Social Media's Positive Influence On Customer Service
02/15/2007
Does the title of this post "Social Media's Positive Influence On Customer Service" sound like an oxymoron to you?
Earlier this week I wrote about my dear friend Millie Garfield's, MyMomsBlog, unhappy experience with a major financial institution - Capital One. Not knowing if Capital One was in tune with monitoring the blog buzz I searched thru their corporate site and eventually found an email link to a person in the PR department (which let me tell you girlfriend was no small feat!). I kindly sent off an "e" - posted on Social Media's Influence On Customer Service. Well, I thought it was nice of me to go through the trouble. I mean if your company isn't tracking the buzz about your brands and an influencer blog like MyMomsBlog was dishing a product wouldn't you want to know?
Social media and customer care is on the minds of other people this week. Diva Valeria Maltoni's Fast Company Expert Blogger post, Chasing Customers Away, addresses the issue of the impact of social media (with reference to the Diva Marketing's post) and asks this question:
In this new business context where social media is gaining in credibility and scope can you afford to ignore these inquiries?
Sidebar: Valeria writes about customer communications. I found it amusing that that Fast Company is listing her blog under the category of Innovation. Sadly, Fast Company may be right. Excellent customer care might well be an innovative strategy.
Let's spin this in a positive direction. I've written several atta good company posts .. even about the TSA. Teresa Caro's comment may hold some of the answers to our questions.
I don't think they understand the true impact of the blogosphere. More importantly, I think they are afraid. Those in the mainstream who just hear about the blogosphere through the media, only hear about the times companies have been flamed. Never about the times where they have been complemented. Maybe showing examples of positive experiences would help here.
Let's take our clue from Teresa. Here's the challenge .. drop a comment about examples where bloggers have said nice things about their customer service experiences AND the company has responded back to the blogger. And to do nice things for you - a surprise Diva treat to a Max randomly selected blogger or perhaps two.
To get this started here are two positive social media customer service examples.
Unilever - Heard this from the diva divine Charlene Li, Forrester Research, at New Communication Forum 2006. As the story goes .. Dan Entin couldn't find his fav deodorant - Degree For Men. He did what many a blogger might do and posted about his quest on his blog Two Percent Nation. Unilever was listening and sent him a carton of Degree.
Kudos to Mike for seeing what I wrote and taking action to make a loyal customer even more devoted.
Radio Shack - Kristie's, WebMomz, experience is about a Radio Shack sales clerk who spent 20 minutes hooking up all the assorted cords and parts and actually did some test recordings till we got everything working. Now that’s service! Here's the comment from Radio Shack manager Tony Rosen
Thanks for the positive feedback Kristie. It appreciate the recognition you sent to my company. It always feels good to know i did something positive for a customer, we usually only get to hear about the negative. Hope everything worked out for you, and look forward to seeing you in my store in the future.
When it's all said and done, customer delight has to do with letting people know - "You matter. I hear you. I'm paying attention to you." In this world that spins too fast, consistent customer delight is one of the most powerful branding strategies you can put into play. Using social media, honestly and transparently, to help get that message across makes good business sense.
However, there's another element that reinforces the importance of using social media as a customer service tactic. The element of trust. Edelman conducts an annual a multi-country research study seeking to understand the state of trust in institutions. In Richard Edelman's summary of the Edelman Trust Barometer 2007 he says -
- The remarkable rise of the “Person Like Yourself” as credible spokesperson from 2003-6 (from 22% to 68% in the US in that period) saw a decline this year (in the US, trusted by 51%), but still ranks as the #1 trusted spokesperson in most of the countries surveyed.
- There is a general decline in trust in all spokespeople and sources of information. That means a company must tell its story consistently and in multiple venues in order to achieve trust.
To wrap this one .. your story: 1. a positive experience with a brand that you have posted on your blog 2. the company responded back to you.
To be continued ..