EMPLOYEES, PARTNERS & PEERS ARE ALSO YOUR CUSTOMERS

Whenever we talk about Customer Collaboration, one of the big questions that always comes up is,"What about collaborating with my employees, partners and/or peers?" Channel partners, salespeople, distribution channels, field reps, retail employees, executives and anyone else previously referred to as an “employee” should not only be treated like a customer, but are part of the expanded definition of a Customer. As I spend time with people from different departments, at different organizations, more and more I hear them using this expanded definition of Customers. This is indicative of a mind-shift towards a bottom-up approach to business - one that values all relevant stakeholders participating in an on-demand conversation.

As companies continue to explore new ways to keep up with the market it is no longer effective to keep stakeholders at a distance. With corporate walls falling everyday it takes a collaborative strategy to understand the true potential of your organization. By building a community, based on collaboration, you can begin to understand your organization for what it really is, a living breathing extension of your company, where various people interact with their colleagues, family, friends and peers - in a non-linear way.

Customer Collaboration can be applied to meet many business challenges and uncover the true nature of your working network. Here are a few examples of some applications I have seen to date:

Customer Collaboration with Sales and Distribution

When it comes to keeping up with their sales and distribution channels any organization will tell you that they need better visibility into what’s really going on and a greater connection to the people who interact with their end-customers. Empowering them through Customer Collaboration allows them to see the impact of their feedback and motivates them to share their passion with your end-customer. If they have to choose where to put their efforts, they will want to work harder and smarter, for the company that makes their jobs fun, engaging and informative - a company that listens and adapts to the collective intelligence gathered through Customer Collaboration.

Customer Collaboration with global Executives

Every company wrestles with the challenge of bringing geographically dispersed team members together to collaborate and evolve their business. Traditionally this exercise has been costly, time consuming and disjointed. Executives fly in once a year to meet in an artificial setting where they only scratch the surface on getting to know one another and meeting the challenges of their business. With Customer Collaboration, these executives can continue to collaborate year round and tackle their business challenges as they arise, not once a year when it’s already too late. With the ability to share their collective experiences, on-demand and in a community setting, they can help each other make more informed decisions - by sharing a variety of perspectives on the problems of the day.

Customer Collaboration with Retail

For any company that values its culture and/or is growing rapidly, it is vital to have a direct connection to your retail stores and be positioned to inform your efforts both at the corporate office and on these crucial frontlines. This centralized effort provides a connected culture for these geographically dispersed, all important outposts of your customer experience. The on-demand connectivity of your retail experience not only allows for cultural consistency, but it speeds the innovation process by listening to the real practitioners of your processes and policies. Not only do you get to hear the voice of your end customer, but you empower the people who interact with them everyday and ultimately shape the perception of your brand, product and services. This collaborative experience and the persistent sense of community it creates also help mitigate turnover, that traditionally comes with any retail operation.

Customer Collaboration with Field Reps

Many companies have their own reps working on college campuses around the country. Communities are being used to exchange information and experiences between company headquarters and the field, and across campuses nationwide. This represents a real opportunity to gain a higher level of insight from and an increased visibility into the marketplace. Ultimately it makes these efforts more cost-effective as the collective intelligence is quickly and easily shared - thus allowing the brand, its stakeholders & peers to adapt to the market with a higher level of efficiency.

Customer Collaboration with Channel Partners

There is a great demand for companies to be able to interact and collaborate with their existing channel partners - in order to improve their business, stay relevant and be competitive. Like any Customer a channel partner has options, they can choose to work with a variety of providers. So what differentiates one from the other? The company that is able to add value to their relationships by facilitating and participating in an ongoing conversation with their stakeholders - delivering valuable insight and relevant innovations to their brand, products, services and processes. Channel partnerships move at an incredible pace and many of the challenges businesses experience with their own internal employees are only exacerbated in channel partnerships. This application of Customer Collaboration helps keep everyone informed and motivated (by having a voice). The faster this collective effort can learn about the shifting marketplace, the faster they can adapt and together be more successful.

Number one on the Top 100 Marketing Buzz Phrases of 2007 is…ROI. This should tell you this phrase is about as meaningful and creative, within the context of marketing strategy, as commenting on the weather.

But the clouds are parting!

I’m encouraged by the dawn of a new breed of Chief Marketing Officer “ commonly referred to, at last week’s Red Herring CMO Conference in San Diego, as the “2.0 CMO”.

I’m celebrating this emergence both as a consumer and an industry professional. Why?

As a consumer, I’m relieved that there is an assembly of marketing executives out there who understand that I no longer respond to their “messaging”. This type of CMO knows that I actively avoid as many of their “touchpoints” as I possibly can. They also recognize that I am not a “target”, but a human being. A person with intuition, opinions and immediate access to a global network of other people eager to discuss, endorse and reject every company, brand, product and service on the planet.

As a professional, I’m hopeful that the days of responding to, “This sounds great, but what’s the ROI?” are numbered.

It used to be enough for a CMO to declare success by demonstrating great levels of response, impressions, buzz, awareness, lift, lead-gen, viral activity, or return on investment (ROI) from their campaign efforts.

Note to the CMO: this will no longer cut it.

The key is to shift your thinking from campaign metrics to customer motivations. I understand that such a profound shift will be met with organizational and even cultural challenges. However, many of the world’s most iconic brands have quickly realized there is no substitute for aligning their brand with the market through ongoing collaboration with their customers. These companies are prepared for the constant change that is so rapidly activated by social connectivity. Not only are the CMOs of these companies prepared for change, but they embrace it as a competitive advantage.

The “2.0 CMO” doesn’t focus on how they’re going to deliver a message, they work to understand what motivates the people that will ultimately carry the most meaningful message. Define your marketing objectives and measure those against what your customers are saying about your brand.

For a marketing executive to ask the question, “this sounds great, but what’s the ROI?” demonstrates that they are missing the point. The person that asks this question is caught up in the evaluation of their tactics and not thinking about the content of their customer’s experience. It’s like focusing on the buttons of the phone, rather than the conversation.

The best type of return is a returning customer.

I spoke today with Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research about the role of the “Community Manager”, in an attempt to share some of the knowledge I’ve gained in my time at Passenger. Shortly into the call, we came across the topic of client education and some of the key questions that clients ask when entering into the Social Media sphere. Among the most popular are permutations of, “How does this work?” “How long does this last?” and, “What will I get out of this?”

And of course, there’s always the question of “Who will be running this?” which brings me to, well, me”the Community Manager, or, CM. So what does a CM do, and who exactly are they managing? At Passenger, each of the CMs are people who have a knack for tech, love to communicate, and each have been Passenger Certified in “bridging the gap” ” they know how to help you create a successful community and help you get over that digital hurdle to make it all work

So let’s start there.

How does this work?

Sure the idea of entering into the Social Media realm is a little daunting. Ok, it’s a lot daunting. With all of the new tools springing up on a daily basis it’s hard to get a grip on what is a fad, what will stick around, and what is worth exploring a bit further.

If you’re here right now, you’ve probably decided on the latter and want to know a bit more. So, what does a Community Manager actually do, and where on earth do they get their community? Communities consist of a group of customers”anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand”each eager to share their opinion and influence a brand that they care about. They come to us via our client’s email lists, customer lists or contact information gathered through a variety of other customer interactions. From here, members are invited to join, engaged by the opportunity to have their voices heard and have an impact on the brand.

We then work hands on with our clients to iron out a series of objectives”these objectives aren’t set in stone, nor are they necessarily the main marketing objectives for their brand. Instead, these are a combination of large, far reaching business objectives and a desire to better understand their customer. Together, we work to create a series of events geared towards these objectives”they could be polls, discussion boards, or any other type of Event. Members are invited to attend and the feedback comes rolling in.

As a Community Manager, my main task is to make sure people are happy”this includes my client as well as my community members. Each day we’re actively in our communities, reading posts, replying to messages, and noticing trends.

Among the most important aspect of this role is doing just that”noticing trends or patterns. That’s how we make this work. By listening to what customers have to say and streamlining this information into a series of more digestible community “sound bites” we’re able to bridge the gap between what the customer wants and is talking about, and, what the client wants and is also talking about.

How long does this last?

Not to sound trite or cliché, but these communities will last as long as you want them to. All they need to survive is attention and a lot of honesty. Making yourself and your brand more real and human is the first step to finding online success, and the best way to ensure longevity.

Cue the Community Manager.

We’re here to maintain that relationship for as long as brands want to talk to their customers. Personally, part of the reason why I think Customer Collaboration is so successful is because of the personal touch involved. Actually placing a face to a name does wonders in real life”it shouldn’t come as a surprise that within the B2C world, the effect is one and the same. In each of the communities I work with, as well as many of my peers’ communities, members feel a stronger tie to a brand when they know who they’re talking to. Being able to connect one on one with someone close to their favorite brand increases the value tenfold.

It’s that added personal touch that makes these communities last, and makes brands want to maintain them.

What will I get out of this?

Naturally, when dealing with a business, the “how much bang am I getting for my buck” question is bound to come up. Companies always want to know whether or not it’s worth it, because let’s face it, it takes a lot of effort to maintain any sort of good relationship”whether it’s with a customer or a friend or a family member”each take some amount of time, so understanding what the end is sometimes helps rationalize the means.

Even with a background in emerging media and new marketing initiatives, customer collaboration is truly something that you don’t get until you’re in the thick of it all and witness the success of Customer Collaboration in full-effect. You feel an extreme sense of pride and ownership for something you indirectly (or in some cases, directly,) fostered.

One of my clients recently held a series of events that inspired members to create and submit their own content. This content was then reviewed by the other community members, where they were asked to vote on their favorite submission. Once the votes were tallied, the winners had been decided and we ran into the eternal business question of, “So what?” and “Now what?” To make the community member’s feedback relevant, our client had one of their in-house designers review the submissions and critique them”all on video. Naturally, this video was uploaded to the community and shared with the winners (as well as the rest of the community). The feedback was astounding.

The client was thrilled by the submissions from members, and members were thrilled to be heard by the client. Here, the gain was mutual. The client was given a look at what customers would buy if they were given the option of creating the products all on their own, and the customer felt as though they truly were a valued entity. If the value of making informed marketing and product decisions isn’t enough for you, the intrinsic value of a “job well done” certainly will be.

Adweek just posted this article based on a Forrester Research report. The edict is that agencies need to evolve by organizing themselves around communities that are relevant and mutually beneficial for their clients and their clients' customers. Not only does this opportunity provide more value to an agency's clients, it also stabilizes the relationship between the agency and the client - with their clients' customers acting as strategic collaborators, and offering a valuable perspective.

This application of Customer Collaboration is clearly a huge opportunity for agencies to be more effective, more focused and able to keep up with the rapidly evolving marketplace. After all, an agency's fundamental purpose is to help a brand communicate with its current/future customers, and the time has come for this to take the shape of a conversation.

-By Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK Forrester Research believes today's ad agencies are not well-structured to take on tomorrow's marketing challenges, needing to move from making messages to establishing community connections.

In a new report, the research firm paints a grim view of the current state of advertising, which it believes is in "a world of hurt" because consumers are tuning out the messages the industry is predicated on producing. Instead, it believes shops need to be organized around communities, not disciplines. What it is calling "the connected agency" would not only know certain communities but also be active members of these groups. Pushing messages would give way to encouraging voluntary engagement, and ongoing conversations would replace time-based campaigns.

"I can't say there's an agency now that's the agency of the future," said Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst and co-author of the report.

The research firm is certainly not the first to assert that agencies haven't kept up with changing consumer habits and technology. Accenture in November said the shift from analog to digital media is catching shops flat-footed. more