In my early days as a blogger, I began learning and using blogs as a father. I spoke about my children and family and was labeled as a Daddy Blogger. As a result of those ties to the community, I read a number of blogs in the parenting arena. One of my daily reads is a blogger that I first ran across three years ago and I consider her a veteran in mommy blogging. Her blog name is Busy Mom. What does any of this have to do with business blogging? I’m glad you asked.
Busy Mom today shows us the power of Collaborative Intelligenceâ„¢ and how companies can find what is being said in the blogosphere and in the wide open space of the Internet and gathering information about their customers and potential customers. BM (sorry, I always call her that) writes of a piece of direct marketing mail she received from Visa:
Speaking of Visa, I got a book of “courtesy” checks in the mail to “use with your VISA account!”
Only problem was they were for an account I had no idea I had. Apparently, the mortgage company was kind enough to open an account for us when we refinanced a while back.I steeled myself for an AOL-style (has sound) battle and called to cancel it, and, the nice guy on the phone said: “OK, it’s done, thanks!”
Me: “Come on, you’re kidding, right?
Nice guy: “Um, no.”
Me: “You’re not going to ask why I’m canceling?”
Nice guy: “…”
Me: “You’re not going to tell me how I can move other balances to this card?”
Nice guy: “No. I’m not.”
Me: “Well, OK. Thanks!”
I likened her reaction as if she had learned of the true meaning of Christmas for the first time. Like the Grinch, her heart grew exponentially that day as she thought about Visa.
If I was sitting my office at Visa in their marketing department or in their advertising department, this would be a very invaluable blog post. This is better than any multi-million dollar project they intend to do for the Super Bowl, or a print ad in any parenting magazine. Why? This is a very influential blogger in a specific community. She has a large number of readers in a specific market that Visa would love to capture. This is an unsolicited response to a very positive experience with a customer service department. It is the opposite type of publicity she refers to in the instance of how a particular phone call was dealt with by AOL. The AOL customer service debacle had plenty of publicity, albeit bad publicity, but still you know the saw about good and bad publicity.
This is a small example of what Collaborative Intelligenceâ„¢ can do for a company. If you are seeing what is being said, you can use that intelligence to your benefit, be it good or bad. To the customer service person taking BM’s call, thank you for a job well done. If your employer were listening, they could also be told of your good representation of their product or service. Unfortunately, like many companies, this free advertising and marketing gem will be stored alongside all the other missed opportunities to show people what good stories there are in the blogosphere. Are you listening what is being said about your company? If you don’t think it’s powerful to know you should have been at my dinner table this week when my 5 year old son looked over at me and blankly asked “What’s in your wallet?”
Tags: Busy Mom, Visa, Collaborative Intelligence, Blog Mining, Data Mining, Direct Marketing, Blog Marketing, Blog Advertising, Mommy Bloggers, Blog Services, AOL, Customer Service
Powered by Qumana
I swear Visa didn’t pay me!