Web-Based Tools as Part of a Customer
Care Strategy
By:
Martin Malden
Abledragon Marketing
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Improve Customer Experience, Reduce Costs
Why use standard, Web-Based tools as part of a Customer
Service strategy?
– Cheap and scalable
– Allows quick, easier damage limitation
– Enables complaint pre-emption
– Will enhance your reputation
– Easier message management to counter rumours and press
positions
– Creates a technology savvy image
– Creates a Good Customer Experience
If You Hang Out Where Your Customers Are You Have a Better
Chance of Understanding Them – And of Them Understanding
You
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Improve Customer Experience, Reduce Costs
What Web-Based Tools?
– Twitter
– Google Alerts
– Blogs
All Standard, Easily Accessible, Used By Your Customers and
Free
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Improve Customer Experience, Reduce Costs
What Do They Do?
– Twitter
• Micro-blogging service
• A place where people vent their frustrations
• A place to pick up on complaints and deal with them so you can:
– Save customers
– Prevent problems becoming complaints
– Create goodwill
– Scotch rumours
– Manage your reputation
• Allows two-way near real-time conversations in 140 characters
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

What Our Customers Are Saying About Us On Twitter
(Names Hidden to Protect the Innocent)
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

How Do We Use Twitter?
• Assign one person to monitor Twitter throughout the day
– Not a full time job – can be doing other things concurrently
• Set up a search on <your company>, check in every hour or 2
for new items
• Check through the items & reply to complaints
– Get details
– Take ownership
– Manage thru to completion
It really couldn’t be easier
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Benefits
• Immediate:
– Can pre-empt customer complaints
– Can save customers
– Creates a reputation for <Your Company> of being plugged in,
tech savvy etc. (In line with being an ICT leader)
– Extremely cheap to implement
• Longer term:
– Can lay the foundation for moving to a more web centric
customer care strategy, which will bring:
• Improved customer experience
• Scalability
• Cost savings.
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Who Else Is Doing This?
– Comcast
– Verizon
– ComScore
– Southwest Airlines
– Network Solutions
– Firefox
– Disqus (A web based comment management service for online
publishers)
To Name But a Few
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Other Web-Based Tools
Google Alerts
– Notification whenever <your company> is mentioned on a Web
Page that Google has indexed:
• Blogs
• News Releases
• Forums
• Chat Rooms
– Not as immediate as Twitter, but these places can get a lot of
eyeballs
– Still gives an opportunity to get involved in the conversation and
manage your reputation
The Blogs and Forums Online (And Twitter) Are Where The
Most Damage Is Done To Your Reputation and Where Most
Stories Grow
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Other Web-Based Tools
Blogs:
– An effective communication channel through which you can keep
customers advised of current issues:
• New products or services
• Service outages and progress towards resolution
• Changes to (for example) bill formats, other T’s & C’s
• Progress on public interest issues (like results, new regulatory moves, etc)
– Allows for 2 way interactions, so
• Customers/readers can respond to articles
• Readers can ask questions (which you can respond to)
• Readers can propose new products/services
Easily Maintained on the Main <your company.com> Page and
Enables Genuine a Conversation With Your Customers
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

Other Web-Based Tools
Cost to Implement:
– Google Alerts:
• Part of 1 person’s job to check the alerts each day and take appropriate
action
• Alerts themselves are free
– Blogs:
• There should be an editor in charge of this as it can be a powerful
communication tool. (Not a full time job, though)
• This needs to be monitored for comments from readers so they can be
responded to.
• Blog software is free to install on our servers and can be customised to the
corporate branding.
– Promotion
• Some promotion to let people know the blog is there & encourage visitors.
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong

And finally…
If we don’t listen to and interact with our customers they’ll find
someone else who will talk to them.
And it’s SO cost-effective to do..!
Thank You!
Abledragon Marketing
4A, 181 Wanchai Road,
Hong Kong