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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

How you can take what Avis is doing and apply it to your blog

I found an interesting article on e-consultancy where they interview Xavier Vallee - the head of marketing for Avis UK.

In the interview he discusses how Avis are using business blogging to their advantage. I was interested to find out more because before I read the article I could not see how Avis would benefit from a blog. The customers want to rent a car and that is it. Why would Avis want to blog? What advantage would this give them? What would they blog about? And most importantly, is it really worth all the money?

Ask yourself the same questions before you read the interview.

Having now read the article, here is what Avis do and how it can apply the same uses to your blog:

• Customers are going to discuss Avis and their services so they might as well do it on their own turf
  Customers are writing about Avis all over the web and so using a blog is a great way of giving them a place to leave comments and suggestions. It means that what gets said about Avis can be done in a more controlled environment.
• All comments are monitored
  Comments are then passed onto customer services to be dealt with offline while the comments remain.
• They don't filter negative comments
  A very bold move but they get my respect. If they removed negative comments then customers wouldn't use it and the process would be useless.
• It only takes an hour per day between them.
  Not long really considering the value they get
• They blog about anything relevant to the company
  Subjects include how to get the best rental prices, travel advice, industry news and charity work the company has done

I guess the main thing you should take from this is that if Avis are doing it, why aren't you? I can see that they get a great deal value from this - a place to monitor customer comments and queries, giving greater brand awareness plus all the other benefits that come with blogging.

If you would like help setting up a blog, why not get in touch

posted by David Rhodes

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