The Real Power of Listening: Insights from "Groundswell"
I have been reading "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies" by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, published by Harvard Business Press. The book discusses the activity of customers online and how consumers are defining your business. Groundswell is a a clearly written and refreshingly grown-up look at social media used by entire corporations.
One particular area that they discuss is the ability for companies to listen to the customers in a way they never could before. In the past, when companies decided to launch a new product they would create focus groups which were both time-consuming, limited and expensive. Li describes the growing interest on the part of large companies to shift and find a new way to keep their ear to the ground. The popularity of shifting focus groups to online communities has spread throughout the business world because they "…deliver not just insights but actionable insights." Companies like Dell, Charles Schwab, Unilever, BMW and many others have begun to take advantage of online communities to get into the heads of their consumers.
But how can you get started? Listening is not as easy at it may sound and Li set forth a plan to be able to begin to utilize online communities to understand your consumer:
1. Check the social technographics profile of your customers. Not all consumers are active creators on the Internet. You will benefit the most from communities that have demonstrated that their customers interact with your brand online.
2. Don’t try to monitor all of your brands at once. Pick one that already has activity.
3. Make sure you have an experienced team to work with to do the listening. You need people that are experienced in managing the data that comes in.
4. Don’t let the information sit on the shelf! You will need someone that can interpret the data and help you to integrate it into a plan for action.
Finally, it is important to remember that when you start listening to your customer base you might hear things that you don’t want to hear. Make sure you and your company are willing and ready to change before you start listening. Are you ready to turn insight into change?
This book is a must-read for anyone in the forum space — or any other social technology.
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