How to Manage Your Brand When Customers Control the Message

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By Matt Clark

From the Marketing & Online Community Conference –

In another break-out session, Thor Muller of Satisfaction focused on practical strategies for cultivating brand equity in a world where candid customer feedback and conversations increasingly dominate news and search results around products. Thor highlighted how companies have implemented customer service tactics to embrace the engagement and deal with online communities delivering less than positive feedback.

One example was Dell’s customer service issue where a user recorded a customer service call and posted it on a podcast. (This reminds me of the AOL situation.) Dell then rolled out their Idea Storm site that lets users post ideas for new dell products, how dell can improve their existing services, get sneak peaks at future products and share ideas for driving cost and complexity out of IT.

Another example of a company using social media to embrace customer engagement was Jet Blue’s roll-out of their Customer Bill of Rights where the CEO personally posted a video on YouTube apologizing to consumer after JetBlue trapped customers in a plane.

A recent example comes from the controversy over the iPhone’s sudden price drop. Early adaptors - many of whom were integral to the phone’s pre-release buzz - felt betrayed when Apple cut prices, essentially penalizing the first iPhone owners. Steve Jobs, in an uncharacteristic move, engaged these customers, apologized and offered a refund.

Thor suggested that companies put conversations at the center of the business and reduce their sphere of control to increase their sphere of influence. This is hard for companies to accept and implement, but companies such as Zappos have run successful business on the model of putting customer service at the center of their business.