Incorporating Social Media and Customer Service Mary Naylor VIPdesk Blake Cahill Visible Technologies 040610

VIPdesk Webinar Series April 6, 2010 Cover Slide Incorporating Social Media and Customer Service: How to Develop a Strategy Today’s Presenter: Blake Cahill: SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies Today’s Host: T d ’ H t Mary Naylor: CEO, VIPdesk Welcome to today s Webinar! The presentation will start shortly. today’s Today’s presentation is being broadcast through the Internet. You do not need a conference dial-in number. To h T hear t d ’ webinar, simply t today’s bi i l turn th volume up on your speakers and the l k d you will be able to hear the presentation via your computer.

About Today’s Host Mary Naylor CEO VIPdesk • Mary Naylor is the CEO and Co-founder of VIPdesk • VIPdesk provides concierge-quality contact center solutions f l di l i for leading global b l b l brands through our d h h nationwide network of home-based demographically matched Brand Ambassadors, Concierge, and Customer Service Representatives. • VIPdesk provides its clients Concierge, Contact Center, and Social Media support services. • VIPdesk i VIPd k is continually recognized through numerous ti ll i d th h awards, including the Inc. 500, Inc. 5000, NCBEA Business Ethics Award, Stevie Awards for Women in Business and Smart CEO Future 50. Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 2

About Today’s Presenter Blake Cahill SVP of Marketing Visible Technologies • Blake is the SVP of Marketing with Visible Technologies • He develops and leads all of Visible Technologies’ activities/programs related to sales, business development, brand development, market positioning press and analyst relations lead development, and thought relations, development leadership. • Blake is passionate about the role of social media in corporate communications and is a frequent speaker on the influence of social media. • He is a member of WOMMA and MTIX. Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 3

Company Background • Visible Technologies Powered by the industry-leading truCAST technology platform, Visible Technologies helps clients successfully monitor, analyze, and participate in social media conversations, as well as protect their reputations online – Founded in 2005 – Headquarter i Bellevue, WA with 95+ employees d in ll ih l – Sample Customers: Microsoft, Xerox, Autodesk, Dr. Pepper • Awards Won:

Today’s Agenda ● Setting goals and objectives for your social media efforts ● Getting buy-in ● Resources required to successfully implement a social media plan ● Tools to use ● Measurement of success ● And more! Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 5

Why i Social Media Wh is S i l M di Important to Customer Service Organizations? g

Social Media Has Exploded

4 OUT OF 5 AMERICANS USE SOCIAL MEDIA. Forrester, The Growth Of Social Technology Adoption, 2009

of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

of consumers trust peer recommendations

of those users blog or tweet daily

CONSUMERS NOW CONTROL THE (In other words) CONVERSATION… CONVERSATION

DON T DON’T PANIC

Social Strategy Challenges & Opportunities pp

Social Media Challenges for Organizations • Overwhelming amounts of data—determining what to track and analyze • S Separating i i h and issues from useless d i insights d i f l data—identifying id if i who and what matters • Communicating with your customers in an organized organized, effective manner • Coordination of ownership/participation across the organization • ROI measurements

Benefits of Driving & Engaging with Social Media Reputation Management M t Customer Service Competitive Marketing Intelligence

Adoption spans the enterprise from: Marketing, Operations, Sales, and Customer Support Research and Innovation Strategic Trade Promotion Management Product and Services Positioning Customer Promotion Management Customer Support Customer Relationships Enterprise Business Intelligence Integration Identify Consumer Segmentation Trend and Sentiment analysis Marketing Relationship Management Manage Crisis Communications Reputation Management Tactical Monitor Brand & Image Listen & Learn Engage & Respond Be a proactive part of the conversation Adapt to Changing Market Conditions By Listening and Learning any organization will more effective Engage with and Respond to customer needs. Empower customers and create loyal and satisfied customers

Developing a D l i Customer Focused Social Media Strategy gy

Social Strategy Objectives Objectives for Social programs need to be clearly outlined so that team members understand the bigger picture surrounding their individual roles. Some common goals include: • Changing customer service perceptions from negative to neutral or pos t e positive • Providing ‘fence sitters’ (neutral and mixed sentiment) with technical information and guidance to promote educated purchasing decisions while increasing positive sentiment • Driving traffic and technical discussions back to the company’s own forum and blogs • Building relationships with key influencers (top authors) • Building brand awareness • Promoting special events i i l 22

Getting corporate buy-in • It is necessary to have corporate buy-in in order for any customer-facing program to succeed • Develop a plan and present hard data re: the benefits of social customer service to the corporate bottom line 23

The Do’s d Don’ts Th D ’ and D ’t of An Effective Social Media Strategy gy

Before Getting Started…Ask yourself… • What do I want to know? – What customers think about my company, competitors, service levels, products, etc.? – Issues or problems with my company's’ offerings? company s • Who needs to know? – Executive team, service and support staff, managers, sales and marketing department? • What do I want to do with this info? – Improve my offerings, stay competitive, retain customers? • Wh Where are my relevant consumers online? l t li ? – yelp, citysearch, community forums, twitter, review sites? • What are the right topics to monitor? – What key words or phrases should you be monitoring? • What tools should I use? – What’s available to monitor and measure social media? What s

Begin with a Framework 1 Listen 2 Learn 3 Measure 4 Engage 5 Repeat! Listen to find Learn from the Measure the Engage with the right wisdom of the impact on your consumers and conversations, crowd about brand and key influencers sites and online customer benchmark to change communities perceptions and against your negative experiences competitors to perception and with your improve your build brand p products and b business loyalty y y services and competitors’

DON’T MARKET CREATE YOUR MESSAGE MESSAGE… SOCIAL EXPERIENCES

SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS MUST BE ALL-INCLUSIVE

SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS MUST BE VIBRANT

SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS MUST BE AUTHENTIC

SOCIAL CONVERSATIONS MUST BE TRANSPARENT

Scaling Social Programs Scaling the Program Pilot & Listen Engagement Strategy Expansion •Involvement for engagement will depend on the type: Program marketing, marketing crisis Development D l t management, customer service, tech support Direct Outreach •Full time engagers should be able to respond to Indirect approximately 20 – 60 threads i t l th d Engagement per day •Most companies will start with 1 – 3 part time, and ramp Learn up to 2 – 3 full time engagers or more, ddepending on di volume and complexity of Listen content Strategy based on solid understanding of Influencer needs 32

Defining Components • A ti Actionable C t t bl Content • It’s important to identify for engaging team members what content is considered to be actionable, or engagement-worthy, content. Examples of commonly flagged content appropriate for engagement include: • Posts with positive, neutral, or mixed sentiment • Posts written within the past 5 days, or still have active comments • Posts where users are asking questions and requesting more information • Posts that contain inaccurate information about your brand or product • Blacklisted Content • Sometimes users will need to refrain from responding to particular types of content or sites where corporations are strictly prohibited from participation without paid subscription. Examples of commonly blacklisted content include: • Posts that are flaming raging or use excessive profanity flaming, raging, • Posts that are older than 5 days, or no longer have active comments • Posts on sites ‘X’, ‘Y’, and ‘Z’ which prohibit corporate participation • Pricing Discussions 33

Five Tips for Success • Build strategy with scalability in mind • Monitoring should answer business questions • Execute ‘disciplined participation’ • Measure and modify y • Strategy + people + technology + services 34

Be Where Customers Are • Don’t just participate where your CEO thinks you should be • Id if where your customers are and d l a Identify h d develop presence where they can easily communicate with y you • Determining the forums in which to participate should be an early part of your research and planning 35

How to Measure Success

Determine Success Metrics Early – Where’s the ROI? • Conversation volume • Author Influence • Conversation Sentiment • Relevance How big is What is the space? the overall Who’s sentiment important? ? How well are my engagements doing? What sites are How much they on? is relevant? What’s the overall topic breakdown?

Success Metrics - Sentiment Analysis Tracking changes in sentiment of conversations overtime (in conjunction with actions t k by marketers ti taken b k t or organizations to move this indicator) is a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that most best-in-class organizations have adopted. Note: Our client data suggests that typically, less than 25% of statements made about any given topic within the social media space contain sentiment.

Case Study: DIRECTV y

Listen Act Learn Adapt [ to immediate needs ] d d [ to change b h best practices ] Listen Again [ for impact ]

Case Study #2 You Do Not Control The Message g Our Loyal Customer

Acting on LA LA over 30 days Listen Act Learn Adapt

Listen Act Learn Adapt Listen closely. i l l Act on what you hear. Learn what is important. Adapt Business Practices. p = Loyal Customers + Relevant Products & Services

Questions Thank You… Blake Cahill SVP of Marketing, Visible Technologies blake@visibletechnologies.com g On twitter at: @bcahill www.visibletechnologies.com 45

Upcoming VIPdesk Webinars • April 27: Learn how to improve your customer experience via a home-based team • May 11: Social Media: How it Fits Into Your Customer Marketing and Retention Strategy • May 25: Virtual Customer Care and the Financial Services Industry For more information or to register for the VIPdesk Webinar series, visit www.vipdesk.com. Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 46

Thank You for Attending! Blake Cahill SVP of Marketing blake@visibletechnologies.com www.twitter.com/bcahill www.visibletechnologies.com Mary Naylor CEO mnaylor@vipdesk.com www.twitter.com/vipdesk www.vipdesk.com (703) 837-3501 Confidential & Proprietary VIPdesk Information 47

Website: http://www.vipdesk.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/vipdesk Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vipdesk LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/vipdesk YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/vipdesk Via RSS: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/23095083.rss Confidential- Proprietary VIPdesk Information 1

Incorporating Social Media and Customer Service Mary Naylor VIPdesk Blake Cahill Visible Technologies 040610

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