Our interview with Guy Stephens on the past, present and future of online customer service
You may know Guy from his work at the Carphone Warehouse where he was Customer Knowledge Manager or Mars Drink UK Global Online Marketing Manager.
I became aware of his passion for building brands through championing customer service when he was at Carphone Warehouse through his Twitter feed and conference presentations.
I'm delighted he agreed to talk us through the challenges and opportunities of using social media to deliver customer service since, in my opinion, he is the one of the world's leading thinkers on this topic as his answers to my questions below demonstrate.
Today, Guy is a Senior Consultant Foviance and is active in sharing his expertise through various channels:
Linked In Group: Where Social Media Meets Customer Service
Social media customer service: http://squidoo.com/socialmediacustomerservice
Twitter:…
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04 Oct 2010
Do you have an app strategy? 5 options for reaching and engaging your audience through mobile applications
I'm currently updating my books on the latest developments and thinking through the options companies have for their mobile app strategy. This is where I've got to.
I'd be grateful for your opinions, particularly if you have experience of what works and what doesn't as a specialist consultant on mobile apps or if you are using apps within your business.
The growth in popularity of mobile apps
For me, the growth in popularity of apps for the iPhone has been amazing with Apple announcing in January 2010 that 3 billion apps had been downloaded in the 18 months following the launch of the AppStore. Growth has been maintained through 2010:
[caption id="attachment_3483" align="aligncenter" width="586"] Growth in download from Apple App Store 2010. Source: IphoneDev[/caption]
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Best practise advice on how to run online and virtual events
Value: [rating=3]
Our commentary: We've all attended them, and many of us have managed them, think about sales and marketing meetings, conferences, tradeshows, corporate meetings, training sessions, job fairs, and more.
Taking them online makes those same events available to a much larger audience that can conveniently gather and exchange information, browse, watch product demonstrations, feedback, and network through a live, interactive platform on their computer.
In this article marketing profs share their top 10 best practices including sponsorship sales, messaging and positioning and the big one - driving live day attendance. That last point is a big one in my experience and requires multiple, well-timed reminders and helping people remember through an 'Add to Calendar' function.
Marketing implications: Online or virtual events require extensive planning, though they are generally simpler to organize and execute than traditional events. In today's time-sensitive and cost-sensitive business…
Here's an interesting article about a real social media case study, I've summarised what I feel are the salient points. The case study is based around a luxury hotel in Greece, so pretty 'real life' stuff.
Firstly, the hotel clearly defined its objectives:
Increase brand awareness through internet users in order to grow the prospect email database
Increase online booking as well as grow twitter followers, Facebook fans and views on You Tube based videos
The resulting campaign was only a few days long yet was very successful, amongst other stats it generated 187% increase in web traffic, 227% more people were drawn in to the booking engine and 150% more Facebook fans were recruited. And, the effects lasted for weeks after the campaign ended - which is interesting since the campaign only lasted for a few days so extremely short in social media terms.
The key take-aways from how the campaign was successful:
Targeted:…
