Social business strategy firm acquires Wabash & Lake to expand professional services portfolio.
SEATTLE, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/—Ant’s Eye View, a leading Seattle-based social media and community strategy development and consulting firm, today announced that it has acquired Wabash & Lake Inc., the company founded by business authors and bloggers Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. The move expands Ant’s Eye View’s services by adding industry expertise in word of mouth marketing, digital strategy, customer evangelism and social media.
In addition to expanding the Ant’s Eye View professional services portfolio, McConnell and Huba’s initial focus will be the creation of programs and services that help companies improve the customer experience and create customer evangelists. McConnell and Huba will serve as public representatives of Ant’s Eye View in their work as business bloggers and keynote speakers, as well as consulting with the firm’s clients.
The acquisition will be announced at the 2009 Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit in Las Vegas.
“In adding two of the world’s foremost experts in building word of mouth and customer loyalty programs, Ant’s Eye View has built the industry’s strongest lineup of proven social media and customer experience practitioners who have led customer-focused changes at large brands,” said Sean O’Driscoll, Ant’s Eye View’s CEO.
McConnell and Huba currently author the popular “Church of the Customer” blog attracting more than 120,000 subscribers and are the authors of “Creating Customer Evangelists” and “Citizen Marketers,” two well-regarded books examining the power of customer evangelism and word-of-mouth marketing. Forbes has called their work “the word of mouth gospel.”
“Our decision to join with Ant’s Eye View is all about extending our reach and working with experienced strategists who have a strong record of helping mid-size and large companies improve their customer experience and drive social engagement,” said Huba. “We share the same vision and passion for customer evangelism.”
Ant’s Eye View will integrate the work of McConnell and Huba into its services, Web site, global sales and marketing programs to offer comprehensive access to the full range of customer experience and community building training and education programs. The Wabash & Lake team will remain in Texas and be based out of the Ant’s Eye View Austin office.
“Our clients deserve nothing less than us fielding the best and most experienced team,” said Jake McKee, co-founder of Ant’s Eye View and manager of the firm’s Austin office. “Ben and Jackie had significant impact on my thinking about customer evangelism back when I worked for the LEGO Company and I look forward to working side by side with both of them to help our clients deliver on their brand promise to customers.”
Ant’s Eye View’s work concentrates on helping enterprises understand that long-term, sustainable differentiation is not about the latest social media tools, but rather about people, process and clear strategy around improving customer experience.
“The market has changed dramatically in the last year,” said McConnell. “Companies are more and more implementing the theory and beginning to embrace the internal structural changes needed to do so. That can be a lot of work, and we’re joining a group who has pioneered those efforts at big, well-known companies.”
About Ant’s Eye View
Founded in 2009, Ant’s Eye View is a leading strategy development and consulting firm that helps guide mid to large-size companies through the process of transforming customer experience and brand engagement by activating and embedding customer voice into all aspects of a company’s social business. Co-founders Sean O’Driscoll and Jake McKee have grown the firm’s client roster to include Microsoft, Intuit, Cisco, Walgreens, Apple and PEMCO Insurance. Ant’s Eye View currently has offices in Austin and Seattle.
About Wabash & Lake Inc.
Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba founded Wabash & Lake in 2001 to help companies create customer evangelists. Best known for their books “Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Companies Build a Volunteer Sales Force” and “Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message,” McConnell and Huba have delivered hundreds of keynote addresses and private workshops for companies and brands around the world. Their blog, Church of the Customer, is one of the top business blogs in the world, and they’ve been recognized as two of the most influential online marketers.
Contacts:
Caitlin Angeloff (206) 790-4773
Director of Marketing, Ant’s Eye View
[email protected]
Mark Firmani (206) 443-9357
President, Firmani + Associates Inc.
[email protected]
SOURCE Ant’s Eye View