Are you listening to your customers?
I recently blogged about Geni.com. Shortly afterwards I had a comment from Geni thanking me for “checking out our website”, asking me to”Stay tuned as we add other great features to our site”.
Now I like to think I’m popular, but I doubt that anyone on the geni team subscribes to my blog and it is doubtful they just stumbled across my words. More likely they used Google Alerts. Now there is no reason for marketing departments not to know what people are saying about their organisation. PR is changing, it is no longer enough to carefully manage the messages that are broadcast from the organisation and be deaf to what your customers, critics and champions are saying about you (other than in satisfaction surveys and mystery shopper exercises – which tend to be occaisional, anonymous and a rather blunt instrument for addressing individual customer issues). Now there is no excuse for not hearing what is being said, when it is being said. Google Alerts does the listening for you. What you choose to do about it is another; copy and paste the offending article into a email to be circulated to an Action Team who might eventually address the issue, or engage in a dialog with the blogger as Geni (and Norwich Union) did.
Marc,
Hi. Am still listening (Norwich Union)!. Since your post in April last year we have appointed a ‘blogosphere consultant’! Becca’s job is to continually ferret round the intranet and find customers who are discussing us or other insurance issues. Becca offers help. The feedback has been great – even in the most difficult situations. As my dad says, ‘its not really about the ‘internet’ it’s about respect and dialogue, about speaking to people on their level not from the perspective of a big company’s ivory towers’. Mind you dad also says some pretty daft stuff so have choose wisely! Anyhow, your blog is still great. Kind Regards, Darren
part of PR strategy on the web is also to send your own team to pretend they are just some random people to blog or comment in your (firm’s) favour… 🙂