Fortune Small Business is running a piece on Umbria, a market research firm in Boulder that designs software to find useful consumer intelligence on the Internet.
Izze Beverage, a 45-employee Boulder company that makes sparkling fruit juices, recently engaged Umbria to track what bloggers were saying about rival brands. When a blogger had a bad fruit juice experience with one of his competitors, the result was often a profane online rant. “We want to make sure that never happens to us,” says Izze CEO Todd Woloson. The company recently hired a customer relations specialist that it hopes will soothe angry consumers before they take to their blogs.
The new customer relations specialist is a useful approach for contending with upset customers who take their gripes through traditional channels. Yet, some people will now go directly to a forum or their blog, or another’s blog that allows comments.
This is a case where Izze might benefit from a blog of its own, to help it generate good pr, while also working to handle any issues that might surface in a transparent manner.
[via What's Next]
