Plebble: Managing customer complaints online
Plebble manages feedback about companies and organisations online. Now managing customer complaints on the web is not new, I mean I’ve previously posted about what happened when I had a wee rant on Twitter once and that seems to be more and more common these days, but this new site has got me excited.
It’s not just another channel for ‘Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells’ to spout bile on. Plebble is managing those conversations in a number of ways and converting dialogue into opportunity by providing businesses with feedback and access to customers.
The democratisation of the web has already come and revolutionised the way we do business. More and more customers are turning to the web to leverage their consumer power. The days are fading when brands ask me how to “stop bloggers saying mean things” and even more are looking at how best to nurture conversations.
Plebble brings together some of the best elements of online customer feedback and takes into account there will always be some brands, big and small, that:
- nobody wants to hang out with on a brand site or in social spaces like Facebook
- will mainly get negative mentions online (in some sectors, happy customers are quiet customers)
- are strapped for cash to resource online CRM
This is true “e-mocracy”, as Prebble calls it, with a framework to prevent it descending into some Lord of the Flies style brand persecution. I like it.
P.S. British Gas, I am watching you…
Measuring Social Media: eCairn Conversation(TM) Dashboard
I’ve been trialling the eCairn Conversation(TM) Dashboard for just over a year now (thanks to some clever outreach and the persistance the lovely Laurent Pfertzel).
The product has really evolved and now ticks a lot of boxes for PRs conducting social media outreach programmes;
- Build a network of Social Media communities using your own lists OR their search feature and collated blog lists
- Measure influence of your network
- Track conversations across multiple platforms inc Twitter, Video sites, forums
- Organise and manage team activity online
- Measure impact of engagement
The company has a nice approach to building an authentic network and the product’s intended to give you the tools to manage & measure that process. They must know what they’re doing too as they’ve managed to nurture a relationship with me over the months and now look, here I am advocating you sign up for free trial! 
Of course I’d still like to see some changes but their responsiveness to feedback and speed of development gives me confidence this is a Social Media tool with a lot of potential.
Is Skittles risking their online reputation?
The marketing community is full of praise for Skittles’ Social Media campaign. The company has handed over Skittles.com to UGC communities and are seeing what happens.
Sound risky? Well as Econsultancy’s Chris Lake suggested
“It appears to be an extension of the old adage about there being no such thing as bad PR.”
While right now most people seem to be generating warm fuzzy feelings around the brand it could all go horribly wrong. I asked one of my clients, moderation specialists Tempero, for their thoughts and received a perhaps surprising response suggesting more companies should look at putting their brands into the hands of consumers – in moderation of course.
Read after the jump to see what MD, Dominic Sparkes, had to say.
Judith Lewis: Online Reputation Management
Online Reputation Management
Still at MediaCamp London. Have been reading SEO chicks a bit over the past few months so came along to finally hear Judith Lewis talking her thang, live.
Trackur – new online reputation management tool
The Blog Herald reports on Trackur a new tool to help you manage your online reputation. The atricle ponders whether the cost, at $88 p/m, is a little prohibitive but if it does what it’s meant to I don’t think that’s too much of an issue.
I checked out the demo and the first thing that struck me was that there was no way of seeing at a glance whether you or your product were being spoken about in reverential tones or if a blogger is ‘about to flush [your reputation] down the toilet’ to quote the slightly odd text on the website.
While the tool itself seems to look well put together, easy to use and good at filtering results, if you’re seriously monitoring online reputation, especially on a large scale, this ability to get a feel for the trends of online coverage is important. The demo highlights this by performing a search for Google which returns over 2000 results for one day alone. How are you supposed to cut through all the “so, I did a quick Google search” mentions and find out if any issues are building without reading all of those entries?
I know this technology is not easy to create or 100% accurate but I’ve seen this type of tone indicator in practise with Attentio‘s social media monitoring tool and it’s hard to imagine not having that capability.
About:
I'm Darika Ahrens and I help brands develop marketing strategies for Social Media. My background is in Public Relations for companies like Orange, Microsoft, Philips, HTC, Yell.com, and Estee Lauder. I've worked with and trained some of the UK's top agencies.