How SMBs Can Achieve Social Media Success

Editor's Notes

1. Key points: Flexible deployments across the Small, Midmarket and Large deployment customer demographics. Microsoft CRM provides a server architecture that is designed for the sized deployments of its customers.
2. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
3. Give Saturn as an example here (crap cars but a great, unique customer experience) ; Apple Store experience unique vs most electronic retailers (Genius check-out/no line ups; consultation appointments; space reflects Apple brand – as does the online presence) – added next layer of consumer affinity to already great products; applied this to developer community as well, stimulating App development (at a much higher rate than RIM) Gartner says: Consumers' perceptions are that Consumers competing brands are increasingly similar. Only 21% of the 444 brands in Brand Keys annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index survey had any points of product or service differentiation that were meaningful to 18-to-65-year-old consumers. Brand differentiation is becoming less about the physical attributes of a product or the terms and conditions of a service. The availability of the product or service and its pricing provides less differentiation as organizations become more global. Organizations are using the same suppliers, hiring the same executives and educating their employees at the same universities. It is inevitable that differences will diminish and this can be seen by comparing Brand Keys study in 2003, when 30% of the brands in that study had meaningful product or service differentiation. As a result, customers' buying decisions are becoming less influenced by rational factors and more by emotional factors, particularly for wealthier consumers. The more emotional the buying influences are, the more customer loyalty depends on the emotional relationship that the customer has with the supplier. Action Item: Focus on how to differentiate the brand based on the customer experience. But beware of relying too much on charismatic company figureheads (such as Martha Stewart and Richard Branson) to achieve the goal. They will be unable to sustain differentiation in the long term — after they have gone .
4. Truly Loyal Customers also want companies to listen to their ideas for product design and improvement (Ford F-Series) – and would love to be engaged by the company in brand building, as they feel they are pro-actively doing this already and would like to be recognized for it Defintions: Id = the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression. Ego = Psychoanalysis . the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment. Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the ego is the organised, realistic part; and the super-ego plays the critical and moralising role.[1] Even though the model is "structural" and makes reference to an "apparatus", the id, ego, and super-ego are functions of the mind rather than parts of the brain and do not necessarily correspond one-to-one with actual somatic structures of the kind dealt with by neuroscience. The concepts themselves arose at a late stage in the development of Freud's thought: the structural model was first discussed in his 1920 essay "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" and was formalised and elaborated upon three years later in his "The Ego and the Id". Freud's proposal was influenced by the ambiguity of the term "unconscious" and its many conflicting uses. The terms "id," "ego," and "super-ego" are not Freud's own. They are latinisations by his translator James Strachey. Freud himself wrote of "das Es," "das Ich," and "das Über-Ich"—respectively, "the It," "the I," and the "Over-I" (or "Upper-I"); thus to the German reader, Freud's original terms are more or less self-explanatory. Freud borrowed the term "das Es" from Georg Groddeck, a German physician to whose unconventional ideas Freud was much attracted (Groddeck's translators render the term in English as "the It").[2] Contents [hide]
5. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
6. Drugstore.com is an example of a company that has successfully integrated social channels into their customer service processes to create more intimate customer relationships. And their success began with listening….
7. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
8. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
9. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
10. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.
11. Take your existing web customer service to the mobile web…Same experience, different devices
12. Furniture retailer Arhaus has also turned to the iPad to deliver a new customer process and improved experience. Arhaus is outfitting their 52 delivery drivers with iPads that come equipped with applications displaying images that help customers with ideas/options for setting up their new furniture.  Open delivery, the driver hands the iPad over to the customer, where a “welcome” application guides the customer through an on-boarding process.  Additionally, there are applications that integrate with workforce management systems.  So if a piece of furniture arrives at a customer’s house with a problem, the driver can order a replacement piece right from the iPad.  While there is an initial investment, the long-term benefits include: Cost Savings: Arhaus anticipates an annual savings of $100,000 by reducing paper and related operational expenses. Going Green: The iPad helps the Arhaus operations team reach their goal of going paperless. Arhaus has a long history of green initiatives. In addition to using wind energy, recycled paper and soy-based ink for its catalog production, Arhaus has never used wood from endangered rainforests in creating products, focusing instead on renewable resources, plantation-grown hardwoods and recycled materials. Improved Customer Service: Due to the real-time, web-based receipt system TOA is developing for the iPad app, if product damage is found when Arhaus delivers an item the warehouse will immediately be notified and a replacement will be sent on the next truck. This is a first in the retail furniture industry. Ease of Use: The iPad's large surface area touch screen and single button are easier for drivers to use on the road. Brand Image: The iPad's sleek, cutting-edge technology will present a sophisticated image to Arhaus' upscale clientele.
13. Publishing (content creation) is transference of data. Create as many ways in [as you can] for as many different kinds of tastes or different kinds of people. You need lots of doorways into your project.
14. Here is the customer is asking the Community
15. In our view, social customer care will no longer be an afterthought or an adjunct to Social CRM; it will sit squarely at the core of business strategy alongside other forms of customer interaction.