The Social Customer Manifesto

This Is, Hands Down, The Best Thing I Read All Day

"I Am Not A Brand": http://bit.ly/99NRwU

The killer pull-quote: "We can, if we group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial..."

Is Android Destined to be the Windows of Smartphones?

GREAT post. Is Android Destined to be the Windows of Smartphones?

Some interesting parallels between the mobile war between Android and Apple...and how it may be tracking the same battle we saw between Windows and Apple a generation ago.

More On Where "Social" Fits Between Customer and Vendor

Interesting take on how social media have affected the early stages of a relationship with a customer.  Slides 8 and 13, in particular, show an interesting contrast between the "old" way of cramming things down a customer's throat, vs. at least one view of how that interaction has changed as a result of the fact that we are all significantly better informed as customers before we ever even pick up the phone the first time.

(via Axel Schultze)

Link to presentation

Selling Out

Two things to read on the "how social media intersects with sales" front today.  

1)  "How Social Media Are Ruining Your Lead Qualification Strategy." Here's the salient bit, from Charles Green.

"CRM systems used to capture all the dialogue—between seller and customer.  Only now, they’ve realized that was only 5% of the real dialogue.  The other 95% of the real dialogue happens between customers."

 2)  From Transactions to Community, which looks at the phenomenon from a slightly different perspective, and arrives at a similar place.

#crm #vrm

An Awesome Way To Get People To Share Your Story

Emotional, awe-inspiring stories are more likely to be shared online, says John Tierney of the New York Times.  In his column Will You Be E-mailing This Column? It's Awesome, Tierney cites a study done at the University of Pennsylvania that finds the following:

"More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed, the researchers found, and positive articles were shared more than negative ones. Longer articles generally did better than shorter articles, although Dr. Berger said that might just be because the longer articles were about more engaging topics. (The best way to test that, he said, would be for The Times to run shorter and longer versions of the same article that would be seen by different readers.)

Surprising articles, like one about free-range chickens on the streets of New York, were also more likely to be e-mailed — which was a hardly a surprising discovery, of course. But the researchers also kept finding popular articles with a quality that went beyond surprise.

“If I went into my classroom dressed up like a pirate, that would be surprising, but it wouldn’t be awe-inspiring,” Dr. Berger said. “An article about square watermelons is surprising, but it doesn’t inspire that awed feeling that the world is a broad place and I’m so small.”

Building on prior research, the Penn researchers defined the quality as an “emotion of self-transcendence, a feeling of admiration and elevation in the face of something greater than the self.”

They used two criteria for an awe-inspiring story: Its scale is large, and it requires “mental accommodation” by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way." (emphasis added)

That last line was the one that really hooked me.  At an intuitive level, I think we all get this, yet it's not immediately apparent why.

Doc Searls has written quite a bit over the years on the concept of "authority," linking the meaning of the word to its root, author.  In 2007, he wrote:

"What we call 'authority' is the right we give others to author us, to enlarge us."

I think that's the link.  If we've read (or seen, or heard, or experienced) something that has changed us, perhaps we feel a need to share that change with others.  Furthermore, if we have allowed ourselves to be authored...again, literally, we've allowed ourselves to be written to...that means we have interacted with something that is, at some level, larger and more powerful than ourselves.

And that's awesome.

photo: chuck revell

The Big List of Social Business Presentations from the Social Media Executive Summit

Last week, I participated in the outstanding Social Business Executive Summit.  In case you weren't able to attend in real-time, here are links to every slide and presentation from the three-day event.  Social media FTW!

Session 1: May 25, 8-9 a.m. PDT [slides]

The CEO's Challenge: Creating and Leading a Profitable Social Business Strategy

The world has changed. Are you ready to deal with the Social Customer? Our opening speakers will share insights and real-world examples to inspire you to lead you organization to success!

John Todor, The Whetstone Edge
Social Strategies for Adapting to the New Normal

Axel Schultze, Social Media Academy
Executing a Social Business Strategy

Christopher Carfi, Cerado
Trends to Watch in Mobile and Social Business

Session 2: May 25, 10-11 a.m. PDT — Sponsored by Marketo [slides]

Transforming Marketing to Listen, Influence and Drive Sales-Ready Leads

In case you were wondering, the days of 'spray and pray' marketing are over. Learn how social marketing can help you engage, build your brand and yes, still generate valuable leads for the sales force.

Don Bulmer, SAP
Understanding Stakeholder Brand Perceptions

Maria Pergolino, Marketo
Marketing Optimizations to Create More Sales-Ready Leads and Drive Revenue

Mitch Lieberman, Comity Technology Advisors
Building Trust to Engage B2B Prospects Online

Session 3: May 26, 8-9 a.m. PDT — Sponsored by RightNow Technologies [slides]

Best Practices to Create Online Communities to Engage Customers and Increase Loyalty

Creating successful online communities requires a whole lot more than just a web site. Learn the different options and how to bring your community come to life to create business value.

Vanessa DiMauro, Leader Networks
A Strategic Framework for Success

Tatyana Kanzaveli, Social CRM World
Types of Communities in the Digital Ecosystem

Jason Mittelstaedt, RightNow Technologies
RightNow and the Social Customer Experience

Session 4: May 26, 10-11 a.m. PDT — Sponsored by InsideView [slides]

Transforming Sales to Align with Social Buyers and Close More Deals

Can sales be social? Sure, but not just by using social media with yesterday's sales tactics. Learn new social sales models to increase sales performance with social buyers.

Mark Parker, Smart Selling
Creating a New Social Sales Model

Umberto Milletti, InsideView
Customer 2.0: Finding New Buyers in the Era of Social Media

Axel Schultze, Social Media Academy
Pioneers Using Social Selling Techniques

Session 5: May 27, 8-9 a.m. PDT — Sponsored by Jive [slides]

Best Practices to Create a High-Performance Organization with Employee Collaboration

Join this session to explore new tools and strategies for using social media with your employees. Learn how internal collaboration can dramatically improves overall business performance.

Jacob Morgan, Chess Media Group
Integrated Approach to Tools, Culture and Adoption

Nathan Rawlins, Jive
How Employee Communities Increase Collaboration And Productivity

Adrienne Corn, VENTUS
Maximizing Social Media Use in Human Resources

Session 6: May 27, 10-11 a.m. PDT — Sponsored by Genesys [slides]

Transforming Customer Service/Support to Profit from the Wisdom of Crowds

Social support communities can help you engage with customers to solve problems and co-create solutions. Put your customers to work to help each other, while improving your bottom line.

John Moore, Swimfish
Engaging Customers with Support Communities

Eric Tamblyn, Genesys
Transforming Tribal Communities and Knowledge into Customer Engagement

Bob Thompson, CustomerThink
Getting the ROI from "CrowdService"

If You Continue To Send Emails To The CEO, A Cease And Desist Letter May Be Sent To You

Wow.  AT&T customer Giorgio G. sent two inquiries to AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson, and received a threat of a Cease and Desist letter for his effort.  The back story:

Giorgio writes:

"Today I decided to voice my displeasure with the AT&T Wireless new and “improved” data plans directly to the CEO.  This was the 2nd email in as many weeks (I wanted to see if they’d bump up my phone upgrade eligibility date given that I spend $110/month with them and their normal customer service reps are powerless in this regard.)  

To my surprise, I received this voicemail (click on the “click to play” link above to hear it) from AT&T’s executive response staff.  The gist is:

Thanks for the feedback, and if you bother our CEO again, we’re going to send you a cease and desist letter. 

Wow.  I was expecting a “hey thanks and so long” at best.  So what did I send that was so offensive?  Here it is:

Thanks for making the switch to a Sprint HTC Evo an even easier decision.  I don’t think even Steve Jobs can spin 2GB for $25/month as a good thing for the consumer.  I may not use  2GB/month today, but the point of these devices (iPad 3g, iPhone 4G, etc.) is that we’ll be able to do more and your network either can’t handle it, or you’re just trying to squeeze more money out of your customers.  The $15/month 200MB plan is just a crappy anchor price that makes the $25 plan look like a better deal than it really is, given that the $30/”unlimited” plan goes away.

 Please don’t have one of your $12/hour “Executive Relations” college students call me – I’ve found them to be generally poorly informed (Engadget.com readers know more than they do about AT&T) and they have little  authority to do anything sensible. 

This is simply a soon-to-be former customer feedback.

Regards,

Giorgio G.

So in the end, I’m definitely switching to the HTC Evo, and cancelling my iPhone & iPad 3G AT&T services - I don’t want to give my money to a company that is bothered by its customers, and threatens them legally to prove it."

Listen to the voicemail that Giorgio received here.

AT&T has since apologized, but holy cow, guys.  C'mon.

hat tip:  susan steade at GMSV