Conversational Marketing: How Voice of the Customer Systems Can Help

A few weeks ago, I emailed iTunes to inquire why a gift card I had received wasn’t working. Every step of my attempt to get the gift card validated was frustrating. First, the company asked me to send them evidence that the card had been purchased, which of course I didn’t have because it was a gift card. Second, I was bounced from department to department, and from subcontractor to subcontractor, until I felt dizzy with confusion. The most frustrating thing of all was that I had to explain my story to each new person I spoke with. No one seemed to have a trail of breadcrumbs explaining my circumstances. Even the managers asked me to repeat my whole story. Today, the situation remains unresolved. The result? I am avoiding buying anything from iTunes. And I have shared my story with at least five friends (and now, with all of you). My friends listen to me. Why should I do business with companies who won’t grant me the same respect?

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s my experience with State Farm Insurance. Every time I follow up with one of their agents, they read from notes in their system about what’s going on in my car insurance world. Even better, their representatives are kind enough to remember me personally. As a result, when I contact them I feel valued. I know I might be able to get a better rate at another company, but I don’t want to switch because I’ve had such a great experience interacting with State Farm representatives. As a result, I recommend State Farm every chance I get.

Marketers are beginning to appreciate stories like mine. In fact, a new movement called Conversational Marketing seeks to replicate my State Farm experience. This blog post will define Conversational Marketing, list its main attributes, and explain how a Voice of the Customer (VOC) program can facilitate customer experience measurement and help any company delight customers, boost profits, and succeed in Conversational Marketing.

Many trace the concept of Conversational Marketing to the publication of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a Luther-esque pamphlet of 95 marketing theses published in 1999. To summarize, in this visionary text authors Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger postulate that the internet has changed the way customers interact. Before the internet, consumers had few sources of information about products other than the materials companies distributed. Companies used “Spray and Pray” outbound marketing, which peppered the marketplace with advertising and depended on a small response rate to bring them new customers.

Now, however, customers don’t have to rely on brands' outbound marketing—they can simply surf to a forum, read a blog, email a buddy, or use any number of other online venues to research products and find the best solution for their problems. The hierarchy of business has been completely upended. As The Cluetrain Manifesto writers put it,

“Markets are conversations. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized.”

Some companies have recognized the shift and are engaging in Conversational Marketing, which aims to join the conversation customers are already having. Here are a few characteristics of Conversational Marketing:

• One-to-one customer personalization
• Consistency across all channels, including the social media, phone, mail, email, etc.
• Interaction with customers is a premium.
• The onus is now on companies to spark interesting, fresh, meaningful, and emotionally-resonant conversations.

All of these goals are accomplished using web 2.0 technology, which wasn’t available when The Cluetrain Manifesto was written but now allows companies to earn a place in the conversation their customers are already having.

It’s one thing to describe the new marketing landscape, and quite another to actually successfully implement the tenets of Conversational Marketing. Seeing a Conversational Marketing approach become a reality requires that companies successfully achieve the following:

1. Know Your Customers. If you don’t know your customers well, you can’t very well join conversations they’re already having online. And you won’t be able to target new marketing efforts to individual consumers unless you have a good idea of who they are in the first place. This is where a Voice of the Customer (VOC) solution becomes invaluable. A Voice of the Customer (VOC) solution is one of our customer experience management solutions that gathers customer feedback and helps you respond to customer gripes, capitalize on glowing customer compliments, and identify which employees create extraordinary customer experiences.

2. Eliminate Channel Fragmentation. From social media platforms like Hootsuite, to twitter-monitoring services such as Backtype, companies need tools to help them track what customers are saying about their products and their industry. Companies also need in-house tools, such as CRM programs, for coordinating employee efforts.

It’s also important to have a customer experience management tool that helps you communicate actions taken on behalf of customers. For instance, PeopleMetrics Voice of the Customer (VOC) solution includes an online dashboard where company leaders, managers, and front-line employees can all be granted access to the information they need to provide consistent customer service. If iTunes had such a Voice of the Customer system in place, I wouldn’t have been asked to tell my story twice.

1. Achieve Real-Time Response Rates. Sparkling conversation is all about timing. Unless you can track trending topics on a minute-to-minute basis, you can’t respond in a way that’s going to engage customers. Your Voice of the Customer solution should also deliver results in real-time.

2. Centralized Best-Practices Information. Even with all the fancy technological tools in the world, your people won’t be able to respond in a way that will engage your customers unless they also have a library of best practices. Some Voice of the Customer programs include proven proprietary reference materials to bring the best customer experience management techniques to your managers and front-line employees. 

3. Facilitate Word-Of-Mouth Recommendations. The final jewel in the Conversational Marketing crown is the ability to keep the conversation going by attracting new customers. In the old model, mass media marketing was your best bet for bringing in new business. Now, your current customers are your living, breathing advertisements. Choose technological solutions that make it easy for your customers to provide Word-of-Mouth recommendations. For instance, PeopleMetrics’ Voice of the Customer software automatically sends an alert when a customer provides especially positive feedback about one of our clients’ products or services. Our clients can then capitalize on that feedback by using those customer testimonials in marketing materials.

The future of Customer Engagement is individualization, customization, and interactivity. Are you designing company procedures to ride the wave of Conversational Marketing? Or are you stuck in the dark ages of “Spray and Pray” marketing? A Voice of the Customer program can help you join the Conversational Marketing revolution.