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Whether you are at an established company or at a startup the pressure on you as a marketer to deliver is immense.  To make matters more challenging it is likely that your marketing budget has been cut.  Every dollar you spend is questioned for ROI and in most meetings you are asked about developments in social networking, customer service and online reputation management because it is in the press and tantalizingly promises high return at low cost.

Whatever category your business is in, online customer service and reputation management are marketing tactics you should be employing that compliment almost any brand at very little cost.

Customer Service

In today’s economy no single thing matters as much for your sales and loyalty as building a great customer service brand.  This is an area of marketing often overlooked or muddled with expensive and hard to use tools.   If you are even aware of your customer service problem it is likely you first came across it the way most consumers do by finding a review about your company online on a search engine.

Online reviews are here to stay and many current and potential customers use internet search engines to help guide their online research in deciding where to buy.  You can leverage the world of online consumer reviews in your favor and often have more impact on thousands of active consumers’ purchasing intent then the best TV commercial.

Whether you have a large customer service department or none at all, already have a good customer service reputation or need to build one, many new online customer service tools exist today that are often free or low cost.

What You Can Do Now to Improve Customer Service and Reputation

Start asking your top customers to review you on customer service sites like MeasuredUp.com or angieslist.com.  By confidently asking top customers for customer service reviews you will have dozens of complimentary reviews of your company online in no time.   These will negate most bad reviews, increase your ranking on search engines and help interested potential customers to find and trust you when researching online.  The goal is not to have only good reviews as even the best companies have some bad reviews about them online.  The goal is to have a balance and to demonstrate through association that your brand is focused on improving customer service.

Online Comments

Individuals are talking about you on the Internet whether you like it or not.  On thousands of personal sites, as well as Facebook and Twitter, content that mentions you or a competitor is constantly being added.  You need to join this conversation even if you can’t control it.

What You Can Do Now to Respond to Online Comments

Identify a person on your staff to spend about 5 hours a week searching for unflattering reviews or mentions about your company or articles about something that is relevant to your business.  When there is a comment field have them write some intelligent and helpful content in response.  State that they are an employee of the company and include a URL to your site.  Do not try and pretend to be a consumer as this will likely be found out and create further uncomplimentary content.  This effort will help rebut negative views, show your company cares about its reputation and will help drive traffic to your company website.  If you come across compliments add on a quick “Thank You” comment and that you care about your reputation and appreciate the support of customers.

This tactic is focused totally on trolling Facebook, Twitter and Blogs to “invite” connections with current and potential customers.  This is a hard position to measure effectiveness on but you have to consider this proactive marketing.  The opportunity cost saved is that you don’t have uncontrolled rumors online.  Many PR firms are starting to offer this service but the fact is they don’t really get it and won’t be able to react as quickly as someone in your company culture who understands your brand.

With these two easy and inexpensive marketing tactics you can quickly augment your existing marketing efforts and start to raise your company’s social media presence, customer service and online profile while helping increase sales and build online reputation.

These tactics should be factored into your budget as the cost of doing business if you want to compete in today’s interconnected digital world.

About the author: Marc Karasu is a senior marketing executive and digital marketing expert with 20 years experience.  He is also the founder of Measuredup.com, the leader in online customer service and reputation management. He can be reached at MeasuredUp.com or his marketing consulting website MAKtaste.com.

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MeasuredUp featured in article about Customer Service.

June 09, 2010 09:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time 

From Business Management Daily: 

“ Here, in no particular order, are the five companies that have consistently failed to deliver quality customer service — along with examples of smaller businesses that do it right.

1. Bank of America 

   Sample opinion: “If a situation has arisen that you need their help to resolve, forget it — they do not help. They are all about making money, and they seem to forget that without the customers, there will be no money to make,” wrote “Unhappy” on MeasuredUp.com, a consumer feedback and review site.

   The lesson: Making it difficult for customers to do business with you — and charging them money for the “pleasure” — is the opposite of great service. “Great service companies make it easy to do business with them,” Tschohl notes.At Umpqua Bank, in Roseburg, Ore., employees are trained to be “universal associates,” so they never have to pass the buck when attending to customer needs. Many branches have Internet cafés that serve the bank’s own brand of coffee, and tellers hand out chocolate with every receipt. Moreover, bowls of water are set outside for customers’ pets. At TD Bank, in Philadelphia, customer calls are answered by an attentive, knowledgeable staff person after one ring. “You call most banks and it’s push two, push four, push seven, go to hell,” Tschohl notes.

   Role models:

   Greatest sins: Customers at bankofamericasucks.com and other sites rail against BoA’s myriad fees and a bureaucracy that makes even the simplest transactions difficult. Representative Maxine Waters of California, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, recently got put on hold for two hours while trying to resolve an issue with BoA for one of her constituents.

2. Comcast 

   Sample opinion: “I have never received such horribly incompetent, could-care-less service as I have with Comcast,” wrote “Shabo L” on Yelp.com, an online review site.

   The lesson: Don’t keep your customers waiting, ever. “Every employee should be empowered to make a decision on the spot in favor of the customer — not a day later, not an hour later, but in seconds,” Tschohl says.

   Role model: Northeast Delta Dental, based in Concord, N.H., reimbursed customers more than $80,000 in self-imposed penalties in 2008 for not meeting its own service guarantee. It’s no coincidence the company has a whopping 60 percent market share in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont — and a 98 percent retention rate. “We turn ourselves in, and we tell our customers what we’re going to do, process-wise, so that failure doesn’t happen again,” says Northeast Delta Dental CEO Tom Raffio. “It costs us in the short run, but in the long run, it builds trust — and we get customers for life.”

   Greatest sins: Sluggish service and lame response to customers’ needs earned Comcast a score of 54 in 2008 — one of the lowest among all companies — on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a standard developed by the National Quality Research Center at the University of Michigan Business School. A famous online video shows a Comcast technician who fell asleep on a customer’s couch while waiting on hold — with Comcast. “They have unlimited marketing budgets to get new customers because they get rid of their old ones so fast,” Tschohl says.

3. eBayGreatest sins:

   Sample opinion:

   The lesson:

   Role model:

   What really irks customers of the online auction site are the fees it charges and the total inaccessibility of human staff. “They don’t allow you to talk to a human,” Tschohl points out. “There’s no way to communicate with them. eBay thinks they’re in the technology business, while companies like Amazon.com understand they’re in the service business.”“It took me three days to find a phone number [for eBay customer service],” wrote one customer on the company’s own forum. “Don’t expect results. It’s worse than trying to get an honest answer out of a politician.”Be there for your customers. Great service is about supporting your customers every step of the way.Les Schwab, a chain of tire stores in the western U.S., has a “Sudden Service” philosophy that states, “You come in, we come running.” Employees run out to customers’ cars as they pull in to the store, then spring into action to install new tires in half the time it takes the competition.

4. Wal-MartGreatest sins:

   The lesson: Creating a culture of great service starts with treating employees well. “Take care of your workers, and your workers take care of your customers,” Yellin explains.

   Role models: Northeast Delta Dental and Umpqua Bank frequently appear on lists of best workplaces thanks to their outstanding employee benefits, and Les Schwab shares half its profits with its employees. “It’s a matter of treating your employees better than anybody else does and offering world-class customer service,” explains a manager of a Les Schwab Store in Concord, Calif. “That is what keeps your business growing.”

   Underpaid, disempowered Wal-Mart employees have a tough time staying chipper these days — and they pass along their misery to the company’s customers. “Wal-Mart built its business on customer service, but they’re in the sink now,” Tschohl contends. “The stores are ugly, and they attract the people with the least amount of money who are willing to put up with bad service.” Adds David VanAmburg, managing director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index: “They are at the top of our list when it comes to value, but near the bottom when it comes to service.”Sample opinion: “The employees are rude most of the time, and none of them help when you ask them something,” wrote “Amber” at ConsumerAffairs.com. “I spend $300 a week in that store. Now they have lost my business.”

5. US AirwaysGreatest sins: Long delays, surly service, and a lack of personality have helped send this airline to the bottom of the list of companies tracked by the American Customer Satisfaction Index — though the extra fees don’t help, either. “This industry has the lowest scores on our list, and US Airways is at the bottom,” VanAmburg says.

   Sample opinion: “Figure out a way to communicate with customers that doesn’t involve hold times approaching geological epochs, and make your damn computers work correctly,” opined blogger Christopher S. Penn after he was told it would take 45 to 60 days for US Airways to respond to his email request for a refund.

   The lesson: The best service companies are fast, reliable, friendly, and don’t skimp on the little details.

   Role model: Insight Studios, a tattoo and piercing parlor in Chicago, averages five stars from reviewers on Yelp.com, who praise the store for being pleasant and clean, and for offering customers horchata and chocolate when they walk in the door (and a lollipop for their bravery after their treatment is done). You’d never know these folks were paying to get poked. As one happy customer gushed, “I can’t wait to come back in a few months for my next piercing!”

The Road to Customer Satisfaction

Because bad reviews on the Internet can be so damaging, companies are starting to get savvy. In response to its poor reputation, for example, Comcast has installed a team dedicated to scouring the Web for complaints and reaching out to the “influencers” in its customer ranks. And Bank of America now has a team of support employees who can be reached via Twitter. “The Internet is making everybody more accountable,” author Emily Yellin points out. “Companies can’t get away with what they used to.” Growing businesses are wise to stay abreast of their reputation on sites like Yelp, and they can also get customer feedback through such sites as MeasuredUp.com and GetSatisfaction.com. Those two sites not only host online forums for customers to make suggestions or register complaints, they also allow companies to respond to commonly asked questions and create a knowledge base for future customers.’

Click here to read the full article.

Monday, February 16, 2009 

By Don Morgan 

Last week, I attended a webinar titled “Brand Building in a Digital Age”. I was expecting a “how-to” seminar on incorporating social media and other new technology tools as part of the marketing mix. As it turned out, the webinar was more about the power of the customer and the importance of good customer service in an era of instant access to millions of potential customers via the Internet. But that’s okay, because the webinar did give me some new insights and appreciation for the importance of doing and saying the right things with customers.So what does that say about retailers who loudly proclaim their “once-in-a-lifetime” sale that happens again next week? And again the following week? Are you listening department stores? Or what about the automobile dealers, mortgage companies and all the other advertisers who trumpet their incentives and hide behind the fine print. The old-fashioned notion of caveat emptor (buyer beware) has been replaced by seller beware that you don’t ruin your brand and your business in a blind quest for profit because your customers will tell the truth to the world.The rapid growth of customer review sites like Yelp and Angies List and the emergence of customer feedback sites like Measuredup and Planetfeedback should be enough for marketers to wake up and smell that coffee.The customer is not only in charge, they are in the driver’s seat.

For full article go to marketingthoughtleader.blogspot.com 

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News Analysis: Reviews Roll In As Sites Add Video

Amazon, Orvis, PetCo jump on next wave of customer feedback.
January 14, 2008
By Kenneth Hein

The written word may be powerful, but video is mightier still, and there’s the rub for marketers.

As Amazon, Orvis and PetCo encourage consumers to upload video reviews, the marketers give the public a dynamic tool to tout or trash products.

Before a fan plunks down $69.95 for the Hasbro Star Wars Darth Vader Voice Changer, for example, they may want to watch the video review posted by Gregory J. Daniel on Amazon.com. “This is an example of what the Darth Vader helmet will sound like when you make the mistake of buying it. Don’t I sound just like Darth? Can you even hear his voice, or is it just like a droning in the background.”

Amazon has no issue with such reviews. “Written reviews have been tremendously successful, but when you can actually see the item in action all the writing in the world [can't compare],” said Colin Bodell, vp, Amazon.com, Seattle, which added video in November. “We want to deliver a richer shopping experience and give them as much information as possible so it will lead to a more satisfying shopping experience.”

While a video review for a book may not be necessary, Bodell said they were particularly helpful for new toys like the latest Tickle Me Elmo or complicated consumer electronics devices.

For Orvis, a video of a customer catching a trophy fish using its Zero G Saltwater 909-4 fly rod speaks volumes. “It’s another reason for people to come to our site,” says Brad Wolansky, vp-eCommerce for the Sunderland, Vt., firm. “They want to engage with us and brag about their fish. Of course, we like to see them stay on our site longer—we like video for all those reasons. We also like the fact that it can make a customer feel good about their purchase decision. That’s the root of customer reviews, making them feel more secure.” Orvis added video in August.

Video consumer reviews are still new, very new. They make up only a small fraction of Amazon and Orvis reviews. But, this is expected to change quickly as more consumers embrace video and more marketers offer reviews on their sites (See “New Ideas,” page 10). Video phones and the simplicity of some of today’s desktop applications make creating video “less of an event,” said Marc Karasu, president of MeasuredUp.com, New York. Karasu left his post as vp-marketing of Hotjobs.com to quarterback MeasuredUp.com. The site encourages consumers to sound off about good and bad products and customer service. Next month, the site is relaunching with video capabilities.

Video is a natural for consumers under 30, as they are heavy users of such sites as YouTube, he said. Video can be powerful “if you are shooting secret footage of an outrageous customer service experience,” Karasu said. However, “if it’s someone standing front of a store talking about what happened,” not so much.

Video is currently only about 1% of all reviews, according to Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice, the ratings and reviews service that created Orvis and PetCo’s consumer review section, based in Austin, Texas. However, Web sites can leverage this small pool of video reviews for a larger impact. Sections can be created showing the top-10 video reviews. Consumers can also be connected directly to the videos via e-mail links and RSS feeds.

In this respect videos not only offer a valuable opinion, but also entertainment value. “We’ve had other people linking to our site to watch the videos, there is always that entertainment opportunity,” said Bodell. “We look forward to more content as it gets easier to put video up there. It will also be better produced once the technology gets better and high-speed connections continue to become more prevalent. People will find creative ways of using it that we haven’t even envisioned yet.” Authors reading chapters of their books and explanations behind their writing is starting to appear on Amazon. Brands are also invited to post product demonstrations, as well, said Bodell. However, “they can’t be blatant advertisements,” he said. “They can buy ad placements.” Amazon weighs each submission based on its value to buyers in aiding their purchase decision.

Does this start to blur the lines of marketing? Probably, said Seth Godin, author of the new book Meatball Sundae. “If it is clearly labeled as to who is producing the video, call them what you want. ‘What is advertising?’ is a question we ask every day.”

Regardless, video is “a logical, predictable next step in the evolution of consumer reviews,” said Godin. Still, there are benefits to the written word. “Video is a lot less casual. You can spend 30 seconds writing a few sentences, video is more of a commitment,” he said. “Plus you can scan a whole page of written reviews, but you’re not going to watch a whole page of videos.”

khein@brandweek.com

Leading website for customer service reviews invites business to demonstrate commitment to consumers and put up or shut up

New York, NY, December 4, 2007 – www.Measuredup.com a leading online customer service review site today announced the launch of “The Pledge Challenge” for companies that want to differentiate themselves this competitive and budget constrained Holiday season. The “Pledge” allows participating companies to demonstrate to online cyber shoppers and offline consumers that they care about Customer Service and satisfaction as much as the bottom line.

The Measuredup “Pledge” is a free downloadable customer service statement and logo that companies can download for free from the Measuredup.com website and post on their own websites so that consumers know that management, the company and brand are committed to trying to meet the consumers customer service needs.

The Measuredup.com site founded by Marc Karasu is designed to address the customer service void growing in the wake of technology’s fast pace forward. The rise in Internet shopping, automated voice systems, outsourced—and off shored—customer service departments and other technology-driven trends have served mainly to distance customers from companies rather than bring them closer together. And while the Internet has helped customers become more informed in their purchasing decisions, it hasn’t given consumers an avenue for holding businesses accountable for their customer service.

Measuredup.com addresses and resolves this void in a way that is both fun and empowering to consumers and valuable to companies who can use this information to improve and to create a conversation with consumers.

Through the Measuredup.com site, users can rate businesses or services on a 5-point scale in many categories from the expected to the unusual.

Measuredup gives new meaning to the phrase “The Customer is always right.”

About Measuredup.com

Measuredup.com is a leading Customer Service review networking site where consumers rate and review their customer service and brand experiences in a public forum. The site’s founder, frustrated by an increase in incompetent, rude and outright abusive treatment by businesses both large and small, sought to develop a platform where consumers could share their experiences, vent or praise as appropriate and, ultimately, effect change.

For interviews, quotes or discussion please call the founder and President of Measuredup.com, Marc Karasu. Contact info available here and on the site at www.Measuredup.com

November 12, 2007
By Joan Voight

SAN FRANCISCO Consumers are turning to customer reviews on marketers’ Web sites regularly as they narrow their purchase choices, and they want to see those reviews for a wider range of products, particularly toys and specialty foods.

Those are among the findings of the 2007 “Social Shopping Study” of online consumers conducted in September, after a summer of toy recalls and food safety problems, and released today.

“When parents and others have concerns about the quality of the products they are buying, they are more likely to pay attention to recommendations by other shoppers like themselves,” said Jay Shaffer, vp, marketing at PowerReviews, the customer reviews agency that conducted the study in partnership with E-Tail Group. He said in many cases the content of customers’ reviews has focused more strongly on safety ratings and health issues in recent months.

The online “Social Shopping Study” found two-thirds of regular e-shoppers almost always seek out customer reviews before making a purchase decision. Most of that group of “social researchers,” as the report calls them, research products online no matter where they buy the product—whether a store, Web site, catalog or elsewhere.

In a wake-up call to brick-and-mortar stores gearing up for the holiday season, the survey also shows that 82 percent of the social researchers said they found reading reviews better than researching a product with a knowledgeable sales associate in a store.

Customer reviews on the e-commerce sites of national brands began gathering steam in mid-2007 as more brands overcame their fear of giving consumers a platform for negative comments about their products. This strategy is primarily used by electronics companies, such as Toshiba, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, and specialty clothing companies, such as Fair Indigo and Eastern Mountain Sports.

Since then, various studies, including the “Social Commerce Report” conducted by Bazaarvoice and E-consultancy in June and July, have shown that online customer product reviews increased e-commerce orders and site traffic. As a result, brands such as Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and REI have hopped on the customer review bandwagon.

The “Social Shopping Study” takes those surveys a step further by outlining which specific categories customers want to see feature more customer ratings and reviews. Almost 70 percent of the survey respondents said they would find reviews very helpful on sites selling toys and videogames, and about 55 percent said they wanted reviews on sporting goods, gifts and specialty foods sites.

The survey polled 1,200 consumers who shop online at least four times per year and spend $500 or more annually on their online purchases.

Among the specialty food and beverage brands ahead of the curve is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which launched a review system on its e-commerce site in August 2006 and has gotten about 1,000 reviews, according to Ken Crites, director of the company’s consumer-direct division. “We find the marketing content and feedback way more valuable than the quantity of reviews. We are using some of the quotes in our print catalogs and asking some reviewers to send us pictures of themselves with the product,” he said.

“When we review what new products to launch or how to improve certain products, we look at the online reviews every time,” Crites said.

As part of its customer review form, Green Mountain asks reviewers to click on the term that describes them: “chef,” “foodie,” “frequent diner” or “simple tastes.” It also allows them to write in their own description. In a sign of shifting customer values, so many reviewers described themselves as “health conscious” in the last year that the site has added that description to the list, said Shaffer, whose agency worked on the site.

Some companies are turning one-way user feedback into a two-way dialogue by publicly responding to reviews. Eastern Mountain Sports often posts a response to complaints by reviewers right next to the negative review. “Not only can a reply to a user review improve that customer’s experience, but others will see this genuine dialogue and be more likely to stick around,” said CMO Scott Barrett. In some cases the negative reviewers are also sent another product to replace the undesirable one, he added.

In other survey findings, many people said they shop seamlessly back and forth between physical stores and Web sites, and they do not examine customer reviews until midway through the shopping process. Most of the respondents said they start their shopping process at retail stores and then seek out online reviews as they near their final choices, looking at the reviews of only a handful of possible purchases. Specifically, 81 percent use customer reviews to decide between two or three products or to confirm that their final selection is the right one and only 40 percent actually start the shopping process using reviews, according to the study.