Sam Ford of Peppercom:
Listen at all opportunities – make every moment a listening moment. We’re talking to our customers all the time but are we listening?
We have new media platforms – blogs, Twitter, Amazon, Yelp and Get Satisfaction. Everyone is a publisher. Technology has changed the way people communicate. It’s changed the way we find news and information. It’s changed the source of influence.
Now that the customer has a voice and a publishing platform customer service issues become PR issues.
You can use new media platforms to do traditional PR activities – like surveys. You can do online focus groups. Communispace is one way to build an online community for focus groups. These are managed conversations. And you should be listening to organic conversations as well.
How does listening help a company?
- Product development – getting insights from your cusotmers can help improve products
- Improve customer service
- Solifying/Adapt messaging
- Crisis Preparation
- Outreach
- New Business opportunities
- Finding new audiences/markets
Learn to share information internally. Set up systems so that different departments can listen and share what you find. Who are the stakeholders internally that need to share this info? Make a comm chart that connects these people.
Questions:
Who should you respond to? Look at their motivation, is it isolated or is it gathering comments, how prominent is the blog, what is their traffic, who links to them – all these things will give you a sense of their influence.
