Checks Mix Blog

Why Social Media is Important to Engage Customers and Consumers

Bob Kobek, May 3, 2018

Are you making the most of social media to engage and maintain your customers? Social media is now so ingrained in our marketing culture that a company’s success is dependent upon it. Engaging with the customer through ongoing interaction is a necessity in a world where everyone is bombarded by millions of messages. Our smartphones and computers are an extension of our personal lives. In business social media is imperative to gain and keep our customers’ attention.

Connect, Engage, Educate, and Interact

Social media provides companies with the ability to connect and engage with customers in the same way they connect with friends, family members, and with information that is most important to them. There are now nearly 2.5 billion social media users. They use well-known sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, but also a myriad specialty sites designed to attract specific customers. Chatbots and the use of live video are part of the norm now.

Personalize Your Message

It couldn’t be a better time to reach your target customers. With so many ways to gather information it’s easier to personalize your message and connect to your customer on a personal level. Have a conversation with them through social media channels. Use social media to lead them to your website where interactive content such as surveys or quizzes can help you find out your customers wants and needs.

Make it Easy for Customers to do Business with You

If it seems like Chatbots are popping up on every website, it’s true. Software and platform service provider Oracle, polled 800 senior marketing and sales executives worldwide, and found that close to 80 percent were either using or planned to use Chatbots for their business by 2020. Businesses use Chatbots to provide better customer service. It can be used for services such as making payments, placing orders or customer communication.

Live video on YouTube or Facebook provide a way to interact with current and potential customers in real-time. Company representatives can respond to comments, ask and answer questions in as close to a real situation as possible without being in the same room.

Customer Count is your Customer Feedback Solution. We use social media channels to educate, inform and engage our clients and you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. We like you…now like us too!

About CustomerCount^SM

CustomerCount is a feature-rich, cloud based survey solution providing intuitive real-time reporting, fast turnaround on requested updates, and detailed and dynamic data gathering capabilities to support process improvement efforts, build customer loyalty and improve your bottom line. Developed and managed by Mobius Vendor Partners, CustomerCount was initially designed for the timeshare and contact center industries and is now used by organizations across numerous different vertical markets and industries. For more information, visit www.customercount.com or call 317-816-6000. Follow them at http://www.customercount.com/blog/ on Twitter @CustomerCount or facebook.com/CustomerCount

About Keatext

Keatext is a cost-effective, cloud-based app that quickly gives businesses a picture of their entire interaction with their customers, across all touch points so they can take the right action. Keatext uses natural language processing technology to analyze unstructured customer feedback such as customer comments, product reviews, call center transcripts and open-ended survey responses. Learn more at www.keatext.ai or follow them on Twitter @KeatextAI.

Is your Feedback System Convenient?

Bob Kobek, October 11, 2016

Why We Shouldn’t Talk To Ourselves: Text Messaging is rising and rising and rising

By Robert A. Kobek, RRP

I read a press release the other day on LinkedIn and a national trade publication that claimed a resort company was “the first in the country” to utilize text messaging as a way of communicating with their guests. While I doubt the accuracy of that one it does make a pretty significant point.

In the course of a normal day (normal will likely be addressed in a future blog), I talk to close to 20-30 timeshare industry professionals in various positions. That is the highlight of my days as both a business owner and the chief cook and sales professional. Really, it is.

Discussions range from demonstrating our software to committee work for the various volunteer work I am engaged in to, yes, sales calls. What I hear, generally, are a lot of excuses for doing or not doing something that fall into a few categories. They all sound like the old “this is the way it has always been done” out of one side and “we can’t afford it” on the other.

One of them that fits into the former is the inclusion, or not of mobile access to every stage of the guest experience. And the biggest culprit about why mobile is not a part of the owner/guest communication: age. “Our owners and guests are old. They won’t use it.” Now, never mind they have never been asked, it is just assumed.

So, I have great news for you, this is not true! Grandma and Grandpa have smart phones, tablets, and even still have desktops. 4 years ago, 19% of the people responding to our feedback invitation were completing the survey on a device other than a desktop. Today it is north of 40% and growing.

That number is even larger if I throw in the proactive Onsite Service Request and our LegacyGold product.

NOTE: CustomerCount has employed SMS text messaging to our clients to communicate with their guests for over 3 years now. Just saying.

Consider the report from Nielson below and understand this most important fact: Accessibility and credibility are directly related so find ways to communicate with your owners and guests.

Cell Phone Users: 2014

CustomerCount CEP Resort Trades Award

Bob Kobek, September 13, 2016

Annual Award Contest Celebrates Resort Managers, General Managers and Assistant Managers

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (September 12, 2016) – CustomerCount and Resort Trades magazine have announced a partnership to recognize outstanding leaders who exemplify customer engagement within the timeshare resort/hospitality industry.

Nominations for the annual award, “CustomerCount Customer Engagement Professional (CEP)/ Resort Trades Award” will open Tuesday, September 13th with the recipient being announced in February.

According to Robert Kobek RRP, president of CustomerCount, the nomination process will include completing an online nomination survey to compile the nominee’s qualifications and qualities. “Our online feedback system measures and reports customer feedback through branded, customized online surveys, and this system can be utilized in numerous ways–including an efficient method in determining a winner for this new award.”

Nominations should focus on the performance of Resort Managers, General Managers, and Assistant Managers who have contributed to the success of the company in an exceptional manner. Areas of contribution may be extraordinary interactions with members/guests; remarkable improvements in on-site ratings of the resort; innovative training techniques and outstanding social media mentions and reviews. Nominations will need to include detailed insight regarding the leader’s performance and contribution showing how the nominee’s efforts and achievements have significantly impacted the team, company, and/or community.

According to Sharon Scott, publisher of Resort Trades, “In an effort to pay homage to often overlooked and under-appreciated resort management professionals, we’ve teamed with CustomerCount to celebrate these hard working individuals, many of whom are the backbone of maturing, legacy resorts.”

The winning manager and their company/resort will be profiled in the February issue of Resort Trades. Two trophies will be presented; one for the company and one for the individual CEP.

To submit a nomination, visit www.customercount.com or www.ResortTrades.com for a link to the entry form. The online form will also be available at www.ccceprtaward.com.

“We know Customer Engagement is a part of the corporate culture and requires the skill and talent that many strive for, and few master. At CustomerCount we want to honor an individual who has shown exceptional performance in an area which frequently goes unrecognized,” said Kobek.

The CustomerCount team introduced the award and named its first CEP winner at the 2016 PACE Convention and Expo. The CustomerCount Customer Engagement Professional (CEP)/ Resort Trades Award will be announced in February.

About CustomerCount^SM

About The Resort Trades

Resort Trades is distributed monthly to every resort in the U.S., as well as to a subscriber-base of senior-level executives at development, management and timeshare-related travel companies. Resort Trades offer display advertising, classified advertising, directory listings, as well as monthly industry news and press releases, global analysis articles and in-depth interviews with industry professionals and business leaders. For more information visit www.resorttrades.com

CustomerCount, Keatext Text Analytics Partnership Enhances Actionable Feedback Data

Bob Kobek, August 3, 2016

CustomerCount^SMAdds Text Analytics to More Fully Support Business Intelligence

New Reporting Component Takes Unstructured Data Verbatim Comments and Creates Sentiment Analysis

INDIANAPOLIS, IN (August 1, 2016) – CustomerCount^SM, the online customer feedback management system, has teamed with Montreal based-Keatext, to incorporate the option of text analytics into its popular system.

“By capturing unstructured data and reporting it in a structured format, businesses can determine which words and phrases are used most often and– in what context,” says Bob Kobek, President of CustomerCount. “We teamed with Keatext not only because of its ease of use and seamless integration into our existing platform—but also because we share the same philosophy of continually improving the customer experience thereby ensuring greater customer engagement.”

CustomerCount will use the new enhancement for text categorization, text clustering, concept/entity extraction, production of granular taxonomies, sentiment analysis and document summarization. In simple terms explains Kobek “the process ‘sees’ patterns within comments on the survey and then evaluates and interprets the output.”

Charles-Olivier Simard, Vice President of Keatext says “We are extremely pleased that CustomerCount has selected us as their partner. They understand that there is a gold mine of important information in people’s verbatim comments. Keatext will help them unlock that valuable feedback and make it easy to translate into actionable items to improve customer experience.”

“Our goal is to embrace a fully engaged customer who is satisfied and loyal to a product or service. A tool that taps into language nuances is a substantial asset in this quest,” adds Kobek.

About CustomerCount^SM

About Keatext

Contact: Robert Kobek, RRP

317-816-6000 Ext. 100

Media Contact: Georgi Bohrod

619-255-1661

Choose Wisely – There are Pretenders Out There

Bob Kobek, May 10, 2016

Choose Wisely – There are Pretenders Out There

Robert A. Kobek, President

www.customercount.com

Ten, yes 10, years ago our company created a seismic shift in our business universe and made the conscious decision to enter into the world of online enterprise feedback management. (You can get our definition of EFM by downloading our white paper at www.customercount.com)

Since that time, we have faced competition from, among others:

Email marketing and technology companies that happen to have survey because they should

Call center technology companies that happen to have a survey because they should

Reputation management companies that happen to have a survey because they should

Research companies that happen to have a survey because they should

Online rating companies that claim to have surveys but will cream you if you are “bad”

Social and digital media companies that don’t have surveys at all but make you think their stuff is measurable.

But there are very few true EFM companies that exist purely for the purpose of creating process improvement while creating and keeping customer engagement leading to customer loyalty.

For example, among the most important Key Performance Indicators you can measure in a call center is the CES, Customer Effort Score. The CES is a 1-7 scale question and it measure how hard or easy it is to do business with your company. The lower the score, the more attention to process is required. But, where? Is it only a function of fixing a process inside the contact center, if so , where? Training, QA…? Or, are the other systemic processes that cause this. By measuring the CES and fixing what is broken you might actually take what is a 5 call resolution to a 2 or 3 call resolution.

Now, imagine the money you just saved, the sustainable customer loyalty you just created and information that everyone one in your enterprise can use, from marketing to service. And, if, for example, you are in the hospitality business, not only are your process getting fixed but your online ratings will improve.

So, remember, if it is feedback you want, make certain what you are getting is measurable and actionable data that will have a positive impact on your complete enterprise …. Your social ratings will take care of themselves.