In the digital world, driven by interaction and big data, there are many sophisticated ways to get customer feedback.  Here a few…and I’m saving the best for last.

  • Social media monitoring tools that mine and semantically analyze online discussions.  These tools are getting more and more specialized for specific industries, e.g. there are different social monitoring platforms built specifically for restaurants and car dealerships.   These days you can’t go anywhere in New York City without running into a hot dog vendor, an investment banker or someone who has developed a new social media monitoring tool. (And that’s even since Salesforce acquired Radian6).
  • Online survey tools like Qualtrics that tie respondents’ attitudinal data from surveys to demographic and behavioral data that lives in databases and analytics software. They’re made even more powerful with overlays of transactional data.
  • Platforms like Jive Software and Get Satisfaction that facilitate customer communities and integrate with social media, CRM systems and marketing automation tools.   This takes “feedback” to the next level by making it actionable – by putting it right in the tools used by marketing and sales teams in the context of their workflow.  You know things are far along when Gartner even has a Magic Quadrant for the space, called Social CRM.

We regularly review marketing and sales technologies.  And I’ve come across the best one yet…a technology so advanced and so powerful that it provides customer insights like nothing else.

It’s called The Telephone.Phone technology

Here are some benefits of this amazing tool:

  • Real-time feedback from customers and prospects based on any imaginable segmentation
  • A deep qualitative view into concerns, challenges and the stuff that   keeps potential customers up at night (without the complexities of semantic analysis)
  • Flexible, dynamic mechanisms to trigger follow-up actions
  • Human expression and nuances, as if you’re actually talking to someone

The main use case of this tool is a unique methodology called A Conversation.  It’s a process where people actually listen.

Unlike most marketing automation campaigns, Conversations can be two-way, responsive and consultative without being canned.  We are advising all clients to pursue The Telephone and Conversations more deeply, and follow best practices in doing so, as part of their marketing and sales mix.

And remember folks, you heard it here first.

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Want to engage in more conversations and make your company indispensable?

Read our other post:  Build an Ecosystem Around Your Company – The Google Way

Drop us a line if you’d like to discuss.

 

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