Comcast becomming radically transparent?
By murph | May 9, 2008
A few posts ago I mentioned that I was reading the PR book Radically Transparent and how the book manages to make the connection to SEO and online public relations and reputation management. What position you come up on for Google searches isn’t all about generating revenue, so much as your overall online reputation. Like I mentioned a while back, it’s always best to Google your company name to see what kind of reviews and feedback are out there. It’s much easier to be heard online these days now that anyone can start a blog in 20 minutes or post something on a messageboard.
Well I was reading an article in the Baltimore Sun a few weeks ago (the article isn’t available online, but the same basic information can be found on numerous sites) about how Comcast has recently implemented a Comcast Cares online reputation management team after numerous service complaints and the launch of ComcastMustDie.com.
Comcast launched it’s own Twitter Pagewhich allows concerned customers to post problems with service or customer service, in which they are responded to in a timely fashion, usually same day. I decided to E-mail Frank Eliason who is in charge of the project and ask if he’d be willing to answer a few questions about online reputation management in regards to SEO. He returned my e-mail within 2 hours and was happy to help.
Frank mentioned that, with all of the recent (positive) publicity about his department, they have been extremely busy lately. He said he joined Comcast in September to start reviewing and monitoring blogs, which naturally led to assisting customers and helping them with resolutions.
The Comcastcares team is still being assembled, but he said seven people have recently jumped on board to help with different initiatives. Frank said that among some of the techniques that they use to proactively monitor blogs and other Comcast PR issues are Technorati, Google Alerts, Google Blogsearch, and Blogscope .
Comcast is a company that provides an important service to a large community, so naturally there will be quite a few complaints out there. What has been the biggest obstacle so far
The anonymous nature of much of the Internet, especially since the blogosphere makes it difficult to ensure resolution, unless the customer actually responds
Frank also mentioned that Comcast seems happy with the progress of ComcastCares. He was obviously tied down with other issues so I was happy with his brief and to-the-point answers.
A lot of large companies who are facing customer service and reputation issues (Sprint, Home Depot, and whoever else is outsourcing their customer level service efforts) can learn from larger companies like Dell and Comcast who are launching these programs. But it’s not just about repairing your reputation after sites like Ihatedell.com and Comcastsucks.org launch, and it’s not just the large companies who can hire their own team to handle these issues that need to look into monitoring their reputations. Basic SEO and SEM techniques can help determine what kind of image you are portraying online, which is becoming more and more important now that everyone can be heard.
Topics: SEO Tips |
This is great article and model for every company to follow. People are out there talking about your brand and it’s one thing to just monitor it, try to gain some insight for product marketing; it’s another thing to take the plunge and proactively engage your customers in an open, unfiltered arena like Twitter. We’ve just launched and are using Twitter to engage with our early users to see what direction they want us to go so we can deliver real value to them over time.
George - good stuff here. Anecdotally I can tell you that our SEO firm has gotten more reputation management project inquiries in the past year than we did in the previous 4 years. I think companies are starting to take note of what is happening to their reputation via Google SERPs.