Consumers will become more demanding in the future. Within a few short years, the technical possibilities will be within every consumer’s reach. This will heighten expectations toward companies and consumer tolerance for bad products and service will become all but non-existent. Also, the initiative to come into contact with a brand will reside entirely with the consumer since technology will make it increasingly easy for consumers to shield themselves from commercial messages. On social media, too, consumers only wish to be linked with a limited number of brands.

As a result, companies will have to invest heavily in three dimensions in the years to come:

Extreme customer-centricity: customers will no longer be satisfied with an average treatment. Those companies with a policy of extreme customer-centricity will be the most successful.

Technology: marketing and technology will be two sides of the same coin. IT budgets will continue to shift toward marketing. For marketing departments all over the world, data and technological know-how will be prerequisites to success.

Selling without selling: convince customers through expertise instead of commercial messages. Win them over by bringing added value to their lives.

The Marketing organization of the future

However, making this new philosophy a success requires a new marketing organization. Without this organization it is impossible to score in each of these three dimensions. The new organization consists of three elements:

Conversational leadership: this aspect requires a leader with a perfect understanding of the new context; ideally someone actively involved in the conversational world. The management of the ‘why’ will be even more crucial.

Agile: flexibility is key to success. The efficiency of a marketing organization can no longer be determined by its own talent or limitations. The need for flexibility will downsize marketing departments and boost the marketing service industry.

Discipline: discipline is more than ever indispensable, both to keep supplying content and to consolidate the company’s long-term vision.

The need for conversational leadership

First of all, there is a need for a new brand of leadership. The new leader’s main objective is managing the ‘why’. Primarily, he manages the company’s reason for being as well as its long-term vision. In addition, there are three aspects that characterize the conversational leader:

Empathy: the new leader is a good listener. He is available both for staff and customers. His job is to provide support and counsel wherever possible.

Connecting: the conversational leader is a bridge builder; he connects people. He believes in the power of networks and helping other people, even when there’s no short-term gain involved.

Decisive: the conversational leader is capable of making decisions and executing his vision. It’s not just about listening; in the end it’s also about taking action.

Agile in action and thought

Agile is an ‘in’ word that has several definitions. Still, our internal organization must show a certain degree of flexibility if we are to achieve our external goals. This implies a new structure for marketing organizations. Until recently, everything was organized in-house. While this creates stability, it also results in rigidity. At a certain point, your people’s competencies are no longer in line with the company’s needs.

The marketing organization of the future will make increasing use of flexible experts. The core strategy and a limited number of projects are managed from inside the company. Everything else involves specialized skills hired in accordance with the company’s immediate needs. Partners are selected based on concrete ambitions.

In addition, we must also start to question budget mechanisms. Most companies still use annual budgets but in reality a lot can change in 12 months’ time. My first book, ‘The Conversation Manager’, makes a case for a flexible budget of 20%. I am now convinced this is not enough: companies must strive to make their entire budget flexible. The fixed expenses are integrated in the annual expenses. All extras are allotted through a project-based approach. The required budget is only earmarked for projects that appear profitable or relevant. Apart from keeping you sharp, this approach also gives a company the flexibility required to tap into current trends.

In closing, we need a new philosophy: fire bullets before you fire grenades. Try new ideas on a small scale. If they catch on you can always increase your investment. If they don’t, you simply end your investment. Once a new approach has proven its potential you can go full steam ahead.

A samurai’s discipline

The successful 2020 company maintains a samurai’s discipline. When a samurai commits to a project, he puts his little finger on the line. If he breaks his promise, the top of his little finger is chopped off. That is the samurai’s promise. Modern marketing also requires this kind of iron discipline. To succeed in your mission, you must follow your plans to the letter and keep to the agreed rhythm.

People like Gary Vaynerchuk owe their success to iron discipline. Gary built a name for himself by putting live content online for years on end. Whereas most people would have given up for lack of results, Gary’s perseverance is the reason for his current status.

Marketing 2020

Preparing for Marketing 2020 will be no laughing matter. On the one hand we need a new marketing philosophy, while on the other hand we also require a new marketing organization. Both steps are crucial if we are to succeed.

Oh, and if you want to see a short movie about the consumer 2020, take a look at this:

All these details are described in my new presentation ‘Marketing 2020’. You can watch it here.

What are your views on marketing organization in 2020? Which aspects are key to success? I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the subject.

From first steps in co-creation to bold idea

In the past twelve months, Center Parcs has made several small inroads into co-creation. One of the first ideas was the search for the name for a new slide at De Vossemeren. Based on a series of pictures, Facebook fans were asked to come up with a name for the new slide. The request resulted in some 1,500 suggestions, which were then whittled down to a shortlist of six finalists. Following a final vote, the name ‘Monkey Splash’ came out the winner. No matter how “small” a step this may seem, a slight change in mentality among marketeers was still necessary. Keep in mind that the name was actually chosen by a consumer, regardless of any other alternatives the marketing team might have preferred.

Consumers make the new brochure: the need for a new procedure

Earlier this year, the suggestion was made to involve the guests in the making of the new brochure. This meant a departure from the traditional and successful recipe. The people from Center Parcs and their agency, Duval Guillaume Modem, decided to go for it and create a brochure together with the Center Parcs guests.

The first step consisted in selecting the guest families. On Facebook and in Close-Up magazine, families were invited to put themselves forward. Over 600 families answered the call and completed a form detailing their motivation. From these forms, Center Parcs selected a number of families that suit the atmosphere and the target group of each park. For example, Erperheide welcomed a family with very young children, whereas Park Zandvoort selected a senior couple.

Next, the families were invited to come to the parks, where they were briefed by the people from Duval Guillaume Modem as well as by the Center Parcs team. The families were told that they could make the new brochure, but they had to keep in mind that the brochure would be read by more than 2 million people. In other words, the guests were asked to look beyond their own personal opinion and preferences. Incidentally, they fully understood what was expected of them.

Work on the brochure began the following day. The guests were asked to describe the unique aspects of the park and they selected those pictures which they felt were representative of the park’s atmosphere. In retrospect, Paul Geraeds, Marketing Director Center Parcs Europe, claimed that 80% of the end result was different from what the Center Parcs marketing team would have come up with; this means the consumers had a great deal of input. According to Paul, “the brochure is a bit less ‘polished’ and perhaps somewhat more cluttered, but that also makes it more personal. In return, the new brochure is more relevant and more credible”.  No final editing was undertaken to modify or correct the brochure compiled by the guests. The actual brochure is based entirely on the input received from the consumer.

A novelty: individual covers per country

The final step was the choice of the cover. The guest families made some suggestions but the actual covers were chosen by the Facebook fans and all guests, with the Center Parcs employees acting as a kind of second opinion. This approach revealed major differences between the various countries and for the first time, Center Parcs decided to adjust the cover to the culture of the individual countries. There used to be just one cover but now the consumers’ input decided which cover was used.

Next year: rely even more on user-generated content

Now that all initial doubts regarding this project have been dispelled, Center Parcs has decided to go with this approach next year as well. A number of ideas have been put forward to take it one step further next year:

• Participants will be better briefed beforehand, so they can prepare even better. In turn, this will leave more time for the brainstorming sessions when they visit the parks.
• This time the pictures were selected from a database of existing photos. Next year, Center Parcs is hoping to have consumers choose from all user-generated photos that have been posted on Flickr, for instance. Center Parcs is hoping to exploit the enormous amount of content available on the parks.

Four steps to increase social media effectiveness

In order to boost social media effectiveness, brands and companies should discuss four steps:

1. Channel & content strategy: define the content-conversion point
2. Build online reach: create a community to increase the return on content creation
3. Create engagement through fantastic content & interaction
4. From likes to ambassadors: change a group of silent people into an active group of brand ambassadors.

Each of these phases are described in an earlier post.

KPIs, Media type & Content type

I am convinced that most companies could use their social channels more effectively. The problem is that most companies only focus on steps 2 and/or 3 of this plan. Most brainstorms start with the question ‘what should we share on Facebook?’. By taking that discussion to a higher level, you will change the way you look at social media touch points.

When using the approach outlined in this paper, it becomes obvious that the KPIs, the media types and the content types differ in each of the steps.

Use this table to plan your social media success. Most companies start without a plan and without knowing what the next step is. This leads to disappointment and low return. It is clear that each of the four steps are not completely separate. There is a lot of overlap between them. By putting them apart, it helps to make a more comprehensive plan. Working with different KPIs in each of the phases, helps to set the right mindset in your organization.

Read the full paper

Check out the entire paper to learn more about this philosophy

It’s clear that the bar has been raised for social media. With so many actors out there vying for consumer favour, you need to be on top of your game. Hence the necessity for a more strategic and effective approach to our online channels.

A lot of likes is nice, but…

With so many specialists stressing the importance of engagement over brand reach, having a wide reach is all but becoming a source of shame in the current social media climate. I agree that engagement  is important; after all, there’s no sense in sending content if it isn’t put to good use. However, I don’t share the notion that reach is unimportant. The more (high-quality) reach, the better. The trick is to build well-balanced reach: good content strong enough to attract attention, while not being overly opportunistic (e.g. too many free giveaways).

Quality content is indispensable if you’re going to conquer consumers’ hearts. It’s a simple fact that a wide reach provides a much higher return on the content you create.

From likes to ambassadors

The end goal is obviously to convert online contacts (likes) into active brand ambassadors. Several strategies are available to achieve that goal:

Consumer involvement

Try to achieve low-level consumer involvement with your company. Campaigns like Lay’s “design your flavour”, McDonalds’ co-creation case and many others clearly demonstrate that consumers are quite willing to take part in a fun campaign. Such a campaign is often as far as it goes but Lay’s came up with an original angle by identifying the super fans amongst the participants in the “design your flavour” campaign. Those fans are now part of a larger community and are frequently consulted by Lay’s. KLM’s “bright ideas” Facebook page was designed according to the same philosophy. This page is almost a 2.0 idea box for consumers to submit ideas and share feedback on KLM’s latest plans. The more involved people are with a brand, the more likely they are to become brand ambassadors.

The consumer-consultant

For more profound and specific questions it’s quite practical to cast the consumer in the role of consultant. In this concept, the consumer-consultant feels very much involved, which ultimately makes him an ambassador. Heineken recently opened a pop-up dance club in Milan. Their goal was to build the world’s coolest and hottest dance club. To make it work they enlisted the help of some 150 designers and clubbers from all across the globe. They photographed things they liked in clubs everywhere, went looking for the most innovative concepts they could find and shared them with Heineken. The club actually got built and a lot of the input provided by the 150 was used in the elaboration of the concept. Needless to say they were very proud to see their ideas reflected in the design of the new club. Involving a small group of people in the development of a new concept is a great idea but consumers also like to help improve the quality of existing products. Simply take care to provide them with transparent feedback because this is the key to creating ambassadors. It’s all very well to use people as consultants but it is absolutely crucial to provide feedback on what the input is actually used for.

Branded utility

Give people something to talk about. Once you succeed in bringing genuine added value to consumers’ lives through your brand, chances are those consumers will spread the word and talk about your products. The classic example is obviously Nike+ but the sequel to this success story came from an unexpected sector when insurers Allianz linked the premium for their life insurance to the intensity of their customers’ weekly sports regimen. The cost of their life insurance is determined using the information from Nike+. This concept offers specific added value and is also an interesting topic of conversation.

Allianz – Run For Your Life from Max Gebhardt on Vimeo.

Increasing the effectiveness of your social media channels in four steps

This blog is based on a section from my new paper ‘How to increase the effectiveness of your social media channels in 4 steps.’ If you’d like to learn more about this approach, you can download the full paper here.

From stand-alone social silo’s to an integrated approach

Most managers think of social media channels as stand-alone silos. Content is spread through each of these channels without a clear plan on how to reach business objectives. The truth is that all online channels are interrelated. Consumers can even be routed from channel A to channel B. The challenge is to design a plan to optimize the impact of your social media investments.

A content-conversion plan includes every touch point where a (potential) customer can come into contact with your content. Then you need to determine at which of these touch points conversion to your objectives (reputation management, community building, lead generation…) is likely to occur. All other social channels support traffic generation towards these conversion points. Instead of having a set of silo channels, this creates a set of interrelated online channels.

For example, the converting touch point might be the corporate website or blog. A corporate blog can be the touch point that leads people from the content area to the sales area. Your other social media accounts ensure that sufficient traffic is channeled to the blog every day.

For companies working in the knowledge sector, SlideShare can serve as a useful converting touch point. SlideShare is a social network site where people can share presentations (PowerPoint, etc.). This is the ideal place to showcase what you can do and what you have to offer. On this platform, it is easy to directly convert a reader into a sales lead. In case your key objective is community building, your Facebook page may be the best content-conversion point. When mapping out your conversion touch-point plan, define the trigger for each touch point that makes it possible to move on to the next. Furthermore, try to keep the lines as short as possible. The more steps are necessary in order to reach the touch point where your business goals are realized, the harder it is to achieve high conversion rates.

Questions to ask in building your content-conversion plan:

1. What is the key objective of our content marketing?

Some companies focus on creating brand awareness and others on becoming an expert or on creating business leads. Depending on your objective, there are several content-conversion points to choose from.

2. Which online touch point provides the best odds of reaching this objective?

Define the best place on the web to reach your objectives. Below you will find several examples of content-conversion points. Since so much depends on the context, the contents of this table should be viewed as examples and not as the only possible outcome of the discussion.

3. Which channels can create traffic to the content conversion point?

Once you’ve determined your content conversion point, the challenge is to bring people there. All social media channels can be helpful in reaching this goal. In this phase, the tough part is being able to use your content intelligently. For instance, suppose you’ve launched a great YouTube video and you want to share it with your followers. If you have chosen your blog as the content conversion point, you should embed the video in the blog and share the link to the blog post that includes the video. Mention your blog and the URL in the description on YouTube. Also, don’t forget to mention the name and URL of your blog. Every time someone embeds your video on their blog, this helps increase the traffic to your blog. If one of your employees gives a presentation outside your company, put the name and URL on the last slide: “For more info about our company/subject of presentation check out our blog at …” Create relevant cross links to your conversion point e.g. in your Twitter profile background. The more roads lead to the conversion point, the better.

Download the full paper

This post zooms in on one aspect of the paper ‘increase the effectiveness of your social media channels in four steps’. If you would like to read the entire paper, you can download it here.

The paper is based upon a series of research projects conducted over the last two years, the experience gained from numerous workshops with our clients and an in-depth discussions with social media experts Erik Van Roekel (@evr) and Matthijs Van Den Broeck (@mgvandenbroek).

4 steps to effective social channel use

Evolving from a checklist approach to social media towards an effective social channel use requires a different mindset. To build this mindset you need to go through 4 distinct phases:

1. Channel & content strategy
The first step consists in formulating a clear vision on the role of each of the online touch points. Apart from defining the goals and content of each of the individual channels, this phase is also about deciding how those channels interrelate. In this phase, you define which touch points are most likely to reach the social media (and broader business) objectives. Instead of creating social silos you are going for an integrated approach where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Most managers think of social media channels as stand-alone silos. Content is spread through each of these channels without a clear plan on how to reach business objectives. The truth is that all online channels are interrelated. Consumers can even be routed from channel A to channel B. In this phase, companies should create a ‘content-conversion’ plan.

A content-conversion plan includes every touch point where a (potential) customer can come into contact with your content. Then you need to determine at which of these touch points conversion to your objectives (reputation management, community building, lead generation…) is likely to occur. All other social channels support traffic generation towards these conversion points. Instead of having a set of silo channels, this creates a set of interrelated online channels.

For example, the converting touch point might be the corporate website or blog. A corporate blog can be the touch point that leads people from the content area to the sales area. Your other social media accounts ensure that sufficient traffic is channeled to the blog every day.

For companies working in the knowledge sector, SlideShare can serve as a useful converting touch point. SlideShare is a social network site where people can share presentations (PowerPoint, etc.). This is the ideal place to showcase what you can do and what you have to offer. On this platform, it is easy to directly convert a reader into a sales lead. In case your key objective is community building, your Facebook page may be the best content-conversion point. When mapping out your conversion touch-point plan, define the trigger for each touch point that makes it possible to move on to the next. Furthermore, try to keep the lines as short as possible. The more steps are necessary in order to reach the touch point where your business goals are realized, the harder it is to achieve high conversion rates.

2. Build reach

To increase the return on content creation, it is advisable to build reach in the early phase of your online plan. In this phase, the hard part is maintaining a balance between relevant content on the one hand and being able to attract a large set of likes & followers on the other hand.

There are two ways to build reach: the slow approach and the fast approach. The slow approach builds reach over time by investing in quality content that spreads naturally. To succeed in the slow approach, you need three things: good content, a fixed rhythm and a lot of patience. Big brands usually lack the last ingredient, which is why we recommend choosing the fast approach. Our research has shown the following seven approaches to be successful reach builders:

• Conversation worthy campaigns: invest in social campaigns to boost the reach of your social channel activities
• Rhythm: a one-time campaign won’t do it. You need a certain rhythm to share great content
• Contests & free stuff: giving away some of your products is still an effective way to build reach in the short run (although there’s no guarantee of quality). Many companies are afraid to attract ‘low quality’ followers with this strategy. This is indeed a risk: once they are on board, the challenge consists in convincing such followers to stay with your content (step 3)
• Social advertising: to grab the attention of your audience, you need to advertise your campaigns and content on social channels.
• Employee activation: a company should always have more fans than employees. If your own employees don’t follow your content, how can you expect your customers to be interested? Train and facilitate employees to become active ambassadors of your social channel activities.
• Offline communication channels: building reach goes beyond online channels. Try to mention online channels in all your communications: TV commercials, print advertising, banners, point of sales material…
• Partner up with other major brands: if you have a good relationship with brands that have a large social reach, you can always ask them to share your brand content (or a competition) with their fan base.

3. Persuasion through content & interaction

Once you’ve attracted a significant number of followers and fans, you need engaging content to keep them interested. The threshold to follow a brand is very low but it takes a huge effort to keep your audience engaged.

Research conducted by InSites Consulting has shown that the average consumer actively interacts with no more than 5 brands on social media. This means your brand needs to be part of this select little group. Also, recent research has shown that fans won’t dislike your page if they don’t like the content; instead they will ‘hide’ your page. This means competing for the attention of your own followers with big love brands like Apple, Coca Cola and Disney. And let’s not forget, your toughest adversaries when competing for the attention of your followers comes are those followers’ friends and families.

The conclusion is obvious: this evolution is raising the bar for companies to be able to engage with consumers on social media.

Three elements are key in this particular phase:

• An editorial calendar: make sure you know what your content updates will look like at least three months in advance. Our previous research paper, ‘a six-step content marketing plan’, outlines how to set up an effective editorial calendar. In fact, content planning consists of three layers: big campaigns (very intense), projects (recurring thematic themes) and content updates (small content sparks).
• Creative content: drawing up the perfect content plan is probably the easiest part of the long road to success on social media channels. Coming up with creative and talked-about content is the real challenge. It’s not an exact science and there’s no such thing as a foolproof plan. It’s really quite simple: building content that conquers the hearts of your followers and friends requires highly creative people.
• Operational conversation management : in this phase, consumer engagement is one of your key objectives. To succeed, you need top operational conversation management. Have a person or a team ready to interact and engage with your audience. Be fast, empathic and listen to your fans so they will commit to your brand. Follow the conversations in real time and be ready to respond.

4. From likes to ambassadors

The final phase is the most difficult part. In this phase you are looking to create a small army of active ambassadors. The previous steps focused on winning people’s hearts through great content. In this phase, the challenge is to create ambassadors: people who promote your brand to their friends and family. Here the question is: ‘What do we want our fans to say about us and how can we facilitate this?’. Succeed in this challenge and you will be rewarded with positive and impactful conversation about your brand.

In this stage, you need to convert your likes into ambassadors. The following factors are essential:

• Broad consumer involvement: if you involve your customers in your decision-making flows, they will be more committed to your brand. People are more emotionally involved when they feel they are part of the team and that’s how you create ambassadors. So content planning is not just about sharing cool content or asking evident questions. It’s also about asking your customers for feedback on your performance. Ask people’s opinion on all things related to your company and remember to thank them for the input they provide.
• Consumer consultants: if you have in-depth questions concerning a new project or product, you should turn to your die-hard fans on social channels and invite them to join a closed community to discuss these topics. This makes them feel like they are really part of the team and essentially you’re hiring employees that are not actually on the payroll.
• Questions and answers: put meaningful questions to your audience as we explained in the first bullet point. Once your fans start giving you inspiring feedback, be sure to return the favor and keep them in the loop. Let them know what you did with the feedback and why certain remarks were used and others were not. Be open about what use you make of their feedback. Gain their trust be being honest.
• Branded utility: think of applications that bring added value to your fans. Look for content that is both highly relevant to your audience and in line with your business. Once again, you need top creative people to invent these applications. Once fans start using the utility apps, it is a great way for them to talk about your brand through the application.

From four steps to an everlasting loop

These four phases are obviously not entirely sequential; there is an overlap between phases 2, 3 and 4. In our strategy, it’s not that hard to define the necessary actions for the various steps. In real life, though, we need to be flexible enough to adapt to consumer needs in a moment’s notice. Once a certain stage is reached, phases 2, 3 and 4 become iterative steps in an eternal loop designed to build reach and create more ambassadors.

Download the full paper

To read all details about this philosophy, feel free to download the entire paper here:

And of course, I’m looking forward to reading your comments and your feedback in the comment section. Thanks!

Looking at this evolution, I was wondering how webcare can be a differentiator in the future. What if the majority of the companies are offering online service, how can you stand out? To offer you a broad scope, I talked about this topic with a broad range of national and international experts, people from the field and opinion leaders. You can find their vision later in this post.

Based upon their feedback, it is clear that the future of online customer support is about being strong in 5 dimensions or at least in a number of these dimensions.

1. Offer speed & real value to customers

Clients will expect service 24/7. At a certain stage, clients won’t care anymore if it’s 10pm or 6 am, they want to be helped in a fast and professional way. Speed and around the clock availability will be needed to stand out. This is not as easy as it sounds for many companies, but it will become a minimum demand. Once that moment is reached, speed will not be a differentiator anymore.

2. Integration

Companies have a lot of data from their customers. Clients call in, send letters, order stuff and ask questions through Facebook. The challenge is to combine all that data and make sure you can follow the customer trail. This will increase the level of service for the customer.

3. Culture of customer focus

This is without any doubt the hardest to install and the hardest to copy differentiator from the list. The moment that your entire organization understands the power of a happy client and the role social media can play in this, your focus will be on the external part of your business. Companies with their eye on the customer, will certainly stand out in social support as well.

4. Customer communities

Clients can help other clients. If the number of conversations increase and you want to keep your efficiency under control, an active and dedicated client community can be a very strong asset.

5. Product performance

In the end, clients want good working products. Social media shouldn’t be the ultimate support tool. The moment that products work fine, the role of customer support people becomes a lot easier.

Here are the ideas of the experts I talked with. Feel free to add your opinion in the comments section of this post.

Theme 1: Offer SPEED & REAL value for the client

Robert Lommers, social media manager at Rabobank

A fast working webcare department should be part of the standard service offering for any company in 2013. The future of webcare and making webcare a differentiator will be more difficult. Companies should look for ways to really make an impact by helping clients in every situation. Moments when a webcare team helps a client who’s abroad in a different time zone, can offer a feeling of client happiness. Those moments become moments a client never forgets. For me the future is about real actions with impact for the client, it’s not just about tweeting back to a client.

Ekaterina Walter, Social media strategist at Intel

When customers connect with customer support, all they are looking for are two things: rapid response and accurate information. . There are still a lot of brands that cannot provide fast enough response and that continues to be a huge differentiator for a number of companies. There is also misconception that blogs are dead. Blogs are the most effective engines of delivering detailed information (like step-by-step instructions and how-to guides) to your users in effective and clear way, something that social networks like Twitter, Facebook and others are not appropriate for.

Clo Willaerts, Author of The Conversity model & business unit manager at Sanoma

The biggest challenge for webcare through social media is the sense of urgency that people have when they tweet or post a complaint or question on Facebook. They expect an answer in a matter of hours, whether is 10 pm on a Thursday or 8 am on a Saturday. The other issue is the fact that tweets and many Facebook updates are, by definition, public. The fact that the company hasn’t responded yet is there for all to be seen. This makes good webcare over social media often a lot more costly than initially assumed

Dave Kerpen, CEO, Likeable Media

Online customer support is table stakes now. In order to truly be different, companies must use online customer service to surprise and delight customers. You stand to gain from delighting both complainers and already happy folks

Theme 2: integration

Peter Caestecker, Webcare project leader  at Mobistar

Companies should fully integrate Webcare interactions in their CRM tools in order to have a real 360 view, regardless of the touch point the customer uses to contact them. They should continue to move Webcare away from a purely defensive approach towards a proactive care approach where in the end Webcare & commercial opportunities could be blended.

Marco Derksen (Upstream.nl) en Ronald van der Aart (RepMen.com)

The main challenge for organizations is to integrate online customer support or webcare -as it is know in The Netherlands- in the day-to-day customer care operation as one of the regular channels instead of a separate channel with a special mandate. That is one of our conclusions in our recent whitepaper ‘Webcare in Nederland, a quick scan’. At the same time webcare will raise service level expectations from customers: ‘If this companies webcare team is able to respond to my complaint in less than 20 minutes, why does it take other customer service agents so much longer?’ This simply means that organizations have to adapt and replicate the most important webcare lessons in all other parts of their service departments.

Sjef Kerkhofs, DGA & CMO of DailyDialogues, social media outsourcing.
Within a few years, every company that has consumer relations will be offering webcare 24-7 (in house or with external outsourcing partners). This makes it very difficult to maintain that early adopter competitive advantage. However, companies will still be able to excel in combining their different customer service channels. At this moment, webcare and traditional service are almost never really connected, which leads to a lot of negative customer experiences and that’s a shame. Your company can excel others by recognizing every customer in person, whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, the phone, email, webshop or brick store (if you have one).’ -

Gert Wim ter Haar, Social Media Hub Manager KLM

“Online customer support will indeed very soon become a ‘table stake’. Thus to distinguish oneself from competition, one should take the quality of the customer service to a higher level.

Social customer service will really be about the customer. A response within minutes, preferably in the customer’s own language, will become mandatory. And the answer should not send the customer off to web forms or call centers, but offer complete, to-the-point information. However, that is only the basic level. Social media service agents should be able to pro-actively engage in conversations in order to offer customers relevant information and practical solutions. To this end, companies need to gather more knowledge about the customer through qualitative applications and integrating databases. Although a challenge, our ambition is to use this information at all customer touch points.”

Theme 3: A culture of customer focus

Jo Caudron, author of ‘media tomorrow’ and senior partner Dearmedia

“From our experience with social media strategy development for large European companies, we have noticed the importance of a responsive attitude via social media channels. Companies realize that talking to a social media audience implies risks if you are not ready to be responsive. As soon as you develop “outbound” social activities (you talking to them) they will want to talk back to you too. Yes this could be about your brand but this will also be about how you perform as a company in your (functional) relationship with your market. Being on social media creates the expectation that you are ready to care for all potential issues your clients might raise. So it is no surprise that customer care through social media always scores very high in the results of our clients’ strategic exercises.

And this is a real problem for large organizations: they are aware of the importance of social media care, and they often already have (isolated) teams, tools and procedures in place. But it doesn’t reflect the real DNA of the entire company, thus making it very hard to scale. These companies provide an unseen level of closeness and customer care via social media for a very limited audience, while at the same time being traditionally slow and sluggish when caring for the rest of the traditional market. Their SLA’s for social media are much better compared to their traditional SLA’s. And this will become a long-term problem as more people move towards social media to get help. Ideally the entire company should embrace the new SLA’s to look for a more transparent, faster, closer relationship with the market. Social media care sets the new standard for the way you want to relate to your clients.

But let’s not be too optimistic though: for most companies it could still take many years to inject this new customer-friendly attitude in the DNA of the entire company. Yes, the concept of care through social media will very soon become mainstream, but the real wide-scale implementation will face many hurdles.”

Simon Mainwaring, funder/author We First

There are two levels on which companies must connect with their customers in regards to customer support. The first is the simple act of listening but it has to be followed by action on that basis. Companies that succeed in the future will be distinguished by the quality and implementation of their listening. Secondly, companies must be sufficiently defined themselves, especially in terms of their core values, to connect with their customers on the basis of shared values. Once a company demonstrates an authentic commitment to those values both in terms of how they treat a customer and the causes that they support, those brands will command unrivaled loyalty.

Erik Van Roekel, reputation manager ING

I hope that companies will not need a dedicated social support team anymore. This may sound strange, but today online customer support is often needed because other channels are not offering the right level of customer support. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a dedicated team, but once you create a culture of customer centricity in which the possibilities of social media are integrated, the need for a separate social support team will decrease.

David Meerman Scott, Author of books like ‘real-time marketing’ and ‘the new rules of marketing & PR’

Companies should allow customers to choose the way they want to communicate — be it on the phone, or email, or twitter, or Facebook, or whatever.  As it is now, companies force customers into their own systems and ways of communicating.

Brian Solis, Author of ‘engage’ & ‘the end of business as usual’

If you think about it, that’s a tremendous opportunity to shift negative experiences into positive outcomes. Peer-to-peer influence, not to mention social proof, sways impressions and decisions in either direction. As a business, making an investment in social customer service not only improves sentiment, but also how people perceive your brand. As Amazon’s Jeff Bezos famously said, “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Theme 4: Customer communities

Koen Delvaux, consultant medemerkers

Customer care is the new marketing. Therefore, we should not systematically redirect online customer care to private one-on-one messaging, but train our agents to handle online conversations in public. This is more expensive than scripted one-on-one messaging, but it creates the foundation for a crowdsourced customer care, where a nucleus of brand fans takes away a lot of the first line questions and cost. In the long run, this will turn the current race to the bottom (decreasing contact rate, increasing selfcare and boringly efficient IVRs) into a vivid customer care community. In the future, the differences between brands will the communities that they foster and not the products that they make.

Theme 5: product performance

Frank Eliason, Director Global Social Media at Citi, author of @yourservice (Frank is the inventor of digital customer service through his work at Comcast)

Social media Customer Service, at least in the manner it is conducted today, is a failure. The assumption has been Customers want social care but the reality is they want the products to work as they expect and they want Customer service to be there when they need it. The reality is Customer care, even with all the technology added to it over the past 30 years, has frustrated Customers. Now Customers have a say in your brand message and they are clearly responding that companies are not properly serving them. Companies have been responding by helping those who are loud but not fixing what is broken, sending a message to the world that the only way to get help is blast the brand publicly. I expect, based on current social trends, this will get much worse over the next 2-5 years. Companies will start to get the message and realize the best way to win in social is creating the right experience in the first place.

As mentioned earlier, feel free to add your opinion on how social customer support can remain a differentiator for the future.

If you have further questions for them, please use the comment part of the blog to ask them anything you want, I’m sure they will be happy to help.

You won a prestigious award last week, can you tell us about  it?

Harold: Of course, ING is extremely happy and surprised with its number one position in the Social Media Monitor 5. ING was rewarded with the number one spot in the overall list and in the Corporate category. The Social Media Monitor is an independent survey of the use of social media by the top 100 brands in the Netherlands. This fantastic acknowledgement is an amazing boost, a reward and recognition for all ING’s efforts in the field of social media in recent years.

Erik: The Social Media Monitor is conducted annually by Social Embassy. The aim of the Social Media Monitor is to identify how the top 100 advertisers in the Netherlands use social media to achieve company objectives. Using independent research and an expert jury, the best social media company in the Netherlands is determined. It is a result that we at ING are especially proud of.

Why did you win?

Harold: Over the last few years, we’ve worked consistently hard based on a clearly defined vision with a relevant social media strategy. We have used this to structure our internal organisation and operations and to formulate targets (KPIs).  The experts behind the Social Media Monitor estimated the value of this and our other social media activities, including Jonge Leeuwen (Young Lions), Ondernemers Support (Business support),  Webcare, ING Investment Office, Newsroom, Klantdialoog (Customer Dialogue), Facebook and HR. The jury was also impressed with how we use social media, with openness, transparency and the desire to help consumers as the cornerstones in our dialogue with the same consumers in social media

What are the key strengths of your social media approach?

Harold: A clear focus based on vision, strategy and relevant clear goals and subsequent KPIs has helped us hugely and has brought us to where we are now as ING. To us, it was very simple:  the financial sector and ING have been severely battered when it comes to trust and the use of social media and our presence in social media helps to restore trust in ING.

Erik: Taking ING consumers and customers seriously means taking social media and the conversations on social media seriously. This is why we launched a long-term approach to social media in 2009. In our view, this started by us being one of the first banks to set up a webcare team in that same year. ING consumers and customers began to talk about us and to us via social media channels about our products and services. We couldn’t ignore this. It would be the same as ignoring telephone calls to our customer services department.

Harold: Initially, the focus was on social customer service, helping consumers and customers via social media. This is the basis of social media strategy as we apply it at ING. Subsequently, as a second step, we fairly quickly added the reputation management component and we have gradually progressed with further development based on the concept that we had to offer relevant content to our target group. There was a clear need for this. This is how the Jonge Leeuwen and Ondernemers Support platforms came about and we have further developed our Facebook-page. So that was step three.

 These three steps were also pivotal for the further design of the organisation and formulating KPIs relating to social media. Ultimately, webcare (service), conversation management (relevant content & dialogue) and PR and communications (reputation) collaborate robustly to restore trust in ING by means of social media and we are gradually seeing an improvement in the Net Promotor Score, Return on Engagement score, Coverage/Reach and Sentiment analyses.

This short video gives an impression on how we see the role of social media at ING NL

What are the priorities for next year?

Harold: Basically, we plan to consolidate, more of the same, but more vigorously, better and even more professionally. Social media is developing rapidly and we will continue responding to it. For example, we want to maximise webcare and in particular, conversation management and elevate everything to a higher level. We will be making a cautious move towards ING as a conversation company, as a social company

Steven: You work in the financial industry, not the easiest industry to move forward in with social media. What would you recommend to other people so they can move forward as well?

Erik: Don’t approach social media as the holy grail for all your problems and challenges because it isn’t. Take an old-school marketing approach and look for answers to the questions: Who is your target group in social media? What are they discussing in social media? Where are they positioned in social media? What is the sentiment in relation to your brand/organisation/branch and how can you meet a need as a brand/organisation? Decide what you want to achieve with social media. Don’t twitter for twitter’s sake; don’t open a Facebook page because everybody’s got one. Think before you act and underpin your social media activities with a strategy.

Can social media help to boost customer happiness and drive down service costs?

Erik: In our view, customer satisfaction is always the starting point in social media, and yes, based on our own experience with the efforts of the ING webcare team, for example, it has a positive impact on customer satisfaction.  

Harold: Social media also makes a contribution when it comes to creating enthusiasm and sympathy among consumers and customers. Children of between six and 12 years of age who are interested in football are extremely enthusiastic about our social community, Jonge Leeuwen , for example. This is separate from cost-cutting. We do not aim to use social media to cut costs.

Can social media help to enhance the marketing impact with a lower marketing budget?

Harold: All experts agree. Social media has an impact on the reputation of brands/organisations. This impact is only set to increase. It remains to be seen whether this is always accompanied by lower marketing budgets. Just like the mainstream media or in the ‘ordinary world’, you need to invest to get noticed, generate coverage and reach or to offer relevance as a brand or organisation. This is no different with social media. This is why lots of companies are shifting their budget from mainstream activities to social media activities.  You need to earn attention and positive impact based on social media, sometimes it happens spontaneously and sometimes you have to make an investment. If you do it properly and smartly, you may be able to do it with a reduced budget

1. Pinterest offers more potential for content marketers than Instagram

A lot of content managers are not sure whether they should invest time and resources in these two photo sharing sites. Considering the growth potential of both sites, it is certainly something to look into. About one quarter of the online population knows both sites. The adoption rates are still very low: 3% uses Pinterest and 4% Instagram. Apart from the growth potential, there are also major differences between Pinterest and Instagram. Half of the Pinterest users log on daily as opposed to just 31% of Instagram users. Also, 60% of Pinterest users intend to use the site more often in the future whereas for Instagram users this is “only” 40%.

In addition, our survey shows that Pinterest probably has the biggest potential for brands. 41% of Pinterest users are currently sharing brand-related content on the site, compared to 35% of Instagram users. Both sites do well in this regard, but just as with the overall stats, Pinterest scores better than Instagram.

2. Small window of opportunity for your content

An average consumer is linked to 11 brands on social media. 7 brands are followed in an active way and people are engaging with about 5 brands. So in order to reach consumers on social media, the challenge is to be one of the 11 brands the average consumer follows. When you want to have an engaging relationship, you need to be one of the 5 brands people interact with. Knowing there are a large number of strong brands out there (the usual suspects of course: Coca Cola, Apple, Disney…), this leaves a small window of opportunity for the other companies out there.

3. Social advertising needed to increase reach

Consumers are cutting back on the number of brands they interact with on social media. Also, as a brand, you are not only competing with other brands for the attention of the consumer, you are actually competing with the consumer’s friends. This makes it a difficult battle. Brands should consider promoting their story in order to improve their odds of getting that attention.

4. Fans are not seen as a credible source

Other internet users consider brand fans to be unreliable. Consumers feel that brand fans are biased, so their recommendations have a limited impact. This implies that our content should reach the average consumer as well. Content has a bigger impact when shared by average consumers. Fans are still an ideal way to kick-start the content and spread it to other consumers. The quality of the content will determine to what extent the second layer (after the fans) will share it as well. Layer sharing is becoming more and more important as a content KPI.

5. Consumers want to be involved in the creation of content

Consumers are clear: they want to collaborate with brands they like. The majority of brands often overlook this opportunity in their content marketing plans. Select a small group of relevant consumers and involve them in product improvement, development or broader strategic questions. The use of key consumers as consultants should be part and parcel of a conversation strategy.

If you would like to see more results of this global consumer survey you should definitely have a look at our free research report:

1. Improve your skills on the big existing platforms

The results of our study are clear: the big sites are increasing in size and usage frequency, the small sites are getting smaller. If your conversation strategy includes a presence on social networks, I would focus my energy on the growth potential of those big international platforms. Right now, consumers are clearly not waiting for a new big social network they can join. Consumers are happy with the new social media routines in their life.

2. Be flexible enough to detect unique new sites fast and launch a small-scale project there

Even though the big social network sites are growing, there’s still some room left for unique new sites like Instagram and Pinterest. As Conversation Managers, we must keep an open mind towards new opportunities that bring something unique to the table. Setting up a small experiment with such a new platform creates a first-mover learning effect: first movers have an advantage over others who fail to recognise the opportunities these unique new sites have to offer.

3. Consider social advertising to promote your branded stories

Consumers are limiting the number of brands they interact with on social media. This means that the window of opportunity to interact with consumers is becoming smaller. In order to fight for the attention of consumers we obviously need relevant content, but I would definitely consider investing a slice of my budget in promoting relevant content with my follower base.

4. Be aware that not everybody thinks like you

Let’s face it, Conversation Managers are often social media fanatics. This becomes a threat when the conversation strategy is written for other social media fanatics. In reality, most people join a maximum of 2 social networks. Being active on three sites is already a bit suspect. The moment you start actively following your Klout score you can be certain you’re not an average social media user

5. Adapt social content to mobile content

Everyone knows mobile is booming. Our research confirms this. When more than one in two people are consuming digital content through a mobile device, we need to be ready. From now on, content should be adapted towards mobile platforms. If not, your content may not be read at all.

6. Proactively build a ‘customer consulting board’

Consumers are clear: they want to collaborate with brands they like. The majority of brands often overlook this opportunity in their social media plans. Select a small group of relevant consumers and involve them in product improvement, development or broader strategic questions. The use of key consumers as consultants should be part and parcel of a conversation strategy.

7. Think more about influence than about influencers

A limited number of people are worried about their online influence. Targeting these online influencers is an often used conversation strategy. I would advise not only to look for influencers but to think about influence as well. In my opinion, everyone has influence; it all depends on the context. Think about ways to help people increase their influence on their immediate environment.

8. Start building the marketing department of the future

The organisational model of marketing departments will change in the long run. Marketing departments will need a higher level of agility than they have today. In order to succeed, my guess is that the number of FTEs in marketing departments may decrease. To become more agile, companies may switch to a small strategic team and a small operational team. To implement the projects, they could use the help of specialist contractors. Start looking for interesting parties to build your future marketing department.

9. Show conversational leadership

Invest in your peers. Look for a number of people who are enthusiastic about the conversational plan you made. Help them implement your ideas. The more people that implement your thoughts, the bigger your impact. Too many Conversation Managers stay on their island and focus on the limitations. Turn it around and look for positive people and show them the way to success.

10. Fans have a higher value as a partner than as a ‘medium’

Consumers do not consider brand fans a reliable source when it comes to recommending your products. Consumers see them as a biased source, which diminishes the level of trust in their advice. This does not mean fans are not important. On the one hand, fans can help to spread a message, but there is more. Fans are the ideal group to look to when you need help. Fans can help with your conversation management or they can help improve existing products. Just look at fans from a broader perspective and view them as more than just a medium.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the future of social media integration in companies. hese 10 to-dos are based on the learning’s from our social media around the world report.