Leveraging Social Media Channels – Lessons Learned in 8 hours

Sure, you’ve got a Social Media strategy. You’ve even got several channels under your Social Media strategy. But how well do you know the effectiveness of each channel? How long is it taking you to pilot, test, and determine the effective of each channel? What if you were able to determine the effectiveness of a marketing strategy before you invested significant time and effort?

Every Social Media effort at PAKRA must have a defined purpose and measurable outcomes before it’s launched. This allows us to implement a program, measure, and adjust. With many strategies, it’s possible to collect data and measure the potential impact before you’ve even made the decision to deploy the program.

Let’s look at LinkedIn as an example. PAKRA actively uses LinkedIn as a channel for both lead generation and building brand awareness. Recently, we explored the idea of using LinkedIn discussion groups to increase our lead generation efforts and better enable brand awareness on our core product offerings – business process gaming simulations and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

We set out to prove or disprove this hypothesis:

We can use LinkedIn groups to engage in discussions that generate marketing and sales leads, increase brand awareness, and enable us to be viewed as an industry expert and trusted resource for information.

So, where did we start? Did we assign resources to spend 2 – 3 hours a day managing the discussion groups? Did we launch a 30-day pilot to initiate industry relevant discussions? Did we spend weeks gathering data and measuring results?

None of the above!

Before we spent time and resources launching this strategy – we observed, we collected data, and we analyzed what we found. Over the course of 2 days and a total of 8 hours, we collected data from over from over 40 different industry specific groups and from 150 different discussion posts (that contained at least 3 comments per post).

Next, we set out to gather data that would answer the question:

“Is there a right way or wrong way to message in LinkedIn groups that will lead to group members responding more often and engaging in discussions?”

To answer this question, we did the following:

1. Tracked the number of user responses to each discussion post

2. Scored the effectiveness (highly effective, somewhat effective, not effective) of each discussion post based on multiple criteria:

• Relationship to group goals – How effectively a discussion post is related to the stated purpose and goals of the group
• Overly promotional – The degree to which a discussion avoids transparent self-promotion or product promotion
• Helpful information – The degree to which information received from the discussion will be helpful to other group members and the originator of the discussion
• Actionable information - How usable and actionable the posted responses will be to other group members and the originator of the discussion
• Trusted advisor status – Will the discussion posted and responses received result in the originator becoming a reliable source for information and advice
• Empathy – How effectively the post relates to the goals, concerns, and issues of the specific group
• Tone – The degree to which the posted discussion shows sincerity, humor, and a personal tone

3. Each post was then ranked by:

• Number of responses received (largest number of discussion responses ranked highest)
• Total effectiveness score (largest overall effectiveness score ranked highest)

What we found was something very interesting!

Based on the Rank of Responses and Rank of Total Score, we saw some relationships emerge.

Relationship 1: High response ranking, low total score ranking

“Hi everyone! If you’re new to the group, please introduce yourself by commenting on this discussion!”

This is an example of a discussion that ranked highly in the number of responses. In fact, this discussion resulted in over 8,000 responses. But it had a very low ranking for total score.

We saw that those discussions with the highest number of responses but that ranked lowest in score relied on very few of the effectiveness measures. These discussions tended to be non-actionable and / or overly promotional and scored lowly in relationship to the groups goals, generating helpful responses, and positioning the originator of the discussion as trusted advisor. For a product company such as ours, overly promotional discussions that result in non-actionable responses will not help us meet our goal of generating marketing and sales leads or positioning ourselves as a trusted expert in our space.

Relationship 2: Middle range response ranking, middle range total score ranking

“When Does the Relationship Between Sales Person and Prospect Begin?”

This is an example of a discussion that fell in the middle range for both number of responses and total score ranking.

These discussions tended score as “somewhat effective” in the criteria of tone, empathy, and relationship to the group’s goals. But they also tended to score as “ineffective” or “somewhat effective” in the criteria of actionable responses, helpful information, and positioning the originator of the discussion as a trusted advisor. This group of discussions also failed to meet PAKRA’s goals for lead generation or brand development.

Relationship 3: Middle to high response ranking, middle to high total score ranking

“Are serious games being used to assess, not just develop? There's increasing interest in using games not just in Learning & Development, but also in assessment. Do you know of any examples?”

This is an example of a discussion that fell in the middle to high range for both number of responses and total score ranking.

The second circle in the chart represents those discussions that had a medium to high response ranking and scored as “somewhat effective” to “effective” in the messaging criteria. We found that this circle represents discussions between subject matter “Gurus” and independent contractors. This group does meet our target market or our goals of lead generation and brand development.

What did PAKRA learn from this exercise?

Based upon this analysis, we learned LinkedIn discussion groups are not an effective space for us to launch a marketing campaign to meet our goals of generating leads, increasing our brand as an industry expert, or being viewed as a trusted resource in gaming simulations and SaaS platforms for our target market.

If you launched a similar exercise, would you have the same results? This is not the question you should ask! The question is not whether our results and findings are replication-agnostic or whether our results will always hold true for you. The question to ask is “will this marketing campaign meet my identified goals in my target market?” It’s critical to understand your own marketing goals, your target market, and the marketing channel that you are exploring.

The key finding to our exercise is that there is free, publicly available data that will allow you to determine patterns and help you understand how a specific channel works. This allows you to identify how people engage and then decide if this is what you want to emulate in a given campaign and whether you will meet your desired goals.

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Conversations with Garry Schultz - a customer care visionary, author, and classical musician

As a customer care visionary and past customer service leader for global organizations such as Sonic Solutions, Roxio, and RIM; Garry Schultz is passionate about delivering best in class service with a relentless focus on the customer.

This interview with Garry is part of our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

RD> Are you a gamer? If yes, what are your favorite Games?

GS> Rini, yes I go way back with computer games, from the very start with the command line games. You know - 'pick up gold', 'run fast', and literal typed commands. From there I recall spending time in the first-person-shooter game Wolfinstien, then Duke Nukem. My favorite type of game is The SIMs. I also like the puzzle based game genre, but I am a little dated with titles. I don't have as much time to game these days as I once had but I keep up with the newest offerings. However, I haven't seen significant new developments in some time. MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) are interesting and the innovation of deploying them in real-time, with multiple players is certainly a cool play.

And my favorite games? Well I have been bitten by the Angry Birds craze on my iPad. Rovio Corp’s attention to detail and the way the programmers have married quasi-real world physics to the game world is great..... I mean the trajectory calculations of the birds and the fashion in which the structures collapse - genius! Really nice balance of whimsy and reality - just the right mix.

Professionally, and you know this as we have riffed on the topic - games have a huge business centric potential with Gen X and Gen Y (and just around the corner Gen Z). Consider that the average attention span of a young person today is dynamically different than it was when I has coming up. Today, access to Information is instantaneous. Sure libraries are still there, but why would a student spend an evening in the stacks when she can wiki up answers, with references, in 9 nano seconds. So, while I was expected to weed through and absorb a wall of documentation at my first job = today's entry level associates need to be fed pertinent information in short, sharp bites. This is where games come in. Educate through interactive gaming.... learntainment, enterlearnment? The Germans probably have a word for it.

RD> You have written a book about customer care, The Customer Care and Contact Center Handbook (published by ASQ Quality Press) What are the key ingredients that make a world class customer care organization? Do you see the key ingredients changing over time?

GS> The key ingredient is to serve your target customer and to have a relentless focus on the consumer. Where this over-simplification gets to be interesting is balancing customer needs with fiscal restraints. This is to suggest that one cannot always economically deliver what the consumer wishes.

The key ingredients to world class customer care have not changed but what has changed are the channels, conduits, and turnaround time to deliver the services. Point in fact - I was listening to a web-cast a couple of weeks ago and the context was Social Media (SM). The crux of the presentation was positioned as a new innovation: crowd-sourcing. But when the speaker delved into crowd-sourcing it was evident that crowd-sourcing has huge overlap with the concept of 'forum gurus' which is an old concept given a new set of clothes in the context of social media.

It’s the same relationship of mass collaboration that is brokered by personnel who aren’t on payroll. Call it what you may, but it’s been around for sometime.

There are a few real challenges with social media. It’s the turnaround time issue, the immediate response that Twitter users expect, the limitation of 140 characters, and making sure that you do not discount corporate liability based on precedent (If Fred got a free upgrade where is mine? And why are you making me ask for it? Just give me what Fred got.).

RD> How can social media channels be leveraged for customer care?

GS> First off let's be clear - managing social media channels is not an option... it is a necessity! If you are reading this and do not have a social media strategy in place - give me a call. I can assist. The key here is to be up and operational on SM for your Customers - they demand it to be so.

Enough on NOT acting.

Social media channels can be leveraged very effectively and I could write a book on the topic - and I am. So let me riff on the foundation of SM in the customer care context… First off, if you want to be successful with your customers in the SM context - take off your customer care hat and get with your counterparts in Marketing and Sales. Social media, at this stage of the game, cannot be compartmentalized into pre-sales, sales, marketing, and post-sale support disciplines. The lines aren’t even grey, they are non-existent. The necessary approach goes across the organization like no other channel.

So, it is time to collaborate closely with your colleagues in other departments.

And secondly - once you are sitting down with your colleagues, the stakeholders, define a working charter for SM. Understand what your goals are as a corporation. From there you can get into the operational business of scalability, repeatability, SLAs, and meaningful performance metrics. These are the core competencies for customer care professionals.

RD> You led a large organization which managed global consumers and their needs. Do you see big differences (due to socio-cultural, geographic, demographic differences) among consumers in how they want to receive customer care and what their expectations are?

GS> Big question, Rini. The short answer is - yes.

The longer answer? There are significant differences based on cultural norms and expectations. Further, there are overlapping differences within cultures (a Venn diagram of this would be interesting exercise) based on additional factors such as: age of the sub-group within the demographic, computer literacy of the sub-group and the whole issue of entitlement. Let`s explore two extremes in the context of non-mission critical consumer software.

EASY - Generation Y... the Millennial. If a failure is experienced, Gen Ys do not reach for the phone. They often go to their own peer-network and find a maven in their sphere-of-acquaintances. Further they are quite at home with self-service and online knowledge bases. The Millennial knows how to conduct an effective search and can understand the subsequent instructions to rectify a failure.

HARD – Baby Boomers...the retiree. If a failure is experienced, the baby-boomer reaches for the phone. They do not have an effective peer-network and often have gaps in their general knowledge and computer literacy. There is an illustrative video of a comedian on YouTube that pokes some fun at the dynamic, fast forward to 4:40 in the video....

Kidding aside - we need to assist the Boomers and Gen Y, and the industry does.

RD> How do you learn? The new and younger associates coming to work in customer care organizations -- do they learn differently than you and me?

GS> I am a visual learner. Show me a graphic and I get the message, text takes me more time to absorb. But the key is... Let me give you an example.

I have wonderful daughter and I taught her a mantra and have reinforced it her entire life. It is really simple.

Ask questions and listen

Jenna is 26 now and has completed three degrees. The truly hard part of the mantra is the 'listen' component. We are simply not good at listening and the fact is that the younger we are, the less developed our ability to listen is. There is no doubt Mother Nature has a sense of humor; when young she endows us with the ability to absorb and learn at our most accelerated rate.... but with a smile she dampens youth’s ability to effectively listen. Funny lady.

That said, today's entry level personnel require training to be tuned to their world. Knowledge transfer (and validation) is one of the most difficult challenges in today's businesses. As I said earlier, attention span is different with today's youth. SMS text messaging has taught a generation to communicate in a truncated form. They talk in sentence fragments (okay - so do I at times) and if you observe them at a party, they don’t seem to have the patience to get through a four minute pop song but continually 'sample scan' snippets of tunes. Golly, as an effective punishment for Gen Y they should be made to sit down and listen to Wagner's entire Ring Cycle (eat your peas.... don't make me get the Wagner). Don't get me wrong, the reality is there is nothing wrong with any of these Gen Y attributes, they are simply different.

What needs to change is our idea of how to effectively transfer knowledge. Like our Customers, we have to come to our associates in a fashion that resonates. And this is the utility of training by games. Not to be thought of 'slight of hand' but a powerful tool to not only get the fundamentals across but to have a meaningful gauge of the success of the knowledge transfer.

RD> How do you think current training practices meeting the needs of customer care organizations?

GS> Not very well. I have worked with some large players in the outsourcing business and for the most part my observation is that training lags available innovation. At best, some of the organizations have put up computer based testing (CBT) programs and rendered the testing (knowledge transfer validation) online. But the core issue of training line personnel in how to handle customers has not progressed. The issue isn't technical knowledge but the old customer care stalwarts of empathy, listening and effectively assisting the consumer. And when it comes to social media, the training chasm is vast and is one of the drivers behind why most organizations that are active on social media channels are doing the work in-house.

RD> How do you envision using games and simulations to teach people what to do here?

GS> This is where I think PAKRA has an incredible play and opportunity. The PAKRA training demos that I have seen are excellent and I believe will resonate with the target Gen Ys that make up the majority of the post-sale talent pool. It’s a win/win. The little touches, like the guy who walks by the cubicle and his comments are golden, it brings levity to the exercise which is another resonator. I think an agent accustomed to the text based format of most CBT programs will embrace the far more dynamic PAKRA world. As for portability, repeatability and scalability PAKRA slams traditional teacher-lecture based models. The gold spot - training that is enjoyable to progress through.

RD> What is next for you?

GS> Professionally, I have a number of pokers in the fire - to borrow a phrase. I have been working with my publisher (ASQ Quality Press) on two additional manuscripts - one on social media and one on contact centers for the entry level hiree. And I am at the initial stages of entering the customer care consulting game - but truth be told my target is the right opportunity regardless of the structure.

On the creative side, being that I have had some time of late, I have managed to finally release a CD of original compositions. You can find them on iTunes if you search for Garry Schultz or Cheerful Insanity. I’ve also rediscovered the joy of some of the classical etudes I was taught back-in-the-day.

RD> Thanks for your time today, Garry. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you.

GS> Thanks, Rini. It’s been great catching up.

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Conversations with Peter Delgrosso, SVP, Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp., golfer, active VOC listener

As an innovator, avid golfer and SVP, Business Development of Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp., Peter Delgrosso proactively stays ahead of customer's needs by actively listening and diligently assessing the voice of customer channels.
This interview with Peter is part of our series about learning, games, social media, user-adoption, crowd-sourcing, and work performance.

RD> First, on behalf of the PAKRA team, we would like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Your company is a spin-off of the parent company D&B. What does the word “credibility” used in your company’s name mean to you?
PD> We see credibility as including credit but going beyond credit to include the more holistic attributes of integrity, reliability, trust and other factors we all take into account when doing business with a company. Credit, in the strictest sense is a financial measure – credibility speaks to character.

RD> How will you teach/communicate to a small-medium business (SMB) client that they need to care about their online reputation?
PD> We’ve all had the experience of going to a business web site you’ve never heard of and having concerns as to, “Is this a site I can trust?” or “How do I know this company is reliable?” These questions are particularly important for smaller companies that don’t have the a million dollar plus ad budget to build their brand and general awareness or a 40-year history upon which to establish their credibility. For the small companies especially – online reputation is everything. One of our products, called SelfMonitor, actually enables companies to see a visual representation through charts and graphs and other displays of their various business credit scores with the added ability for SMBs to submit relevant information on their business that is vital to determining their overall creditworthiness and ultimately their credibility.

RD> Is your product suite similar to how eBay or Amazon rates their sellers -- i.e. crowdsourced?
PD> No. Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. occupies its own space providing business credit and credibility services that is accessed by a wide range of businesses looking to both make business decisions and determine a business’ creditworthiness and actively manage their profile. We factor statistical credit measures such as a company’s PAYDEX® and Financial Stress Score into the equation – but we also solicit feedback from partners and vendors to provide a more human picture. It’s that combination that makes us unique.

RD> We met due to a quick resolution of an issue that we were having with our Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. account. Your CEO Jeff Stibel used his Twitter handle to address our tweeted concern from our CMO Michelle Stewart. When she tweeted, she had called customer service/sales agent using the traditional interaction channel -- phone. Using Twitter, Jeff resolved our issue within the time she was on hold. That was a remarkably fast and awesome resolution.
Where does your company use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) the most: (1) Brand marketing (2) Lead generation (3) Closing sales (4) Customer Service (5) Customer retention and upselling
PD> The way we met is a great example of how effective social media can be, in this case Twitter, to providing real business value. Social media is an evolving space – and at any given moment it can be used for all of the things you mention. As I previously mentioned, we always want to be listening to our customers and social media is a terrific way of doing so. Twitter and Facebook are probably the two social media networks that we leverage most. I would say we use Twitter more as a conversational resource, monitoring customer comments and responding to them as quickly as possible. Facebook is more of a relationship medium, enabling us to send out updates to our connections about company events such as an ongoing speaker series we run called “Credibility Live.” Personally, I use LinkedIn as an excellent outreach vehicle for business relationships and Twitter to monitor industry news and insight.

RD> Is your social media channel management a budgeted effort?
PD> Yes. We believe strongly in its value and have dedicated resources managing the channel.

RD> How do you learn?
PD> I learn by watching, by listening – and ultimately by trial and error. Learning from mistakes is often the best way to grow.

RD> Are you a gamer? If yes, what games do you play?
PD> I grew up playing on the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 then graduated to the PlayStation2 earlier this decade and sadly that’s where it all ended. That’s about the limit to my gaming these days given a hectic work schedule and growing family with numerous kids’ responsibilities.

RD> How do you teach your employees to leverage information and data to interact with a prospect/customer?
PD> We teach our employees to listen carefully and act quickly. It is crucial to understand our customers’ needs and leverage all the resources at our disposal to help them achieve their goals. We have several hundred Credit Advisors who provide sales and customer training support to our customers. Every one of these Credit Advisors has gone through a rigorous training process both at the point of hire and during their tenure at the company that focuses not only on good customer service, but also on the fundamentals of business credit and business credit formation. This includes a general understanding of the pros and cons of various types of corporate structures, differences between debt and equity financing and the pros and cons of each, and other general issues that a business owner should be thinking about when seeking to manage their business credit. Our staff is able to talk with people about their various business credit scores and what they can do to improve them as well as other general business issues they may have questions about.

RD> Your company and ours both sell software: What do you find are the biggest drivers for user adoption?
PD> At the end of the day it’s all about providing value to our customers and leveraging as many channels as possible to reach the business owner. Providing value rings true across all industries and the reason why customers are either loyal to your company or not, it’s that simple. I would say the key value provided by Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp. is the ability of a business to access and impact all their pertinent business credit information in a single location online with tools, tips and recommendations on how to improve them. Our value proposition is compelling, straight-forward and provides a great visual representation of concepts that may be foreign to many business owners. Business credit is an enduring theme that stays with the business throughout their life-cycle providing ongoing benefit to those businesses that are proactive and make sure they are following best practices to put their business in the best possible light. As more businesses adopt best practices and improve their business credit, the better the chances are for them to succeed and achieve the needed cash flow and credibility required to create a successful business.

RD> Thank you so much for your time, and for sharing your and your Company's vision.
PD> You are welcome! You questions were very thoughtful.

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Conversations with Harlina Sodhi, SVP at Reliance Industries, a change catalyst and Learning visionary

As recently appointed Senior Vice President of Learning and Organization Development for Reliance Industries, an ultimate Change Catalyst, and a believer of the “Tao of Cricket”, Harlina Sodhi is leading the effort to bring progressive and process driven, workforce training and development to Reliance Industries that is in line with company’s Strategic and Business Transformation goals.
This interview with Harlina is the eleventh in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.

RD> First, on behalf of the PAKRA team, we would like to thank you for being completely instrumental in implementing PAKRA system at your past employer - Genpact. Next, sincere congratulations for seizing this vast opportunity at your new gig -- Reliance. This is awesome news.
HS> Thank you. This is a huge opportunity for me to lead and execute on Reliance vision of getting to be the world’s best company for learning and development of workforce. And as you know, the reason I passionately spearheaded the efforts in Genpact for PAKRA is because I believe in the value that it offers. Right product and platform in the right place at the right time is PAKRA !

RD> So! Are you a gamer?
HS> I play Chess. A strategy-based game intrigues me. Also I am an avid car rallyist …but I am also pleased to share, ever since I got my smartphone, I don’t literally have to risk my life but am able to simulate the experience by playing mobile games like www.carsvideogame.com and Angry Bird

RD> How do you learn?
HS> I learn by doing. Tell me - Show me initially, and then I have to do it and then I can teach one. Learning that involves different levels of achievement motivates me.

RD> You and I are more or less in the same age group (Well! I am older ha!) -- do you think the way we learned and ways we were taught is different from the younger generation that is getting into the workforce? If yes, how different?
HS> It is completely different. The younger generation, in particular when you consider that places like in India and other emerging markets where the median age of an employee is 35 years, learn differently and want to be taught differently. For example, their attention span is short, (140 characters Twitter revolution), they learn on-the-go and they want to pull information when they need it in small chewable chunks. They want technology-enabled learning with streaming media, threaded conversations, blogs, games, simulations and not just a teacher delivering lectures and batch-based learning events.

RD> What role do you see for immersive learning using Games and simulations in today's workplace?
HS> The DNA is changing and being reprogrammed. In a place like India, that leap-frogged it’s growth using technology (i.e. the dabbawallahs, the dhobi, the Tuk-Tuk driver and the person living on the street all have cell phones and are probably playing Angry Bird as they stand at traffic lights), user-driven content is how information is being managed and leveraged. Also, many more women are in the workforce today than 25 years ago and they are influencing their children. This is what economic growth brings. In such type of a growth environment, immersive learning is what all are demanding. It is user-driven need and the role is very strong.

RD> How do you anticipate Social Media and crowd-sourcing will be used in business applications and Learning?
HS> It is coming and vehemently needed as platform for peer-to-peer learning. By “it is coming” I mean that not too many businesses are into it, yet. Like, any adoption cycle where you have innovators, early adopters, initiators, and laggards, here too there are businesses who are innovators and early adopters. Ease of use will drive the utilization of these tools. As you know, this is the ultimate Web 2.0 architecture. It will drive the business applications and how work gets communicated and learned. Based on what I hear from my colleagues and networking groups, there is a demand for a platform that enables the adult-learning paradigm. Brick and Mortar learning and communication channels are more symbolic.

RD> From at multinational companies like Xerox, Zenta, GE, Genpact and now at Reliance, what do you see as trends for Learning and Talent Development offerings in business environment?
HS> It has substantially evolved since I started my job at Xerox when I was 21.
First, for content trends: I am hearing and seeing need for short content and immersive focused delivery that enhances Leadership attributes. Also, I am seeing more demand to provide on-demand domain expertise.

From delivery perspective, I am seeing the movement away from the traditional Level 1 to 3 evaluation based Kirkpatrick model to Level 4; is “Impact on Performance” and ROI and significantly towards Bloom’s taxonomy based learning delivery.

For technology, I am seeing more and more demand for platforms (such as PAKRA) that provides on-demand push and Web 2.0 technology for small and targeted content, games and simulations for immersive learning, peer-learning online community and coaching and mentoring accountability where all this links it to real work performance.

When I first moved to Learning and Talent Development functional area, they typically reported to Human Resources. Progressive businesses are making Learning and Talent Development professionals report to Business and Operations leaders. The reality is that the accountability and responsibility of managing and recruiting high-performing employees still lies in the hands of Business and Operations leaders with Human Resources being an key enabler. That reality will not change in my life-time. With such organizational restructuring, these businesses are able to actualize the value of the monetary investment they put in on-the-job training and talent development efforts.

RD> What is your recommendation for someone entering the world of Learning and Talent Development professionals?
HS> Stop focusing on how many courses the employee completed. Stop focusing on how satisfied the learner is with the trainer or coach. Do not use test scores as the only way to measure ability of an employee to do their job. Focus on real work performance of the employee and how well they can apply the skill you just trained and coached them, to their day-to-day work interactions and the work itself.

RD> Thank you for your time Harlina. If some one can implement change and manage the associated change in an organization, you are the one. Wish you all the best at Reliance.
HS> You are welcome! Talk to you soon.

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Conversations with Kevin McLaughlin, inside sales leader, and business technology advocate

As an Inside Sales Manager at NetApp, technology advocate, and sports enthusiast, Kevin is responsible for building and leading high performing sales teams. In this conversation, we discuss how Kevin enables and drives results in the B2B sales world through technology, motivation and social media.

This interview with Kevin is the tenth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd sourcing, and work performance.

MS> Hi Kevin. My first question for you is, are you a gamer?

KM> Not at all. I’m probably going to be very much in the minority here - but board games, video games - I have very little interest in either. I’m always doing something else.

MS> Okay, tell me a little bit about this “something else”?

KM> Right now it’s my kids’ sports.

MS> Nice. What sports do they play?

KM> Basketball mainly with my youngest, who plays on his high school team. Volleyball and skiing from a recreational perspective, we participate together.

MS> Sounds like you enjoy games, just not video games.

KM> Yes, I like to play them live. I also enjoy traveling, working out, and business and sports motivation.

MS> Tell me a little about how you learn. What’s your learning style?

KM> That’s an interesting question. To me, the best way to learn is through a combination of audio and video. Just reading out of a book, is more of a struggle. I think that today’s way of learning is much better for me.

MS> What’s interesting to me is that younger generations, elementary through college aged, primarily learn through technology and a combination of media. It’s the only way of learning that they know. Other generations that didn’t grow up with as much technology, I don’t want to say that there is a resistance, but they don’t always adapt as easily to this way of learning.

KM> Understood, but if you are around them enough you can adopt that way and it’s a lot of fun.

MS> Tell me a little bit about how NetApp uses social media to sell and manage the customer experience?

KM> Our marketing team is very much on this path as it relates to using social media outlets like LinkedIn and Facebook. Like many technology companies, we’re using those mediums to personalize the experience. We’re also using these outlets to help increase our brand awareness. Not everyone knows about NetApp, although we feel like we have the best value prop in the industry, as it relates to data storage and data management. I think we're still in the earlier stages as far as cracking in to social media and other ways of branding and getting the word out.

MS> Do you see social media as the future of how your company is going to expand brand awareness for NetApp?

KM> Yes, along with our alliances with companies like Cisco and VMware. That’s a big part of the coaching that I do with my team, I teach them to leverage the credibility and collaboration with these great companies. There’s a reason why Cisco and VMware chose NetApp for data storage/management in the Data Center of the Future. They, from a technology standpoint, know what our capabilities are. So, I think that it’s not just the social media aspect but also the key alliances that you have with strategic partners.

MS> I agree. Clearly you have partnerships with some very credible companies and that does say a lot about your company.

KM> Exactly.

MS> Does your sales team use social media in the pre-sales process? Do they use social media in prospecting before they pick up the phone?

KM> The answer is yes. We’re doing more and more of this. I am teaching my team to do as much pre-call planning as possible. Most sales people simply “Google a company” for information, but that can be multiple steps. We utilize tools like Jigsaw, Harte-Hanks, LinkedIn and others and embed them in our CRM tool, which helps us in our pre-call planning. We are working more closely with marketing than ever before to have them do some of this “information gathering” for us – bundle it, couple it, put a little mini-campaign around it – including scripting and talking points. I would say that my team is thoroughly immersed in that.

MS> Do you see a resistance to using social media, the Internet, and newer tools in your industry? Is there a feeling of new school versus old school, or do you see the industry as a whole moving in this direction?

KM> My sense is that some of this may be generational. Some of the younger users, who maybe tweeting, blogging and on Facebook certainly invite it. For others email is the preferred way. Very few people take direct phone calls, so using technology and social media to connect with prospects and customers is key. We are learning that the best way to reach someone is to have a very well thought out email or e-marketing strategy in advance of the actual call…something that differentiates us from the competition and those calling them on a daily basis. That dramatically increases our connect rate.

MS> That goes to one of the other points that I wanted to raise. How are today’s sales associates trained and coached differently to meet the needs of the busy, tech savvy buyers?

KM> Today’s buyers can hide behind their phones. They screen their voicemails as they do email, but they are open to those who have a compelling reason for them to listen! So I train my team to “connect” with the prospect as quickly as possible and get them talking about their role and IT environment and making it about them. We have an excellent training curriculum at NetApp that teaches the technology and perhaps more importantly, the business drivers behind the technology.

MS> Social media aside, how do you think technology can help enable sales in an environment like yours?

KM> I think that my team is very willing and open to using all forms of technology. A lot of it is, quite frankly, that they’re young. They’re recent college graduates – they expect to use technology and products like PAKRA. We’re building the team to be aggressive “hunters” that use technology like PAKRA and others to their advantage, to reach as many prospects and customers as possible with the NetApp story. I also think that they expect that our Marketing team uses technology to find us new lists, contacts and creative ways of connecting with prospects!

MS> Do you see a heavy overlap between where marketing ends and sales begins?

KM> Absolutely, there is a heavy overlap. It’s hand in glove. To make a war analogy, marketing and Inside Sales is air cover and field sales are the ground troops. I want marketing to soften up the base, get their Inside Sales team in early and then rely on the field/ISR/Channel to close it.

MS> That makes sense. Marketing is often brand awareness and lead generation, with the end goal being sales enablement.

KM> That’s the way that it’s supposed to be in my mind. Marketing needs to open up the door to sales.

MS> What factors do you think drive the adoption of new technology at a company like yours? For example, you rolled out the PAKRA products within the Inside Sales area of NetApp and user reception was so positive and adoption was incredibly high. What were the drivers behind that?

KM> One thing is that I have a boss who is incredibly open to new technology, he’s very innovative. He’s constantly searching for ways to not only improve productivity but also improve effectiveness. It’s one thing to be productive, but it’s an other thing to actually deliver. The other aspect to this is that the technology needs to be fun. I think that it’s a blend of these things, and PAKRA delivers both.

MS> You mentioned that you have a workforce that is right out of college and I do think that technology plays to how they learn. It’s an expectation to this generation. That fun factor and immediacy factor is important.

KM> I agree.

MS> We’ve covered a lot of ground today! Thanks for your time, Kevin. It’s always great talking to you.

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From UX Magazine: Interview with Harley Manning Vice President at Forrester Research about customer and user experience

This interview was not done by us. But we think for our series Conversations, this interview by UX magazine is very relevant and important discussion. UX Magazine interviews Harley Manning Vice President, Customer Experience at Forrester Research at the Forrester Customer Experience Forum


Making User and Customer Experience a Business Competency

The only question we would ask Mr. Manning in addition to what UX magazine asked is "How to crowd source the user interface design?"

Enjoy!

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Conversations with Marianne Curran, EVP of Go Daddy, discussing Social Media as a channel to provide Customer Care

As Executive Vice President of Media & Communications for The Go Daddy Group Inc. , a Hawkeye, and a yoga enthusiast, Marianne Curran is responsible for the strategic expansion of Go Daddy’s communication efforts. She oversees Public Relations, Go Daddy Productions and Social Media. She also leads Go Daddy's Culture Team, which ensures that Go Daddy preserves its unique qualities and internal brand.

This interview with Marianne is the ninth in our series about learning, games, social media, crowd-sourcing and work performance.

RD> Are you a gamer?
MC> I haven't been a 'gamer' since I was a teenager. Back in the day, I enjoyed playing Mario Brothers.

RD> How do you learn?
MC> I'm definitely a visual learner.

RD> At the recent Customer Response Summit, you discussed how your company uses social media to manage customer experience. What led you to take on such an initiative?
MC> It's really Go Daddy's customers who led us into the social media space. A number of years ago, we took notice of many customers discussing Go Daddy and asking questions out in this public space. From years of experience providing the industry's best customer service, with 24/7 telephone and e-mail support, we've learned to make ourselves available in just about any and all of the communication platforms our customers might seek engagement.

RD> What were the unique challenges that social media channels presented that you and your team had to overcome?
MC> There are definitely challenges when communicating through social media. Expectations of real-time responses can be demanding from a resource perspective. To meet this challenge, we expanded our social media team to a "24/7" staff. We also cross train members in other areas where appropriate.

RD> Is Go Daddy focused only in B2B customers or personal websites (which is more consumer)? What % of your outreach are Small-Medium Enterprises v. Large enterprises?
MC> Go Daddy is focused on ALL of our 8.6 million global customers. Each and every one is important to Go Daddy as we want to provide them the tools and support to succeed online, quickly and affordably. A slight majority of Go Daddy customers are Small-Medium enterprises - but we have millions of personal users and large business customers as well.

RD> Do you use social media as a channel for selling (i.e. new customer acquisition) too? What kind of resistance do you see among B2B companies like yours in utilizing social selling?
MC> As the world's largest domain name registrar and top Web hosting provider, Go Daddy uses social media to interact with our customers, fans and followers on many levels. We discuss public relations events, brand initiatives, recruiting information as well as straight marketing promotions such as product discounts. For the most part, our fans and followers have been quite receptive to these types of promotions, which are geared toward them and offer a benefit. Go Daddy closely manages the frequency in which we communicate these types of messages out to our community - we are cognizant of customers' time and do our best each and every day to communicate only what they want to hear.

RD> I think employees, especially younger know how to use the tools faster than others but still do not know how to use the content to their advantage -- that requires critical thinking skills. How do you teach critical thinking skills now? Do you envision using games/simulations to teach employees what to do in this space?
MC> Go Daddy has an experienced, dedicated social media team. They are out there every day communicating with Go Daddy customers and potential customers. Our social media team members were selected because they have a strong knowledge of our company, our products and because they have excellent "people skills." Many of Go Daddy's social media employees have customer service experience from working directly within our highest escalation department, the Office of the President. Our external hires in the social media realm have spent considerable time training with the Office of the President team to build that knowledge.

As far as training our employees, Go Daddy uses a number of methods and is always looking to try out new techniques.

RD> How successful have you been in crowd-sourcing solutions?
MC> Yes, Go Daddy has had success in crowd sourcing. Through our ongoing engagement on social media platforms, we've built relationships over time, which is how crowd sourcing transpires. Go Daddy has a loyal community, which understands and appreciates our best-in-class 24/7-customer support, low prices and top-notch quality products - they love speaking about Go Daddy and we love to hear it!

RD> In your experience what are the key factors that are driving company adoption?
MC> There are a number of factors that help drive company adoption.
First, it is to acknowledge and address any and all service issues that arise. Until you step up and help the customer solve their issue, they simply will not be open to engage with you on any other level.
Second, bi-directional communication is so important - folks do not just want to be talked TO - they like to share and express their opinions as much as they like to hear what's going on around them.
Third, but certainly not least, when Go Daddy communicates with our community, it's around all sorts of topics - a charitable contribution, a business tip from our CEO and Founder Bob Parsons to help an entrepreneur succeed, an order-level discount, news about one of our famous Go Daddy Girls, and so on. In other words, Go Daddy stays open and is actively sharing company information on all sorts of levels.

RD> Thank you for your time Marianne. Good Luck with your strategies.
MC> You are welcome!

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In the "Instant" world of "Push" Technology how long is 4 minutes?

Question: In the "Instant" world of "Push" Technology to upgrade web solutions, how long is 4 minutes to a user?
The answer: Per minute delay in instant connect, increases the probability of losing a sale (a customer) or disengaging an employee by 5%.

First, a disclaimer, our company blog is not a bully pulpit to bring personal gripes. This is a case study that I share in order to help us and our readers learn about critical thinking skills, crowd-sourcing, social media and customer service.

We are a remarkable learning SaaS company. We consider ourselves small, but innovative and agile and have maturity to listen and address prospect/customer's needs. So! what will happen 5 years from now, when we have grown and introduced the complexity and structure? Will that not bring down the level of innovation and agility to meet our customer's needs?

When people ask me, "what keeps you awake at night?" I can safely say, this scenario of impending downside of growth keeps me awake at night.

Why does this scenario keep me awake at night?
Let me share an example of a Great Company where some of my good friends have worked and some continue to work. It is a company whose innovation, business model and spirit of agility were something I admired and emulated for PAKRA --- that Great Company also happens to be a key technology provider for us. Their once innovative technology helps our company reach out globally, conduct meetings both internal with our employees and partners and is the place where every potential buyer experiences our products for the first time. In other words, this service provider is as valuable as fuel, electricity and water for our existence. Using their products, we do 100% of our sales and almost all our staff and internal meetings.

This past Monday, they launched and delivered their new upgrade on client-user instance via push technology (browser and O/S agnostic). This upgrade was supposed to bring some delightful array of features (which frankly we did not ask for). By their own estimates (and verified separately by three unrelated individuals) "it can take on average 4 minutes on a reasonable connection for a participant to download this upgrade on their side before they can connect".

This push upgrade brought our lives to a standstill.
After 24 hours of my first tweet (I heard from a conference speaker about their great use of social media to drive customer care) and retweets of other users, I finally heard from them and then it took another hour and half for them to call me.
Then the situation of mitigation became more frustrating.

The customer service representative who finally called seemed to be in a hurry and with a non-empathetic voice wanted to determine the root cause. In summary: why our customers are concerned about on average 4-minute delay; if it was a user related error i.e. us.

This is why?
"All participants over 6 meetings with innumerable O/S and browsers and their versions, from different parts of the world(India, US, Canada, UK) had problems connecting from 3 minutes to 20 minutes. Let me explain, it takes me weeks to coordinate a prospect company to get their team to agree to a 20-30 minutes meeting and coordinate their calendars to find a date and time. Let's say there are 1 to 5 participants and the last person -- the Boss Man joins and starts the process 5 minutes past the scheduled meeting time. Now we are theoretically into a wait of 9 minutes of a potential 20-minutes sales call. We are not even going bring in the statistic of variation, where in one case, one person could not connect over 20 minutes. We just lost a sell. Now do you see the problem?"


When we operate in the world where instant meeting connect means "instant". That 9 minutes just decreased our chance to win our prospect by 45%. Most of our meetings got rescheduled which given the timing of the year, meant delayed the sales cycle by additional 60 days. That's how long 4 minutes is.


What do we learn at PAKRA from this experience – because this can happen to our customers, as we grow?

First lesson:
If at any time, our developers tell me to push a new upgrade to all our customers, and in testing it shows that it will take the user X minutes wait time before they can use the product, I say, "No Go forward".

Second lesson:
Teach our customer service agents, critical thinking skills when discussing with the customer (our brand after all).
For example, teach the necessary skills to the customer service agents, such that they never say things such as -- (These are paraphrased quotes.)
(i) "Oh I am so sorry your customers are not nice to you."
(ii) "Ma'am, your participants delayed in joining -- we cannot be responsible for their actions."
(ii) "Oh! we are giving such a better interface. This is only one-time interface download. Upgrades are free. so! this should be only a minor frustration."
(iii) "How is a few minutes delay an issue?"

Third Lesson:
Teach all employees to understand
-- the impact on the customer when our product and services fail to meet the "must-have" and "more-is-better" Kano features of our products.
-- how the customer uses our products and how they get value out of them.
-- the value our company provides to our customers.

Fourth lesson:
Have 24X7 coverage to listen-in, since social media is the most important channel for us to listen-in.


Fifth lesson:
We must provide influence-capital to the employees who engage in social-media channels with our customers. The agents servicing this channel of in/outbound listening are typically handling situations where "must-have" needs of customers are not being met. Those inquiries require special skilled people not your "let me see which browser you are using M'aam?" problem solvers.

OK! Now I feel relieved, we are just beginning to define a plan to prevent and mitigate issues as they emerge while our company grows.

As I still feel loyal to my friends at this Great Company and I have no guarantee that other providers would not have lost their vision, their strength like Great Company has, I will not cancel our subscription yet. Plus, they said it will take 48 hours while they petition their Bosses, whether our company's account can be locked to past version such that no one invited to participate in our meeting ever has a 4 minute delay, --- I am dying with curiosity and want to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, we have a company-wide moratorium to use our key provider's products for 2 days -- because we are loyal but not stupid.

Few days from now, on our blog, you will read a fabulous case study of another company that has figured out how to use social media channels to implement a great customer-care and customer acquisition.

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