Welcome to the third and final entry in this series of customer communication blog posts.  So far we’ve looked at how frequently to contact customers and what communication method best suits you.  There’s just one final piece of the communication puzzle that I want to share with you – permission and relevance.

Why are you sending this to me?
This is the one question that you never want your customers to ask when they receive communication from you.  If you can make sure all communications are relevant to the customers you send them to, and they’re sent at the relevant time, then you’re on your way to a successful communication programme.

If frequency, method and relevance were contestants on Blind Date – relevance is the one you want to be choosing each time!

Working with permission
You must respect your customer’s wishes.  If they have opted not to receive communication from you please don’t think that following the guidelines in this blog means you can now start sending communications to all customers.

We’re all protective of our contact details, so do unto others as you would have done to yourself (within the constraints of the Data Protection Act).  Creating a relationship with your customers will enable you to cross and upsell profitably.  Emailing customers who have asked not to receive anything could leave you recruiting a complaints manager.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of blog posts, all that’s left for me to do is wish you a successful and profitable communication plan for 2009.

At the end of last year we were asked to make our predictions for this Blog. The problem with making predictions is that you tend to focus on what is newsworthy at the time & then predict the outcome; I’m guilty as charged (my predictions are here if you are interested). Having confidently predicted what will happen in 2009, the news then turned very negative and for the past three months the industry has been pretty inward looking as we reported in mid-January with nothing being hyped. Well yesterday changed all of that with Jive Software announcing Social Business Software (‘SBS’).

To be fair, Jive Software have been around for a while delivering collaboration products: instant messaging; wikis etc This announcement is for a suite of products that, Jive say, will enable large enterprises to use community type software (a la Facebook, Linked In and the like) to promote collaboration & innovation, as well as encouraging new ways of interacting with customers. I’ll let you read the press releases for more detail but where this looks interesting is that there is an analytics package that allows companies who deploy SBS to get a measure of how well the company is collaborating & innovating.

There is a sea change going on in large enterprises who initially saw social networking sites initially as a time waster and yet we’re starting to see their value. How many companies have an ad-hoc LinkedIn or Facebook group set up? These same large companies are now accepting social networking, and driving the first steps towards collaboration through use of wikis and knowledge management systems. It’s an interesting space to watch because the factors driving effective & productive adoption are the combination of technology and social elements. Whilst you can control the technology pretty easily, the cultural elements make a big difference to how an enterprise gets the ultimate value of investment in this type of solution.

The announcement by Jive Software yesterday will help to validate the use of software solutions like this but this is a new marketing proposition and the industry watchers aren’t fully clear where SBS plays against the competition. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some hyperbole around what this product launch means, especially in the area of sales & marketing collaboration.

Another thought about this brave new world: last week came news about Tom-Tom in the Netherlands in a potential patent lawsuit with Microsoft to try and protect open source licences. That’s just between manufacturers. What would happen if collaboration between customers & suppliers, as promoted by SBS, lead to a customer offering a fantastic idea for a product enhancement which was used to make a lot of money by the recipient, that could be an interesting legal conundrum.

So, I’m going to add another prediction (there’s no rule that says I can’t!). I expect we’re going to see quite a lot of noise now about social computing driving innovation & productivity in the enterprise, and about how it enables customers & suppliers to work much more closely. Then we’re going to see the major software manufacturers positioning their products into this space. The positive benefit is that it will prompt more companies to look seriously at how collaboration tools, not just SBS, can help them.

Hopefully, this is going to be a fun ride.

Welcome to the second part of my blog on customer communications – thanks for coming back!

My last entry looked at frequency of communications, which leads us naturally into looking at what’s the best method of communicating with customers?  You’ll not be surprised to hear me say that again there’s no ‘one size fits all’.  So what are our options?

Going digital
There are several digital marketing methods that can be used to reach your customers, here’s a taster of some of them;

Email
Using HTML email allows you to be creative and really grab your customer’s attention, but beware SPAM filters that will stop your email getting through.

RSS feeds
Send news and information to your customers as it happens to the place of their choosing.  Bite size snippets will have them heading back to your website to find out more.  Not for the tech novices amongst us!

Blogs
If you’re reading this then I think this one speaks for itself!  It’s a great way of presenting the human face of your company.  You can also stay in touch with customer sentiment by asking for ratings or comments on an article – beware of SPAM that you might get though and check responses before releasing on website.

Doing what feels right
When it comes down to customer communications it really is looking at what feels right for you, your business and your customers.  It’s also important to factor in what your budget will allow and the return on investment you need.  Why not explore all avenues and give your customers the choice?  The more you listen to customers and give them the content they want using the channels they want, the closer you’ll get to building brand loyalty.

Coming soon:  What’s permission got to do with it?

I recently saw a question on Linked In where someone was looking for advice on customer communications.  They wanted to know how often they should email their customers.  The reality is that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to communicating with customers.

Working out what’s right for you
The good news is that as a business owner you get to decide what’s right.  But it has to be right for you and your customers.  Communication with customers isn’t much different to communicating with friends and family – it’s all about doing what feels right for both parties.  What works for on person may not work for another.

Push the button
So, when do you press the ‘send’ button and put your brand name into a customer’s inbox?  For some companies an eNewsletter can prompt a loyal relationship, using a regular frequency ensures customers know when they will hear from you and, if the content is compelling, possibly even start looking forward to receiving it!  For others it may be concentrated around special offer and sale times.

Using customer events to your advantage
How many of us have decided to step away from what we as a business are doing and instead use events happening in the customer’s life to prompt communications?  I recently received a birthday card from my bank and my gym.  A quick poll around the office showed that many companies are doing the same.  Other examples I’ve seen are emails reminding me that my car insurance quote is due to expire and emails from retailers recommending other products that complement my recent purchase.

Why not take some time to review your customer communications this year and see what really works for you and your customers?

Coming soon:  The best method for customer communications

The snow hit Exeter in Devon on Monday morning, and as I was at home that day with my daughter, it was a day of playing and building snowmen with neighbours in the close – how idyllic! And periodically talking with friends on Facebook and Twitter keeping up with how thick our individual snow was! Mine was the least….

But as an employee it made me think about those that this weather really affected, I am sure many people enjoyed days off with family and for the bigger businesses maybe the financial losses can be reaped back reasonably quickly, but what about the small businesses? According to CEBRR this weather could have put 3000 at risk. In an already struggling economy this snow could have been an unwelcome sight to many small business owners on opening the curtains Monday morning.

I have read varying stories across the news and Twitter and they are a mix of joy about being snowed in and turmoil from those businesses that are losing money due to this flurry of snow. The FSB are saying it could cost the economy £3.5billion – wow for some snow….!! So for those enjoying it, what a change to be happy about cold weather and getting outside to take part in various activities; but what about those businesses who have been affected by people having no transport to either get into work or get in to spend money in establishments, or those who maybe could have got in but had to stay home with their children whose schools were shut. The London Trains alone could have cost £48 million in lost productivity, according to the BBC.

I work for a large company and so am very lucky in the fact that the day I was due in work, but snowed in I was able to carry out my work day as normal. Meetings were still held with colleagues over OCS, albeit we were all in varying locations rather than a handful of offices and we could email as usual, dial into our work accounts to access and work on documents. It is times like this I am so thankful for a digitally advanced company who have taken the time and effort to invest in these sorts of technologies. I utilise these technologies every day at work, but it is only on these rare occasions where the UK comes to a halt from the weather that being able to do business-as-usual really does make them invaluable.

So luckily for me, my world does not get turned upside down in events like this, but after reading the stories across the UK I worry for those companies whose days would have been very different and maybe completely non-existent. Do not get me wrong, a few days snowed in with my family brings nothing but smiles, but when it comes to keeping a business going, doing my bit to keep the money rolling in I really do have to thank technology for keeping me online and in-touch.

Is it time to think about investing in making your business more ‘online technical’ now?

I have to admit, and I am little embarrassed, but I do watch Big Brother, and am fascinated about the dynamics of human interaction. One day it is all acting up for the cameras, forcing their personality into our living rooms, then they fight, then they are all best friends, then they are upset, miserable, happy – you get my point. But isn’t that life, human interaction and the emotions that sometimes you only appreciate when you can see the whites of the eyes of the person or people next to you?

It made me start to think about how we interact with our colleagues, suppliers, and customers is rapidly changing through the lightning pace of change in communications technology. I read the other day a journalist commenting on how communications is changing the way we all live and interact, he even dared to say that actually we wouldn’t necessarily even go to the pub for a social beer, but we would all be at the Cyberspace Inn saying ‘cheers’ online. Something’s can go too far.

Within the office environment, modern communications is changing the way we do business, being greener, reducing travel, reducing office overhead costs, instantly being able to find out if someone 300 miles away is available just by looking for the green jelly bean. Video conferencing is becoming more of a daily occurrence – I can see my web cam staring at me right now – (hope its switched off), and we are all becoming Max Headrooms of our generation. I have been marketing business communications for eight years, and the reason I like it so much is the ever changing pace and technology that has transformed from an essential piece of kit that sits on your desk, to a fundamental way businesses operate, and compete for customers, increasing their productivity and enhancing customer service, ensuring the security of their information, and making sure that businesses can continue through a disaster with a strategic Business Continuity plan. A small business can now operate and be perceived as a much larger corporate. We are all much more productive at work because of it, can you even imagine life without email, your mobile, or teleconferencing – doesn’t bare thinking about!

So getting back to Big Brother and the raw emotions from human interaction – communications technology will not slow down, and the way we interact at work will continue to be driven by efficiency and productivity, and I am all for it – it is absolutely fascinating – however one thing is for sure, there must be a limit, communication must take its place in all of our work / life balance – and as its Friday night, I am not going to log onto the Cyberspace Inn, I am going to the local to ‘interact’ with friends, family and a pint and witness those raw emotions first hand.

Cloud Computing, Software as a Service, Application Service Providers, Virtual Desktops and Live Workspaces. Just some of the terms which have been bandied about over the past few years. With Windows Live Mesh, now available as a Public Beta as part of the ‘Wave 3′ release of Windows Live I sense these technologies coming of age and are ready to hit the mainstream. Big time.

So what’s it all about and why does it matter?

Live Mesh allows users to access and share their files seamlessly across the web and across multiple devices. So nothing really new there. It also allows users to share applications – again cool perhaps, but not altogether groundbreaking. Live Desktop looks and works in much the same way as your computer desktop (if you use Vista, that is) making it instantly familiar, intuitive and a breeze to use. Nice, fast and funky; but again we’ve seen most of this before.

Scratch a little deeper and some of the real potential of this new platform reveals itself. Live Mesh allows synchronisation between multiple devices (including mobile and macs), and people, providing an open, shared workspace in which diverse and distributed teams can collaborate. A ‘feed’ provides up to the minute information on users activity in relation to the workspace.

The world is changing fast and with the increasing pressures on business to improve efficiencies, ‘green-up’ and adopt flexible mobile working, the reality is that todays combination of email, shared folders and local applications is creaking at the seams. To date, the Achilles heel of the cloud computing paradigm has been its dependence upon ‘always on’ connectivity. So when the WiFi on the train decides to have a rest or my spangly new 3G data card hits its download limit I am, to put it politely, stuffed. However, when you are offline (intentionally or otherwise), Mesh provides a client which allows you to continue work without the connection. Then, when you are back online everything you have been working on can be neatly synchronised.

As it is closely integrated with the rest of Windows, Live Mesh is a logical step towards the ‘hyperconnected’ environment which has been looming for some time. It will allow us to step meekly into this world from our familiar PC-centric environment without the quantum leap of betting our entire working lives on being always connected. I think we will like what we see.

Mesh can be previewed at www.mesh.com

Andrew will shortly be living and working for a week using only his mobile broadband connection and sharing his experience in a diary. Watch this space and wish him luck.

Its easy when you work in this industry when people talk about ‘communicating’ to automatically start thinking of IP Telephony, routers, Instant Messaging and eMail, but occasionally its worth remembering that ‘communicating’ is actually the way we interact with one another, and the meaning we convey, not the technology we use to do so.

So what started me thinking about this?

I am a heavy user of the Internet, and amongst other things, I participate quite heavily in an online discussion forum. Over the last few years I’ve observed some very interesting interactions between individuals.

Over the last few thousand years we’ve developed our natural language to be highly expressive, with words conveying very different meaning depending upon not ‘what is said’ but ‘how they are spoken’, and added to this body language to convey our true meaning.

And suddenly this isn’t enough.

As more and more of our ‘communicating’ happens electronically, these subtle extensions to the way we communicate no longer work. In response to this, we’ve developed a raft of techniques to cope, from the dreaded ‘smilie’ to a wide range of abbreviations such as IMHO and LOL.

So back to using a forum. Its interesting to have seen many many examples of sarcasm, humour and serious points being taken completely the wrong way because of the lack of expression or non verbal clues. Often this turns an interesting discussion into one that is confrontational, losing its original purpose. Those that also participate in a forum will recognize exactly what I am talking about.

However, for those that haven’t yet succumbed to living online, the same challenges exist. We are all e-mail users, probably most use instant messaging, and virtually all readers will send a fair few text messages. The next generation will have no such challenge. Their range of tools and techniques will have adapted, as they have developed their communications skills with these technologies, not tried to adapt to them. And the richness of the media used will bring back some of the clues for them anyway. It is this that will drive the inexorable progress towards high quality video calling, telephony across the Internet, and of course, a whole new language of IMHO, LOLs and BRBs.

So in the meantime, if you are over 16, be careful what you say. It might not be what is heard!

I thought that company directors spent some of their time playing golf with their peers as part of “networking”. However it turns out that the modern IT director, such as ours, seems to think that a good time spent networking with his peers involves discussions around relevant topics like “Strategic Resourcing”. It was no surprise when he returned from a recent event and started asking me about using free open source software.

They had been discussing the effect of collaboration tools, especially instant messaging, on company culture. The CIO of a local utility company had mentioned that they were rolling out messaging using open source products which had saved capital expenditure compared to the commercial offerings. Without morning coffee I couldn’t really think of any cogent arguments either way and by the time I had he was away discussing something else of importance like the role of IT in business transformation.

The question of whether to use Open Source software or pay for commercial products keeps coming up and my answer is still the same as it has always been: It depends!

I’m not an automotive engineer, and when I sit in my car I’m not overly concerned about how it does what it does. I just want it to work. Frankly for most businesses I expect IT to be treated in the same way; concentrate on the business itself and how IT helps to make it work, not on how IT works. If that fits with how you want to do business, then you’ll want IT products to work without deviating your time away from the core activities.  Despite the occasional report to the contrary, software businesses put a lot of effort into testing their products to work well.

Larger companies like Microsoft or Symantec develop & test the processes around installation as well as ongoing use. They also publish specifications for how their software looks when you use it so that if you are familiar with one product, then another should be easier to find your way around as well. Of course this costs money & you pay for that.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some really good software packages in the open source world. OpenOffice comes to mind as a good alternative to Microsoft Office and it is free to use. It looks different to Microsoft Office and some of the features work in a different way. My family experiences with OpenOffice are probably typical of using open source & other free software:
My eldest son got to grips with OpenOffice almost immediately. He found his way around it quickly and used it to produce a lot of documents including some high quality camera-ready brochures ready for professional printing. But then he did study Computer Science for a year at university as part of his course so I’d expect him to be pretty savvy at this stuff.
His younger brother could use OpenOffice but found that the differences to Microsoft office were enough to put him off. He just wanted to get on with working, not with trying to find out how to do something when he’d already learnt once elsewhere. He gave up and bought Microsoft Office as he felt he was faster working with it.
My father-in-law took one look at OpenOffice and declared it so different to Microsoft Office that he gave up in confusion.

I try to think of who is using the software and what they want to spend their time doing. Microsoft Office skills are widely taught now so getting staff going with them is easy. A major organisation, like the one that the CIO above represents, may well have in-house training and support teams that are able to get staff up to speed with other products cost-effectively. For them open source software could offer significant savings, that’s why we see some local authorities taking this route. However for a smaller business without access to that sort of infrastructure then the cost of mainstream products may well be balanced against the ease of using them.

That for me sums up the whole open software product portfolio. If you are prepared to spend the time (and indirectly your money) then you can get some very good products cost-effectively. Most come with no guarantee, and you don’t get a telephone number to call if you have a problem. If that is for you then go for it, just be prepared and recognise that the up-front saving may be eroded by the in-life costs.

As I said, “It depends”

PS. I use open source software at home

Can you believe that Google have been around for 10 years already, a company who has acheived so much and made a real stamp on the world. I was reading a crime book the other day and they are referenced in there, I have heard the name many a time in films – it just goes to show how powerful a brand they are.

In celebration to their 10 years success they have launched their old browser Google have cleverly used an Internet Archive to show websites how there were then!

It is amazing to think how different things were 10 years ago, how many of us now use the web every day for so many different parts of our lives? I for one use the web every day now – at home to search for cheaper household goods, bills, childrens clothing, I use Facebook to chat with friends, join groups and see photos of my old school friends; my mobile allows me to talk, email, take, send and store photos as well as keep a diary of things coming up. At work I use the web to talk to our customers, read about new ideas, email and OCS colleagues, set up a Sharepoint site for a project joining myself up across all of our offices. How clever, but scary at the same time as to how times change and technology jumps ahead every day.

10 years ago there was no Facebook, YouTube or iTunes site you printed photos by taking your film in somewhere, not lay it on top of other images in Flickr to create new pieces of art. You could pretty much order anything to your house and work from home could you become this New Age hermit? It feels to me like I have always been able to do these things, I cannot imagine meeting a friend in town and not being able to text them if I am lost or late, I do not read maps so well anymore due to SatNav, and never pick up a reference book I check Google – how did we cope!! Can you imagine not sending a quick email rather than a letter; storing your photos in albums paper format rather than online and being able to print them out in whatever size and format you require at the time.

Where was your business 10 years ago? How did you do business or cope outside of work? Would be great to hear your thoughts on this.

Things you might be interested in: Sharepoint, Email,