The majority of businesses and brands are ignoring their customers in social media. Recent surveys have shown that posts about customer service issues on Twitter and Facebook are often met with no response at all. Silence. To your customers, that silence speaks volumes. Here’s what it tells them: 1) That you’re not listening 2) That their questions or problems aren’t very important 3) That you’re more interested in pumping out marketing messages in social media than actually helping your customers with their needs. In actual fact, your reasons for not responding may stem from some very real internal business challenges … Read More

Are you considering social media as a formal support channel for Customer Care? If so, the first questions you’re probably asking yourself are: “What kind of person belongs in the role of social media specialist?” and “What kind of skills and knowledge do they need?”  Based on our experiences and best practices in this quickly emerging customer response channel, here are a few guidelines: Start with the people who love coming to work each day, who can articulate your brand values, and understand how your business makes its money. When putting your initial team in place, understand that you’re creating … Read More

Customer service has taken on a more strategic role in business in the last five years. But an interesting paradox is at work – as contact centers become more sophisticated, consumers have actually grown more frustrated and dissatisfied with the service they’ve received. Enter the rise of social media and the uberconnected customer. The reality of social technologies is that customers are moving at a much faster pace than companies. They expect responsive resolution of their concerns whenever and wherever they are. The combination of mobile devices and social media are finding many businesses unable to cope. In an age … Read More

For years it was commonly assumed that Marketing owned the love comments about a company, and Customer Service owned the hate comments. But leaders in Customer Service today are fast recognizing the need for change. They’re now asking questions such as — what are we doing today to drive customers up the brand advocacy ladder or moving them toward evangelism because of a wonderful customer service experience? The notion that social media is just a replacement to the 1800 number when you have a complaint is overlooking one of this generation’s most important new enablers for connecting to customers and … Read More

There are three characteristics when time is right for change. Change happens when the change can add value to all parties involved. Change happens when new technology enables change. Change happens when new generations (customers) just think different. Add Value to All: Social done right in customer service can add value to everyone involved. For the company it can reduce service costs by solving problems fast and therefore reducing calls into the customer service team. It can improve speed of change for the company by listening to customers and getting the first mover information to places in the organization where … Read More

We, humans, are an interesting lot; creatures of habit who are incredibly adept at pairing “needs” with sources of satisfaction based on prior learned experiences. As masters of pattern recognition, we detect effective and frictionless solutions and then store them away to be revisited automatically upon the next “context match”. As soon as we find ourselves in a familiar quandary, we’re quick to call upon the solution that worked last time for us or our friends, adjusting as we go in order to achieve the ideal outcome. Ironically, we do this well as families or other small, self organizing groups, … Read More

If you ask most business professionals what their Number One “social media” fear is, it’s usually this: “I have no control over what people will say about my brand, product or service.” My response: “Are you expecting them to say something bad?” Beyond the flippant comments, what’s really too bad about this kind of fear of social is that a) most customers actually say nice things, and b) you have all the control in the world over what your customers say about you. After all, you created the experiences being posted on Twitter, right? Take the social web apart and … Read More

The phone rings at the desk of one of your Product Managers. A woman says “Hi, my name is Maggie and I’ve got a great idea for your next product enhancement.” Does your Product Manager grab a pen and start writing, or confusedly ask Maggie “How did you get through to me?” “How did I get through to you? I’m your customer, she replies.” Your Product Manager then stumbles on with “Yah, but wait… Customer Care was supposed to keep you away from me!” That may be an exaggeration, but a lot of customers with ideas they’d readily share end … Read More

When someone says “potato” do you automatically think “chips?” When they say “diving” do you think “board?” How about “social media?” Do you automatically think “marketing?” If so you’re not alone, and social media certainly has its marketing applications. But like icebergs, marketing is the part you are focused on, likely because you can see the conversations that people are having about your brand, product or service. The real game, however, is under the surface. You can point your biggest guns at the tips of the icebergs and fire away…with relatively little impact on the formation of the next ones. … Read More