Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

I have been watching the debate about the merits and perils of business blogging.  Corporations struggle with the challenge of giving voice to their employees because of fear of loss of control and struggle with the challenge of giving voice to their customers because of what they might hear and what they might have to do when they hear it.  What corporations don't know is that people are talking about them already.  From BeConnected, I learned of Robert Scoble's visit to Monster Cable, to help them see that while they were ranked poorly in search engines, they were being discussed a lot within the online communities.  It fascinated me that even in comments following Scoble's post, that consumers were criticizing Monster Cable.  They were that hungry to be heard.  I was also fascinated by the fact that Monster Cable future bloggers were able to answer some of those criticisms, as well as having a few other consumers join in the defense of Monster Cable.  All of this because they were willing to begin a conversation (even if it was in the comment's section of someone else's blog). 

I have found that many companies are not aware of the gap that exists between your product and the perceptions that you have of it and of the perceptions that your product (or brand, or service, or company) has among the conversations that occur in the marketplace.

Now, companies are able to get a much better understanding of what conversations are occuring and what they are saying in those conversations via the blogosphere and other online communication tools.

But there have been existing ways to tap into some of that customer conversation.

Here is my tip:

Walk over to your call center.  Pull together a handful of agents.  Ask them:

What are you hearing about our product from our customers that you talk to?

You will be surprised at how much these agents hear about your product or brand.  They can tell you what the customers like and what they dislike.  Set up a mechanism for agents to forward digital recordings of their calls to you where customers express their opinions.  It is free market research.  It is a free focus group.  These customers are sharing their opinions with your agents hundreds and thousands of times a day.  Tap into that knowledge.  Make it ok for an agent to ask how the customer likes the product.  Help them know  how to pass that info back to you.