Dave Evans - Social Customer Experience: Engage and Retain Customers through Social Media

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Dear Reader,

Thank you for choosing Social Customer Experience: Engage and Retain Customers through Social Media. This book is part of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. More than 30 years later, were still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our titles, were working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on to the authors we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. Id be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how were doing. Feel free to let me know what you think about this or any other Sybex book by sending me an email at contactus@wiley.com . If you think youve found a technical error in this book, please visit http://sybex.custhelp.com. Customer feedback is critical to our efforts at Sybex.

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For our family and friends and the business executives and organizational leaders weve had the pleasure to work with. Weve learned from all of you. Thank you.

This book is, first and foremost, an acknowledgment to the collective contributions of professionals, business executives, organizational leaders, and an entire social media industry that has dedicated itself to delivering on the opportunities that the Social Web offers: the opportunity to understand, first-hand, what markets are saying; the opportunity to identify specific influencers and to quantify the impact that social media has as a result on markets and the businesses and organizations that serve them; and the opportunity to learn faster, to adapt more quickly, and to build and bring to market the next generation of globally acceptable, sustainable goods and services.

Following the founding principles of the Web, weve built on shared knowledge: There is barely a page that is 100 percent ours. Instead, this book is our point of view based on our insightsshaped by our experiences as customersin the context of a growing, collective body of knowledge that is itself available to all via the Social Web. For the professionals whose names appear inside we are indebted.

In particular, wed like to acknowledge the efforts of the professionals working within the firms whose products and services are referenced in this book. We are customers of nearly every one of the brands mentioned, for good reason.

The work by individuals and firms implementing social technology programs that has resulted in superior customer experiences is inherently a part of any book like this. The work theyve done stands as testament to what can be accomplished when customers and their points of view and willingness to collaborate toward the betterment of the brands they love are fully recognized. As well, it is an acknowledgment to our colleagues at Lithium Technologies, to our customers, and to each of the professional services and consulting firms who support us in the work we do.

Social technology has been, for us, a truly collaborative learning experience. As you read this book youll find dozens of references to the people who are helping to take the founding concepts of the Web and bring them to strategically sound, quantitatively expressed tactical implementations that create genuine, long-term competitive advantage. Take the time to explore their work and their points of view as you strengthen your own understanding of how social customer experience and its related concepts can help you build your business. For they are the experts; we are simply the narrators.