Dave’s Take

The phenomenal success of the iPhone and iPad has been both a boom and a bust for their proprietary wireless provider, AT&T. On one hand, having the exclusive rights to the millions of smart phones and fancy pads is like owning a money tree; but on the other, it is more like the sword of Damocles, waiting to behead the corporate giant of its profits and reputation for what many customers have described as horrible customer service and shoddy reception. After years of simply ignoring the complaints, AT&T recently decided to change direction and has begun to actually encourage customer input. Is this latest move an act of desperation or inspiration? I firmly believe it’s the latter and industry insiders are beginning to agree with me.

Just how serious is AT&T about rehabilitating its image? Plenty, as evidenced by their proactive hiring of “social media strategist” for customer care, Shawn McPike. After coming on board last August, McPike has moved to increase his department’s staff from one to 19 full-time customer care agents. Among those, are five who do nothing but deal with AT&T social media mentions, which number over 10,000 per day. How successful has their customer outreach been? To date, over 47% of customers reached via social channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have responded to AT&T’s correspondence, resulting in over 37,000 service responses per month. In explaining their (AT&T) new approach to complaints, McPike stated, “It’s hard to sit there and let someone blast you, but that’s the only way we are going to improve. As much as it’s not pleasant, I have to fully acknowledge and encourage people who come to me and listen.”

To mollify customer criticism, the customer care team responds directly to those who engage them via Twitter (@ATTCustomerCare) or through their wall on Facebook. And while they can’t immediately provide any help concerning bandwidth complaints (the number one grievance), they can boast about AT&T’s response in spending over $19 billion this year alone to improve both its wired and wireless infrastructures. The question remains, is this enough of a response to garner increased customer satisfaction? “I’m glad AT&T is pushing forward. They’ve really let the media run the story for the longest time,” says Chris Brogan, president of corporate PR watch dog, New Marketing Labs. Brogan agrees with the philosophy that doing something is better than doing nothing in regards to negative publicity spread via social media sites.

As a long time customer of AT&T mobile services, I welcome any attempt at direct communications between the multi-national giant and its customers. To me, there is nothing more frustrating than failing to at least get someone to listen to your service-related complaints. Whether that channel of communication actually solves any problems is secondary to the mere appearance of concern from a provider. While it may at worst end up being just lip service, at least it satisfies the eternal need for all of us to at least be heard.

I am constantly amazed at the number of small business owners I meet who still don’t believe a website is worth the investment. Or even worse, they buy a cheap template for their site and then fail to update or promote it. Next to a bad location, nothing stymies retail business more than not having a presence on the Web. These clueless owners don’t seem to understand how successful branding starts and ends with the Internet. To put it simply – a business without a website is a business waiting to fail. In the 21st century, a business must have a topical Web presence to survive.

A recent Yahoo WOM (word of mouth) survey reveals just how important the Internet is for peer-to-peer WOM recommendations. Yahoo researchers discovered that while only 7% of all brand WOM conversations occur online, almost 40% of all WOM conversations are influenced by the Internet. Think how many times you or someone you know has started a conversation with, “I read on the Web today about…” This is WOM branding 101 and it’s gaining in influence on a monthly basis. Clearly, if you ignore the importance of online WOM branding you are ignoring a huge stream of potential customers.

Some more surprising facts included in the Yahoo report:
• The Internet is growing in terms of WOM importance. All other media sources including TV and newspaper are flat in regards to creating WOM.
• Two-thirds of WOM is positive, with only 8% considered negative WOM.
• Certain businesses, such as financial and automotive appear to do better than most in online WOM conversations.
• Very little WOM is attributed to social media sites, as most conversations take place face to face. The level of Internet influence in WOM discussions has risen almost 5% over 2009 conversations.
• Almost 15% of ALL conversations include something from people who found the information online.

These stats act to cement the belief that without a website, your business will have a heavy uphill battle to be successful. The study also reveals how important website content is to prosperity. Visitors expect to be educated about your product or service in a professional and timely manner. Failing to update or include all necessary information will not only fail to increase sales, but can actually work against a business. Just remember, creating good Web copy is easy…just put yourself in your customer’s seat and see if you get what you need from your portal. If not, it’s time to change the message before it’s too late.