â–¶ Live or in Cyberspace? What are the relative draws of attending a live business event versus an online webinar? A Virtual Edge Institute and ROI of Engagement study aimed to find out. Overall, 43% of attendees at live events prefer to expand their networks, while 56% of online attendees focus on the cost-savings involved. Other findings include:
• Other reasons of attending an in-person event include personal interaction with presenters/and or attendees (41%); “learn better” in person (30%); and build deeper relationships with their network (26%).
• Reasons for online attendees include time savings (52%); the ability to attend only the sessions they want (40%); and just want to try a virtual event (37%).
• Generationally, millennials were found to increasingly become advocates of virtual event technologies, rating the following areas higher than Gen X’ers and Boomers: “I am more confident that virtual solutions can accomplish business objectives”; “I am more confident that my audience will benefit from virtual experiences”; and “I have more trust in virtual technology platforms available today.”
Source: Virtual Edge Institute/ROI of Engagement
â–¶ Corporate Distrust Still High: New GfK research finds that three-plus years after the financial crisis, distrust of corporations remains high among American consumers, with a majority (64%) saying it’s harder for U.S. companies to gain their trust today than it was a few years ago. Further, more than half (55%) say it will be harder for corporations to gain their trust in the future. Other findings include:
• Distrust is particularly high among “The Influential Americans,” a segment representing the 10% of Americans most involved in creating change in society. Three in four of influential Americans (74%) find it harder to trust companies today than they did a few years ago, and 6 in 10 (61%) agree it will be even harder to earn their trust in the future.
• For the population in general, the top reasons for mistrust: CEOs and senior executives being overpaid (77%); corruption among corporate management (71%); and companies making up lost earnings at their customers’ expense (69%).
• Measuring trust level by industry, among the influentials, tech companies are most trusted (70%), followed by retail/shopping stores (67%), packaged foods manufacturers (60%), personal care manufacturers (60%) and auto companies (56%).
Source: GfK
â–¶ Customer Service Tweets—Listen Up: A TOA Technologies study finds that more than 1 million people per week view tweets related to customer service experiences with a variety of service providers — and the majority of those tweets reflect a critical or negative customer experience. Key study findings include:
• 82% of the surveyed tweets around the cable TV industry contained negative sentiments about customers’ cable appointment experiences.
• While the average appointment window for the cable carriers was four hours, some customers say waiting times were over 20 hours.
Source: TOA Technologies
â–¶ Mocially Adept: The combination of mobile, social and e-mail communications, or “mocial,” is growing in popularity, but still could use some traction, finds a new study by Silverpop. Respondents say their e-mail list size trumps their number of Facebook likes 70:1, and Twitter followers 90:1. Other findings include:
• More than 75% of the communicators polled state that their campaigns are only somewhat “mocially” integrated or not at all integrated.
• Twitter and Facebook dominate the social scene, while only 4% of respondents are currently using location-based services in their marketing efforts.
• Only 10% of respondents indicated the option of an e-mail opt-in on their Facebook pages.
Source: Silverpop
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