Brent Leary is a legendary figure in Social Customer Relations Management (SCRM). He and Paul Greenberg are practically the fathers of the movement, and Brent’s life is packed with travel, conference appearances, and speaking engagements. He thinks of himself as “an introvert,” but when he talks to crowds he tries to have “a conversation—just with a larger group.” At a recent BlogWorld session, interest was so high that “Jacob Morgan and I had to practically kick people out and suggest it was time for cocktails.” Brent is excited to see the trending interest in social media and customer relationship management. He will be teaching a course for the University of Toronto’s Center for CRM—kicking off the first class of its kind—at the end of November. The Center signals a transition taking place that confirms social CRM’s new stature. Both Greenberg and Leary are affiliated with Social Media Today, with sponsorship from Microsoft to conduct podcasts for the CRM Playaz. These will be aired on www.thecustomercollective.com in the near future. I interviewed Brent by telephone on 10/29/10. ABS: What’s your view of the current state of social CRM? BL: There’s an entirely different dynamic with the customer from even a few years ago. The customer has a lot of power, and they know it. They are saying, “We’ll tell you when you are doing well. Listen to us, we’ll tell you how to improve, and if you don’t listen, we’ll leave you and go to a competitor.” Then there’s the very important fact that they also say “We’re willing to pay you more for this intimate, premium experience—10% more—accordingly to a recent American Express study.” You want to conduct customer service and support in a way that encourages these customers to collaborate, engage, and become advocates. In making the transition from customer to social customer, they become invested in your company. ABS: You’re describing an entirely new definition of “customer.” BL: These folk are savvy, and they want companies to pay attention. The traditional vendor/customer relationship is dead. Today’s customer expects you to value them for more than the financial transaction. It’s not an expectation, it’s a demand. Customers who don’t find what they are looking for from a company will just move on to competitors who will understand how to engage them. ABS: Wow, this must create some challenges for management. BL: I was at a summit recently, and the five executives on the panel talked about how social media is the main thing that keeps them up at night, because they know that there is a huge pool of people out there talking about them. And that channel is always on. It’s understandable that they worry about that, but it is really an opportunity. A lot of companies are coming to grips with that. Dell’s social marketing success has shined a light on using social tools to get customers involved. The tide is turning. ABS: What does this shift mean for a company’s customer service and support center? BL: The main benefit of social CRM is that you can leverage robust CRM tools to create better experiences and advocacy. In the social age, customer service is the new marketing, and the best promotion you can ever do is help the customer solve their problem—and then help them promote your company through the social channels. A lot of companies are still focused on marketing and promotion, but are tacking on “the listening thing” that they’ve heard about. But you can’t listen and then push out the same stuff to customers. That’s not what they want. They want you to act on what they’re saying to you. They want to be treated as equals, and not just when they’re writing the check. Network Solutions has been doing a small business survey since 2008. This year for the first time, the competitiveness of small businesses, in their own estimation, declined. They said it was too hard to get their name out and come up with creative ideas to entice customers. But on the flip side, they say the biggest competitive advantage they can have is customer service. This is big contradiction to me. If you were doing customer service right, you would be seeing results because customers would be giving you the better ideas and you’d be able to differentiate. ABS: I’ve been reading about a “customer care model” . . . BL: Yes, Cisco has created a social customer care maturity model that has five levels, from listening all the way up to integrating video into the customer service process. On the scale of 1-5, most companies are in the 2-3 range, they use social media to listen and promote, but they’re not using it for service and not integrating it into the service process. Customer service inquiries may get generated as a by-product of listening to customers on social channels, but if they are not integrated into the customer service process, they create problems. The last thing you want a customer to hear is, “Call the 800 number.” That just turns people off. ABS: What can companies do? BL: Companies need to facilitate the opportunity for customers to interact with each other and employees. If they can build the relationships, lower cost, and have less wasted effort, they can think proactively about building the customer base—not just retaining existing customers but finding new ones. When you do this, you’re creating an “organic sales force.” You turn customers into an army of advocates and they help you close—all because you’re empowering these folks, and collaborating with them. “I’m not just a customer anymore, I’m a participant, I have a special role.” ABS: Listening is great, but I don’t think it’s the end of the social media story, right? I assume that there needs to be action, too. BL: The whole idea of being able to listen to targets and prospects should be to listen to their real time pain, work to understand that pain, and then connect with them based on how your company can help them solve the pain. ABS: So how’s that going in the big picture? BL: It’s a strategy that’s moving fast, but we’re far from getting this right. Lots of companies are listening “with old ears,” listening to validate their own ideas, rather than looking to understand the customers’ ideas. Companies tend to ask questions that are important to them, rather than to their customers. Listening can be such a powerful strategy, because we will find out what’s really important to customers. If we use tools to listen and then help our customers and make things easier for them, that’s a big leg up on creating content, product, and services to connect with them. Companies who are used to old thinking do things in the wrong order. They start with the product or service and then look for the customer they can sell it to. Instead, they should be finding ways to know the customer and the market before investing time and money into an unknown. Opening a raw-food vegan restaurant in South Georgia may be a great idea, but it’s not a great idea if you go in making assumptions you haven’t backed up by asking customers if it’s a good idea. Until recently, we didn’t have the tools to integrate the old ways with the new, and for the more entrenched companies, change can be difficult—both because of corporate culture and the logistics of changing rigid processes. More agile companies will succeed. The flip side of this is that sometimes the young folks throw out the old, and that doesn’t work, either. Companies that integrate the traditional and new social paradigm will be able to create better processes and have much more success in meeting goals and objectives. ABS: What are the benefits of the new automation tools like Assistly? BL: When top management understands the opportunity that exists in customer service now with these new, powerful tools—and adopts them—a higher percentage of customer interaction
s are successful. Studies have demonstrated that when companies upgrade and changed their systems and tools to be more focused on problem resolution, they are able to deflect service requests and employee satisfaction goes way up. The outcome of that is that companies are more successful. One of the main benefits of the new automation tools for customer service and support is that they can help companies provide better experiences for advocates. The more companies use social tools to create better interactions and tools, rather than a “push” marketing tool, the better. ABS: Why the resistance? BL: A lot of companies are accustomed to having a big competitive advantage by having a less open communication platform. They are used to fewer voices, but in our open world of 6 billion voices, that doesn’t work anymore. Companies are still not comfortable about potential negative talk, on their turf. There is still the need for transformation of the culture. Customers are going to be talking about you, whether you want them to or not. Wikipedia is evidence that the silos don’t work anymore. The tools are getting better, allowing us to get a fuller picture quickly and analyze it faster. We’re moving toward more integrated and automated solutions, but the biggest thing is the mindset of the company to leverage listening to create better customer experiences. ABS: What does the new customer service agent look like in this model? BL: The more successful will be really interested in the customer—not just from a standpoint of product or service—but in their challenges and what they want to accomplish. If you can leverage the tools to show that you understand their needs, and go past creating a better customer experience and create a better life experience for the customer, you’ve got a customer for life. Use tools to get a better grip, be authentic with serving them, and provide a better life experience. You’ll be both an advocate and a representative for your company. That’s what we should be aiming for. ABS: What can companies do to help their CRM staff? BL: Well, good tools allow us to communicate and collaborate in a deeper and richer way than the phone. These new, sleek tools create more and more opportunities on ways to collaborate. Companies that dismiss them will lose out. It’s 2010; it’s hard to believe that a lot of companies don’t get it. If we use them to full advantage, we should be able to learn more and feel more about the customer. If you don’t have people in place to do this discovery, a competitor will. Having the tools and using them effectively are two separate interests. Reps must be empowered by the company to act for the customer. Combine the right people with the right tools, you’ll see serious results. ABS: Can you give me your outlook on social CRM? What do you see near-term and further down the road? BL: I’m seeing a lot more of the social focus moving from pure marketing into customer service and customer experience. We’ll see immediate benefits from that. Customers will stay around longer—and it’s a lot less expensive to retain current customers than to bring new business. Social is less expensive, and keeping the folks you already have is a quick win. A lot of companies are starting to get a sense of that. I think we’ll see this trend play out over this next year. There will be lots more emphasis on tools for customer retention. This is still early days; the culture of the organization is the only thing that can stand in the way. Funny thing is, though, social media and tools should enhance our ability to engage other humans, not replace it—companies can’t use the old mindset with the new tools.