I recently read Scott McKain's book "What Customers Really Want" - how to bridge the gap between what yor organisation offers and what your clients crave.
With FOFA and all that it may present perhaps nearing it's final stages and the implementation date of July 2012 ever closing in, McKain's message is even more relevant.
But for most businesses it's hopefully not a panic to re-invent themselves. Rather it's a re-focus and a re-telling of the stories that the business already has at it's disposal.
McKain quotes Hilgers and Matlock in their book The Power of Agreement and their five steps to customer satisfaction:
- reliability
- responsiveness
- assurance
- empathy
- tangibles
In financial services being there for clients, returning calls, a comfort letter after SOA sign-up, demonstrating social proof using past client stories and making it all relevant with client dreamboards, client referral and reward nights - deliver on all of these.
What else does your business do to deliver on these elements?
Monday 31 October 2011
Saturday 29 October 2011
What is "THAT"? Building a business with positive engagement.
I can’t say “THAT” to my clients!
Well actually, you need to and you should. Why? Because the businesses that are saying “THAT” to their clients are successfully creating communities of advocates that have become in most instances an outsourced marketing and public relations success story.
What “THAT” is, is paradoxically simple and complicated.
“THAT” is the engagement of clients in a positive way. It is engagement in a manner that evokes positive emotional responses from not only clients but within the business itself. It is flexible and timely and yet carefully considered and does not deviate from the core of the business and what the business understands is its way to face the market and deliver on its promises.
At the end of the day “THAT” is a philosophy, a way of doing things that answers the core and often unconscious needs of human beings. Meeting those needs and in fact applying replicable business processes to meet those needs not only makes sense commercially but also maximises the possibility that you and your staff will enjoy what it is that they do. You will find new ways to articulate your uniqueness and stand out in an ever increasingly commoditised market place.
How do clients react? Why is it difficult to enact? What are the results?
Stay tuned.
Well actually, you need to and you should. Why? Because the businesses that are saying “THAT” to their clients are successfully creating communities of advocates that have become in most instances an outsourced marketing and public relations success story.
What “THAT” is, is paradoxically simple and complicated.
“THAT” is the engagement of clients in a positive way. It is engagement in a manner that evokes positive emotional responses from not only clients but within the business itself. It is flexible and timely and yet carefully considered and does not deviate from the core of the business and what the business understands is its way to face the market and deliver on its promises.
At the end of the day “THAT” is a philosophy, a way of doing things that answers the core and often unconscious needs of human beings. Meeting those needs and in fact applying replicable business processes to meet those needs not only makes sense commercially but also maximises the possibility that you and your staff will enjoy what it is that they do. You will find new ways to articulate your uniqueness and stand out in an ever increasingly commoditised market place.
How do clients react? Why is it difficult to enact? What are the results?
Stay tuned.
I Can't Say THAT To My Clients
Afternoon!
So what's this all about? This is a site dedicated to those providing outstanding client experiences in the field of financial services - in particular financial advisers.
Anything that can assist financial advisers such as client value proposition development, capability development the pro's and con's of utilising social media etc etc will find a home here.
I imagine that it will also become a site where professional advisers cn share ideas via the YouTube channel that will be created for advisers to be interviewed by Positive Client Engagement on just that very subject - what is it that they are doing that is changing the lives of everyday Australians.
So what's this all about? This is a site dedicated to those providing outstanding client experiences in the field of financial services - in particular financial advisers.
Anything that can assist financial advisers such as client value proposition development, capability development the pro's and con's of utilising social media etc etc will find a home here.
I imagine that it will also become a site where professional advisers cn share ideas via the YouTube channel that will be created for advisers to be interviewed by Positive Client Engagement on just that very subject - what is it that they are doing that is changing the lives of everyday Australians.
Friday 28 October 2011
Social networking has had a marked influence on society and re-defined social relationships via the speed and expanse of the networks themselves.
The social networking experience is not quarantined to the young, nor are there generational gaps turning into chasms of divide. Rather human beings are simply being human and exhibiting their social nature, but on an accelerated trajectory. An examination of recent social networking activity provides evidence of the direct impact on social relationships, corporate policy and even regime change. And a deeper examination of how social network engagement, of customers, by corporations, is changing our purchasing decision making process, supports a view that social networks will ultimately be the mechanism by which we communicate.
The depth and speed of recruitment, to a cause, via social networking is illustrated by examples of social networks facilitating fundamental human behaviour but on a geometric scale. In August 2011, during the aftermath of the London riots, the manufacturer of the Blackberry
announced that it would co-operate with Scotland Yard and their investigation into individuals who had posted inflammatory messages on Blackberry Messenger and social networking sites such
as Twitter and Facebook (Halliday, J., 2011). In March 2011, Syrian eyewitnesses to the regimes crackdown on protests, communicated to the world what was happening through a mix of mobile phone video accounts that were uploaded to YouTube (Hassan, N.,2011). By the end
of 2009 after over seven million views of a video United breaks guitars United Airlines changed their baggage damage policy and compensated the songwriter and the videos creator Dave Carroll, for the guitar damaged by United baggage handlers (Li. C., 2010. Open Leadership.
Chapter 1, Why giving up control is inevitable, pp3-5). And in their book The Hyper- Social Organisation, Gossieaux and Moran (2010) wrote, how Jeep through its marketing initiatives had found a tribe, a tribe of young and old, sharing a passion for adventure.
A common thread in these events, to para-phrase Gossieaux and Moran (2010),
is that social networks are not about the network or the technology. Social networks are about the social nature of humankind, and via social networks humans can join tribes that are not bound by geography, and belong to multiple tribes. What Gossieaux and Moran (2010) call
the Hyper-Social shift, is as Dr Robert Cialdini identified, the playing out of principles of social influence, with technology allowing natural social behaviour to develop on a scale never seen before in history. The technology of social networking has delivered ease and speed of
engagement and like historical tribes, social networking tribes are not bound by age, but formed with shared beliefs, experiences and commonalities.
The phenomenon of social networking is important as it has changed the mechanism via which we connect in an irreversible way. As to why this is happening now, in her book, Groundswell, Charlene Li (2008) describes the rise of social networks as resulting from the collision of three forces; people, technology and economics. This is an astute viewpoint as it
is true that people have always formed social movements or connected with those who share common beliefs. Technology and access to it, is common place especially in the Western world and there is money to be made for those who can tap into and direct the cyber traffic.
Corporations, according to Gossieaux and Moran (2010), have had to adapt to this new world, realising now that two-thirds of all buying decisions are made based on information that does not come from the company itself. The face of marketing has changed with the process before social networking at the control of the company. Now after social networking , lead generation is about the company becoming accessible on the web and being helpful in social network conversations. Product development is becoming a social process, with companies from Dell to garden tool manufacturer Fiskars fostering social network communities to innovate product development. This leads to sales, and as Gossieaux and Moran (2010) note, the Fiskateer community of 5000, increased store sales by
300% in 18 months.
Some would have us believe that this social and corporate revolution is the domain of the 18 to 29 year old demographic. In Josh Salman.s 2009 article he cited mobile sales as an example that younger peoples purchases are predicated on accessibility via handsets to social network sites, whilst older generations desire a basic communication tool. This may be the case but in Shirley Duglin Kennedys 2009 article, Getting a Little Perspective on Social Networking, she reported that the fastest growing demographic on Facebook was women aged 55 and over. And while Charlene Li in Groundswell, notes that people over 50 don't participate in social
networking at the same levels of younger consumers, her data shows that baby boomers participate as creators and maintainers of websites and blogs indicating that several million older people are actively involved in social networking.
Some corporations understand this as described by Gossieaux and Moran (2010), and see that social networking success, is not a pitch to demographics but a support of commonalities and passions in people, such as freedom and off-road adventures for Jeep or more obtusely scrapbooking
for the Fiskateers. Do these connections mean that people have become closer? Professor Nicholas Christakis in an address to freshman at Harvard in 2011 (Harvard Gazette, 2011), doesn't think so, arguing that Facebook has changed the meaning of the word friend, suggesting that at best our
Facebook friends are mere acquaintances belying the social connectivity that social networks purport to facilitate. But did Tottenham residents feel closer to their community during the cleanup where students through to retirees came together organised by a Twitter campaign? The answer through the emotion, a resounding YES (Lawless, J., 2011).
Social networks have re-defined social relationships and in doing so are having a marked influence on society. It is not a re-creation of what it means to be social, rather social networks have amplified the inherent human processes of socialisation providing a greater capacity and accessibility for human beings, young and old to socialise. From community bonding, supporting those in need, protesting injustices and fostering our consumerism, social networks allow humans to engage at a level not seen before in human history. This has adverse consequences and as the Tottenham riots illustrated, via social networks it is far easier to recruit the disaffected. The most likely outcome is that the future mechanisms by which; communities form, we obtain our information, we find new friends and we make decisions from the important to the mundane, will
be the lasting change to our social relationships. The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg best describes the vision of how we will interact as a species in the future. In his 2010 interview with
Zuckerberg, in The New Yorker, reporter Jose Antonio Vargas, noted Zuckerberg's vision that Facebook ultimately becomes a layer underneath almost every electronic device and simply by turning on your television you will see what your friends are watching, and make decisions based on what your Facebook friends have recommended. The lasting change on society may be that one day all word of mouth is via Facebook.
The social networking experience is not quarantined to the young, nor are there generational gaps turning into chasms of divide. Rather human beings are simply being human and exhibiting their social nature, but on an accelerated trajectory. An examination of recent social networking activity provides evidence of the direct impact on social relationships, corporate policy and even regime change. And a deeper examination of how social network engagement, of customers, by corporations, is changing our purchasing decision making process, supports a view that social networks will ultimately be the mechanism by which we communicate.
The depth and speed of recruitment, to a cause, via social networking is illustrated by examples of social networks facilitating fundamental human behaviour but on a geometric scale. In August 2011, during the aftermath of the London riots, the manufacturer of the Blackberry
announced that it would co-operate with Scotland Yard and their investigation into individuals who had posted inflammatory messages on Blackberry Messenger and social networking sites such
as Twitter and Facebook (Halliday, J., 2011). In March 2011, Syrian eyewitnesses to the regimes crackdown on protests, communicated to the world what was happening through a mix of mobile phone video accounts that were uploaded to YouTube (Hassan, N.,2011). By the end
of 2009 after over seven million views of a video United breaks guitars United Airlines changed their baggage damage policy and compensated the songwriter and the videos creator Dave Carroll, for the guitar damaged by United baggage handlers (Li. C., 2010. Open Leadership.
Chapter 1, Why giving up control is inevitable, pp3-5). And in their book The Hyper- Social Organisation, Gossieaux and Moran (2010) wrote, how Jeep through its marketing initiatives had found a tribe, a tribe of young and old, sharing a passion for adventure.
A common thread in these events, to para-phrase Gossieaux and Moran (2010),
is that social networks are not about the network or the technology. Social networks are about the social nature of humankind, and via social networks humans can join tribes that are not bound by geography, and belong to multiple tribes. What Gossieaux and Moran (2010) call
the Hyper-Social shift, is as Dr Robert Cialdini identified, the playing out of principles of social influence, with technology allowing natural social behaviour to develop on a scale never seen before in history. The technology of social networking has delivered ease and speed of
engagement and like historical tribes, social networking tribes are not bound by age, but formed with shared beliefs, experiences and commonalities.
The phenomenon of social networking is important as it has changed the mechanism via which we connect in an irreversible way. As to why this is happening now, in her book, Groundswell, Charlene Li (2008) describes the rise of social networks as resulting from the collision of three forces; people, technology and economics. This is an astute viewpoint as it
is true that people have always formed social movements or connected with those who share common beliefs. Technology and access to it, is common place especially in the Western world and there is money to be made for those who can tap into and direct the cyber traffic.
Corporations, according to Gossieaux and Moran (2010), have had to adapt to this new world, realising now that two-thirds of all buying decisions are made based on information that does not come from the company itself. The face of marketing has changed with the process before social networking at the control of the company. Now after social networking , lead generation is about the company becoming accessible on the web and being helpful in social network conversations. Product development is becoming a social process, with companies from Dell to garden tool manufacturer Fiskars fostering social network communities to innovate product development. This leads to sales, and as Gossieaux and Moran (2010) note, the Fiskateer community of 5000, increased store sales by
300% in 18 months.
Some would have us believe that this social and corporate revolution is the domain of the 18 to 29 year old demographic. In Josh Salman.s 2009 article he cited mobile sales as an example that younger peoples purchases are predicated on accessibility via handsets to social network sites, whilst older generations desire a basic communication tool. This may be the case but in Shirley Duglin Kennedys 2009 article, Getting a Little Perspective on Social Networking, she reported that the fastest growing demographic on Facebook was women aged 55 and over. And while Charlene Li in Groundswell, notes that people over 50 don't participate in social
networking at the same levels of younger consumers, her data shows that baby boomers participate as creators and maintainers of websites and blogs indicating that several million older people are actively involved in social networking.
Some corporations understand this as described by Gossieaux and Moran (2010), and see that social networking success, is not a pitch to demographics but a support of commonalities and passions in people, such as freedom and off-road adventures for Jeep or more obtusely scrapbooking
for the Fiskateers. Do these connections mean that people have become closer? Professor Nicholas Christakis in an address to freshman at Harvard in 2011 (Harvard Gazette, 2011), doesn't think so, arguing that Facebook has changed the meaning of the word friend, suggesting that at best our
Facebook friends are mere acquaintances belying the social connectivity that social networks purport to facilitate. But did Tottenham residents feel closer to their community during the cleanup where students through to retirees came together organised by a Twitter campaign? The answer through the emotion, a resounding YES (Lawless, J., 2011).
Social networks have re-defined social relationships and in doing so are having a marked influence on society. It is not a re-creation of what it means to be social, rather social networks have amplified the inherent human processes of socialisation providing a greater capacity and accessibility for human beings, young and old to socialise. From community bonding, supporting those in need, protesting injustices and fostering our consumerism, social networks allow humans to engage at a level not seen before in human history. This has adverse consequences and as the Tottenham riots illustrated, via social networks it is far easier to recruit the disaffected. The most likely outcome is that the future mechanisms by which; communities form, we obtain our information, we find new friends and we make decisions from the important to the mundane, will
be the lasting change to our social relationships. The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg best describes the vision of how we will interact as a species in the future. In his 2010 interview with
Zuckerberg, in The New Yorker, reporter Jose Antonio Vargas, noted Zuckerberg's vision that Facebook ultimately becomes a layer underneath almost every electronic device and simply by turning on your television you will see what your friends are watching, and make decisions based on what your Facebook friends have recommended. The lasting change on society may be that one day all word of mouth is via Facebook.
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