Incorporating Social Media and Customer Service: How to Develop a Strategy Blake Cahill: SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies Mary Naylor, VIPdesk Setting goals and objectives for your social media efforts Getting buy-in Resources required to successfully implement a social media plan Tools to use Measurement of success

1. VIPdesk Webinar Series April 6, 2010
Cover Slide
Incorporating Social Media and
Customer Service: How to Develop a
Strategy
Presented by:
Blake Cahill: SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies
Hosted by:
Mary Naylor: CEO, VIPdesk

2. About The Host
Mary Naylor
CEO
VIPdesk
• Mary Naylor is the CEO and Co-founder of VIPdesk
• VIPdesk provides concierge-quality contact center
solutions for leading global brands through our
nationwide network of home-based Brand
Ambassadors, Concierge, and Customer Service
Representatives.
• VIPdesk provides its clients Concierge, Contact
Center, and Social Media support services.
• VIPdesk is continually recognized through numerous
awards, including the Inc. 500, Inc. 5000, NCBEA
Business Ethics Award, Stevie Awards for Women in
Business and Smart CEO Future 50.
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3. About The Presenter
Blake Cahill
SVP of Marketing
Visible Technologies
• Blake is the SVP of Marketing with Visible Technologies
• He develops and leads all of Visible Technologies’
activities/programs related to sales, business
development, brand development, market positioning
press and analyst relations, lead development, and thought
leadership.
• Blake is passionate about the role of social media in corporate
communications and is a frequent speaker on the influence of
social media.
• He is a member of WOMMA and MTIX.
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4. About Visible Technologies
• Visible Technologies
Powered by the industry-leading truCAST technology platform, Visible
Technologies helps clients successfully monitor, analyze, and participate in
social media conversations, as well as protect their reputations online
– Founded in 2005
– Headquarter in Bellevue, WA with 95+ employees
– Sample Customers: Microsoft, Xerox, Autodesk, Dr. Pepper
• Awards Won:

5. About VIPdesk
VIPdesk’s full suite of Brand Experience Management solutions include
Virtual Concierge and Contact Center Services, Social Media Management,
Experiential Programs, IVR Services and Voice of the Customer Surveying &
Analytics. Global industry leaders trust VIPdesk to enhance their brands
through our customer care and loyalty programs. Serving as a seamless
extension of their brands, our innovative Brand Experience Management
Solutions deliver memorable customer experiences, business insights and
actionable intelligence that generate customer advocacy and drive business
growth.

6. Agenda
● Setting goals and objectives for your social media efforts
● Getting buy-in
● Resources required to successfully implement a social
media plan
● Tools to use
● Measurement of success
● And more!
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7. Why is Social Media
Important to
Customer Service
Organizations?

8. Social
Media Has
Exploded

10. 4 OUT OF 5 AMERICANS
USE SOCIAL MEDIA.
Forrester, The Growth Of Social Technology Adoption, 2009

11. of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

12. of consumers trust peer recommendations

13. of those users blog or tweet daily

14. CONSUMERS
NOW CONTROL
THE (In other words)
CONVERSATION…

16. DON’T
PANIC

18. Social Strategy
Challenges &
Opportunities

19. Social Media Challenges for Organizations
• Overwhelming amounts of data—determining what to track
and analyze
• Separating insights and issues from useless data—identifying
who and what matters
• Communicating with your customers in an organized,
effective manner
• Coordination of ownership/participation across the
organization
• ROI measurements

20. Benefits of Driving & Engaging with Social Media
Reputation
Management
Customer
Service
Competitive
Marketing
Intelligence

21. Adoption spans the enterprise from: Marketing,
Operations, Sales, and Customer Support
Research and Innovation
Strategic
Trade Promotion Management
Product and Services Positioning
Customer Promotion Management
Customer Support
Customer Relationships
Enterprise Business Intelligence Integration
Identify Consumer Segmentation
Trend and Sentiment analysis
Marketing Relationship Management
Manage Crisis Communications
Reputation Management
Tactical
Monitor Brand & Image
Listen & Learn Engage & Respond
Be a proactive part of the conversation Adapt to Changing Market Conditions
By Listening and Learning any organization will more effective Engage with and Respond to
customer needs. Empower customers and create loyal and satisfied customers

22. Developing a
Customer Focused
Social Media
Strategy

23. Social Strategy Objectives
Objectives for Social programs need to be clearly outlined so that
team members understand the bigger picture surrounding their
individual roles.
Some common goals include:
• Changing customer service perceptions from negative to neutral or
positive
• Providing ‘fence sitters’ (neutral and mixed sentiment) with technical
information and guidance to promote educated purchasing decisions
while increasing positive sentiment
• Driving traffic and technical discussions back to the company’s own
forum and blogs
• Building relationships with key influencers (top authors)
• Building brand awareness
• Promoting special events
23

24. Getting corporate buy-in
• It is necessary to have corporate buy-in in
order for any customer-facing program to
succeed
• Develop a plan and present hard data re: the
benefits of social customer service to the
corporate bottom line
24

25. The Do’s and Don’ts
of An Effective
Social Media
Strategy

26. Before Getting Started…Ask yourself…
• What do I want to know?
– What customers think about my company, competitors, service
levels, products, etc.?
– Issues or problems with my company's’ offerings?
• Who needs to know?
– Executive team, service and support staff, managers, sales and
marketing department?
• What do I want to do with this info?
– Improve my offerings, stay competitive, retain customers?
• Where are my relevant consumers online?
– yelp, citysearch, community forums, twitter, review sites?
• What are the right topics to monitor?
– What key words or phrases should you be monitoring?
• What tools should I use?
– What’s available to monitor and measure social media?

27. Begin with a Framework
1 Listen 2 Learn 3 Measure 4 Engage 5 Repeat!
Listen to find Learn from the Measure the Engage with
the right wisdom of the impact on your consumers and
conversations, crowd about brand and key influencers
sites and online customer benchmark to change
communities perceptions and against your negative
experiences competitors to perception and
with your improve your build brand
products and business loyalty
services and
competitors’

28. DON’T MARKET
CREATE
YOUR MESSAGE…
SOCIAL
EXPERIENCES

29. SOCIAL
CONVERSATIONS
MUST BE
ALL-INCLUSIVE

30. SOCIAL
CONVERSATIONS
MUST BE
VIBRANT

31. SOCIAL
CONVERSATIONS
MUST BE
AUTHENTIC

32. SOCIAL
CONVERSATIONS
MUST BE
TRANSPARENT

33. Scaling Social Programs
Scaling the Program Pilot & Listen Engagement Strategy Expansion
•Involvement for engagement
will depend on the type: Program
marketing, crisis Development
management, customer
service, tech support
Direct
Outreach
•Full time engagers should be
able to respond to Indirect
approximately 20 – 60 threads Engagement
per day
•Most companies will start
with 1 – 3 part time, and ramp Learn
up to 2 – 3 full time engagers
or more, depending on
volume and complexity of Listen
content
Strategy based on solid understanding of Influencer needs
33

34. Defining Components
• Actionable Content
• It’s important to identify for engaging team members what content is considered
to be actionable, or engagement-worthy, content. Examples of commonly flagged
content appropriate for engagement include:
• Posts with positive, neutral, or mixed sentiment
• Posts written within the past 5 days, or still have active comments
• Posts where users are asking questions and requesting more information
• Posts that contain inaccurate information about your brand or product
• Blacklisted Content
• Sometimes users will need to refrain from responding to particular types of
content or sites where corporations are strictly prohibited from participation
without paid subscription. Examples of commonly blacklisted content include:
• Posts that are flaming, raging, or use excessive profanity
• Posts that are older than 5 days, or no longer have active comments
• Posts on sites ‘X’, ‘Y’, and ‘Z’ which prohibit corporate participation
• Pricing Discussions
34

35. Five Tips for Success
• Build strategy with scalability in mind
• Monitoring should answer business questions
• Execute ‘disciplined participation’
• Measure and modify
• Strategy + people + technology + services
35

36. Be Where Customers Are
• Don’t just participate where your CEO thinks you
should be
• Identify where your customers are and develop a
presence where they can easily communicate with
you
• Determining the forums in which to participate
should be an early part of your research and
planning
36

37. How to Measure
Success

38. Determine Success Metrics Early – Where’s the ROI?
• Conversation volume • Author Influence
• Conversation Sentiment • Relevance
How big is What is
the space? the overall Who’s
sentiment important?
?
How well are my
engagements
doing? What sites are
How much they on?
is
relevant?
What’s the
overall topic
breakdown?

39. Success Metrics - Sentiment Analysis
Tracking changes in
sentiment of conversations
overtime (in conjunction with
actions taken by marketers
or organizations to move this
indicator) is a KPI (Key
Performance Indicator) that
most best-in-class
organizations have adopted.
Note: Our client data
suggests that typically, less
than 25% of statements
made about any given topic
within the social media space
contain sentiment.

40. Case Study: DIRECTV

41. Listen  Act  Learn  Adapt
[ to immediate needs ] [ to change best practices ]
Listen Again
[ for impact ]

42. Case Study #2
You Do Not Control The Message
Our Loyal Customer

43. Acting on LA LA over 30 days
Listen  Act  Learn  Adapt

44. Listen  Act  Learn  Adapt
Listen closely.
Act on what you hear.
Learn what is important.
Adapt Business Practices.
=
Loyal Customers
+
Relevant Products & Services

46. Questions
Thank You…
Blake Cahill
SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies
blake@visibletechnologies.com
On twitter at: @bcahill
www.visibletechnologies.com
46

47. Upcoming VIPdesk Webinars
• April 27: Learn how to improve your
customer experience via a home-based team
• May 11: Social Media: How it Fits Into Your
Customer Marketing and Retention Strategy
• May 25: Virtual Customer Care and the
Financial Services Industry
For more information or to register for the
VIPdesk Webinar series, visit
www.vipdesk.com.
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48. Connect With Us Online
Website: http://www.vipdesk.com
Blog: http://blog.vipdesk.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/vipdesk
Facebook: http://facebook.com/vipdesk
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/companies/vipdesk
YouTube: http://youtube.com/user/vipdesk
Via RSS: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/23095083.rss
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49. Thank you!
Blake Cahill
SVP of Marketing
blake@visibletechnologies.com
www.twitter.com/bcahill
www.visibletechnologies.com
Mary Naylor
CEO
mnaylor@vipdesk.com
www.twitter.com/vipdesk
www.vipdesk.com
(703) 837-3501
Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 49