17 Social Customer Service Reports You Can’t Live Without!

I have the best job in the world. I get to do what I truly love which is help clients improve their social customer service programs. I’ve been fortunate to be in this small but growing niche for almost 5 years now after spending 9 years helping some of the largest global contact centers provide a world-class customer experience to their consumers. After all these years the questions I get asked most is very similar across all the industries I’m fortunate to work in.

How do I measure the value of social care?

What metrics and KPI’s should I track?

What is the ROI of social care?

These questions of course are answered by the reporting you have in place to analyze and optimize social customer service performance. I thought you might find it helpful if I shared a quick list based on my experience on the reports I found most valuable. I’m sure I’ve missed many that you are using today, please share them in the comments section so others can learn from what is working for you!

Enjoy.

#1 – Inbound Volume by Day

Response time is a critical metric and the best way to reduce it is to make sure you are staffed when your consumers are posting to social networks. I had a client whose volume only went down 20% on the weekend but was only staffing Monday through Friday. They used an inbound volume report by day to secure investment for weekend resources.

#2 – Inbound Volume by Hour

Similar to the report above, it’s also important to know when during the day consumers are posting. Again, to optimize response time, agents should be staffed to mimic the highest volume periods of the day. A previous client staffed 8-5pm EST but after analyzing inbound volume by hour realized 5-10pm EST was the highest volume posting time. This actionable data gave them the proof they needed to create a second shift of agents and stagger them across the day to reduce response time.

#3 – Response Time

At first glance this metric seems straight forward. Simply, how long does it take to respond to consumers posting in social media? However, most clients don’t want the time they aren’t monitoring social sites to count against them. (i.e. If consumer posts on 5pm on Friday and response is sent 10am Monday, the response time is only a few hours, not a few days since there is no weekend coverage). There is only one metric for response time, that is customer time, the customer doesn’t care when you monitor or not, it does not improve your service to play games with the numbers. Second complexity is many social posts require multiple back and forth engagements before the case is closed, so is response time from the first engagement or when the case is closed? I’d argue its important to report on both so see #4.

#4 – Case Close Time

With Response Time we learned its critical to track how long it takes to provide that initial response to a consumer’s social media post. Case Close Time tracks the total time it takes to close a post or case. It’s ok to follow-up and have some back and forth with a consumer to resolve their issue, but it doesn’t do any good to respond quickly on the first engagement only to frustrate the consumer because it takes a day or two to ultimately close out their case.

#5 – Customer Satisfaction or Net Promoter Score

In Twitter I recommend sending a follow-up tweet immediately after closing out a social post that says, “On a scale of 0-10, 10 being very likely, how likely are you to recommend our social customer service?” If you have cell numbers for your consumers and have the ability to send short text/SMS surveys, that is a good option as well. (i.e. Rate your social customer service experience 1-5 by texting 1-5 to 12345. AT&T is using this method.

#6 – Total Volume Trended Over Time

It’s not atypical to see social care volume growth rates increasing 50% a year as more and more consumers adopt social as a support channel. With growth rates that significant it requires contact center managers to constantly evaluate their staffing and hiring approach. Perhaps traditional channels like email and phone are decreasing over time and that pool of agents can be allocated to the social channel.

#7 – Likes, Shares, Favorites, Retweets

These metrics are typically used by social marketers to measure the success of social content published on Facebook and Twitter. However, they are also great service metrics to show the value of responses coming directly from social customer service agents. If consumers appreciate your responses and see them as helpful they will positively share it with a like or RT.

#8 – Top Issues, Questions, Praise

The most successful contact centers have always taken the goldmine of feedback from the voice of the customer and shared that actionable data back across the enterprise so products and services can be improved. Social is no different and is probably even more critical because social word of mouth is so much more powerful than the phone, email and chat channels.  For example, every month product management should be receiving reports on the top 10 complaints, questions and praise consumers have posted on social networks. Trending these metrics over time, comparing them to previous time periods and percent change are also elements to be considered for these type of reports.

#9 – Open Case Visibility

When cases are open, that means a customer is waiting. It’s critical to have a report view into how many open cases, case age, agent assigned and type of case to make sure open case volume is proactively managed.

#10 – Volume by Social Site

It’s important to break down inbound volume by Twitter, Facebook, Google +, etc. Typically agents are assigned to queues or sites so understanding the volume can help align the right coverage for each social channel.

#11 – Reporting by Tags/Labels

Especially with Twitter and its 140 characters, it can be tough to get enough actionable data from a tweet to share with the rest of the organization. However, most social listening and contact tools provide the ability to add tags or additional labels to social interactions which you can then report on. For example, adding specific product or brand names, location info if you are a retailer or restaurant, perhaps adding severity level to a post to understand the frequency of high priority issues.

#12 – Reporting by Influencers

All consumers deserve your best service, however, we can’t ignore the impact of influencers in social media. Because of that, its important to be able to filter almost all of the above reports by posts from influencers. Top complaints from influencers, response time for influencers, open cases by influencers, NPS/CSAT by influencers are all valuable in looking at how your social care is impacted by Klout scores and follower counts.

#13 – Cross Channel Reporting

Social is just one piece of the overall consumer support experience. Although rapidly growing, for most companies social is still less than 5% of overall support volume compared to phone and email. However, leading contact centers are integrating social into their CRM tool so they can report on not just social metrics but also cross-channel key performance indicators. For example, top issues by channel, cost per contact per channel, CSAT by channel and agent productivity by channel. To be clear, by channel I mean phone, email, chat, self service, communities and social.

#14 – Engagement Rate

In my experience clients can get too wrapped up in reviewing social posts and deciding if its technically a support post or if a post requires action. The bottom line is the consumer took the time to post something on one of your social properties, don’t they deserve a response? Isn’t friendly engagement one of the ways you build better community and a stronger presence on Facebook and Twitter? I think so and that is why I think its important to measure the total amount of posts you receive and divide it by the total number of engagements or responses to get your engagement rate. This is especially important for Twitter handles dedicated to support.

#15 – Social Profiles Captured

One of the single toughest challenges facing the social customer service community is understanding if @ChadSchaeffer on Twitter is the Chad Schaeffer in Plymouth, MI with a phone number and email address in a CRM database. Linking social id’s with traditional customer info is required for the 360 view of the customer so many marketers and service professionals aspire to. Consequently, measuring how many social profiles are being added and combined in your CRM system is a new metric I think leading professionals will begin to track and communicate.

#16 – Social Resolution Rate

A new personal favorite of mine is measuring the rate you are able to resolve a consumer’s issue within the social media channel. Too many times I’m seeing brands respond with “call us at 1-800 or email us by clicking this link”. If consumers wanted to use the phone or email to contact you they would have chosen those channels in the first place. I also don’t buy the all too convenient response of ‘we don’t want to discuss issues over social’, private messaging is available in both Twitter and Facebook to conveniently resolve consumer issues more discretely. Fundamentally, consumers are choosing social support channels because they require less effort than filling out a long email form or waiting on hold and fumbling through an IVR.

#17 – Productivity

The reason I saved productivity for last is because it’s the least important social care metric. I think the industry is learning over time that quality is always better than speed when it comes to measuring customer satisfaction. Zappos has publicly stated they don’t even measure handle time anymore for any service channel. Average time on case and average cases closed per day by agent should only be used as a coaching tool or directional guide. You might even find the agents with higher handle times also have higher CSAT or NPS scores!

 

Social Customer Service Rankings: Where Do You Stack Up?

It was May 2001 and I was just kicking off my first contact center software implementation as a project manager. Consumers were rapidly adopting email as an innovative communication method and big companies were trying to figure out how to manage this incredibly modern support channel.

Overnight major brands were receiving millions of support emails a year. For some clients email eventually surpassed phone as the primary contact method.

In May of 2009, 8 years later, I remember working with one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies and for the first time talking about adding social media support to the contact center. Similar to email in 2001, Facebook and Twitter were taking off and consumers were growing tired of the unfriendly phone systems that made it impossible to speak with an actual person. Furthermore, waiting over 24 hours for an email response just didn’t seem like it was necessary if brands were going to monitor their social channels in near real time.

Wow have times changed in the past 5 years with the emergence of social customer service! Now brands are devoting Twitter handles to customer support, hiring large teams focused on social care engagement and integrating social media into their CRM systems.

But has social customer service really arrived? Do consumers actually use Twitter as a support channel when they need help?

I thought I would do some quick research on just how much social customer service has grown. Since Facebook pages are not dedicated to customer support, accurate numbers are tougher to acquire. Because of this, I focused my mini research project on Twitter. Looking at adoption across several industries and then the largest programs within those verticals it become clear there are 4 major industries driving the most social care volume.

So leading off is the Communications industry.

Why?

Traditionally these companies have not been known for stellar phone and email support. However, many have lead the charge in social care so consumers are migrating to where they will get the most helpful responsive service.

Second we have what I’ll call the Internet/Device industry. 

Why?

Demographics. The typical consumer for these companies is very mobile savvy, comfortable with social and always online which makes it easy to understand why they would gravitate towards a social support channel.

A close third is the Airline industry.

Why?

Let’s face it, travel is stressful. When consumers are trying to get some place important for work, vacation, or a significant event and there is an issue it can be emotional. The speed of response offered in social care vs traditional channels can make the difference between getting a flight home for a child’s soccer game or having to miss it!

It’s notable to point out that only Delta Airlines has a dedicated Twitter support handle, the other airlines are engaging customers on their main brand Twitter handle.

Interesting that a particular airline is missing from the list. Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir 28,000) known for their outstanding customer service. Is it because they provide such amazing service their customers don’t require a high volume of Twitter social care or because in their Twitter bio they push consumers to another non-social support channel?

Last but not least we have the Financial Services industry. 

Why?

It’s a combination of all the reasons listed above. Ever have an issue with your finances? You better believe you want help right away and traditionally the companies below don’t exactly have a sterling reputation for responsive service with phone and email. Banking is also an online and mobile experience, making it easy to launch Twitter and tweet a question or concern by consumers comfortable with social media.

I think it’s important to note that the lists in this blog post are not ranking the quality of social customer service provided by these brands. It’s strictly an unofficial ranking of the largest Twitter social care programs within industries with the most consumer adoption.

The goal of this blog post is to highlight how social customer service continues to see huge acceptance from consumers and create more awareness around social care.

Looking ahead to 2020 I wonder what the next disruptive customer support channel will be? Any guesses?

Stop Losing Customers By Doing This One Simple Thing

As they say, there is a reason you have two ears and one mouth. This is especially true for those of us in social customer care, where listening is so critical. As customers are migrating away from phone and email channels when they need help, social channels like Facebook and Twitter seem to be the new channels of choice.

Let’s examine why. With the phone, I may have to fumble through a challenging IVR or wait on hold while hearing that “Your call is very important to us” message over and over. If it’s so important, why am I on hold for 39 minutes?

Once I get on the phone I have to repeat my name, phone number, and account number even though I already told the automated system.

It usually goes something like this:

Please say your name and press pound.

Me: Chad Schaeffer

IVR: Chet Schaeffer press 1 if this is correct, 2 if not.

Me: Chad Schaeffer

IVR: Jack Schaeffer, press 1 if this is correct, 2 if not.

Me: Jack Bauer, am I on an episode of 24, because this IVR is torture

Email isn’t much better, have you ever tried to find a company’s customer service email address? It’s like trying to find matching socks in the dark. Then you wait 24 hours to get a response that really just asks for more information, even though you filled out an email form with 76 fields on it.

No wonder social care is growing so quickly!

I can simply take out my mobile device (which is glued to my hand to save time), open my Twitter app, type up to 140 characters, and have the confidence of knowing the brand needs to bring their A game in social media. Thanks to the power of word of mouth in social, the consumer really does have your brand’s reputation in the palm of their hand.

Back to listening and why it’s so important for brands trying to improve their social customer service.

We have two ears which is good because there are two main types of listening in social customer care. “Managed listening” and “proactive listening”—another kind of listening that can help you retain even more customers.

Let’s look at priority number one—managed listening. Managed listening is when a consumer complains, praises, or asks a question of your brand on your owned social media accounts like Facebook or Twitter. As you can see in this example below, the consumer has mentioned the @BofA_Help Twitter handle directly engaging the brand. Make no mistake, consumers are expecting a response, and expecting it quickly (if you haven’t noticed!).

 

If you really want to start retaining more consumers, then you might be interested in proactive listening. That’s when a consumer names your brand or product in a tweet but does not directly @mention your Twitter account like in the example below. Notice this customer is clearly upset at Bank of America but isn’t directly asking @BofA_Help for assistance. Fortunately, Bank of America is doing an awesome job of proactive listening and they engaged this consumer.

How many more consumers could you retain if you started proactively listening in social media?

One important thing to keep in mind: If you were walking to your car late at night, you wouldn’t want the police—even though they’re super helpful—to jump out of a dark alley to ask if you need anything would you?

Well proactive listening is a little like that. The consumer probably isn’t expecting you to be listening to their social conversation with their followers, so be careful how you engage, make sure right up front they know you are there to help. Proactive listening is a great opportunity to surprise and delight when paired with friendly responsive engagement.

So let’s do a quick review on listening in social customer service.

Priority 1
Listen and engage on your owned social media channels where your consumers have directly asked you for help or taken the time to praise your brand. Your customers are expecting a timely response, that might mean in under 60 minutes!

Priority 2
Listen and engage proactively with consumers clearly needing assistance on Twitter but not directly mentioning your brand’s Twitter account. You may find this can double or even triple your support volume so plan accordingly with staffing before you dive in!

Good luck with your social customer service listening efforts! For more insight on establishing transformative social customer service within your organization, download our e-book, 8 Steps to Transformative Social Customer Service.

Dreamforce Spotlight: Social Customer Care

Throughout the Dreamforce conference Nov. 18-21st in San Francisco there will be certain themes commanding a lot of attention. One of those themes is Social Customer Care. I’m fortunate enough to be helping facilitate a session on that very topic Monday, November 18th at 12pm PST at the Westin St. Francis called Social Customer Service – The Basic Building Blocks.

I’ll be presenting along with Matt Staub (https://twitter.com/staubio) an expert in the field of social care. He formerly ran social customer care at H&R Block and recently joined social media agency Graphicmachine (https://twitter.com/graphicmachine).

During our practice sessions he really impressed me with how he can tell the story of social care in how to launch a program for beginners while leading up to creating a center of excellence for those brands that are more advanced. Needless to say, you won’t want to miss it!

Here are some of the discussion topics we plan to cover.

1. Why is social customer care important? Let’s start with the basics and a simple example. Below is an existing BMW customer, wanting to buy a new one, that chose Twitter as his preferred channel to express his frustration over poor customer service.

By the way, nothing against BMW, I could have gone to any Global 1000 brand Twitter or Facebook page and found a complaint very similar to this one. The more important take away? This example shows why social customer service is so important.

2. Why is it critical to be transparent and resolve social customer care issues in the social channel? Resist the urge to take the conversation offline! Nothing is more frustrating than tweeting a brand only to get a response that says “Call or Email Us”.

3. How do I measure social care and how is it different from traditional social metrics? Here are a few examples;

Social Media Marketing Metrics	Social Service Metrics
Sentiment & Share of Conversation	How Many Customers Thanked Today
Friends, Followers, Views, Likes, ReTweets	How Many Customers Helped Today
Word Clouds & Hot Topics	Volume of Service Issues by Source (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Forums, Blogs)
Influencer Analysis	Top 10 Complaints & Inquiries in Social
Geo-Location Insights	Response Time & Escalations By Source

 

4. How do I link social customers to ‘real’ customers in your CRM system? For the answer, remember back 12 years ago when you started interacting with customers over email.

Apply for a store credit card (enter email address), call customer service (can I have your email address), join a loyalty program (email address), buy something online (create a username aka email address), want to receive coupons and special offers (email address), etc.

Fast forward and what do most Fortune 500 companies have? Giant CRM systems filled with customer information linked with an email address. At every consumer touch point its time to start collecting social profile information and linking to their customer record. (Social sign-in with Facebook is a great way to start)

5. How quickly should I respond in social? In industries like retail, restaurants and travel most social care issues are posted from a mobile device at the point of incident. Waiting 24 hours to respond, or only offering assistance 8am-5pm EST Monday-Friday, and the customer is long gone, literally and figuratively. 

6. Should I hire brand new agents or leverage agents from the call center team? That’s not a black and white, yes or no answer. Rather look at the profile of a successful social agent. Their character likely portrays a great sense of humor, good writing skills, creative, lover of social media, helpful person offline, pride in your products and brand. Check those boxes and I think you have your answer.

7. Marketing owns social media so how do I team with them on social care? One idea is to consider creating social media ‘swim lanes’ so marketing can focus on what they do best and customer care and focus on retaining consumers and driving loyalty. Here is a simple swim lane example;

Marketing/PR	Customer Service
Future Product Questions	Product Complaints
Campaign Complaints/Inquiries	Product Suggestions
Crisis Communications	Existing Ownership Product Inquiries
Blogger/Influencer Interactions	Warranty & Rebate Questions
Upcoming Events	Service & Policy Issues
Charity/Environmental Concerns	Thanking Customers For Compliments

 

8. How do I integrate my social media listening tool with my CRM system?  We’ll be discussing how social hub is helping clients monitor MORE social conversation with LESS people by automatically routing ‘actionable’ social interactions to the right resource. Who couldn’t use a little productivity bump?

9. It’s a surprise! I can’t tell you everything from our session! See you Monday at noon in San Francisco.

How Do I Find Chad at Dreamforce?

Next week November 18th-21st, Dreamforce, the largest software conference in the world, along with our amazing customers and partners take over the city of San Francisco. And I’m excited to be a part of it!

Marissa Mayer from Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook are both keynoting this year’s conference. I can’t wait to use their insights on women leading technology companies and share them with my little Sophia Rose.

Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.com never disappoints in his keynote presentation and I hear this year he has a huge surprise up his sleeve. For an entrepreneur that has been a fountain of innovation the last 10 years, what could possibly be next?

One of things I appreciate most about the Salesforce.com culture is the holistic connected nature of my teammates. The understanding that being a happy person, giving back to your community, a great father, a great husband, a great friend, having fun, living a healthy lifestyle is all connected to being a successful productive member of the Salesforce.com team.

So in that regard, Deepak Chopra is the final keynote, if you see me break out in full meditation or yoga poses, you’ve been warned!

To top it all off Green Day at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants will make sure it’s not all work and no play.

But make no mistake, Dreamforce is not just about the keynotes. This year there are over 1,200 break out sessions. I know exactly what you are thinking.  “Chad, with over 100k people at the conference, how am I going to find you?” Well look no further, here is my agenda for the week.

Monday, Nov 18th

12pm PST Westin St. Francis, Social Customer Care – The Basic Building Blocks

(Leading session with Matt Staub https://twitter.com/staubio, formerly led the social care program for H&R Block and now leading a social care practice at agency Graphicmachine http://www.graphicmachine.com/)

1.30pm PST Westin St. Francis, Social Media Measurement – Strategies for Measuring Social Media

(Moderating panel with Thomas Gallagher of Rally Software https://twitter.com/thomas_mktg, Margot Savell of RDI https://twitter.com/margotsavell and Dane Hartzell of Honeywell https://twitter.com/ItsDane)

Tuesday, Nov 19th

12pm-3pm PST Hilton Union Square, Circles of Success – Integrating Social Media & Customer Service

(I’ll be facilitating three 1 hour sessions with small groups of customers white boarding new innovative ideas on executing improved customer care in social media)

4pm-6pm PST Moscone South, Social Media Command Center at Executive Briefing Center

(Leading sessions for our client’s top executives on how social media command centers can drive social into the fabric of their company culture)

6pm-8pm PST Participating in a One on One Execute Briefing with Nestle and Salesforce.com on deploying a global social customer care program

8pm-11pm PST – Green Day and Blondie at AT&T Park

Wednesday, Nov 20th

9am-10am PST participating in a One on One Executive Briefing with Brown Forman (beverage company that makes Jack Daniels!) on creating a social media command center

10am-11am PST Participating in a One on One Executive Briefing with Grainger on creating a social media command center

12pm-4pm PST Moscone South, Social Media Command Center at Executive Briefing Center

5pm-6pm PST Participating in  a One on One Executive Briefing with Hill + Knowlton Strategies, a global public relations agency on how social media command centers can help them win more clients

8pm -11pm PST St. Regis Hotel, Marketing Cloud Speakeasy Party with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Thursday, Nov 21st

9am-10am PST Westin St. Francis,  B2B Social Media – Not As Different As You Think

(Moderating a panel with Tristan Bishop of Symantec https://twitter.com/KnowledgeBishop, Kevin Espinosa of John Deere https://twitter.com/kevingespinosa and Thomas Gallagher of Rally Software https://twitter.com/thomas_mktg)

Friday, Nov 22nd

7am – Catch a flight back to Detroit in time to see Drew play his basketball game and then……SLEEP!

I love to meet new people, connect with old friends and see existing clients so I hope we have a chance to hang out at Dreamforce!

Why Marriott Is Not ‘Plugged In’ to the Customer Experience

Hope you all have fun plans lined up for the 4th, I can’t wait to spend a few long weekends in northern Michigan later in July and August. Last thing I want you to do is stay inside and read this blog on your laptop so kick those shoes off, put your feet up, grab a cold one and pull up No Fluff Social Media on the tablet out on the patio!

Last week I blogged about my new favorite company, Uber. They reinvented taxi service, you should check them out!

Another travel company recently caught my attention for the wrong reason. Marriott!

First, let me say I’m a huge fan of Marriott and a loyal customer. Since I entered the work force in 1999 most of my years I’ve spent traveling a few days a week. I’ve spent over 100 nights at all the major chains including Hilton, Holiday Inn and Starwood.

But because of their price, rewards program, convenient locations and consistent experience I’ve gravitated more and more towards Marriott as I approach 400 nights stayed.

Last week I flew to Chicago and because I’m such a customer experience nerd I wanted to stay at the brand new Fairfield Inn literally right across the street from Salesforce.com Chicago headquarters on Illinois St. The day I checked in was their 5th day open.

This is where it goes down hill.

Question for you. If you spent all day flying and working on the go, checked-in to a hotel and got to your room for the night what is one of the first things you would do?

For me that answer is charge my phone, laptop and other devices.

Here is the problem. Marriott designed a beautiful new hotel and didn’t put plugs by the desk or the night stand. I know what you are thinking, “Chad, that’s impossible, it was probably one of those cool modern new desks where the plug is underneath or the back of the lamp on the nightstand is a secret power strip.”

Not the case! How could this possibly happen in today’s connected world? There was a plug in the entry way and the bathroom but not helpful for a laptop and cellphone while working.

Did I mention I may have set off the fire alarm at 6am accidentally when I was there? Yeah Marriott and I were not on good terms last week. I typically leave the hot water running after I get out of the shower to remove the wrinkles from my shirts. Well as soon as I opened the bathroom door, everyone got a wake up call.

I only add this piece of the story because engineering came to my room so I asked them about the plugs and they couldn’t find any either. Here are some pictures to prove it!

The closest plug to the desk is apparently somewhere down this hole which isn’t accessible.

I had to pull out the night stand and unplug the clock to plug in my iPhone. Then do it again the next day when housekeeping moved everything back.

What is funny about this whole thing, 4 days before I checked in I sent this tweet;

Why did I send this tweet? No I do not have a crystal ball! The customer experience is about how you make people feel. So what is one of the worst feelings in the world? When you are out and about at a restaurant, bar, grocery store, plane, stadium and your phone dies. Wireless charging stations are relatively inexpensive, why aren’t more places offering this? Wouldn’t you pick a restaurant, movie theater, retail store, coffee shop over another if you knew you could charge your phone?

Lastly, perhaps your thinking. “Chad, Fairfield is not really a business traveler hotel so that’s why they don’t have a lot of plugs.” Baloney, in fact a family traveling on the weekend is going to be a bigger problem. A family of 4 has 4 phones, 4 tablets/laptops, my gosh I think I’m going to open up a power strip store inside the Fairfield!

Back to Marriott, so you guys know I’m going to tweet Marriott about this right? Check out their Twitter bio. “Re-imagining the future of travel. Check out our innovations and submit your ideas on how to #TravelBrilliantly.”

Perfect, I apparently have an innovative idea no one at Marriott thought of, ADD SOME FRIGGIN” PLUGS TO YOUR HOTEL ROOMS! Genius I know, hold the applause.

Here is the tweet I sent.

You’ll notice I sent a tweet to Fairfield as well after I realized Marriott probably created a branded Twitter handle for Fairfield. Interestingly enough, check out their Twitter bio. #LetsGetItDone is based on how productive you can be while staying at a Fairfield for business or leisure travel. Unless of course being productive requires a laptop, iPad or iPhone. 

Uber – My New Favorite Company!

I hope everyone’s summer is off to an amazing start. This is such a fun time of year isn’t it? Longer days, kids playing outside, BBQ’s, bonfire’s and even music sounds a little sweeter sitting in the fresh air.

What a week! Met with three amazing companies, all with completely different social media needs.

The first was interested in strategies to drive more engagement and then more effectively report and quantify the value of those interactions.

Second, met with one of the largest companies in the US about launching a social media risk management program. Tracking conversations from their 250k employees, reputational risk associated with negative public relations and how industry factors like Obama Care impact their business.

Lastly, met with a brand on creating a social media command center filled with huge flat panel touch screens showing social media data. Its refreshing when a brand takes the social customer so seriously.

I love being exhausted at the end of the week knowing how many new things I learned and relationships I built.

During my travels two companies really caught my attention. One was good (Uber), one was bad (Marriott – next week’s blog!)

For those that don’t know, Uber is a great new taxi service. They have a mobile app that let’s you simply press a button and thru tracking your location a black car will show up in minutes.

The black cars are nicer and cleaner then a cab, they typically show up in 5-10 minutes (it can easily take twice that to get a cab in NYC, Chicago or San Fran), the drivers are professional and don’t drive like idiots, you rate each and every driver on your phone, they have bottled water and best of all you have to give them your credit card to use the app so when they drop you off you can just hop out.

That’s right, no hoping you have cash and waiting for change. No waiting for the credit card to be processed and hunting for a pen. Literally, you jump out of the car and go about your business and the receipt, tip included, is emailed to you immediately.

Brilliant service, especially for business travelers.

So why do I love the Uber story so much?

They reinvented the taxi experience and that is tough to do. How can you possible differentiate the taxi experience? Every single car is exactly the same, the rates are the same, how you get a cab is the same, how you pay is the same and they analyzed that situation and said;

1. We don’t want people to have to wait for a cab anymore with their hand up on a street corner in the rain or late at night. Solution: Click a button on your phone!

2. We don’t want people carry cash or wait for those slow credit card machines, then write in a tip and sign. Solution: Auto bill and email you receipt.

3. We want to give limo type service, for a little more than a cost of a dirty, smelly taxi.

Downside? It is about 20% more expensive than a cab. So a $40 cab ride would likely be $50 on Uber for the same distance.

My only complaint? They need to pay closer attention to social media!

I flew from Chicago to San Francisco recently, arrived late and my cell phone had died. I asked the driver if he had an iPhone 5 charger and he didn’t so I thought I would not call, not email, you guessed it, tweet Uber with a suggestion that their drivers should carry an extra cell phone charger in the car.

Unfortunately no one replied to my tweet! Let’s talk social customer care Uber!

How to Complain on Facebook and Twitter

What’s fun and exciting this week? My last post on “How Kroger Ruined, Then Saved My Daughter’s Birthday” was the third most popular post of all time here on No Fluff Social Media. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read it.

I often write about how big companies can improve their customer care in social media and I got to thinking perhaps some of you would be interested to know how to complain or ask a question of those brands on Facebook or Twitter.

For example, what if you get really bad service at Kroger or your frustrated with your AT&T cell phone bill always being wrong. Today, you may dial the 1-800 customer service number and may not find a good experience.

It’s possible you have to fumble through one of those dreaded IVR’s, you might wait on hold for a while or be limited to only calling from 9-5pm EST Monday through Friday.

Maybe you’ve tried email and had to fill out one of those pain in the butt contact us forms then had to wait 2-3 days for a simple response.

The emergence of Facebook and Twitter has given consumers like you and I a new convenient channel to interact with the companies we do business with like grocery stores, airlines and restaurants.

Interested? Below I’ve provided directions on how to interact with brands and a few examples so you can see what other consumers post.

The first example is Kroger on Facebook.

1. First, navigate to the Kroger Facebook page.

2. Locate the comment box on the top left side just under their cover photo.

3. Write your question, complaint or praise and click post. Simple as that. (keep it professional, swearing and being disrespectful may get your comment deleted or ignored)

Below is an example of a typical complaint a customer may have on a brand page like Kroger.

Here is an example from the AT&T Facebook page. Sometimes other customers will comment on your post.

Ideally, a brand will respond to your post very quickly like in this Lowe’s example below. Reminder, you can post questions and even give a positive shout out, Facebook comments aren’t just for complaining. Within the hour, Lowe’s responded with helpful follow-up information.

Let’s move from Facebook to Twitter.

A few days ago I posted a comment on the Delta Airlines Twitter account. I flew from Detroit to Chicago last week and they announced that due to the short nature of the flight, there was no time for drink service.

That seemed strange since my Southwest and American Airlines flights from Detroit to Chicago in the past month both served drinks. Obviously not a huge deal but I thought I would send Delta a tweet. I think you’ll find it interesting what happened from there.

First I wanted to find the Delta Airlines Twitter handle so I did a Google search. (Some companies have created a specific customer service Twitter handle like @DeltaAssist)

Second, I clicked the blue post button in the top right corner of the Delta Twitter Bio. Next I typed my comment in the comment box. Last I just hit Tweet. (Notice on the left Delta has posted the first names and Twitter initials of their Twitter customer service team)

First, Delta did not take the time to respond to my tweet. But guess who did? Since I mentioned American Airlines in my tweet they responded almost immediately which led to a back and forth engagement. Pretty cool!

Here is an example from Best Buy, it appears they are monitoring closely since they responded 2 minutes after the post with an offer to help.

This guy is not happy with Volkswagen!

A few keys to remember

1. Not all brands are good at monitoring and responding to questions and complaints on Facebook and Twitter. Your comment might be ignored.

2. Sometimes brands won’t answer your complaint or question in social media but will just respond with “call or email us” which can be really frustrating.

3. The above example screen shots were done from my laptop, however, it works the exact same way from the Facebook and Twitter mobile apps which is why it’s so convenient!

4. If you post a complaint later at night or on the weekends, expect a potential delay in response. Some brands are monitoring just during normal business hours, the good news, more and more companies are expanding their coverage.

Social Customer Care has given us as consumers a more powerful voice to fight back against bad customer service. Brands understand the viral nature of social media and are scared that just one bad experience can explode into a gigantic public relations nightmare.

Not to mention companies understand that what other consumers post on Facebook, Twitter and review sites help us determine whether we are going to buy a product or not.

In the past you’ve heard the word of mouth saying, “If a customer has a bad experience, they may tell 10 friends.” Well in the world of social media, “If a customer has a bad experience they may tell 10,000 friends!”

If you thought this post was helpful and your family or friends may be interested in how to post a comment on a brand’s Facebook or Twitter account please share this post, thanks so much again for reading my blog.

How Kroger Ruined, Then Saved My Daughter’s Birthday!

Happy Monday morning everyone! Throw away those Monday morning blues, it’s going to be a great week. I had a fantastic weekend but it almost turned disastrous! I love it when I can tell real life customer service stories here on my blog.  Thanks for visiting this week.

My daughter Sophia Rose turned 5 years old. We did the typical summer barbeque, with about 40 of our closest friends and family.

Sophia prefers cookies over cake so my wife Staci ordered 2 cookie cakes from our local Kroger.

A few hours before the party I went to Kroger to pick up the balloons and cookie cake and unfortunately the cakes were not ready. In fact they didn’t have our order.

Now I realize mistakes happen, I’ve spent my career helping huge brands improve their customer service and I’ve seen everything.

When I explained the cookie cakes were for my daughters 5th birthday I got that “what do you want me to do about it, it’s not my fault look”. The woman behind the bakery took her time looking through the orders as slow as she possible could.

I got all the negative body language as well, the rolled eyes and talking under her breath to her coworkers.

The rude unhelpful bakery employee did say if I could wait she would make the cookies but I was on my way to a soccer game and didn’t know what Staci wanted written on the cakes. At the end of the day, this isn’t even close to the worst thing that could happen in life but this Kroger employee was so frustrating.

I simply said, “this situation is really disappointing that my 5-year-old daughter won’t have her cake ready for her birthday” and walked out. I called the last person in the world Kroger wanted to hear from at that moment. A stressed out mom planning, cooking and cleaning for a party.

This is where the story turns.

A very pleasant, empathetic and remorseful store manager assured my wife that this situation is not reflective of how his customers should be treated. He insisted that his bakery manager would make the cookie cakes and with time running short, personally deliver them to our house.

Wow!

Sure enough prior to the party a smiling, friendly bakery manager hopped out of her car and delivered the cookie cakes on time.  She didn’t say I hope you will still shop at Kroger or please give us another chance. Just a simple apology and heart-felt I hope we didn’t ruin your daughter’s birthday.

Disaster averted!

Often times when I’m dealing with executives about making more investment in customer service I’m met with a very common objection. There is no way to tie return on investment or direct impact to the bottom line from soft measurements like lifetime value, retention and loyalty that are all benefits of superior customer service.

I hope Kroger executives hear about my story. Since I travel a lot which puts a heavy load on my wife Staci, every weekend I take the kids to the grocery store to give her a little break. I also manage our personal budget and pay the bills and can say with confidence we spend about $175 a week at Kroger which is only a half mile and very convenient to our house.

Let’s do some bottom line math. $150 a week x 52 weeks = $7,800 annually. At risk because of $25 in cookie cakes and 1 bad employee that could care less about a 5 year old’s birthday party. By the time my kids graduate high school we will probably spend over $125,000 at that Kroger.

I think the store and bakery manager’s little investment in good customer service had a pretty strong ROI don’t you?

Photo Blog From Switzerland

Good morning everyone, how was your week? Hope everyone learned something new and feels good about their contribution at home and at work. You have my sincere thanks for deciding to click on this blog post!

Do me a favor, stop and think about the most beautiful place you have ever laid eyes on.  I’ve been extremely fortunate to travel to some nice places in my life. Places like Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park in Northern Michigan, hiking the rain forest in Hawaii, views of the Golden Gate Bridge with the San Francisco skyline in the background and gorgeous Lake Tahoe in the mountains.

I’ve also seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, rode the London Eye, strolled the streets of Savannah Georgia, drove thru the desert from San Diego to Las Vegas, visited the amazing wineries in Napa, stood amazed at the view from the top of the World Trade Center and swam in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.

But I have never seen something so beautiful as Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps where I was lucky enough to spend the past week. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Here is what this beautiful mountain and lake scene looks like in the rain

This is the actual view from the Salesforce.com office in Switzerland (notice the white caps in the background)

European city have so much character with their cobble stone store and cafe lined streets

Since I started this blog to advocate for social media I thought I would just close with how social ties into these incredible photos.

First, without choosing a career in social media this trip to Switzerland would have never been possible.

Second, it has taken a lot of hard work in some not so amazing places to earn the spectacular views of the Swiss Alps. Places like my dark basement office at 6am trying to read and study how I can help my clients execute better in social. Places like late night conference rooms with no windows and cold pizza fine tuning important presentations with my colleagues. And last but not least dealing with the crazy airports, delays, cancelled flights and lack of sleep as the necessity of a life on the road on my social media journey takes its toll.

I hope all of you who have a career in social media or contemplating starting one realize the phenomenal opportunity we all have to make a difference.  It can be challenging and requires lots of hard work to make it to the mountain top, but as you can see the views are second to none up there.

Can’t wait to see where social media will take me next! Where is social taking you?