Last week I had a meeting with a client of mine who asked me if I knew how to do ROI on social media/learning. My answer was, yes, but there isn’t a magic bullet.
For example, there isn’t a formula that will come up with what you want. Sure, there are plenty of examples of ROI, but they never tell the full story. For example, after I created the GTSCommunity Portal we saw 20% of all interaction with the technical support team originate through the portal. What is the ROI on that stat? We could calculate out what a phone call costs and how much we have saved by not having the team on the phone. We would come up with a number that would be very nice.
Yet, what about those times when that information they answered for that one person answered it for another without the second even contacting the team at all? Or what about those times when a customer searches for other information, finds it, is satisfied? Or the times when they find another customer with the expertise they would like and they make a connection and benefit from that? Or the time when a prospective customer sees the online support they are receiving and that is just one more reason to purchase the product?
Can we ever capture these? Not really. We can see the indirect effects of them right away. (Yet I don’t want to discount what we CAN measure, which is a lot. There is a lot of proof there as it is.)
Then I thought about Stephen M.R. Covey’s TRUST video (Can’t find original, but this will do.) He said that TRUST is measurable. And he is right – to a degree. There are a TON of other ways that TRUST can influence things that are not directly measurable.
So we go to the next question. Do we measure what we can measure, and call it good? Or add in there some Super Stories that show the value. Or stick to the numbers? Or is there another way? My personal way is evolving, but I would love to hear the opinions of others.
