WOMMA: Approaching WOMM Through Customer Service

Pete Blackshaw, CMO at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, author of his new book - "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World"  -  gave a great keynote on Day 2 of the WOMMA Summit 2008

The more brands can understand our drivers for creating content - why I blog, why Pete does Cucina.com, why the women at Blogher - the better they will do in thsi space.

Pete asks: Why do people talk a about brands?

Brand experience. It's not about the branded entertainment (e.g. viral videos) that many brands create.
The referral spectrum has grown and taken off. there are so many more places we can share comments and media - blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, ePinions et al

Credibility is everything. Here is Pete's framework

• Trust
• Authenticity
• Transparency
• Affirmation
• Listening
• Responsiveness

Great quotes:

• If you type in a name or brand into Google either you are affirmed or not
• Listening is the highest form of respect
• Online and offline WOM is a moot distinction as an online experience quickly bleeds offline and visa versa

Frank Eliason the voice of Comcast Cares - the Comcast Twitter feed - shared his stories about the mess he walked into with the complaints about the service. They made some big changes and realized what they had to do:

Give people more otions.
He showed 6 ways they now solicit contact from email to phone to live chat to "Email Rick."

Create a strategic approach.

Comcast looked across platforms where they could makes changes and be

• Comcast Central (comcast.com)
• Comcast Customer Connect  (all social media including Twitter)
• Forum & Communities (e.g. help forums)
• Corporate Blog
• Blogging on other sites

My favorite takeaways from Frank's experience.

• Create a rapid response culture
• Learn from everyone in your organization