your message for your audience, so that you get the same power behind the message?
The Rush To Financial Literacy
April 22, 2010
Source: SmartFutures
In my last post I had a reference to Financial Literacy Education. In Europe this is known as Financial Capability. Many financial services companies are rushing to provide some type of financial education to existing and potential clients. What is behind the rush?
A number of developments converged to produce the 1000 year financial storm–
The global economic crisis, more complex investment choices and the shift of pension investment choices from the employer to the employee, when combined with widespread financial illiteracy, is causing increased stress among a significant number of the public.
Research suggests that 15–20 percent of employees have financial problems severe enough to negatively affect productivity. A financially stressed employee spends an average of 20 hours per month of work time on his/her personal financial problems.
The Case For Financial Education at the Workplace
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Too many people fail simple tests on the basics of compound interest and basic financial math. The result: poor financial decisions such as not investing in company-offered voluntary investment plans. This worsens individuals’ financial condition and puts their retirement at risk.
Many financial services companies, banks, credit unions and financial advisory firms are offering a variety of financial literacy education resources.
Some examples in the US
Bank Of America FINANCIAL TOOLS
Wells Fargo HANDS ON BANKING
CitiBank FINANCIAL CAPABILITY
Examples from Europe
Barclay’s BUILDING FINANCIAL CAPABILITY
Halifax MANAGING YOUR MONEY
Caixa Galicia SECURE YOUR FUTURE
Some are critical of these programs. They indicate the motivation is to restore the tarnished reputations of the financial services sector. Perhaps, but the educational services offered do assist in helping individuals to improve their knowledge of financial matters.
This subject is important enough to warrant additional posts in the future.
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