Do You Know What You're Missing?

Companies have been saying they make strides to join the new conversation. Some even designate someone to monitoring the blogosphere for mentions of their name. As we continue to talk about the impact of social media, citizen marketers, customer engagement, and employee empowerment we almost believe our own words.

All of these initiatives are just buzz words. I'm saying this for good reason; I've seen it on the inside and the outside of organizations.

It's Your Ship, but you Choose to Miss the Boat

A few years ago, our business group, Fast Company readers' network, had the opportunity to host then brand new author and former Commander of the USS Benfold Mike Abrashoff. Mike is a sought after and well paid speaker, and a friend of our network. For that reason, and because his father lives in the area, we planned an event with our group around father's day.

Mike founded Grassroots Leadership and was coming to us at the hills of a big publicity wave. Because he had been so gracious to arrange to come, we wanted to help him book at least a couple of informal events at local organizations -- all free of charge. It's really hard to get on people's calendars so we were doing all this well in advance of his visit.

We went to three different companies that had sizeable local representation and are known for wanting to offer their employees every advantage and training. Our offer to book Mike with them for an hour during the day was made through employees at a reasonably high level, which means well liked and networked inside those organizations. One of the comments I received afterwards was to the effect: "If we had known! We would have loved to have him."  Does anyone speak 'opportunity' when it knocks? It's your Ship, and indeed you choose to miss the boat.

ING Direct Goes Dutch -- Pay to Play

Most recently we proposed an event at the ING Direct Cafe' with author and blogger Lisa Haneberg. The event would have been appropriate for the edgy cafe' and bank because the topic is Two Weeks to a Breakthrough, from Lisa's new book. I worked with the Cafe' in the past, as I posted recently, and was excited to bring together two great groups -- theirs and ours. In my enthusiasm, I even pitched Arkadi Kuhlmann to propose Lisa as a speaker for an employee event at ING Direct.

Imagine my disappointment when I received a quick voice message that the cafe' now charges $500 per event. I suppose from their standpoint it makes sense -- $500 today is quantifiable, they can put it on the books, vs. a few savings accounts opened (including mine), at least one mortgage refinance and the ability to publicize their new checking account. All in a relational environment in front of business people where permission is already established. Would you rather interrupt us? Why go Dutch on customers?

These are just two examples, of course. There are many more daily instances in which we miss the opportunity to connect. Maybe the answer is the breaking up of organizations into self-sustaining groups that have greater leeway in conversing with the marketplace -- sort of like microbrands. I'd like to think that the organizations in question do not really know what they are missing -- or they would be joining in.

How can organizations be brought up to date on the fluidity of the market conversations? Aside from wanting to apply to social media the old ways of doing business in a stick-on fashion, and hope that customers will continue buying, how else can we help companies figure out what they're missing?

Comments

[CK]

An important question being that they likely don't know what they're missing...always happens as they miss the boat (or the boat sinks). Orgs will likely need to get smaller. And orgs have to stop posting junior talent or, eek(!) summer interns against blogging (happens more than you think).

The publicity on social media has indeed increased - that helps. The benefit argument and how CORE these relationships and conversations are to their business success and biz model viability (not the darn technology, many biz's get side-tracked with the tech, it's about people).

As for specifics, publishing more on the revenue argument for social media is important. We need, IMO, to keep hitting on what's core to marketing and that's value creation. How better to create value than to benchmark what's truly of value to them (customers) than to involve them?

All that said, I do think that co's will come online. It's a process. A lot of fear but starting is the toughest part. The challenge is maintaining yet, again, once it becomes core and the benefits are realized, the medium (and the value of the relationships of the medium) are hard to pass up. I also pose how cost-effective it is to clients--though I advise them on the time commit.

[Valeria Maltoni]

CK:

I still cannot help but think that engaging with customers online and offline is directly proportional to the amount of business they will willingly give you and refer your way.

You also highlight a trend I've been observing not only on the front lines of social media. Many other customer facing functions are carried out often by quite junior staff.

As in my cases above, the benefits are often intangible at first and then translated into tangibles over time. If you have an experienced person handling the conversation, they will more likely manage to build value sooner rather than later.

[gianandrea facchini]

in many companies, more and more experienced persons are outplaced because of their cost and replaced with juniors.
this consideration and your post make me convinced that most of the companies live in a too short span of time, look for short term higher revenue: their marketing approach is still referred to produce and sell. today to produce and sell should no longer be the goal but a medium for generating revenue.
hope i have been clear: not so sure about.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Gianandrea:

I think the pressure is on to deliver quarter to quarter results and many companies indeed think the best way is to cut and save their way to prosperity. Score cards are quite unbalanced if long term consequences are not taken into consideration.

[Steve Roesler]

OK, Valeria, here is real life:

a. You and I have talked about the ING cafe and both hang there, being from the same area

b. We talked about Lisa's upcoming gig being scheduled there

c. You shared that ING had been cooperative in hosting events--a good neighbor

d. You even talked about the accounts that you had personally with ING

e. My young adult daughter called and wanted a suggestion about where to open a savings account for easy access and decent interest

f. One of my 3 suggestions was ING, in part because I figured that if they paid attention to the community they were probably going to be easy for my daughter to deal with in terms of customer service

g. I just took away the recommendation with an explanation. She may still decide that it's the best bet for her, but now she's thinking hard about it

h. They went from a slam dunk to a big question mark in one gesture

Is that real enough?

[Valeria Maltoni]

Steve:

You know what's saddest? I sent ING Direct links to the positive posts I wrote on them at FC Experts and this blog. No response. I contacted them 3 times through different people in communications before I sent an email directly to the CEO. No response.

I then called and left a message, and that's when I got the brush off. You couldn't buy that kind of publicity. And no response.

[NW Guy]

Valeria,

What you're really asking is for people to completely change the way they work; and that is a very difficult task.

For the last 20(?) years there has been discussion on "customer centric" organizations, but is that really how people spend their time? The community/blog/etc capabilities that have come to the fore recently make this easier to happen TECHNOLOGICALLY, but not EMOTIONALLY. A lot of people (unfortunately I include myself) are still more oriented to the industrial age.

Using the new tools forces people out of their comfort zone. It means that every person should probably have X amount of their time committed to the community. Instead, it is still left to Customer Service, Marketing, summer interns, tech-oriented folks, etc...

For ING; that means that with random calls you weren't able to hit the "right" person. The people you touched thought "not my job", instead of taking the initiative to contact the proper person....everybody sells!

That first hurdle is sooo difficult to overcome. However, with a little effort there can be amazing benefits.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Bruce:

I actually contacted people who have worked with me in the past -- they were the right people. The company decided to change its policy, or to have one, and just applied it in a blanket fashion.

Yes, I am asking people to do something radical. I'm asking them to think independently, to take the initiative when listening, and to have a more collaborative approach. There is an effort effect.

BTW -- ING Direct started it by broadcasting that they were happy to host business networking events at the cafe'.