Listening, for a Change

We had an interesting conversation on Twitter a couple of days ago where Jeremy Meyers was saying that if organizations appoint one person to listening to customers, the rest of the organization would feel exonerated somehow from caring. While Olivier Blanchard's experience led him to respond that the way companies are structured, if you want something done, you have to make someone own it. Be responsible for it.

My take is that there isn't a division anymore with the Internet people doing their magic, as Jeremy wrote, the direct response people, the public relations group, advertising, and internal communications. With the fast disappearance of a clear demarcation between personal/professional, there is also (or there should be) a more integrated approach to marketing and communications in business today.

An experienced team of communicators and marketers should know how to work together and tie what they do to business results. Whoever in that team operates under the scarcity mindset loses - personally and professionally. They may get the proverbial cookie today, but in the long run they develop the prima donna reputation and in a marketplace that thrives on collaboration, working together is critical to success.

That's where listening comes in. Customers are internal, too. Should you have a chief listening officer? Jeremy argued that it's a ridiculous title/job. We probably thought the same when we saw the first project manager titles - aren't we all called to manage projects as part of our job? 

Given that I clearly had more to say than we could do justice on Twitter, I thought this would be a good topic for a post on customer conversations. Why would you have a person assigned to listening? What are the benefits of setting aside a precious headcount for this function? There are many reasons why. Here are a few:

(1.) To affect change, you need to have the big picture - while you indeed listen to customers on separate opportunities when delivering service or providing support, you won't be able to see the patterns at that level.

(2.) To take action, you need to know what you're listening for - even though using listening tools is helpful, you still need a person to gather all feedback and make sense of it. Saying that you don't would be akin to saying that anyone can do research who can ask questions.

(3.) To drive decisions, you need to have support for your theories - since I mentioned research, there are all kinds of ways in which you can collect feedback and ideas from the community. Quantitative and qualitative studies can benefit from contextual information.

(4.) To figure out what else gets the job done, and might take your place in the market - let's face it as customers we don't buy on the basis of product or service benefits. We buy to get a job done. And today we have more alternatives than we could ever have time to explore. That's why listening in on conversations can clue us in better as to what gets the job done and how do customers evaluate that.

(5.) To be effective, you need experience and practice - if this is one of the many functions you have, you will not get there fast enough. You need to improve your speed in listening and understanding to develop a habit of responding instead of reacting.

This is a senior role, one that could be married with customer community or advocacy, depending on the type of organization. There are some interesting job titles that are starting to take hold. Connie Bensen just became the director of community strategy and architecture at Alterian (congratulations on the acquisition, Connie).

Today at Fast Company Expert blog we take a look at couple of simple, yet deal-making principles to understand what customers want.

Do you really need a person dedicated to listening? Who does the listening in your organization? Is it a 1/4 of their job? Does your new product and service development rely on listening? Are you familiar with outcome-driven innovation?

[image of listening post by Fenchurch!]

Comments

[Jeff Hurt]

Valeria:

Great post on the importance of listening.

I think that an organization needs to have a culture that embraces and encourages listening to both its internal and external customers. If the company culture does not embrace listening, then it is a tough sell to the C-Suite executives on its importance.

Once the C-Suite supports creating and nurturing a culture of listening, I think the next step is training the entire organization on the importance of listening, how to listen, what tools to use, what to track and monitor, etc. Without professional development, the listening culture can flounder and any internal staff dedicated to listening may lack the support they need. People like Beth Kanter are offering Listening Boot Camps to help nonprofits connect with its members and potential customers. Those same Listening Boot Camps are valid for the corporate world too.

Once you an organization has embraced listening, then it’s time to learn how to respond. I believe that listening is an art and responding is a science.

[Teresa Basich]

While I think Jeremy has a great point, the listening role you discuss here seems akin to the role of a CMO or CIO or CFO, etc, and I agree that kind of position should be installed. Those people at the top are there to aggregate data from around the company and relate it to the big picture. They have the benefit of being tapped into larger business initiatives, so they can connect the dots, so to speak.

In Ant's Eye View's case, the listening role is slightly different. AEV is a social media strategy development agency -- everyone on their team contributes to the SM strategy of their client firms, who have chosen to delegate their SM involvement to an agency. Separating out a listening manager to highlight "hot" conversations for clients, suggest actions to take in regard to those conversations, and establish sentiment, seems a little too hands-off for me, initially, but as Amber Naslund mentioned at the beginning of this whole conversation, every company has to start somewhere. Also, the right listening manager in an agency will teach client firms to eventually take the reigns, see the bigger picture, score sentiment for themselves, and respond accordingly. The position builds confidence in firms scared of getting involved in the SM space at all. That, I can agree with.

Yes, listening manager, as an internal role and in an agency. But Jeremy is right, I think, in that the impetus to listen needs to be on everyone's heads, no matter where they sit in an agency or in a larger organization. That comes with time, though, and sometimes you just have to get your foot in the door first.

Thanks for continuing the conversation, Valeria! Love your blog! BTW, I'm still learning here, so if what I say seems way off base I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)

[Danny Brown]

Don't we already have this position? If you're managing a client you should already be listening for the conversations around them.

If, on the other hand, it's from a customer point of view, should that role not then migrate over to the Customer Service Director? Maybe it should be renamed Customer Experience Director instead, as get the experience right and the service will fall into place.

It does seem a strange title and questions whether companies are already missing out by not following the conversation in the first place?

Great food for thought. :)

[Joe Lima]

Another great post as usual. In my experience, many companies need someone to be accountable and have quantifiable expectations to justify the headcount. Toss in the fact that many of these same companies are not assigning a person to all things social and it is easy to see why assigning someone to listening is an uphill slog.

It is the responsibility of everyone to listen but many employee are not allowed to respond. Changes to entrenched company cultures take a long time to occur.

I believe that listening falls across multiple disciplines within an organization and should therefore be covered in each area, even if it take 1/4 or 1/2 of someone's time. And all of those employees involved in listening/responding should aggregate their information. Interesting concept to follow.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Jeff - it's a cultural thing, yes, and it needs to be supported from the top. I met the former Commander of the USS Benfold once and he shared with us that his leadership was to walk the talk, because people heard but he said, but watched what he did and how he spent his time even more.

@Teresa - given how strapped for time and resources many companies are, I'm not surprised that they would delegate to an agency. However, listening is too important a function not to move inside fairly quickly. Well, yes everyone should listen. However, it is by elevating the role and intelligence that you can actually do something about what you hear and learn. You'll find the community here very warm and welcoming. Come back any time.

@Danny - the one consideration I have is that experience is one side of things, in many cases reactive. The other is proactive and business-driven from the start. I like chief customer advocate, even though nobody owns the customer, they own themselves :)

@Joe - from the comment, it seems you've been a reader - delighted to welcome you here in the comments. "It is the responsibility of everyone to listen but many employee are not allowed to respond." That's why elevating the position would help make a change.

[Bill Free]

You've alluded to the fact that organizations are already "listening" to constituencies within various business silos. What I find intriguing is the notion of synthesizing feedback from, say, reputation management, product research and client experience at a meta level. Doing this in a way that contributes meaningfully to business results is the holy grail of integration.

Another point. Actively engaging communities of stakeholders, both internal and external, is the third rail for listening organizations because it is extremely granular and takes place in real time. Companies with dynamic service and/or innovation cultures (crowdsourcing product development is an extreme example) are demonstrating how "listening" energy can be effectively marshaled in pursuit of business objectives.

[Christian]

A person dedicated to listening seems reasonable. A "reputation management professional", perhaps?

[Jeremy Meyers]

On reflection, I think that my beef was mainly with the title, which is very nebulous and doesn't seem to assign any particular responsibility to the holder of the position. Does having a google alert for my brand qualify me for "chief listening officer" status?

I agree that there needs to be a core stakeholder in social media monitoring and outreach, but I think putting it under the (frankly, silly) title of Chief Listening Officer downplays the useful, functional, business relevant position into a touchy-feely, easily mocked ("Oh? Well..I'm the Chief Smelling Officer!") 'guru'-type position, which is dangerous when trying to affect real change.

Also, it's Meyers not Myers (I'm sure you typoed)