Comcast Corp. revealed a 10-step  “cheat sheet” for building a social call center strategy at the annual International Customer Management Institute ACCE conference for contact center managers held here this week.

The tips were based on practical business steps and were welcomed by attendees, many of whom said they are still struggling to integrate social channels into their operations.

“It helped me see how I can get buy-in from management,’’ said Robert Frost, senior director of global client relations at Acronis Inc., a backup software company based in Waltham, Mass.

In a keynote presentation, Kip Wetzel, director of integrated experience and product development at Comcast, said a social customer service plan, when stripped of social media hype, is really quite simple.

“We are meeting our customers on the platform where they are most comfortable,’’ Wetzel said.

Wetzel was joined by Fergus Griffin, vice president of Service Cloud product marketing at Salesforce.com, to provide the cheat sheet for success, which consists of the following steps:

1. Start listening on social channels. Wetzel said when Comcast launched its social strategy three years ago “we wanted to listen before we tweeted.” This gave the company “raw feedback” to start grasping what customers were saying about the brand.

2. Define a social strategy and stick to it. Throughout customer service areas at Comcast, there are notes posted about the mission, Wetzel said. When adopting social media, customer service groups need to avoid getting sidetracked by other social media initiatives within the company that may not directly relate to customer service.

3. Determine the necessary agent skills your organization will need. Salesforce.com’s Griffin said some organizations will discover they need social media experts on the payroll, but others may prefer a different skill set. As it turns out, Comcast’s Wetzel said he would rather have agents well versed in Comcast products than someone “who can tweet until they are blue in the face.” He stressed that a strong understanding of a customer’s product is important, regardless of the channel.

4. Respond quickly to customers. Once engaging on a social channel, speed is critical, Wetzel said. It is more important to reach out to customers and tell them you are working on getting an answer on a social network than to wait until you have a complete answer to make the first contact. Customers want to know they have been heard in near real time, Wetzel said.

5. Be authentic and respectful. Although the interaction appears casual online, “it is still customer service,” noted Salesforce.com’s Griffin.

6. Think before you post. As corny as it sounds, Wetzel said his guideline is to never post something he would not send to his mother.

7. Create a social media policy. This should include designated tweeters or other social media participants as well as provide a clear definition of the company’s voice that they must use.

8. Give agents the tools they need to be socially engaged.

9. Track social engagement. Often companies do not have an integrated knowledge base that shows a an up-to-date customer profile across traditional channels, much less social channels, but companies need to create some kind of case management or tracking system for online engagements.

10. Keep management informed. This process begins when first pitching social customer service to executives. Using real examples of customers’ online comments can be a big selling tool. Using listening tools and analytics gives customer service management information it needs to keep management informed.

Attendees such as Acronis’ Frost said it was helpful to get common-sense guidelines.

“When we first started exploring social medial, there wasn’t a well defined process,” said Frost. “It was just this idea of ‘do social media.’ ”

Jim Iles, director of customer care at Suburban Propane, a New Jersey company that runs a Syracuse, N.Y.-based call center, said his company has not yet explored how to use social media, adding, “One of the reasons I am here is to pick up on that.”

Suburban’s business is seasonal with a much higher call volume in winter months. Most of those calls are emergencies, such as when customers contact Suburban because they have run out of fuel.

Iles said he wanted to assess how social media will fit this model. Right now, “it’s not clear how to exploit it.”

Kay Nielson, an attendee who serves as an assistant vice president at Nodaway Valley Bank of Maryville, Mo., also said her organization does not yet have a social customer service strategy. “Right now, we don’t have social media, but that’s our next big plan, Nielson added. “We change as our customers change, so we have to adapt.”

Exinda, a global provider of WAN optimization solutions, today announced its line-up of activities scheduled to take place at Technology and Learning Conference 2011 – “The Office Unplugged” Making Every Day Computing Easier taking place June 16 – 17, 2011 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Visitors are invited to take part in live product demonstrations of Exinda’s WAN Optimization solutions that feature Unified Performance Management (UPM), preview new product features including the Exinda Edge Cache™, and attend informative workshops on addressing specific network challenges.

Exinda Workshops at “The Office Unplugged”

Exinda will offer several workshops at the event on June 17, including:

The Exinda Edge Cache

The Exinda Edge Cache enables single-sided caching of Internet-based content, including web objects, videos and software updates with a single Exinda WAN Optimization appliance at the branch office or data center, enabling a superior user experience and reducing WAN utilization costs. With the Exinda Edge Cache, web objects are cached at the network edge when they are downloaded from the Internet. These objects can then be delivered to the users on the corporate local area network much faster, providing a better user experience. By caching these web objects in the local office, organizations can drive down the network traffic consumed by each office, which directly reduces network costs.

Unified Performance Management – Live Demonstrations

Exinda will also deliver live, real-time demonstrations of its latest WAN Optimization solutions at the event, Visitors can experience how UPM enables network managers to dramatically improve the delivery of applications and enhance user experience by providing full visibility, control and optimization within a single appliance. Using Exinda’s live demonstration, visitors can see the traffic on its virtual network, identify problem areas, quickly apply policies to control or optimize traffic, and immediately see the performance improvements.

About Exinda

Exinda is a proven global supplier of WAN Optimization and Application Acceleration products. The Exinda Unified Performance Management (UPM) solution encompasses application visibility, control, optimization and intelligent acceleration – all within a single network appliance that is affordable and easy to manage. Founded in 2002, Exinda is headquartered in Andover, MA and has established regional offices in Canada and the United Kingdom to support the growing global demand for its products and services. Exinda is a 100% channel business with products being distributed by a worldwide network of solution partners who offer local support and services. For more information, please visit http://www.exinda.com.

Central Desktop, provider of the industry-leading cloud-based social collaboration platform for businesses, today announced the availability of new social features including polling and enhanced presence detection. These new features further strengthen Central Desktop’s social engagement capabilities and represent the company’s ongoing dedication to customer-driven product development.

Central Desktop’s online collaboration platform allows users to share files, connect with colleagues and clients, and manage projects from a centralized, secure online location. The addition of Central Desktop’s newest social features increases users’ engagement levels and improves their communication and involvement with other collaborators.

Central Desktop’s new social features include:

• Polling – Easily gather feedback from your colleagues by attaching a poll to a new discussion. The poll creator can opt to send an email notification to those taking the poll, make the poll anonymous or allow users to change their votes.
• Who’s Online – Users can see who else is online on Central Desktop directly from their dashboards. When enabled, this feature displays the avatars of users who are online, along with the user’s profile information.
• My Collaborators – This feature provides users with quick access to people they frequently collaborate with. The dashboard will display a user’s top eight collaborators and link to a personalized contact list.
• Workspace Observers – A workspace observer is a user who needs access to the information in a workspace, but does not actively participate in the workspace. This permission level is ideal for executives or other users who only need limited access to certain workspaces.

“We feel it is incredibly important to stay in close contact with our customers and collaborate with them on which features to add to our solution,” said Isaac Garcia, CEO and co-founder of Central Desktop. “The addition of these new features is a result of many conversations with our customers and reinforces our commitment to furthering Central Desktop’s user-centric model. Our goal is to provide our users with the functionality they need to work smarter and faster.”

On Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 10 a.m. PDT, Central Desktop is hosting the “Product Innovations: Spring 2011 Release” webinar, which will provide an overview of Central Desktop’s newest features and how they can be used to improve collaboration. The webinar is free to attend. Register at go.centraldesktop.com/piw-spring-register.

About Central Desktop
Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that revolutionizes how people connect and share information to drive profitable business results. Businesses of all sizes use Central Desktop’s complete online collaboration solution to manage projects and documents in the cloud with colleagues, customers and partners. Key Central Desktop customers include the Humane Society of the United States, CBS, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Netflix, Gymboree, Workday and Harvard University. Founded in 2005, Central Desktop is a privately-held company with headquarters in Pasadena, California. For more information about the company, visit www.centraldesktop.com.

ExactTarget and Marketo, two software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, announced a strategic partnership today to integrate Marketo’s Revenue Performance Management solution with ExactTarget’s Interactive Marketing Hub.

Developed as the first partner application for the Interactive Marketing Hub, the application will provide Marketo’s full lead management functionality directly from the Interactive Marketing Hub, allowing marketers to plan, power, monitor, and track Marketo revenue performance management campaigns alongside ExactTarget-powered email, mobile, social media, and Web campaigns.

ExactTarget’s team of professionals across North America, Europe,and Asia-Pacific will begin selling and supporting the integrated Marketo partner application later this year, expanding Marketo’s reach into new markets around the globe.

“Consumers are interacting with brands in real time across email, mobile, social media, and the Web, and marketers must make the most of the opportunity to effectively engage,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and CEO. “By bringing the power of Marketo to the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, we can provide B-to-B marketers a single solution to deliver real-time cross-channel marketing, improve sales efficiency, and accelerate revenue growth.”

Unveiled in September 2010, the Interactive Marketing Hub is a cross-channel interactive marketing platform that enables marketers to engage in real-time marketing, consolidate all data to create a common view of the consumer. and deliver targeted, permission-based interactions across email, mobile, social media, and the Web. Currently in beta with more than 500 of the world’s leading brands, the Interactive Marketing Hub is an online marketing suite that provides a platform for marketers and technology providers to connect disparate data sources to power more relevant real-time cross-channel marketing.

“We are in the midst of a transformational shift in the Revenue Performance Management market,”said Phil Fernandez, president and CEO of Marketo. “The buying process has changed. Customers now touch dozens of online and offline information sources before they ever talk to a sales representative. Businesses recognize they need to move with high velocity to reach these prospects with compelling content before they decide to buy from a competitor. By combining ExactTarget’s and Marketo’ss market-leading products, we offer an unmatched solution to businesses seeking to engage with customers at the speed of the modern social web to accelerate revenue growth.”

The Marketo partner application will feature full integration with the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, allowing marketers to access unified calendaring, campaign management, data management and ExactTarget’s channel applications by bringing B-to-B and B-to-C communication together in a single platform.

“To progress beyond the limitations of single-channel solutions, professionals must consider incorporating the online marketing suite into their approach to cross-channel marketing,” wrote Joe Stanhope, senior analyst at Forrester Research, in the March report The Road to the Online Marketing Suite. “The online marketing suite facilitates marketing performance improvements by linking execution, content, and measurement to coordinate and optimize interactions across multiple online channels.”

In addition to the partnership, the companies also announced that ExactTarget has selected Marketo to power its global revenue performance management efforts. ExactTarget’s global sales and marketing teams will use Marketo’s technology to expand lead flow, optimize sales and marketing investment, and improve productivity.

Indianapolis—ExactTarget, which has been expanding its marketing services beyond its original email focus, will integrate lead management solutions from Marketo into its own marketing management platform.

ExactTarget’s Interactive Marketing Hub, launched last fall, will now offer a unified view of calendaring, and campaign and data management, as well as email, mobile, social media and Web tools, according to the companies.

Last year, ExactTarget acquired CoTweet, whose Web-based collaboration platform allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts.

There is a very strong link between website conversions and email. A recent study by my firm showed that once traffic has gotten as far as the shopping cart email was the largest source of ecommerce conversions, ranking above a direct entry and search. This is a useful reminder that the majority of sales come from people you already know, and who already know you.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, since we know that existing customers and prospects are much more likely to purchase than “cold” leads. Email is going to nudge and prompt them back to buy.

But traffic sources don’t work in isolation. We need to consider how different traffic sources build towards an eventual conversion, triggered more often than not, by an email.

We know that it may take many visits to achieve a conversion, not a single visit. New traffic may not lead directly to a sale, but if it leads to a micro-conversion, such as a newsletter sign up, registration or social login, then this is very valuable. So perhaps we should be looking at search and social as a stepping stone, beginning to build a relationship, which ultimately will probably only turn into a sale after a sequence of touches.

In the interest of achieving more conversions, here is a list of the top four ways of capturing more email addresses on an ecommerce site.

1. Incentivized Newsletter Sign Up

Given the importance of email in converting traffic, it’s worth considering giving your newsletter sign up more prominence. On most ecommerce sites, it is buried well below the fold, often in the footer. Visitors give their email addresses willingly in exchange for a promise of promotional offers. A recent study by ExactTarget, an email firm, showed that the top three reasons why consumers subscribe and share their email addresses are all promotional:

• 67 percent to receive discounts and promotions;
• 55 percent to get a “freebie” in exchange for my email address;
• 50 percent to get updates on coming sales.

 

 

Pasadena-based Central Desktop said Tuesday that it has added new social features as part of its online project and collaboration platform. The firm said it has added polls and online presence detection to its suite of tools. Central Desktop’s software-as-a-service is used for managing projects and connecting with co-workers and clients. The new polling feature allows users to gather votes on polls associated with discussions; the presence information provides a list of other users who are also online.

Central Desktop is run by Isaac Garcia, and venture backed by Openview Venture Partners.

eEye Digital Security, a provider of IT security and unified vulnerability management solutions, today announced that the company will receive advanced information from Microsoft about their monthly security bulletins to anticipate emerging threats and provide mutual customers with more timely protections.

eEye joined the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) and will be provided with vulnerability information in advance of Microsoft’s monthly security update release to offer protections to customers more efficiently and effectively.

“Security is eEye’s sole focus, but also a broader software industry challenge. With Microsoft Active Protections Program, eEye and Microsoft continue to show each company’s commitment to industry partnership to help protect customers,” said Brad Hibbert, eEye VP Strategy.

By receiving vulnerability information earlier, eEye customers will benefit from additional possible security protections built into eEye vulnerability management solutions. The eEye Research team, responsible for gathering IT security intelligence and building relevant protections into eEye products, can utilize information obtained via the Microsoft Active Protection Program to further enhance the company’s offerings.

Additionally, membership in the Microsoft Active Protection Program may enhance the eEye Research team’s guidance on the company’s monthly online Vulnerability Expert Forum (VEF), which is held the second Wednesday of each month, the day after Patch Tuesday, when Microsoft discloses their monthly patches. The next eEye VEF session will be held on June 15, 2011 at 1:00 PM (Pacific) / 4 PM (Eastern).

eEye’s VEF is one of several free, online resources that the company provides to the IT security community. Retina Community is a free vulnerability scanner for up to 32 IPs, now being used by more than five thousand organizations. eEye’s Zero Day Tracker provides a catalogue of the newest zero-day vulnerabilities, instructions for quick remediation, and a historical record of past vulnerabilities.

“Our partners share our passion for industry collaboration to protect a world full of Internet users,” said Jerry Bryant, group manager, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. “No one company can accomplish this by itself. That is why we are partnering with eEye to advance and improve security.”

More information on MAPP.

About eEye Digital Security
Since 1998, eEye Digital Security has made vulnerability and compliance management simpler and more efficient by providing the only unified solution that integrates assessment, mitigation, protection, and reporting into a complete offering with optional add-on modules for configuration compliance, regulatory reporting, and integrated patch management. eEye’s world-renowned research and development team is consistently the first to uncover critical vulnerabilities and build new protections into our solutions to prevent their exploit. Thousands of mid-to-large-size private-sector and government organizations, including the largest vulnerability management installations in the world, rely on eEye to protect against the latest known and zero-day vulnerabilities. More at eeye.com.