Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Real one-to-one marketing in the Twitter age

At a seminar some weeks ago I asked Don Peppers (CRM and one-to-one guru) who was using Twitter, in a business sense, really well and what they were doing with it. His answer involved a large US telco with a history of bad customer service. They were using Twitter to identify complaints early, and here's the important bit, acting on them immediately to turn this perception around.

I'm glad to say that Australian companies appear to be doing the same. My recent experience booking tickets for the Sydney Festival is a case in point.

Briefly, the chain of events is this. I am booking a multi-pack on the dedicated phone line. You can only book on this phone line (not an auspicious start as I prefer to do these things online). Anyway, as usual, the lines open at 9am and are jam packed. If you are a keen Festival goer you will know that the popular shows can book out in hours. So I persevere.

I'm at my desk and after a long time of trying to get in the queue, then actually being in the queue for about 20mins I idly Tweet that my patience is running low.

About 1min later, SYDFEST tweets back to encourage me to hang in there, the queues are being worked through. Duly encouraged, I hang in.

And wait.

For about another 20mins.

So about now I Tweet again. I fear I have been lost in the queue and entered an electronic limbo. I Tweet again, airing my suspicions. Sure enough, SYDFEST gets right back and promises to look into things for me.

The world being what it is, I finally get through just after that. Succes! Well, almost. One of the shows I really want to see is sold out. Grrrr. Now I am becoming that grumpy customer. And Ilet the world know.

This is when the people handling the bookings really kick in. They know I've been hanging on the line. They have now realised I was lost in the system...and they can read that I am one unhappy bunny.

God bless'em, though. They Tweet me asking to DM my email and phone number. About 5minutes later they call me to confirm I was a victim of a technical glitch, and just what show was it that I missed out on....?

Another 5mins and a second phone call - they have found me the four seats I wanted for my show, and will extend the Multipack deal to them too.

I'm now a recovered, happy customer. Yes, I'd rather not have gone through this but it all turned out well.

The key things here are:
- Twitter can help you spot things going awry as they happen
- they can identify an individual who can then be dealt with as an individual
- backed up with empowered customer service people, action can be taken straight away
- if, like me, the individual is on Twitter, facebook and has a blog and likes to tell a good story as well as a bad one, many people may well here the good customer service story as well as the less good ones.

So, keep your corporate eyes on the social media, and have people with the authority and initiative to act on what they find, straight away. Now that's what I call one-to-one marketing.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Amplichoir and Seydisfjordur

Dell has partnered with MTV to try and create the world’s largest online choir, Amplichoir… in their words ‘we have no idea just how big it could become, but, deep down, we really want it to be the biggest one there is’. http://ema.mtv.co.uk/amplichoir, http://amplichoir.com/

The Icelandic village Seydisfjordur was filled with speakers broadcasting music from an eclectic bunch of artists including Bob Dylan, Federico Cabral and Guillemots as part of a film by Fallon to promote the high sound quality on Sony TVs. According to Fallon's Juan Cabral, who directed the spot, Sony turned the village into ‘an extraordinary sound-system for a week’. Watch it here. http://tiny.cc/Soundville

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sneakers and Paintball Action

New Balance goes straight for the sneaker freak jugular with a beautiful campaign via Mother, New York. Each pair of the new limited-edition '574 Clips' shoes comes complete with a unique Polaroid picture showing where in the US it was made. This has a code on the back which connects the consumer to their own video hosted online - expanding on the origins of each individual pair. Users can then 'claim' their video before sharing with friends across various social networks and blogging platforms. http://574clips.com

Pop art via paintball on behalf of snack brand, Bon Yurt for Leo Burnett, Columbia http://tiny.cc/popart515. The full campaign features seven limited edition labels made by students www.bonyurt.com

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Wii & The Never Ending Why

Hockey Moms are the subject of a witty campaign to launch NHL 2K10, a hockey game for the Nintendo Wii. Via 72andSunny in Los Angeles, the campaign stars three moms who use the game to vent their aggression. http://tiny.cc/nhl2k10Wii

Finally, check out Champagne Valentine’s beautifully interactive promo for The Never Ending Why, the new Placebo single. Through Nexus in London, the multi-sensory experience steers the viewer through a landscape of shadows, monsters and psychedelic colour. http://tiny.cc/PlaceboChV

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

From Red Bull to a boot or that little sports car

Just a couple of quick things we like....

It’s not quite Mark Ecko tagging Airforce One, but Red Bull Cola has taken laser tagging to the M16 building in London thanks to Agents of Change, making the point that the brand’s natural cola has nothing to hide. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGbShQOwjjo

Hasbro has just kicked off Monopoly City Streets. The game is a limited-run massively multiplayer online interface that, thanks to Google Maps, allows players to develop property anywhere in the world in real time. More here www.monopolycitystreets.com

Ian stands up for design in Australian Creative

Some pearls of wisdom from Ian in Australian Creative...

http://www.australiancreative.com.au/blog

Monday, September 14, 2009

Putting our heads above the parapet

the hub stirs the pot. Goody.

http://mumbrella.com.au/parents-stop-blaming-ads-grow-a-backbone-and-say-no-9401#more-9401