These are the best quotes I heard today at the Crash Course by WordOfMouth.org in Austin. They are organized by each speaker.
Andy Sernovitz
If we focus on building conversations with customers, we become tech-proof.
Why do we focus on the tools and technology so much? Because relationships are hard.
Zappos always forgives us. That is where relationships come from.
(1) Give people a reason to talk about your brand, and (2) Make it easier for the conversation to take place, so they can tell more people, mor often. If you start with #2 (the technology), it never works.
People tend to be motivated by one of three things: (1) desire to feel smart: Give them lots of information to feel smart when they talk about you. (2) Ego: Make them feel important. Giving miles to a frequent flier is like giving a pie to the winner of a pie-eating contest. (3) Fun.
Advertising is the cost of being boring.
Word of Mouth marketing is a lifetime of customer service.
It is SO Much more fun to work at a company that people love to talk about.
Give people little surprises. Tell them they’re great. Automated messages in your web app don’t cost anything, but go a long way.
Leverage other people’s platforms.
Every idea must (1) make people laugh, (2) make people think, and (3) create a genuine emotion, eve if it’s tears.
If you can’t compete with people on their own level, don’t try. Change the rules.
Any time people are scratching their head about your brand, that’s more time they are thinking about your brand.
The best reason in the world not to do things the way most people do them is that most people are not successful.
I have blind faith in my ability to get things done.
Create the remarkable experience; let someone else start the conversation, then amplify their conversation.
Community: people look after each other, everyone comes together for events
There is a big difference between being a neighbor and being neighborly
Stop curating. Create. We have too many people curating.
What do you guys want? What do you guys need? What tools can we build for you that will be useful for you? (That is how you get people engaged in building a community.)
Fundamentally, it is better to find community leaders who are part of the community, and approach them with the idea of creating a community management team, then train them how to be an ambassador — instead of hiring a Community Manager. Protect them, and allow them to be leaders. Make them into rock stars in front of their peers — the people they care about.
David Rabjohns
Advocacy is the one conversation metric that most relates (statistically) to sales — in multiple industries.
Creating advocacy requires finding the passion ALREADY in your category, THEN attaching your brand to that passion.
The world does not change often, but, when it does, it changes very quickly. You must identify your advocates, and lasso their passion. You can use Net Promoter Score, or Survey Monkey, or whatever works. Look for passion on BoardReader, or wherever you can find it. You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money.
The biggest problem people have is that they are measuring the wrong thing.
CFOs love money, so marketers have to start conversations with CFOs about money. Show them how the thing they care about (sales) relates to the things you care about.
Rob La Gesse
If I can get someone from telling me how bad my people are, into thanking me… that’s like crack!
When I can see people in a Skype chat, I make notes about what is in their background. If they have dogs in the background, I’ll make a note, and I’ll send them dog treats — but send it later, when they don’t expect it. Completely shocking the customer.
If you tweet something nice about Rackspace, there is a good chance you will get a t-shirt saying “I tweeted about Rackspace.”
All our social media team are engineers, not marketers.
The real trick in dealing with customers is knowing their name, and knowing just enough about them that every conversation with them is a personal conversation.
It takes very little, these days, to blow people away with customer service, because we’re used to being put on hold.
Treat your customer like a friend. Do you give your friend a birthday card? Give your customer a birthday card.
Randomly call customers, just to see if there is anything they need. Being helpful and being nice.
You can’t fake great customer service. You really have to love it. You can’t teach someone how to be empathetic with customers. Customers don’t want your sympathy.
We were simple, down-to-Earth people, and we saw a need that needed to be filled.
You are all in the customer service business, but many of you do not realize it.
I fight structure every day. I fight bureaucracy every day.
Do not come into your new job and pretend that you’re on probation, and not be yourself. We hired you because of who you are.
We treat our union people the same as our non-union people: they are all family.
Q: What is morning overview meeting? A: We study what happened the day B4. What do we need to do to be proactive daily?
Chris Boudreaux leads social media strategy and measurement efforts for large B2C and B2B brands. Follow Chris on Twitter, or email Chris to continue the conversation.
