After watching the Complain video, prepare a 2-3 page white paper in which you state and support your opinion as to whether or not the Twittersphere is a viable reference group for today's consumers.

Specifically state:

1. Whether or not you believe certain segments are more or less prone to consider Twitter users as opinion leaders.

2. Be sure to clearly outline the problem, alternatives, and your stand, supporting your position with information from the video, outside research on specific segments and Twitter, and concepts from the lesson to your answers.

http://search.alexanderstreet.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/view/work/2386707

Transcript below

Bloomberg MARKET MAKERS WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS... HEAD TO SOCAIL MEDIA

Erik Schatzker We know that people are increasingly going to places like Twitter and Facebook. How much of a trend is it? Can we put any figures to this?

00:05

MARKET MAKERS JOSH MARCH CEO & FOUNDER, CONVERSOCIAL TAKING TO TWITTER TO GET RESULTS SOCIAL MEDIA AND COSTUMER SERVICE TWEETING TO GET COMPANY ATTENTION SOCIAL MEDIA AND COSTUMER SERVICE

Josh March Sure. Ah, it's different for every company and it depends how they take to it. Ah, JackThreads who's one of the fastest growing e-tailers in New York at the moment. Ah, they're been one of our costumers for a little while. Ah, the amount of social interactions questions, complaints they're getting through Facebook and Twitter is growing 5% every single week.

00:25

Erik Schatzker Every week?

Josh March Every week. That we got multiple costumers who we've been working here for two years, two years ago they have four people doing social costumer service now, they got one of 40. We think in a couple of years it's gonna be as big as email and still growing.

00:35

Sara Eisen Is this good for the company or you just get a bunch of crazy disgruntled people driving executives nuts on Twitter I guess?

00:40

Josh March I think, I think it's good for the company and for costumers. And traditionally costumer service is just being an operating expense but social costumer service makes it mission critical, right? Because in social everyone can hear you scream. Now you see -

00:55

Erik Schatzker Like him.

Josh March - yeah, obviously has big risk for the company. Now, you've got 10,000 followers but actually the people who retweeted your tweet had 15,000 followers between them so 25,000 people could have seen that. And even if you got a 100 followers that's still a 100 people hearing about your problem who wouldn't have heard about it otherwise.

01:10

Erik Schatzker And it's, ah,she told to friends who told to friends who told to friends.

Josh March Exactly. But on the other hand if you do handle it properly you have the opportunity to turn this, you, your upsetcostumers, or probably your most vocal costumers into public advocates and to create massive run value. So, it has it's ups and down.

01:25

Erik Schatzker But I will say this, I do think the PayPal has some work to do and I've told them that. But the way the situation was resolved ultimately in the speed at which is what, ah, what resolved was truly impressive I guess.

01:35

Josh March Absolutely.

Erik Schatzker How many companies are-- or as good at doing that part as PayPal was in the end?

01:40

MARKET MAKERS JOSH MARCH CEO & FOUNDER, CONVERSOCIAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND COSTUMER SERVICE COSTUMER GET SOCIAL

Josh March Sure. Ah, more and more as when, when we started two, three years ago, no one was doing this. And we did a study it like two years ago on a, which companies are doing well, which one is wrong and pretty much everyone was doing a terrible job. Now, every company recognizes that social costumer services is something they have to do. They're not necessarily doing the job. A lot of them have, you know, traditional costumer service software thatwas build decades ago. Design to handle private one-on-one transactions and, and that software just can't cope with the public conversations and now happening on, on Twitter. But every company realizes they've got to do something about that.

02:10

Sara Eisen Well, when I think bad costumer service I think airlines. Everybody has a complaint about their Airline experience.

02:15

Josh March Yup.

Sara Eisen Are they getting savvy when it comes to taking this kind of service?

02:20

Josh March So, travel, ah, is one of the, the sectors that have really jump on to this. And, and actually one of the amazing things about social is, is it a real time. And you know, if you are on the platform, if you're at the check out, ah, you're traveling in an airport you don't have time to email someone or look at this for email address. But actually you can twitter them in a few seconds and you know you're getting a real time, a real time response. So, we work with Hertz and, and they say that 50% to 80% of all the tweets they get is of customer service.

02:45

Sara Eisen But did they just say sorry or did they actually try to fix it?

02:50

Josh March No, they're actually trying to fix it.

Sara Eisen They are.

Josh March And that's the only way, right. So you just say sorry it doesn't do anything. You still gonna up and say costumer tweeting about it. But actually if you work fast to resolve the issue then you have a chance to, to create massive positive brand value.

03:00

Erik Schatzker Well, and that brings us to the most important question from a business standpoint. How do you measure that value? How do you persuade companies that this is worth investing in?

03:05

MARKET MAKERS JOSH MARCH CEO & FOUNDER, CONVERSOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE GOES SOCIAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

03:10

Josh March Sure. And there's lot of different ways. First of all by the time someone's complaining on social that probably pretty upset and so if you don't help them you could lose them as a costumer so that's, that's one of the biggest ways. But there's also an amazing amount of research that shows that positively engage costumers are worth more Bain Capital have found this, Gallup did recently a poll that showed that positively engage costumers are worth 23% more on the annual basis than, than you-- costumers aren't engage with you. So, it's actually a massive chance to first of all, protect your revenue and make sure you're not losing costumers as well as to increase the, the general value of the costumers you do have.