The Content Repository is the Key to Customer Experience Management

August 16th, 2012 | | Content in Context, Guest Blogger
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There is a lot of discussion around the role of the web content management system in customer experience management (CXM). Some say it’s the core, others say it’s an element, but not a driver. I say they are both right.

Let`s be very specific here, because it is important. If we were just talking purely about the online customer experience, then I would agree that the web content management system (WCM) is the core to designing and support CXM strategies. Pretty much every supporting CXM technology: marketing automation, social media monitoring, customer relationship management, analytics, personalization, social software, etc…needs to integrate with the WCM. Why? Because it stores all the content you need to manage the experience. We use to call this WebEngagement (orExperience) Management.

But customer experience management is about more than the online channels. And not all WCM platforms provide support to the offline experience. Support channels, print-based marketing, internal knowledge work activities — these things are typically done using other tools. And the content used to support these activities is, typically, stored in these other tools.

What I think brings both these views together is not the WCM itself, but the WCM repository. Or to be more generic, the content repository. I think to be successful managing the customer experience, you need to be able to quickly access and relate all elements of a customer interaction with all the internal knowledge your employees have about not only the customer, but the processes used to work with a customer. You can do that if you have a single content repository to work with.

Many content management systems today are designed to store content not as html pages, but as individual components of content that can be easily reused across different web pages, mobile sites and apps, social networks and more. Managing a single version of that content is important to ensure you are always saying the same thing to your customers. These repositories can also be leveraged by other systems to provide content as well. For example, this content repository could be used by your call center support team to help customers with issues.

Now it’s important to point out that I don’t believe you can only have one single content repository where all information needs to permanently live. I believe that content integration is the key to a well-managed content repository. So you can keep your content in the other systems you work with, but find a way to integrate your content repository with those others systems.

By doing that, you can have a single location to mine for information about your customer and their interactions with you, and to use to design and build new applications or online/offline experiences. A central content repository also allows you to develop support applications that have access to customer information easily, including any information from CRM systems, traffic information, etc…

Today’s content is not only the material you use to develop your CXM strategies, it’s also the interactions customers and prospective customers have with you. Having it all accessible in a centralized content repository will help you identify, design and refine your CXM strategies quickly. If you are required to move from system to system to gather all the intelligence and information you need, you are going to spend far more time hunting and gathering, than actually doing something.

Barb Mosher is a guest columnist for MindTouch and Managing Editor for CMSWire.com. You can follow Barb on Twitter @bmosherzinck

Social Customer Service on Sesame Street

August 3rd, 2012 | | content strategy, Customer
Sesame Street- 35th Season Opening Show

It’s a brave new world of customer service. It’s called “social customer service” and it doesn’t mean you can do away with your 1-800 number or your legion of call center agents. But it does mean there are a lot more ways to help your customers. This includes social networking on Facebook and Twitters, and communities where you can offer knowledge bases, ideation, games to reward participation and much more. The options are as varied as your customers.

To give you an idea of how your different customers like to interact with this world of social customer service, let’s talk a walk along Sesame Street and meet the people that we see each day.

Ernie: Ernie is your typically chatty Cathy. He likes to ask a lot of questions and interact with all kinds of people. So when he has a problem like why his rubber ducky keeps taking on water or what’s the best bath temperature so rubber ducky doesn’t get ruined, he’ll ask a question on Twitter or your Facebook page – actually Facebook is one of his favorite places find information and help others.

Bert: Bert’s Ernie best friend, but he’s the opposite of Ernie. He’s a bookworm (bird books are his favorite), and not overtly social. Most of his time is spent with his nose in a book, so when he has a problem, his favorite places to look for answers include your online help support or the knowledge base in your branded community. While it’s important to first find the answer he needs, his love of learning means that if you can point him to other related information like the best bird seed to put out in the winter, or where the bald eagle raises its young, you’ll have a customer for life.

Big Bird: Big Bird is the most active customer in your branded community. He is the one everyone comes to for help. He listens and helps out where ever he can. He is considered the most knowledgeable person on a variety of topics including birds, bathing and dealing with imaginary friends. Big Bird is the customer you need to pay a lot of attention to and reward well, because without him, your community would be a much quieter place.

Mr Snuffaluffagus: Snuffy is a pretty intelligent fellow, but he keeps to himself. Called shy by some, Snuffy likes to think up really cool ideas; which means if you have a way for him to make suggestions he’ll spend a lot of time there. He also likes to comment and vote on other people’s ideas. A lot of people have heard about him and appreciate all the good comments, but no one is really sure who he is.

Elmo: Ah, yes, Elmo – the happy -go-lucky little red fella who’s always giggling and happy. Elmo’s not the most knowledgeable guy, but he loves games, so whenever he can he helps out in your community providing the best information and ideas he can, commenting and voting where appropriate, hoping to win a badge or two, or earn points to put towards a discount on your products.

Maria & Louis: This husband and wife team is a bit old school. When they have a problem they still prefer to talk to someone on the phone. But at the same they understand that sometimes it’s the people around them who can help answer their questions the fastest. So while they don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, they do visit your branded community every once in a while to ask a question or do some research.

Oscar the Grouch: Oscar is your worst nightmare and potentially your biggest ally. When he has a problem you’ll know it, because he tweets it to all his friends and then he heads to your Facebook page and gives you an earful. It’s not that Oscar is a trouble-maker, it’s just that he has a problem and he wants it fixed, and to be honest, your call center agent wasn’t the most helpful person in the world (I think they made some comment about people who live in garbage cans and Oscar really didn’t appreciate that). Oscar is also the guy, that once he gets his problem solved, by you or another customer, he will let people know the answer and say nice things about you (although maybe a little grudgingly).

There are so many other people (or muppets) who live on Sesame Street who will interact with you in different ways. Most of them are helpful and want to pass their knowledge along. These are the customers you want to reach out and bring into your community, because they will help make it a success. Social customer service is about implementing new tools and technologies to provide information and support in new “social” ways. It’s also about customer “self-service” and providing ways for customers to help each other. I’ve never been a big fan of call centers personally, so this idea of customers helping customers is something I can very much relate to.

If you asked me which Sesame Street character I relate best to, it’s a cross between Bert and Snuffy, but if you asked, I would help you out any day. I’m just that kind of customer.

Barb Mosher is a guest columnist for MindTouch and Managing Editor for CMSWire.com. You can follow Barb on Twitter @bmosherzinck

What Dora The Explorer Can Teach Us About Great Customer Experience

February 2nd, 2012 | | Content in Context, Guest Blogger, Uncategorized

I have young children, so I get the pleasure (and sometimes the pain) of watching a lot of children’s TV shows. The more I watch these shows, I realize that they can teach us a lot about how to implement great customer experiences. It starts with a task.

Children today are taught much differently than when I was a kid. Then it was all about paper and manual processes, now it’s a much more interactive learning process. It prepares kids for what? To enter the Internet and a vendor’s website only to find that it’s still a manual, “paper-based” process?

If you don’t know who Dora the Explorer is, I suggest you find a show online and take the time to watch it. Basically though, it always starts with Dora having some problem to solve or task to complete, and then goes through the process of her solving the problem or completing the task. Now doesn’t that sound like the basic starting point for a customer or prospect as well? Exactly. Read more…

Content in Context: Support & Sell Without the Sales/Marketing Pitch

January 26th, 2012 | | Content in Context, content strategy, Guest Blogger
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When it comes to customer support for products and services, most organizations look to support processes such as online communities, help documentation, customer forums, etc.. But are these tools being used to their best advantage? The truth is, in most cases, they aren’t.

Moving Support into Sales & Marketing

We often take for granted the content used in support processes. Take help documentation as a prime example. It’s probably one of the most hated jobs in the organization, creating help documentation. Nobody reads it, it’s impossible to keep up to date as patches, bug fixes and major updates are completed. It’s shoved in static help documentation files, and placed on CDs, DVDs or in hard to reach places on the website. Is it ever read by a customer? Do they find it useful?

Tech writers and organizations should be happy to know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Read more…

Content in Context: Content is the Tie that Binds Us

January 19th, 2012 | | Content in Context, content strategy, Guest Blogger

It’s time for a little quiz. I’m going to run 5 terms by you quickly, you have to tell me what they mean. Ready?

  1. “customer experience”
  2. “social business”
  3. “content is king”
  4. “customer is king”
  5. “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”

How did you do? Not so great I bet. If you are a business trying to sell your product or service, you probably don’t really care about all these terms marketers are throwing around. You just want to know how to give your customers and prospects the information they need to make the decision to buy from you and/or be happy in the decision they did make to buy from you.

We seem to finally be settling into a world where the customer has most of the power. What this means is that you can have all the fancy websites and marketing brochures you want, but if you aren’t thinking about what your customers need to make decisions, then you’re wasting a tidy sum. And these decisions, by the way, should be in your favor — that’s kind of important.

More Information Than You Know

The online world has become a place where people can quickly find information. But it’s not the only place they look. So you need to be sure you are consistent in your approach to providing that information. Content is the tie that binds all your marketing and support channels together. But it’s about more than great content. You have to offer that content in the right context.

Read more…

Collaboration, in Context

August 25th, 2010 | | content strategy, Enterprise 2.0

Barb Mosher at CMSWire recently asked me to revisit an open-editorial I wrote some time ago for OStatic on the “Future of Collaborative Networks”. Considering I wrote that piece over a year ago, I flinched a little as I loaded the page  – wondering how far off base I was going to be with what the reality is today. Thankfully, I don’t think I was too far off from what is actually happening in the market we’re currently in. (If you do, please, shoot me a note or comment below, I’d love to have the conversation!)

While the idea of ‘social business’ has definitely helped educate the market on Enterprise 2.0 capabilities, an amazing opportunity still presents itself for E20 to deliver even greater value. For that to happen, however, requires a considerable amount of what Barb herself calls “Collaboration in Context”.

Here’s a link to my follow up piece in CMSWire. Let me know what you think, either via comments below or on the article’s comments system.