YES WE CAN Measure Conversations

In his wonderful blog Global Neighbourhoods, Shel Israel has aruged that there is value to a conversation that can't be emasured.
I disagree, of course. Because in 23 years in the business, I've never met a communications program I can't measure.
The value of a good conversation isn't that it leads to greater market share, or a huge sale, but that it enhances relationships, which lowers the costs of doing business. When Robert Putnam did his research on the value of Social Capital, he was in fact making a strong argument to measure relationships. Because what he found was that the greater the level of social capital between people, the healthier and more productive and more efficient people became.
Other research  also showed (Download Fussell Tangible Benefits of Social Capital)that the more conversations i.e. the more social capital -- the more efficient organizations become, and oh, by the way, they also see lower legal bills, lower recruitment costs, lower turnover rates and higher customer satisfaction.
The way to measure the value of conversations is to first measure the degree to which people trust you, and the degree to which your stakeholders are satisfied and committed to your relationships. Find out just how valuable people think those relationships are. Then start a conversation and measure how much MORE valuable people think the relationship after you've been talking with them awhile. I'm guessing you'll find that conversations are enormously valuable, not just from a warm and fuzzy standpoint, but from a highly tangible perspective.
And yes, in the interest of transparency KDPaine & Partners does conduct relationship research.

Comments

[Garett]

wow, I had never really thought to evaluate the value of a good conversation / communication with clients.

Everything you have said make sense to me. I had always thought something like a conversation would be immeasurable!

attorney

[jayanit]

Well, it seem to be a difficult to say but once you make your move the world will give its light to show u the right path. so do't worry about the evil but thibk on the possitive  side to make it to the future.

lawyer

[monica levy]

Katie:
great post. and shel's was, too. i think shel's point (one of them, anyway) is that accurate measurement of the impact of conversations is difficult because 1)the impact may in fact be the result of multiple conversations, and 2) the impact may in fact be the result of something besides those conversations (e.g., an ad, a blog post, an op-ed, an overheard conversation between 2 other strangers). i'm curious to know, when you're measuring levels of trust and commitment, how you're controlling for the various impacts of all touchpoints relative to each other? this is fundamentally a question of marketing and communications mix, since we can't possibly know with any certainty what/how to increase/decrease whatever it is we're doing in order to deliver the best results with the most maximized spend.