The CX Blog

That’s what I’m talking about: a living, breathing knowledge network.  That’s how Chris Carfi describes the use of SN for customer experience and support in his exec briefing on Social Networking.

Some of the highlights, with an emphasis on post-purchase customer experience:

• Let the customer in. Because customer sat is at an all-time low, what better way to improve the customer’s experience of your company than to allow direct contact with real people who have real (not blurbish) information, tips, suggestions to share.
  • My applied examples: Zappos, of course.  Sure, they already have real humans answering the phone, but they’re also all over twitter and other channels to speak directly to customers and hear what they’re saying.  This is a company with a phenomenal approach to customer support, one that is deeply entwined in their overall culture–and it shows.  If I may harken back to my days at Amazon during the high growth days, an intense focus on customers from all angles of the company communicates volumes; Amazon now uses a multitude of channels to listen and communicate with customers.
• Set your best stuff free. Allowing customers to contact you directly is only part of the equation; setting up internal queues, RSS feeds, tags, and instantaneous modes of communication enables internal experts to handle and be aware of issues that are coming up.  You then have a satisfied customer because they get what they want fast, but you also have a more informed organization that knows its All Star Team and is able to leverage it effective.
  • My applied example: a certain well known search engine with which I consulted a couple years back encourages IM and other channels within its service department (other depts as well, i’m sure) so that tough questions get routed through the tribe quickly, easily, effectively. That living, breathing knowledge network is revealed, can be harvested for good tacit knowledge, and the super stars are surfaced, recognized, and rewarded as is appropriate.  The bar is raised for everyone and the customer benefits like mad. It goes around and around and around.
• The big, big picture. How many companies really focus on what happens after the customer buys your product.  Listen, I’m well aware of the mindless collection of data, the prattling dissertations on operations and how things happen internally once the customer buys X.  But how many companies really connect the dots on the customer side with the dots on the internal side post-purchase–that’s the whole customer experience, and that’s where SN can really shine.
  • My applied example: an insurance company wants to leverage SN but can’t quite figure it out because they are so stuck in thinking about insurance–buy the policy and let it sit until catastrophe hits.  But insurance for most of us is painfully disconnected from how we might actually use it.  So, you have water damage in your basement due to minor flooding.  Maybe it’s so minor you don’t actually want to claim it because it might raise your deductible–but you would like help finding a reputable, maybe even a preferred damage clean-up company.  The insurance company, beyond offering their own suggestions online in a wiki like environment, might offer a way for customers to rate, suggest and help each other find the best clean-up guys for the job.

Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion, Chris!