Qwest Communications is taking this approach as noted over at MediaPost. The @TalktoQwest is monitored by 7 employees (or company reps as the article states which makes one wonder are they real Qwest employees?) 24 / 7and is designed to help aid customers in near real time regarding services like high-speed Internet, billing, pricing, technical support, and more.

The campaign was done by Room 214 out of Boulder, CO. Founder James Clark had this to say about
addressing customer concerns and providing quick feedback is the first step.

The challenge resides with integrating comments into daily processes. “Companies need to find a way to integrate the feedback in product development,” he said. “Those that do that will have extremely loyal customers for life.”

Others who have adopted this forum to aid in customer service and experience are Comcast, JetBlue, Odwalla, Starbucks and the Travel Channel. All are following the lead of Dell and others who were the earliest adopters of the social media tool. Surely more will get involved which will certainly help those who use Twitter.

Twitter themselves must be thrilled because they are now going to likely see numbers of Twitter users go up so they can access the service if they are a customer of that company.

Gregory Galant, CEO at Sawhorse Media, Brooklyn, N.Y., recently published “The Shorty Report” report, which explores how companies use Twitter for business. He talks about the online reputation monitoring aspect of Twitter as well.

Galant said a push for better customer service via Twitter has helped to diffuse sites like ComcastMustDie.com founded by Bob Garfield. In a post on the Web site, Garfield explains plans to put the Comcast site to rest and redirect traffic to CustomerCircus.net, “where other infamously arrogant corporations will be subjected to power of aggregated rage.”

While Twitter apps are all over the place we are now seeing more and more business applications of Twitter like those use to further develop characters for TV shows. As business folks become more and more savvy could there be the possibility of Twitter generating revenue for the right to use the platform for these kinds of activities? I don’t know. I just figure that has to cross someone’s mind at Twitter at some point with all that annoying monetization talk being thrown around all the time.

The personal nature of Twitter is helping some companies get back in touch with customers and allows opportunities for other programs like offering discounts etc. Looks like we are really starting to scratch the surface of how Twitter as a business tool will impact how we all do business in the foreseeable future.

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Send $2,000 to Dell, which both manufactures and sells the Google Search Appliance, and you’ll get a yellow piece of hardware in return.  You’ll also likely be listed on a page of “Mini Customer Success Stories.”  Some of the companies named there obviously aren’t in it for the link – what does the Arizona Federal Credit Union care about search engine rankings? – but others probably are.

Barry Schwartz points to Neutralize, which is in the business of search engine marketing.  And more than one company’s name ends in “.com” – it’s hard to believe they didn’t notice what they were getting into.

That’s not to condemn this practice – I find it more odd than objectionable, and Schwartz doesn’t believe any nofollow tags are necessary.  He points out, though, “I think Matt would think otherwise.”

Whatever anyone thinks, a change in the near future is unlikely – Schwartz also points out that Scott Woodard documented this practice about six months ago.

He was describing banks but according to a recent survey on customer service the cell phone companies are the lowest on the totem pole.

Politicians like to take popular decisions. So it was no great surprise to hear yesterday’s announcement from Ottawa that it will hold an auction of the wireless spectrum in May 2008. This could mean more competition and lower cellphone rates for Canadians next year. Industry Minister Jim Prentice said that about 105 megahertz of spectrum will be sold to bidders. Forty megahertz will be set aside for newcomers to the industry. Not surprisingly Telus described this as “deeply disappointing” news. I am sure that Bell and Rogers would feel the same way.

The three of them of course form an oligopoly.

An oligopoly exists when a few companies dominate an industry. This concentration often leads to collusion among manufacturers, so that prices are set by agreement rather than by the operation of the supply and demand mechanism.

Canadians pay more to use their cell phones and this is particularly so for broadband data transmission rates. Undoubtedly this has held back the development of the Mobile Web in Canada. This is particularly disastrous for an industry that should be one of Canada’s strengths.

Not surprisingly this news has been greeted with applause by many. What the oligopolists do not realize is that poor customer service creates rebels. After all as someone has suggested, bad news travels 10 times as fast as good news. Many consumers are just waiting to get the cell phone service they deserve. Any well-funded newcomer who can deliver the cell phone goods will find an army of evangelists waiting to spread the word.

Related:

News: Ottawa’s wireless auction could cut cellphone rates

News: Ottawa opens up wireless industry to more competition

Forum: Canadian Cellphone market will be opened to more competition

Blog: Bring on the Cellular Auction

Blog: Cautious Optimism With Wireless Auction Plan

Comments

Google Ready To Bid For Wireless, Maybe

If Google bids for the 700MHz spectrum, they could do so with someone else putting up cash alongside the substantial pile of currency the search ad company has accumulated.

The Wall Street Journal summarized several steps Google has taken with regards to becoming a mobile business player. They left out a couple, namely Google’s acquisitions of Grand Central and portable graphics engine maker Skia earlier this year.

When Google does take that big step by grabbing some of the valuable 700MHz spectrum, they are as likely to do so with another deep-pocketed bidder alongside them as they are to go solo to the auction. That’s speculation by the Journal, citing the usual ‘people familiar with the matter’, but it makes sense for Google to arrive with a partner.

Serving the public with a GoogleNet wireless network should benefit the mobile-using public with less expensive service and broader availability. But serving the public involves customer service, and no one will ever confuse Eric Schmidt with Bruce Nordstrom in that discussion, as Google prefers to shunt its users to newsgroups rather than take questions by email, much less by phone, about its non-revenue generating products.

If Google chose to do so, it could provide world-class customer service. Financially it makes more sense for them to foist that dirty work onto someone else, which makes a partner scenario more likely once the bidding begins.

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Customer Video Reviews are located within the Customer Reviews section of items in the Amazon catalog.

Amazon.com Vice President Colin Bodell said, "We are dedicated to offering our customers an information-rich shopping experience so they can know which products are right for them. The chance to see product demonstrations as submitted by fellow customers is just the latest benefit to shopping on Amazon."

Customers will be able to upload a WMV, MPEG, QuickTime or AVI file to the Customer Reviews Section of any product detail page to post a Customer Video Review on the site. Amazon said the new Flip Video camcorder from consumer electronics maker Pure Digital comes with software that allows users to upload a video to the site.

A variety of video reviews have been added to the site including one for the PlayStation 3, Fisher-Price T.M.X. Tickle Me Elmo, Sony Telephoto Conversion Lens, and the Hasbro Star Wars Darth Vader Voice Changer.

Best Buy’s High-Definition PR

Best Buy starts us out with some smart public relations. A few people have listened to me talk about Best Buy’s HD strategy – from creating HD awareness to ceasing analog TV sales across the chain.

Consider how many customers will call foul over the retailer that sold them an analog set a few months before the switch to HD.

Now we quickly digress from taking something away from customers (and getting high marks) to offering a new service to customers (and getting points off).

ChargeCarte’s Nickel and Dime Strategy

The concept sounds good…get your phone or iPod charged at the airport twice as fast as your own charger can do it.

But charging me for electricity seems more opportunistic than helpful – especially at $3 for 30 minutes for only a 50 percent charge.

This ChargeCarte is located in baggage claim – where all you want to do is exit the airport.

There’s also only one small bench located next to it. If more than one or two people use this at a time, you’ll have to hover and make sure no one walks off with your phone/iPod.

ChargeCarte should have taken this technology upstream. How much would you pay for an adapter that allows you to charge your phone faster?

Something tells me I’m not the target customer.

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Consumer Engagement is also not simply captured on your website, it’s calculated using all touch points in a consumer’s (website, search engine, blog, banner ad, offline media, etc…). Consumer engagement has to be defined by marketing teams and appropriate stake holders so that it can be correlated to repetitive interactions by the consumer.

"Customer engagement is about putting the customer at the centre of everything we do and meeting their needs effectively. It’s about talking to customers about the things that are important to them in the language they use, at the right time and through the channel that is most convenient to them." cScape Annual Survey

Because consumer engagement is so difficult to measure I have compiled a list of trusted resources to help shorten (or potentially lengthen) the search for the right answers:

• iMedia Connection: iMedia Connection: Who Cares About Engagement?
• iMedia Connection: Consumer Engagement: What Does It Mean?
• Clickz: Consumer Engagement: Breaking the Perfect Measurement Myth
• Clickz: Get Ready to Enage with the Engagement Metric
• Read Between the Ps: Consumer Engagement – From Intrusive to Co-creation
• Web Metrics Guru: Consumer Engagement: What Does It Mean?
• Online Spin (Media Post): Are Engagement Believers In Denial?
• Econsultancy: Customer Engagement Survey Results
• WikiPedia: Customer Engagement
• Web Analytics Demystified: How do you calculate engagement? Part 1
• Web Analytics Demystified: How do you calculate engagement? Part II
• Wired Set: Terms of Engagement – Measuring the Active Consumer
• Adobe: Engagement
• Marketing ROI: Consumer Engagement is Measurable
• Dan Greenfield: Consumer Engagement – The New PR Metric
• Occam’s Razor: Engagement, It’s not a metrics, It’s an excuse
• Jim Novo: Measuring Consumer Engagement
• Anil Batra: Engagement, is it a metric or an excuse?
• Post Gazette: Strategies to involve the customer are the hot marketing trend

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Your Customer Focus Rate: 17.39%
You have 4 instances of customer-focused words.

Your Self Focus Rate: 82.61%
You have 15 instances of self-focused words.
You have 4 instances of the Company Name.

You speak about yourself approximately 0,005 times as often as you speak about your customers.

Delta has an ad running on Yahoo! News that takes you to their blog.  The ad copy says change is about offering your two cents worth so Brian promptly gave his two cents to the author of this blog post:

A common thread among the complaints is Google’s failure to respond to customer service e-mails, or users being told their problem would be investigated only to hear nothing back. Some railed at Google for providing no telephone number to call when things go wrong.

Asked about difficulties in getting Google’s attention, Karen said, “We’re always looking for ways to improve.”

As someone who has spent plenty of face and headset time with people in a non-positive frame of mind, I think I can suggest three ways Google can serve its customers better. I’m not a business guru, but to paraphrase Scott Adams, I’ve gnawed an ankle or two in the business world.

First, Google, get a phone number and a call center. You have the technology to support this a lot less expensively in the age of VoIP than traditional copperline bound call centers do.

Avoid the temptation to outsource a call center, in the US or outside. Without naming names, routing your frustrated callers to a modern cube farm, where fanatical managers lose their minds when call handle times start to exceed a given number of minutes per call, will make matters worse.

Those workers won’t care about taking care of the Google customer. Corporate culture doesn’t translate well to outsourcers with sky-high turnover. Not every problem can be solved in 210 seconds.

That brings me to point two. Once you have made the proactive decision to embrace a call center, and bring on a bunch of smiling faces to strap on the headsets, you have to allow them the freedom to solve problems in short order.

That means codifying procedures for things like Checkout refunds and other annoyances that have pushed people to the point of complaining to the Federal Trade Commission. Customer service reps may make mistakes; they may do something to assuage an angry AdWords advertiser that, horrors!, costs Google money.

You smile, suck it up, and fix the issue that caused the problem. Then train people on the solution.

Here’s the third step, one that may be anathema to California’s job-bouncing culture. Invest in the long-term success of these reps. Reward them to the point where universities start doing ‘Loyalty Effect’-type case studies about how well Google treats not just its engineers, but its trench-fighting customer service types.

Why think long term? A veteran rep who knows policies, procedures, and the business well enough to snuff an angry little matchstick in three minutes, can keep a complaint from blazing into a blogosphere inferno. If you want examples of those, the Consumerist blog has loads of stories.

Customer service isn’t as sexy or interesting as rolling out new products. Infrastructure and support issues never are, but neither are major news outlets citing your FTC complaints at length.

Wal-Mart Ends Phone Option For Online Customers

A Wal-Mart spokesperson says the company has improved its online customer service features and that users will be able to find the information they need without having to call a customer service representative.

"We’ve recently launched an enhanced online self-help tool that enables customers to more efficiently manage and track their orders online, and includes an improved ‘help’ section to easily search and find immediate information and answers to questions,"  Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Colella, told Computerworld. "With the new online self-help tool, we’re no longer publishing the toll-free customer service number on our Web site for online-related orders."

Colella said the majority of the calls to the online customer support number dealt with inquiries concerning order tracking. Wal-Mart thinks the new online self-help tool will offer its customers all the information they need.

Bruce Temkin, an analyst at Forrester Research sees it another way. "This doesn’t make sense, because our research shows if you ask consumers, even online consumers, what channels they prefer, there’s an overwhelming bias for preferring to talk to a human being with any customer service issue," he said. "To turn a blind eye to the enormous preference that consumers have, I think, is a big mistake."

Customers who shop in Wal-Mart’s physical stores will still be able to call 1-800-WALMART for help but Temkin says that will lead to frustration for Wal-Mart’s online customers and cause the average handle time for calls to increase. Instead he recommends that Wal-Mart should have slowly integrated the new feature online and phased out the customer service number as customer became familiar with the new system.