Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

New Voices of Experience: A New Comm Forum Alumni Panel

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Last year after New Comm Forum, it was crystal clear that the most popular sessions were the ones that featured case studies and people’s personal experiences. Of course, a certain amount of teaching-type panels and workshops are necessary at any conference, social media or otherwise, but once we get past the 101 level, we really want to know, what have other people done? What works? What doesn’t?

And it’s even better to hear from the people themselves, not just about them and their projects.

A common criticism of conferences is that it’s always the same speakers,  the same material. I don’t think that’s true of New Comm Forum by any stretch, however, we do have a certain number of repeat players every year because one of the first speaker pools the Society for New Communications Research draws from is its Fellows. Most of whom are great speakers who deliver new content every year.

But…. thinking about both of these dynamics — case studies and new voices — I suggested to executive director Jen McClure that we do an alumni panel at the 08 conference. Recruit speakers who had attended a previous Society event but had never spoken at one, and who had a project from the past 18 months that they would be willing to share.

New Voices of Experience, the panel that resulted from our discussions last spring, will be the Wednesday April 23rd luncheon session at New Comm Forum 08. I’ll be speaking with Doug Bardwell (Forest City Enterprises), Wendy Harman (Red Cross), Bob Siller (Altera) and Chris Turner (Christian Lifeway Resources) about what they learned and how they applied their new knowledge once they were back in the office.

I spoke with the panelists in a conference call last week and am excited about their stories.  Whether you work for a non-profit, B2B or B2C organization, there’s something for everyone. We’ll be talking about everything from social media in internal communications and lead generation to what’s involved when you are trying to introduce social media into an established culture. There will be plenty of time for questions from the floor, and we are  looking forward to an interesting conversation.

As a speaker, I have a very limited number of deeply discounted registrations. Three. If you are interested, email me. First come, first served.

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Shifting gears completely, I’ve decided to move one of the topics I occasionally talk about here to my personal/photo blog Snapshot Chronicles. Specifically, my obsession with certain science fiction television programs — currently Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood and Stargate Atlantis. I’ll still talk about sci fi here when there is a marketing, communications or social media angle. But I’m feeling the need to rant (and rave) more about the programs themselves, and that’s really content that belongs on my personal blog, not my marketing blog. So, never fear, if you are interested in my thoughts on sci fi marketing, you’ll still find them here. If you want to know why I think the PTB made a dreadful mistake in dumping Torri Higginson from Stargate or my speculation on who the final Cylon is, you’ll find that over on Snapshot Chronicles.

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Further Proof: It is all about cats

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It is often said that the Internet is all about cats. One reason why the classic LOLCats – Icanhascheezburger struck such a chord. 

Blog headlines site alltop has a category for Cute that is mostly blogs about animals, often cats, sometimes puppies, being, well, overwhelmingly, distressingly cute. Gems like stuffonmycat.com.

But my mom sent over some YouTube videos today that just sum it all up for me. Please enjoy Simon’s Cat by director Simon Tofield.

Let Me In!

Cat Man Do

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For the Face of Your Business

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As I’ve mentioned a few times recently, the last few months have been a blur of fun projects for really nice people.

Here’s the latest: For the Face of Your Business, a blog I developed for consulting company Caras Training. Caras specializes in training programs for customer-facing employees who interact with the customer primarily by phone such as call center reps, support techs, customer care and telesales. Company founder Ronna Caras started the firm in 1990 to develop and deliver training programs with measurable, sustainable results and a solid return on investment. 

More than 30,000 people participate in Caras-developed training every year at some of the country’s largest corporations. That’s a lot of people, so this year, Ronna decided that it was time to extend her conversation with her customers, students and peers with a blog.

The principal writers on the blog will be Ronna and client services manager Gloria Mogavero. They plan to have guest authors from time to time, and  I’ll be showing up now and again to comment on the impact of social media on customer service. Or dis-service as the case may be.

Ronna also will be a guest on some upcoming episodes of Business Forward, the SMB podcast I produce for client GuideMark. We taped her interviews last week, and she had some very smart things to say about how to teach your customer service employees to recognize and capitalize on selling opportunities that arise in the course of business. NOT hard sell. Mostly learning how to tell when the customer is really asking for more information, begging for help, etc. And then making the offer in a natural way.

While I hope you’ll subscribe to Business Forward so you won’t miss Ronna later this month, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that Ronna is always ready to share her thoughts with others. If the idea of maximizing sales through your customer service function appeals to you, I urge you to drop her a note at conversations@carastraining.com

For the Face of Your Business was designed by Karen Rani & Leslie Doherty of Swank Web Style.

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Bloggers & Customer Service: Do blog complaints make a difference?

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"Conventional" social media wisdom would have it that companies need to pay attention to the blogosphere, or risk their brands. For proof, out trots the example of Jeff Jarvis and Dell Hell. Jarvis’ complaints about Dell customer service percolated up to mainstream media and are oft-cited as the impetus behind Dell’s *big* move into social media about a year ago.

Now, you may sense a certain cynical undertone in the above paragraph, and you would be right. While I absolutely believe that companies should be listening to what bloggers — their customers — say, I am regularly provided with proof that either companies aren’t listening or they are, and have no bloody idea what to say, or how to say it, when faced with blogosphere complaints, or compliments, about products and services.

My most recent proof:

Ike Pigott has been tracking the response, or lack thereof, to a post on his blog complimenting Blockbuster on its customer service. He also divined that Canon saw, but did not respond to positive comments about its products.

While I haven’t made quite such a science of it, I have written about customer service on this blog on more than one occasion. Most recently about AAA’s piss-poor performance with my flat tire before Christmas. Any word from AAA? Nope. And I’ve also mentioned my general, and unexepected,  pleasure with Verizon’s support of its cellular customers. On every occasion that I’ve had to call, I’ve been treated well. Most recently by a lovely young lady named Amy who offered a credit on something that had gone wrong before I asked. Any response from Verizon? Nope.

Not to mention my friend Mary Schmidt, whose interactions with American Airlines prove without a shadow of a doubt that the airline just doesn’t get it.

This is by far a scientific survey, which is why I am so pleased that the Society for New Communications Research is working with corporate partner Nuance to understand the extent to which bloggers think their opinions are, or are not, impacting companies. Please take the survey and let us know whether you think Corporate America is listening. SNCR is offering a special discounted registration to New Comm Forum in April for those that complete the survey. Direct link to survey here.

And that, my friends, is well worth it. There’s a great roster of speakers and opportunities to network with other communicators at New Comm Forum. I’m moderating the luncheon keynote on the first day, a panel of conference alumni coming back to tell how they applied what they learned at the conference at their organizations. More on that next week.

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Client News: Maxwell Street Documentary is doing a T-shirt giveaway at the blog Notes of the Urban Blues. It is a very cool shirt. Just tell us about your favorite Blues artist and you can be entered to win.

And please check out the new podcast Business Forward, strategic advice for small and medium businesses, that I am producing for client GuideMark.

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