The DMA Northern California (DMANC) recently hosted a presentation by Scott K. Wilder, former GM of Intuit’s Small Business Online Communities. The topic: “Getting Closer to the Customer Using Social Media: A Case Study from Intuit.” Here are a few key “take-aways” from Scott’s presentation.

Leading companies, like Intuit, have a relentless drive to understand their customers. Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, started the “follow me home” program in 1989 to observe real customers using Intuit products in their home environment.  It is part of Intuit’s culture to use every interaction with prospects and customers as a learning opportunity and to ask the “5 WHYS” – drilling down to the root of problems.

Based on this culture, it was natural for Intuit to embrace online communities with their customers. In 2003, Intuit started a Small Business online community then added Facebook and LinkedIN in 2008.  In 2009 the company built community right into their products. Users have become company ambassadors and today, 70% of users get their answers from the community site versus customer support – significantly driving down support costs. Intuit is also leveraging Twitter and observing customer-created videos on YouTube that showcase Intuit’s products.

Before you launch into your Voice of the Customer initiatives, consider Scott’s “Top 10″ list of tips:

1. Ask “what problem are you trying to solve?” Use objectives and metrics to build a business case. Be open to the unexpected.
2. Have a clearly defined learning plan including how feedback will be shared and used. Scott’s team reported on customer issues to cross-functional teams as well as externally on the community site. They captured the issue, a quote from the customer, a link to the customer’s post,  the action taken and the learnings.
3. Look at qualitative as well as quantitative feedback.
4. Understand technology adoption curve of your customers.
5. Understand how your products or services are being used in the customers’ environment  (ie: in their office)
6. Understand the ecosystem and persona of different types of users – their title, their job function, the type of company they work for, what’s important to them, how you can help them succeed.
7. Strive for continuous improvement in products and processes. Go for the unexpected “wow.” Scott often met with customers to have them help prioritize new product features by asking “tell me how to spend your money.”
8. Understand the difference between what customers “say” and “do.” Intuit uses Omniture to observe behavior as well as Radian6, Buzzmetrics and Google searches (which are free) to monitor what people are saying about the company.
9. Start simple. Don’t try to build every feature possible.
10. Learning can happen at any time. Learn => teach => learn.

At the end of the day, the best advice to truly understand your customer is to be humble and let the customer lead. According to Scott, “It is important to start simple adding only a few features at a time– and to be in a constant learning state of mind, listening to what the customer says, how they say it and the language they use.”

Scott recently accepted a new position as SVP and Social Media Architect at Edelman Digital. Edelman is the world’s leading independent public relations firm, with more than 3,500 employees in 51 offices worldwide. You can follow Scott on Twitter at skwilder.