Procter & Gamble Co.
Image via Wikipedia

A survey by the CMO Council released by AdAge reveals some alarming stats amid a lot of talk, although there are some shinning lights amongst the haze.

Proctor & Gamble and Unilever are leaders in ‘conversational marketing’ and understanding social media.

Last month Unilever held a word-of-mouth summit dedicated largely to understanding how social media affect its brands and Proctor & Gamble have a refreshing approach to engaging in social media.

“Aside from technology, it’s almost been a natural thing for P&G to [listen to consumers],” said Stan Joosten, innovation manager-holistic consumer communication. “What technology does for us is truly extend what we can do. For the first time ever with this technology, conversations are visible to us. … You cannot start in social media without knowing how to listen.”

Unilever
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Some of the key stats from the survey of 400 executives were:

  • 56% said their companies have no programs to track or propagate positive word-of-mouth
  • 59% don’t compensate any employees based on improvements in customer loyalty or satisfaction
  • 30% rated their companies highly in their ability to handle or resolve customer complaints

So again, it comes down to social media being a very exciting space, however, little actual action.

However, it’s not all the marketers fault, kind of, it’s more of an organisational change that’s required…

One problem for marketing executives is that they’re not clearly in charge now of managing the customer experience, customer loyalty or social media today, given that public-relations, sales, consumer-affairs and research-and-development departments all have a stake in those areas now.

In any case, this space of ‘conversational marketing’ and utilising social media is one that requires leadership internally from marketers, not from external consultants.

The only kind of consultant required to get your business ready for all this is someone focused on cultural change and change management, something Jenny Williams from the Idea Garden has been talking about for a while. (We interviewed her on Love Digital a few months back)