#PositivelySocial and why customer service in social media is a failure – Interview with Frank Eliason
August 14, 2012Customer service drives repeat business and higher customer lifetime value – even Shell now gets it
August 21, 2012
Note: This post has been sponsored by Salesforce, but all narrative and opinion is my own.
There has been a lot of talk recently about what it is to be a Social Business or Enterprise. Amongst all of the talk there are a lot of different opinions of what it is and it isn’t. It seems to me that the truth is that being a Social Business will mean different things to different people and different companies.
And, that’s fair enough.
However, as readers of this blog will know, I like stories. Stories that shine a light on new ways of doing business. Particularly, stories of companies doing great things and those companies that are helping them achieve this.
Salesforce is one of those companies that are helping many businesses become more open, more transparent, more aligned with their customers needs and, as a result, more social.
Here’s the story and a few words from Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry on their Social Enterprise journey:
Did you watch the video? Good.
Now, I liked the video for a couple of reasons:
- The music in the background happens to be a track (To Build A Home) from my brothers last album with his band: The Cinematic Orchestra; and
- Angela Ahrendts’ words really capture what being a social business means to Burberry and their customers but, also, she adds a rallying call to all CEOs when thinking about making their business a Social Enterprise. From the video, she says:
“The experience would be that a customer would have access to Burberry across any device, anywhere and they would get the same feeling of the brand, feeling of the culture regardless of where, how and when they were accessing the brand.”
“To any CEO who is skeptical at all…..you have to, you have to create a social enterprise today, you have to be totally connected to everyone who touches your brand. If you don’t do that, then I don’t know what your business model is in five years.”
Powerful words. Are you ready to take up the challenge?
You can view more Salesforce Social Enterprise Stories at http://unr.ly/Q2NSpd,check out their Facebook page at http://unr.ly/Q2NQO8 or connect with them on Twitter @salesforce.
Thanks to Allan Reyes for the image.
Note: This is a Sponsored post and was been sponsored by Salesforce. However, all narrative and opinion is my own.
3 Comments
Adrian,
I don’t think you “have to”
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory ~ W. Edwards Deming
I even think that those that do not have “a social enterprise” will survive. It is just a question of how you define “survival”
James
PS enjoyed the music
Hi James,
Of course, you are right that survival is not mandatory. I remember doing a strategic piece of work, once, where we looked at the best and most valuable options, particularly for shareholders, for an energy (oil) company over the very long term. One of the ‘best’ options for them was to keep doing what they do for as long as they could find and extract oil and a profit and when they could no longer do that they should just shut up shop.
That finding didn’t go down as well as the other options that we came up with. Guess that most of us just want to ‘live’ in whatever way we can for as long as we can.
Adrian