Over the past few years I’ve discovered that two of my favorite things to do is present Think Like a Rockstar, and visit Austin, Texas. Luckily, I got to do both this week, with the added bonus of learning a lot more about an incredibly interesting tech company called Bazaarvoice. I’ve known Bazaarvoice’s CMO Erin Nelson for a couple of years now, having first met her when I worked with Dell on its first #DellCAP event while Erin was the CMO at Dell. And I’ve known BV’s Manager of Content and Social Strategy, Ian Greenleigh, for about as long. In fact, the insights that Ian provided to this post on how negative feedback online actually HELPS most brands, made the post one of the most popular ever written here.
In short, Bazaarvoice offers a suite of products to clients that do two things:
1 – Help them give their customers the ability to give feedback on products and services via reviews, ratings, etc.
2 – Helps these clients collect and interpret this feedback so that they can use it to make more informed business decisions and improve existing business processes.
Erin shares more about Bazaarvoice’s products and how they help clients in the interview at the end of this post. But I was delighted to hear the focus Bazaarvoice puts on helping clients collect information from their customers, then using that information to improve their business processes. I’ve been saying this for years (and repeated it on Wednesday while visiting BV), but the promise of social media for business lies in FEWER conversations. Meaning that the brand and its customers aren’t having two completely different conversations, but rather that both groups better understand the other, and as a result, their conversations are more similar. Which means the company can improve its marketing and communication efforts, which leads to lowered costs, and increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
While I was visiting Bazaarvoice, I was lucky enough to interview both Erin and Ian and wanted to share those with you. I think both interviews are fascinating for completely different reasons. Erin talked a bit about Bazaarvoice and its products and also offered some fascinating insights into the feedback customers leave online (for example, she explains why 4-star reviews are typically more valuable for a company than 5-star), and also talks about how brands can use the information gained from its customers online to make more informed business decisions.
Ian heads up Social and Content Strategy for Bazaarvoice, so he has a job that a lot of us would want 🙂 I asked Ian to walk us through ‘A Day in the Life’, and he also tells us the very unique approach he took in getting his current position, after applying for and not getting the same job! If you are interested in becoming a Social Media Manager, you’ll definitely want to listen to our chat.
Both interviews are linked below, just click the link and it will open in a new tab for you and start playing. I was very happy to spend some time with Bazaarvoice this week, and look forward to returning to see them in April for their annual Social Summit!
Interview with Erin at Bazaarvoice
Interview with Ian at Bazaarvoice
Disclosure: Bazaarvoice paid me for my trip and to present Think Like a Rockstar, but did not pay for this post.
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