Beyond the Counter and Call-Center: Customer Service on the Social Web
Without purpose, social media doesn’t do anything for your company.
Without value, it doesn’t do anything for your customers.
Many corporations believe that the social web is simply another place to broadcast messages and socialize. But in many cases, the people broadcasting those messages are the customers, not the marketing team. The social web is a place to listen and use customer input to improve experiences with your company in hopes that they start doing the marketing legwork for you.
The social web gives us the ability to turn great service into remarkable experiences.
Customer service is a form of brand currency that translates directly to loyalty, referrals and return customers. Think about it first in the real world service environment. Maybe the waiter knows everything on the menu and handles rapid-fire questions on gluten content without a blink. Perhaps the travel agent finds a way to rebook your flight without a change fee, and keeps you laughing with jokes and commentary as she’s waiting for confirmations. In both instances, confidence, knowledge and humanity positively impact the customer experience and attitude toward those people and companies for which they work.
So how do these uniquely human transactions translate to the social web? A positive experience for a picky eater is priceless, so you can bet that there will be posts on Yelp and the Celiac forums about the staff that doesn’t roll their eyes when you ask if the flourless cake is really flourless.
The experience with the travel agent brings a new respect for her special skills versus a website to book travel. Her expertise and ability to deliver results may inspire status update that encourages coworkers to book complex, “failure is not an option” itineraries with this agent and save the easy vacation stuff for the online sites.
In both cases, the social web provides a channel to share and persuade based on personal experience. It also provides the company with a direct line to its most productive customers, the people who will go out and either recruit or scare away others.
When we work through the business objectives for a social media initiative, we stop thinking of service as something that takes place at a counter or in a call-center, but something that happens every time a potential customer has an interaction or experience with the brand or company.
But what about results?
Great question. Will social media measurably improve your customer service experience? The better question is, how will consistent positive customer service experiences support your overall business objectives?
Let’s say the goals are to improve account retention, increase participation in customer surveys, and create a quantified improvement in service levels. Social media acts as both a communication channel and a compass in this process. It helps you understand the environment in which you are working, and provides important information for correction when you get off course.
Monitoring software can let you know whether your customer service initiatives are resulting in positive and negative sentiment, and help you identify and talk to those customers who are amplifying those messages. In essence, social media not only enables improvement but it also is the tool by which you can test your success.
Creating a social service culture.
The first step is acceptance. Social media is evolving into critical component of corporate strategy. This requires executive teams to trust their employees a little bit more – giving them the opportunity to shine. It also requires a new trust in your customers – they are now the keepers of your brand’s message – empowered to share experiences and problems.
This doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen without planning, insight and a blueprint for success. And yes, when you take a trip to the Freeworld, that’s what we are going to help do – make and manage experiences on the social web that mean better business for you and better service for your customers. Will it be a straight shot? Nope. Will it revolutionize your organizational infrastructure? Not in a day. What we will do is help you understand where your opportunities are and how your employees and customers can help you seize them. Only question now is, are you ready?
