Jamie Pappas, Director of Branding and Social Media at Akamai, presented “Start with the Customer Experience” at this months Boston Social Media Breakfast. Akamai is a Content Delivery Network that deliver between 15 to 30% of global traffic on the web daily. Over the last 3 year the company has transitioned from pushing out the companies message to listening to their customers and finding tools that solve their problems. Instead of buying technology and fitting it to clients, they now purchase technology based on what their clients needs are. They start with the customer experience.
Start with the Customer Experience
Customers are not Clones
They are not one size fits all. Spray and pray doesn’t work if you want to nurture and engage with your customers. Understand that there are many similarities, but they are not clones. Instead of general email blast to all clients they now target to customers based on what they are verbally – and non-verbally expressing.
Figuring Out What They Want
Akamai now engages with clients by talking with them both online and in person. The sent out surveys. The first thing was to find out how they want to engage. Their clients wanted more information from subject matter experts and Akamai Executive Team. Clients wanted a more personal relationship. Akamai changed from being email centric to social. They are using meetups, phone calls and in person executive briefings.
Putting a Face to the Brand
When Jamie started with Akamai 3 years ago they didn’t use social at all. In fact employees were banned from using social. Now with the change to social, in person meetups, in-person executive briefings and other things both the customer and the brand now has a face. As a result their customer satisfaction scores keep rising and they are building much deeper relationships.