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.

How to Solve the #1 Challenge in Social!

For those of you who have joined me every week in 2013 here on the no fluff social media blog I really appreciate you. If its your first time checking it out, Welcome!

Working for the Salesforce.com Marketing Cloud I get to discuss social media with the world’s largest brands everyday and there is almost always one common challenge.

How do I know if my customer Chad Schaeffer, who lives in Plymouth, Michigan, and has an email of chadmschaeffer@gmail.com and the new 313 area code cell phone is the same guy on Twitter @ChadSchaeffer.

BTW…..Did you realize there are three Chad Schaeffer’s in South Dakota alone? This can be a tricky problem!

In the world of marketing and customer service everything starts with knowing who your customers are and this challenge in social media has companies pulling their hair out. Some of the systems being used to store customer data can’t even capture twitter handle.

I think the reasons are obvious why marketers want to know who you are in social media, things like;

1. They want to target you based on demographic data

2. They want to target you based on what you do and where you go online

3. They want to target you based on what you have bought in the past

Likewise in customer service

1. They want to personalize their service, maybe give you the white glove treatment if you are an influencer

2. They want to know if you have called, emailed or chatted with them before about your issue/question

3. They want to build a customer history for you, understanding what your experience has been like with their brand

So how do you match twitter handles with your existing customer data?  Don’t do what I’ve seen some companies trying to do. Building complex search algorithms that match Twitter profile data with customer data in a CRM database and try to merge the two together automatically.

The solution is far easier and we only have to go back 13 years in history to find it.

It’s called email.

When I first started working in CRM in 2000, brands began preparing for consumer email.  Personal email starting becoming popular around 1995 but it always takes a few years for companies to catch up to consumers.

In 2000 it was the same question, people are sending me emails from bigbooty@aol.com and slimshady@hotmail.com, how do I know who they are?

Remember what happened next?

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), want to stop junk mail and join or email list (email address).

Fast forward and what do most Fortune 500 consumer base companies have? Giant CRM systems filled with consumer information linked with an email address.

I’m just not smart enough to think of the really advanced brilliant technological solutions so I have to do the best I can with my average smarts and find the simple no fluff common sense approaches like start asking your consumers for their twitter handle every time they interact with you!

Here is the last point, again similar to email. Your customers data privacy should be a high priority, same with only using that twitter handle for things your consumer has agreed to.  Let’s learn from the credibility many companies have lost by spamming consumers.

Heading to Punta Cana for a few days, I hope wherever you are the sun is shining on you as well! Until next week.

What is a Social Hub? Why is it Important?

 

Thanks for joining me this week on “No Fluff” social media.  Appreciate you reading my blog but I know you are busy so let’s get right to it.

If you are a social media professional, do you find yourself saying……….

“I wish I could listen and engage more on social conversation with my customers but I just don’t have enough resources to handle it all.”

“The tool I use to monitor social media can’t weed out the ‘noise’ and give me just the ‘actionable’ stuff.”

“I feel like I’m missing a huge opportunity to generate sales in social by not routing leads into our Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) so the sales team can respond.”

“I feel even worse that I’m not responsive in responding to my consumers that have had a bad experience and tell the world about it on our Facebook or Twitter account.”

“I wonder if the same consumers engaging on social networks area also calling, emailing or chatting with our brand.”

“It would be fantastic if I could combine a person’s Twitter handle with their other consumer data like name, address and email.”

“I don’t want to respond just because they are influential, but it would be nice if I could automatically detect when an influencer mentions our brand so I could provide a little VIP service.”

“Maybe the thing that frustrates me most is we have PR, marketing, customer service, legal, R&D and our handful of agencies all using a different social listening, engagement and reporting platform.”

If these thoughts sound familiar you certainly aren’t alone. At least not down here in the trenches of social media where I’m at.  Fortunately, one of the emerging trends in 2013 for social professionals is the concept of a Social Hub.

So what is a Social Hub?

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 and save a few bucks in their budget?

Start driving social sales by automatically routing sales leads in to your CRM system for your sales team to follow-up on. Cha Ching!

Automatically route those complaints and questions on Facebook and Twitter to your contact center so customer service agents can retain consumers and improve loyalty.

With a Social Hub you can log in to your CRM and see the full 360 view of each consumer with their social data like twitter handle and followers on the same screen as their name and other demographic data.  Wonder if social customers spend more, are they more loyal? Those reports are possible with Social Hub.

I know you don’t want to treat influencers differently just because they have 50k followers but with Social Hub it easy to automatically identify them, maybe give them a little extra attention or quicker response, then sit back and take the credit from all the positive word of mouth driven by those positive mentions.

Granted no social software is best in listening, responding, reporting, and managing social content and that is the primary reason why large organizations have so many different tools.  But isn’t it time for a little teamwork in social media. A Social Hub can help stop the turf wars and get everyone holding hands in the same system.

The bottom line. A Social Hub is a social media business rules engine. It applies business rules to automatically route interactions to the right people to drive the right engagement.

It’s the glue Sales, Marketing and Customer Service need to sell, connect and serve your consumers.

Wow! That sounded a little fluffy didn’t it? Well we speak nothing but the truth here at No Fluff so keep in mind Social Hub is brand new stuff. It’s not perfect. It will take some tuning and continued improvement to work out the kinks.  No different than any other influential emerging technology.

Below is an example of what a 360 view of a consumer can look like after implementing a Social Hub. It includes the consumers contact information, where she last tweeted, social insights on her engagement level, other household members, campaign/promotion activity, customer service case history and more.

See you next week and if you found this information about Social Hub valuable please click one of those fancy social media share buttons below.

Emerging 2013 Trend: Social Command Centers

Ready for some ‘NO FLUFF’ social media discussion straight from the trenches on the front lines?

I’m no executive, I’m no strategist. And I’m most certainly not a social media ninja or guru.

I have dirt under my nails and implementation battle scars.

I manage projects with tight deadlines and tighter budgets.

I help sell and implement actual software that actually has to work.

And I’m on a quest to find the magical social media ROI wizard.

If honest straight talk from a social media source you can trust sounds intriguing, I invite you to join the conversation and discuss, debate, argue, applaud or hopefully at the very least learn a few things that will help make your 9 to 5 just a little more enjoyable!

I’m starting a weekly blog series on social media kicking off with emerging trends for 2013.

Now I said NO FLUFF didn’t I? I’m making a weekly commitment for me not you!

See I really enjoy blogging but it doesn’t come easy.  Therefore I get lazy and undisciplined and don’t do it. But now its in writing, and you are counting on me, every week when you are kind enough to visit my blog you expect new compelling content.

And in 2013 I’m going to do my best not to let you down.

Enough about me, let’s get focused on you and this week’s social media trend, Social Command Centers.  By the way, if you missed my first post in this series, it’s right here –>Social Selling.

First, what is a social command center?

“A room filled with a bunch of fancy flat panel TV’s showing a variety of real-time social media metrics.”

How is that for an academic definition?

For those that require a more sophisticated explanation let’s turn to one of the most highly publicized social command centers deployed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month. (pictured above)

The Social Command Center powered by Salesforce.com’s MarketingCloud measured over 1.2 million conversations across the 4 day conference.

Most Talked About Brand

1. Samsung 72k mentions 2. Sony 49k mentions

Most Talked About Product

1. TV’s 58k mentions 2. Tablets 44k mentions 3. Smart Phones 42k mentions

Most Talked About Influencer

1. Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson 3k mentions 2. will.i.am 2k mentions 3. Tim Tebow 1k mentions

Other interesting facts. #Android was the most used hashtag, 35-44 year old men outnumbered women 2 to 1, and @CNET was the most retweeted account doubling second place @Mashable.

The CES Command Center was monitoring and visually representing in real-time on multiple huge flat screens the brand and product conversations, celebrity influencers, key hash tags and Twitter accounts all backed by demographic data like sex and age.

Its like the front page of the Sunday New York Times. There are thousands of words that make up the paper but its the headlines on the front page that grab your attention.  A Social Command Center is driven by thousands of social conversations but attempts to provide those attention grabbing headlines.

Let’s dig a little deeper why Social Command Centers will continue to trend in 2013.

First, another definition, a Social Command Center is a dedicated area inside a company where a social media team can monitor the online conversation about their brand or industry.

1. Who is Talking About You?

2. What are They Saying About You vs Your Competitors?

3. How Much are They Saying About You?

4. Where are They Saying it About You? (Geographically)

All at an executive summary level. We all know those short attention spans!

So Why Is a Social Command Center Important?

1. If customers are talking about your brand everyday, shouldn’t you create a central, visible, symbolic area to listen?

2. If your customers are talking about your brand everyday, shouldn’t you have a hub where the people serving those customers, your employees, can listen, learn and engage?

3. Breakdown the ridiculous barriers of ‘who owns social media’ and finally get marketing, PR, legal, product R&D and of course customer service in the same physical room! Or should I say sandbox with how childish this discussion has become!

4. A social command center, when the shit hits the fan, and you are dealing with a real crisis, will help bring technology, process and people together. It is absolutely the best way to triage and execute workflow for social response and engagement, and fast!

5. Dell has a social command center, launched by Michael Dell himself. Why? Because he wanted to make a clear cultural statement that listening and responding to customers has his personal commitment.  Over 10k social media certified employees later, I’d say the command center continues to help drive their customer focused culture.

6. Plain and simple it provides visibility! And its sexy! Who doesn’t love looking at 65′ flat screen tv’s!

7. Social command centers translate for any kind of business; B2B (Cisco), B2C (Gatorade), Non Profit (Red Cross) or Education (Clemson University).

I love the Red Cross story. Why is a social command center so important to Red Cross? 80% of people expect emergency responders to monitor social, 33% expect a response in 1hr!

House fires to hurricanes, Red Cross used a social command center to respond to 70k crisis last year, often sharing life saving info.

BTW, Red Cross is looking for social media volunteers for their social command center. Find out more here http://ow.ly/gRCIn

Thanks again for reading my blog, see you here next week! NO FLUFF! If it’s not too much trouble please click the Subscribe button just to the left of this post if having this type of post automatically emailed to you would be more convenient.

Did you learn something about social command centers and why they are important, if so leave a comment.

Here is a 3 minute video on the famous Social Command Center from Dell.

How Brands Can Sell More TV’s Using Social Media

Since I’m looking for a new TV and in celebration of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas I thought I’d blog about how brands can sell more TV’s using social media.  Below is my actual tweet at 10.36pm on Jan. 9th. The rest of the twitter conversation is completely made up.

ChadSchaeffer 10:36pm via HootSuite Going to buy new TV soon. Suggestions? 55″ so it can be hung in built in. Plasma vs LED? Wireless for apps obviously.

Panasonic sees my tweet and replies……

@chadschaeffer Who are you rooting for? Is there anything more fun then a new TV? Man cave or family room? How big will the wife let you go?

@panasonic Uggh! Cowboys fan. TV for SB party in family room. thinking 55”. Want wireless for netflix, youtube, amazon, app store.

@chadschaeffer Link to cnet TV reviews http://ow.ly/gez, link SB party recipes http://ow.ly/cke, 2 Excedrin for being Cowboy fan

@panasonic you must be Eagles fan! Looks like P55VT50 is highly rated.

@chadschaeffer If we are lucky enough to earn your business here is link to P55VT50 http://ow.ly/gez. Twitter code #TW01 15% discount.

@panasonic Wow! I think you did earn my business. Great service. BTW..love the hot wing recipe!

@chadschaeffer Please send us a pic of your new Panasonic once it arrives. Questions just tweet us, here to help. Enjoy the game and wings.

My last tweet would probably mention @panasonic

If you are looking for new TV check out reviews on @panasonic. Plus they have awesome service on Twitter. Bought P55VT50. Please RT!

Now I only have about 1,300 followers on Twitter, 425 Facebook friends and a few hundred people read my blog.

So my reach is 2,000 people.

Perhaps 1% of my followers read and RT and they each have a reach of 2,000 people. 20 x 2,000 is an online reach 40,000.

Panasonic would likely RT my last comment to their 16,000 followers, again same ratio of 1% read and RT and their reach is 320,000.

Total online reach is 362,000.

Now 1% would be way too high a number, 3,620 people are not going to run out and buy a Panasonic.   But is 1% of 1% too high?

Could an interaction like the one above influence the buying decision of 36 people? Maybe but probably still high. Would 3 people be reasonable and at $2,000 for the P55VT50 would you agree the return on investment of 3 or 4 tweets is worth $6,000?

Also keep in mind this does not take into account my offline influence through positive word of mouth when I share my incredible experience with Panasonic.

But here is the hundred thousand dollar question. How many total TV buying conversations are on Twitter everyday leading up to Christmas and through the Super Bowl.  I’m guessing hundreds of thousands.

I smell opportunity!

Ready for the million dollar question? How much is it worth to the Panasonic brand to just be social? To connect with people talking about TV’s? To engage and have conversations about TV’s? Or simply be nice and helpful?

Get Started! Social Service – Part 4

OK SOCAP’ers & CRSummites just one more day and you’ll have a simple social customer care starter kit requiring no budget or complex technology. If you have any questions on my blog series please don’t hesitate to contact me, I love helping beginners get started.  My Twitter handle, Facebook page and LinkedIn profile are all available on the left side of my blog so lets connect!

Let’s Get Started! – Social Service Part 4!

Social Care Strategies – Typically I consult clients to start the strategy discussion around these topics understanding that every business and industry is different.

1. Retention – Primary purpose of social customer care programs.

Yes, that’s it.  I’m going to stop there.  I believe in keeping things simple and focusing on the ONE thing.  Sure you can expand your strategy as your social care program matures but if you are just getting started keep 100% focus on helping those consumers in social media that have a complaint or question.

Tip: Keep it simple and focused for the first 6 months, ask marketing how much it costs to acquire a new customer vs keeping an existing and you’ll provide plenty of ROI.  Start with a goal of 100 customers helped in the first 30 days, add 100 each month and you will have helped 2,100 consumers 6 months from now so what are you waiting for?

Getting Started on Twitter – As I mentioned during my CRSummit break out session I was surprised to hear that the esteemed panel from GM, Redbox & Time Warner all mentioned they weren’t on Twitter despite it being the channel of choice for their social consumers.

Start by just listening then follow people of interest along with family and friends.  Don’t worry about sending any tweets until you get a feel for what Twitter is all about.

Next, start retweeting other tweets you find helpful.  Now that you got the hang off it, let er’ rip.

I think its important for customer service professionals to become more social to earn the respect of marketing team members who are typically extremely active on social networks.

Here is the best resource I know on the internet for Twitter beginners;  http://socialfresh.com/training/twitter/

SocialFresh has links on the following;

1. Why even use Twitter?

2. How to create an account

3. How to add a background and write a bio

4. How to get followers

5. Joining Twitter chats

Any many more helpful resources!

Tip: Using a free tool like HootSuite you can create several tweets at once and schedule them on different days.

Who to follow on Twitter – I like following a mix of customer care and social media leaders and I’ve provided a good starter list below.  Don’t forget, you will embrace Twitter more if you make it fun.  There is nothing wrong with following your favorite athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, etc.  One last thing, follower all your own brand handles, competitor’s handles and throw in a few of your favorite companies. BTW, Starbucks and Whole Foods are awesome on Twitter.

@socialmedia2day	@jasonfalls
@socialfresh	@briansolis
@equalman	@mashable
@tedcoine	@davekerpen
@womma	@socap

 

Tip: Some of the most famous comedians are also hilarious on Twitter.

See you guys tomorrow with the final post of the series where I’ll cover;

Technology Requirements

Key Process Requirements

Get Started! Social Service Wrap Up

If you missed Monday’s Get Started! Social Service – Part 1; https://chadschaeffer.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/get-started-social-service-part-1/

The focus was on 3 things.

1. Where are customers talking about your brand?

2. What are they saying?

3. How well are you responding to customer service opportunities today?

Tuesday’s post Get Started! Social Service – Part 2; https://chadschaeffer.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/get-started-social-service-part-2/

Tuesday’s key topics.

4. What is your current response time?

5. When are customers talking about your brand (day/time)?

6. How to start responding if you aren’t today

Wednesday’s post Get Started! Social Service – Part 3; https://chadschaeffer.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/get-started-social-service-part-3/

Wednesday’s focus;

7. How to partner with marketing

8. How to define response swim lanes

9. Free social media listening tools

Get Started! Social Service – Part 2

While presenting recently at the SOCAP & CRSummit customer service conferences focusing on social media I met so many fantastic people who were struggling with how to launch their social customer care program. They recognize the avalanche of customer service opportunity is growing by the day and its time to do something about it and I’m here to help!

Each day this week I’m creating a simple blog post for beginners that will require no budget or technology.  (just a LITTLE bit of time commitment)

If you missed yesterdays Get Started! Social Service – Part 1 post, you can find it right here: https://chadschaeffer.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/get-started-social-service-part-1/

The focus was on 3 things.

1. Where are customers talking about your brand?

2. What are they saying?

3. How well are you responding to customer service opportunities today?

Now its time to move on to Part 2. Let’s Get Started!

Response Time – If you are in the 25% minority that does respond to customer service opportunities in social media, how responsive are you in each channel?  Do a quick audit of your Twitter & Facebook pages, typically do you get back to customers within an hour? 24 hours?  That number is different dependent on industry but in general under an hour will WOW your customers, under 3hrs is still very good, 24hrs and you are pushing your luck.

Tip: Forum response times in the 4-6 hour range are typically seen as strong, even up to 24hrs is acceptable.

Social Arrival Pattern – Closely linked, in order to have an effective response time you have to understand what time customers post service opportunities in social.  The numbers may surprise you, for one of my large clients more volume comes in from 5pm-12am EST then 9-5pm EST.  Furthermore, their weekend volume only dips about 20% from weekday volume.

Tip: If you decide to start with 9-5pm EST, post those listening times in each social channel to set customer expectations.

How to Start Responding (Every Time!) – This is the one step that makes customer care professionals the most nervous.  Trust me, it’s not going to be as difficult as you might think.  Simply report on the top 20 reasons for contact for email and phone calls.  Typically, customer service opportunities in social are very similar.  So you can leverage the years of experience in responding to consumers in more traditional channels with all the same tools at your finger tips like your CRM tool, response library and knowledge management system.

Tip: Print out a common email response template, have your agents reword in 140 characters.

See you tomorrow when I discuss;

1. Customer Service & Marketing Partnership in Social

2. How to Create Response Swim Lanes

3. Free Social Monitoring Tools

Get Started! Social Service – Part 1

I recently presented at the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Baltimore and the Customer Response Summit in Austin on some of the fundamentals of creating a successful social customer care program. The most frequent question I was asked was, “Where do I start?”

I’m creating a week-long series of simple tips that requires no budget or fancy technology. I hope you find my blog helpful. Let’s get started!

Social Heat Map – First, you have to understand where the relationship building opportunities are by evaluating how much conversation takes place on each social community. Keep it simple, if there are 50+ opportunities a day its hot, 20+ its medium, 1+ its mild. It can vary by industry but start in this order;

1. Twitter
2. Surprisingly second, check out online forums and user communities
3. Facebook
4. Google+
5. Company Blog
6. LinkedIn (Company Page Comments, Groups)
7. YouTube (Company & Personal Channel)
8. Personal/Industry Blogs (WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger)
9. Review Sites (Yelp, Trip Adviser)
10. Pinterest
11. FourSquare

Remember, you are looking for actionable relationship building opportunities, not just brand mentions.

Tip #1 – A large 3CSI automobile client has 6 times the conversation on forums like Camaro5 and Corvette then they do on Facebook.

Social Conversation Map – What is the tone of the online conversation? Evaluate on each channel the primary reason for discussion. Twitter is great for compliments, proactive and sales leads. Forums generally have customers troubleshooting issues and asking questions.

1. Complaints
2. Questions
3. Compliments
4. Proactive (i.e. In the auto industry, participate in discussion about fuel mileage or towing)
5. Sales Leads (i.e. Should I buy the new Cadillac CTS or Lincoln MKZ?)

Tip #2 – Aren’t we trying to create raving fans in social so they influence their friends and family? So start by acknowledging and thanking all the customers online that already love you and take the time to share their praise.

Social Response Audit – Once you know where the conversation is happening do a simple self audit on Twitter, a few top forums and Facebook looking for consumer questions/complaints/compliments that have been ignored. Industry data suggests that about 70% of brands don’t respond to customer complaints on Facebook and Twitter.  Don’t be a part of that stat!

Tip #3 – Start from the bottom of Facebook streams and work your way up. Generally brands respond to the first few comments and ignore the stream as it grows.

Marketing Will You Dance With Me? Love, Customer Service

It’s like the 8th grade dance all over again.

I can remember it like yesterday.

I wanted to dance with her, she didn’t even know I was alive.

I’ll write her a note “Will You Dance With Me? Circle One –> YES or YES” She’ll laugh and think I’m funny.

Def Leppard “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, my jam…its my time…I…just…can’t.

Get over it customer service, I know you want to be involved in social media so just ask marketing to dance!

You might be nervous on how to start the conversation and maybe marketing does just think you’re the complaint department but once they get to know you it will be like Dancing With The Stars!

Now you don’t want to use a cheesy pick up line like, “hey baby, marketing is the new customer service” so here are a few tips!

5 Ways Customer Service Departments Can Break the Social Media Ice With Marketing

1. Introduce Yourself & Start With a Compliment

“Thank you for owning social media for our brand, social media has become one of the most important strategies in our company. All the customer engagement has been fun to watch. Ironically, phone and email contacts are declining. It appears our consumers want to receive customer service on Facebook and Twitter. Can we work together combining our expertise to drive even more raving fans in social media?”

Who is going to say no to that?

2. Just Be Honest, Tell Marketing Your Intentions

Some customers on Facebook and Twitter who have questions, complaints or take the time to say I love your products/services are being ignored. You want to help marketing by doing what you do best, helping customers!

3. Don’t Step on Her Feet and Define Engagement Swim Lanes

Marketing is still going to own social media so its important to be clear how customer service interactions are going to be handled by creating response swim lanes. Here is what a quick example might look like.

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

4. Pick the Right Dance So You Stay In Rythm

Whether its an elegant ballroom foxtrot or the cha-cha, a successful performance requires partners that compliment each other well. Social media reporting is no different. Helping customers online with a timely response in each social channel compliments everything marketing is trying to accomplish with social media.  Hope these examples are helpful!

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

5. How To Get Marketing To Kick Off Her Shoes!

Now its time to close the deal with what every marketer will love to hear.

• Customer service has low cost expert resources that can increase engagement without breaking the social media budget.
• Contact centers already work flexible hours and can help with off hours response.
• Ask marketing for their help in providing social media training for your contact center agents, social engagement vs phone/email engagement is like the waltz and the tango.
• Exceptional social service improves peer to peer recommendation and word of mouth, aka, THE most effective marketing

So customer service, stop being a wall flower, start with these 5 steps and you might end up like this happy couple on the dance floor!

 

(wait for it)

—-

Image source: Shutterstock.com confused bride

Would You Be So Kind To Answer Just 1 Question?

I need your help.  Here is the situation…

Lots of brands are starting to engage more with consumers on their Twitter handles.  Leading brands are even providing outstanding customer service when consumers have concerns or questions.

The questions clients are still asking me are..

“How do we get even more social?”

“What do we have to do to be perceived as a social brand?”

“How do we create more engagement opportunities with our consumers?”

Let’s take an auto company as an example, say Chrysler.

Through our research and analysis we know there are tons of conversations on Twitter regarding the following…

• Car Shopping – “Looking forward to going car shoppin’ tomorrow”
• Tire Shopping – “Need a new set of tires for my truck”
• Breaks – “Need a new set of brake pads, how much is that going to run me?”
• In car technology – “Anyone know how to sync a bluetooth with my minivan?”
• Sound systems/Speakers – “Would love to get the new beats by dre speaker system in my new ride!”
• Towing – “Have a huge boat, who has the leading towing capacity on the new 2012 model full size trucks?”
• Do it yourself mechanics – “Headlight just burnt out, bummer! Good thing I know how to change it myself”

In none of the examples above does the consumer even mention Chrysler or one of their models.  These are not tweets at any of the Chrysler handles.  These kinds of tweets are the everyday tweets that people like you and I send out to our followers all the time.

So ready for my question…

Should Chrysler respond to these types of tweets?

Is it an awesome opportunity to connect to consumers and be more social OR would it freak you out and cross the line of personal privacy?

I don’t want to sway your opinion, hoping to get a lot of comments on this post.  Really interested in your feedback.  Next week I’ll post my thoughts as well as reply to each comment.

Have an awesome week everyone!