There are a vast selection of tools out there that help make sense of  the tools that we are already using…

Came across this one, MentionMapp and have been playing around with it, some interesting connections have resulted.

In essence its a productivity tool that takes the mind maping idea and extends it to Twitter.

Mind mapping is a very powerful tool because it is a reflection of of your brains thought process about any given topic..the map even looks like brain cells..

Market Related Research

When you are trying to get a feel and a picture for what is happening in your market place it can be difficult to see where there are connections. Customer research and competitor research can often get bogged down because you just can’t see where products and customers are connected. Twitter has millions of bits of information and it takes some doing to order it all to deliver effective results.

Hello MentionMapp… This lets you visually monitor your Twitter network. You can see who interacts the most, what they are talking about and most importantly it shows you who are the relevant people to follow on Twitter.

The most recent tweets are used to create the map, there is no indexing of streams to come up with the visualisation…the most talked about conversations are shown with thicker lines…

Thicker the line the bigger the discussion..you can even hover over an edge of the line and you get the number of mentions..

Useful tool? Think so, even if its not going to yield any major impact its certainly fun..

 When you get that phone call or email…do not

1. Panic… major or minor client defection should not mean that you hit the panic button…take a deep breath and allow yourself to think clearly.. no point making decisions in the fog of uncertainty…start to consider the why’s.

• Was it expected?
• What part did you play in this? Were you as  proactive as you could have been? So many companies claim to be customer centric but few are..even you the reader could do so much better..when did you actually conduct customer research?

2.Delay ..as difficult as this may be get back to them as soon as…you never know it could be an issue that can be resolved… maybe you ignored a series of requests or were late on delivering a project…

3. Ignore Reviewing..take the opportunity to review your customer matrix…if the situation is that the client is going then make sure that you start an ongoing review process with existing customers.If you have such a process step it up …

This should include most of the following -

• Look at who the client is going to..what do they do differently from you? What services do they now offer that you could?
• Review New Business campaigns and target sectors that you have not looked at before..just as your client who is saying goodbye has changed their needs look at yours..have you been fishing in the same pond for too long?
• Competitor Intelligence – make sure that you know what is happening in your sector and emerging ones…remember comapnies like Clinton Cards saw MoonPig coming and did not react..don’t let arrogance blind you to competitor threats..
• Competitive short sightedness can render your business extinct…

 3. Assume it won’t happen again..customers and clients have a tendency to be fickle and get enticed by offers and sales pitches the same as you as an individual do..stay aware of what is happening in the market place

4.Keep doing the same things... think about where your business is and what it stands for..tweak the services you offer do a Seth Godin and look for that Purple Cow..

Are you trying to be everything to everyone? Well stop right now, “a product that is aimed at everyone is aimed at no one” (Seth Godin) Stop playing it safe and start marketing like a category on one…

Make sure that people seek you out…be so attractive that your product or service is a must have,be the Apple in your own market..

A good LinkedIn profile is important…fact

A good company one is vital…it tells the world what you do and how you do it…

There are however some common things that are not done that can damage how you are seen and hence if you are contacted..

Five Points to Look at and put right….

1. Get rid of “Company Website” please…replace it with the name of your company,say AB Pumbing or better still with a description or benefit of ewhat you do…”Best Plumber in London”

2. Make sure that you have claimed your Vanity URL..small point maybe but worthwhile the small effort it takes to get..if people see numbers and letters after your name then it looks unfinished.By choosing that Vanity URL (Your Name basically) it shows that you have taken time to think about your profile.

3. Use the Headline area to describe what you do..If you are not looking for a  new role then you don’t need Managing Director or Sales Director…people often search by broad areas such as Internet Marketing or Accountants for instance..make it easy for people to find you by your key skills not your title

4. Set up a Company Page…easy to do and so important..add some products and services and make sure that for each page you give it the URL of that product page from your website..get the Follow tab on your web site..make it easy for people to follow you and hence interact..use these products and services tabs to direct potential customers to your web pages.

5. Best ’til last…set ADMINS on Company Pages so that you can post updates here…no pointhaving a Company Page and not doing this..you are missing out on a whole area of potential connectivity.

Please do get in contact

Monday morning and the start of Summer, a time to think about what the week and the rest of the year will bring.

Before you start telling the world that you are ready to meet them take some time to look at how the world sees you.

This week sees the FaceBook Fan page change so its important to look at what you want on there.

• Take stock of how you are using Twitter..are those lists in the best shape they could be? Searches need refreshing maybe to take account of any recent changes in your sector?
• Time to add some new energy into that Twitter bio and use some hash tag magic?
• New players suddenly appearing in your area? Start to check them out with some simple Competitor Intelligence..use  Twitter,Facebook,LinkedIn and test their email speed of response… call them and see how long it takes to answer the phone..always a good one.
• Brush up that LinkedIn profile… still not made yourself an admin on your company page? Still not using the updates and searching for what’s happening in your sector on your doorstep? No point trying to get a big National  fish on the line when there are loads of big contracts two streets away..
• Still got Company Website showing on LinkedIn? Still not got that vanity URL?

When it comes to doing these things I’m as guilty as anyone..this week I will get a new Fan Page Cover, I will add Services to my Linkedin profile and will put some zip into my Twitter searching..

Marketing Monday has already started with a review of what Customeyes does…first and foremost we are marketers of our own services so spend time every day,not just Monday’s getting the marketing right and the rest will follow.

Business 2012

 Three Reasons to be there…

There has been much comment on Twitter in the last 24 hours about the Business 2012 event being held at the O2 Arena in London.

Some of it has been justified, it was badly organised, it was cold it was a tad shambolic and yes there were some pretty barbed comments..one exhibitor said that it was badly organised on biblical proportions..

The feeding frenzy was by no means justified as many visitors actually enjoyed it,how do I know? Because I asked many as I went around, its sadly what I do..some were even planning on a return visit.

Customer satisfaction was not high for some but customer loyalty will see the event though to success.

Why?

Because at the heart of this event there are some fantastic speakers and motivators..the Three B’s in particular, Branson Burton and Botterill..all three are a huge success and all three have done so on the basis of being single minded and turning adversity into positive outcomes.

Learning from mistakes and being single minded epitomises the approach these three entrepreneurs take. You cannot be successful by wallowing in what has happened you have to learn, improve and move on.

That is exactly what the event will do, learn, adjust and deliver a better customer experience from today onwards.

Worth Visiting..Yes

If you have any doubts about visiting then talk your self into it rather than talk your self out of it..

There are some great exhibitors and the speakers are all on form..

Brad Burton was full of his normal enthusiasm and forthrightness, Get off Your Arse and get on with it..when in full flight the Meet, Know, Like Trust message is compelling, check out the speed networking section that 4N are running, not many gaps in that line of thirty chairs all day long.

Nigel Botterill’s 18 Points talk…you are the only person to blame when things go wrong,.. Botterill talks such common business sense that its hard not to listen..so many in the first talk of the morning were running out of pages to take notes on..the Entrepreneurs Circle area was busy all day..

If these two could share a stage tickets would sell out, it would be the cosmic event of all business motivational speaking…would they ever agree to such an event?

These were by no means the only speakers of note,my point is that mistakes can be made good, look to the positives of the day and learn to keep your eyes open to what is around you and keep Listening..these speakers made the event despite the first day hiccups.

Would love any feed back on day two of the event..

Social Media has a purpose, it’s a business tool that can help with customer research and competitor intelligence.

 New business needs to handled sensitively,it’s personal…you do your own M.O.T  Market Opportunities Template as you do with competitor research, Market Opportunities and Threats..

Both aspects make you more profitable…and improve the customer experience

As a business tool it needs to be used..you wouldn’t buy a hammer then pay the person who sold it you to come around and knock in a nail for you…. or would you?

You’d learn what the hammer does and then use it and get better at knocking in nails…

So why do it yourself?

1.Only you know what the business really needs..and that is how it will always be..you need to keep control

2.You want to find out what the Social Media Footprint is of a competitor and don’t want the world knowing – less people you tell the safer the intelligence – no need to brief a third party

3. Research needs evolve and can’t be planned…how can you know that you need to look at a LinkedIn profile or interrogate  Signal for current updates? You won’t know what twitter search you need to do to gather intelligence for a meeting until you have got the meeting.

4.Research is 80% confirmation 20% Inspiration… searching Twitter,FaceBook, LinkedIn etc takes you on a journey that only you will know the value of.. the 20% will only be obvious when you’ve hit the AHH that’s how it fits in spot..

5.Save money and time..once you have the tools you won’t need to spend money briefing someone to spend even more of your money on doing what you could yourself…

Having a managed Social Media platform is one thing but research is another – you can’t expect someone else to do your thinking and planning for you…situations change far too quickly and you need to be in the driving seat of new business and competitor intelligence.

If you would like some feedback on what these tools are then please do contact us

socialmedia@customeyes-research.co.uk

Listening to your biggest customers is so important

Getting asked about how effective Mystery Customers are can sometimes be frustrating..

We help many companies understand the Customer Experience which helps in overall profitability and growth. Simple on this level,good solid customer research and Shopper Marketing.

Problem

The difficulty is that we don’t provide a standard Mystery Customer response because all clients are different and hence our response and approach are always going to be unique.

There are huge differences in customer profiles amongst a companies customers and these have to be taken into account.

Too many Mystery Customer companies have surveys the length of your arm with a zillion Yes No questions on them. A host of boxes that ask for rankings and ratings and reasoning…

All this has its place but often the wrong customer gets sent to the wrong place or is clearly not nor will be a customer of that business..its mystery shopping because the use of the feedback is a mystery…why listen to someone telling you how to improve your business who never uses your shop, restaurant,pub,cafe or firm? A person who has no idea of what you do or why you should improve.

Solution

The solution is not to bus Mystery Shoppers in but to talk to customers directly…we think we have the best possible solution that avoids the mismatch of “shoppers” not being profiled and forgetting what happened on their way home to fill in the huge survey..

Customeyes advocate being on site and talking to as many customers as possible making sure that all customer profiles are covered…it avoids getting selective feedback and ensures accuracy. The answers are genuine,it allows proper profiling of customers and it gives certainty.

By asking about Expectations, actual versus preconceived it’s possible to get a clear ROE measure – Return on Expectation which when linked to Advocacy and propensity to recommend produces powerful insights. A better picture emerges.

This picture tells you what really happened and what needs to be done to improve the customer experience to enhance Advocacy and brand awareness.

Customeyes report on solid Red Amber Green platforms and have corresponding Resistors, Acceptors and Generator customer tags to identify who is promoting and who isn’t.Where is your Social Media platform being promoted and where isn’t it? What can be dome to improve that Footprint?

What about Exit Polls? Why did they go into that shop,cafe,Estate Agent, restaurant? Was it destination or impulse? Where does this leave them in terms of Advocacy? Would they recommend based on this visit alone?

The Gift..

This approach takes the nonsense out of dull surveys that are lists of boxes that ticked without feeling or knowledge. It removes the absurdity of surveys being used to tick marketing boxes giving useless percentages that seek to flatter…

The gift is customer gold dust – real views real feedback the building blocks of solid business improvement.

There are so many tools on LinkedIn that its easy to forget just how useful they are.

Signals is possibly overlooked as a means of staying up to speed with news stories.

This gem is located under the News menu  but can also be accessed from the Home page of LinkedIn.

So what does it do for you?

You can see what is happening on a local basis,national basis or by topic and even by company.

By conducting a general search you can then narrow this down by location.

It’s a wealth of information about your area,competition and market as a whole. Track what is being said on a subject in the last week, day or even last hour.

It is also a great Customer Research tool, see what they are saying about their products and services.

How much more up to date can you get?

This video explains it all

LinkedIn Signal, competitor Intelligence made easy… bit.ly/sMItmr

— Customeyes Research(@AngusGrady) December 15, 2011

If you have any questions please do contact us

socialmedia@customeyes-research.co.uk