Managing the Customer Conversation
If you’re in business there’s one thing you need to accept pretty fast about today’s consumers… they’re more connected, smarter, better informed. It’s not a one way spiel at customers anymore, its about customers connecting to customers in a matrix conversation. As a business, your ability to engage in that conversation will affect the outcomes of customer perceptions about you, your product and your value in their world view.
In Robert Nyman’s post yesterday on Microsoft’s recent marketing campaigns there was some discussion about their recent flopped strategies. Someone in the comments suggested any PR is good PR, but that’s really an olden-days perspective of marketing. The answer is it depends.
In Microsoft’s case they don’t benefit at all from negative PR exposure. We didn’t improve Internet Explorer market share by hounding them about support for web standards and highlighting developer bugs. In their case it simply isn’t better to be talked about than not talked about. We’re hardly going to forget Office and Windows and Internet Explorer, nor are there many out there who have never heard of them. It would be similar with Google, or other iconic businesses.
However, if you’re a startup with everything to gain and very little to lose then any conversation about you is an opportunity to expose yourself to the potential customer base; an opportunity to grow. Being DUGG for a slight glitch in your cool little new project is going to be an awesome boost for your exposure. Its how you manage from that point forward that will determine your bottom line. In this case, the paradigm holds true that any PR is potentially good PR. But its entirely dependant on your reaction to and management of those onflow effects from that catalyst.
So, the real question underlying that is how do you deal with the conversation? This is where the lean agile business has a real advantage. Own up to your mistakes early and openly, engage the negative PR conversation (which gave you exposure, by the way) and turn that into satisfied customers; use the opportunity to develop relationships between your business and customers as well as provide customers the channels to engage with other customers in uncensored discussion about your business. On that front, your mission amounts to engaging the world view of individual customers. Because if they believe your product is crap, regardless of whether its the best little application they’ve needed since forever, then your product is crap.
What is good and bad about your business exists entirely as a concept within your customers own head. Its critical to understand the importance of that remark. If you want customers to give you money, use your product, then their world view better tell them you’re worth the effort, time or money.
How many people are talking about your product isn’t the issue. The real issue is about bums on seats – how many people are converting, buying-into, adding to your revenue stream? The conversation about your business – whether you call it PR or advertising or promotion – isn’t just about whether people are talking about you. At least not anymore. The important thing is how you manage those relationships and foster those connections once you’ve gained their limited attention.
Ask yourself: What type of business are you in? What are your goals and objectives? How do you measure success and failure quantitatively? And, given those answers, how does this effect the way you manage the world view of your customers?
Let’s face it, customers are going to be talking about you anyway – how do you manage that in a business context?
