Social Media & Customer Service

By Courtney Carey

As the number of people using social media tools continues to grow every day, it is important to recognize all of the ways that social media sites can be utilized. In a recent article from the San Diego Union Tribune, Teresa Siles – Manager of Social Media for a San Diego Public Relations firm, discussed how social media can be a powerful aid to customer service.

Since so many companies and brands have a strong presence on social media sites, it is only natural that customers are beginning to take service-related issues to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media platforms. The article states that “consumers create 256 billion impressions on one another each year by talking about products and services within social networks.” With this number being so high, it would be a huge oversight for companies to ignore the need for customer-service issues to be handled online.

In this article, Siles provided tips to help companies effectively tackle this growing trend:

• Train your staff on tools and philosophy - Showing someone how to send a tweet is easy, but making sure they understand the nature of social media and the customer-centric philosophy behind it is far more important.
• Have a policy in place - Develop a social media policy that reflects your company’s code of ethics and brand promise and acts as a guide for employee engagement in social media, ensuring tools are used ethically and responsibly.
• Toss out the scripts - Authenticity is key. While employees should have a guide of common questions and answers, the guide should be just that — a guide, not a document from which to cut and paste. Each interaction should be tailored and unique, and the conversation should be organic.
• Don’t be afraid to say I’m sorry - Being humble within social media and owning up to mistakes will go a long way toward earning consumer trust.
• Thank your most loyal fans - While it can be easy to focus on the negative, don’t forget to thank your fans. A happy customer is your greatest endorsement.
• Empower your reps to make a difference - Actions speak louder than words. It’s critical that your reps can provide real resolutions to customer issues.
  

Social media is all about building relationships on an intimate level. By following these few tips, companies can begin to build stronger relationships online while increasing their credibility and earning the trust of their followers.

Courtney Carey is Manager of Social Media at Maroon PR. Contact her at Courtney@MaroonPR.com

Lost: The Importance of Customer Service

By Tim Richardson

For the majority of us, our jobs involve interacting with people. My occupation actually states that fact in the name of the industry in which I work…public relations. However, not everyone seems to understand the importance of interpersonal communications and I have directly experienced customer service trending downward in recent years.

BusinessDictionary.com defines customer service as “all interactions between a customer and a product provider at the time of sale, and thereafter. Customer service adds value to a product and builds enduring relationship.”

“Adds value to a product and builds an enduring relationship”…in my opinion, that portion of the definition is the key piece that many people have forgotten. Considering the poor state of the economy, you would think that those competing for our discretionary income or purchases of necessity would strive to provide a level of service that makes them positively stand out amongst the competition.

Retail is a major business in our country. It’s estimated that billions of transactions take place each day in the nation's 1.4 million stores. From restaurants to contractors, technology service provides to manufacturers, high-quality customer service has become a forgotten principle of business.

When I started thinking about this topic for my blog, the examples of poor customer service that I’ve experienced in the last six months alone easily came to mind. Since it was hard to narrow it down to one, here are a few of my “favorites”…without naming the companies directly:

• Grocery store cashier who never said a word to me as she was texting on the phone and eating fast food while ringing up my order in the checkout line.
  
  
• A contractor who kept “forgetting” to schedule the crew to fix my roof after a snow storm gave me a “natural” skylight that was leaking throughout my house; the company then used the wrong product and slapped on paint so shabbily that it looked like a two-year old with their first coloring book; after receiving the run-around for about two weeks, the owner finally made an appointment with us on a Saturday to come by and address the situation…only he never showed up or called with an explanation.

• A ticket broker who told me “sorry about your luck” when a concert I bought tickets for was rescheduled and half of our group couldn’t go on the new date. When I asked to speak to his manager, he said “nope” and hung up on me.

Of course, not every company has disregarded the value of customer service. Chick-fil-A is the quintessential example on how to do things right. Think about the last time you went to Chick-fil-A, where you are not considered a customer, but rather a “guest.” After you placed your order, the person on the other side didn’t slap your change on the counter or ignore you after the transaction…they also didn’t say “you’re welcome.” They said “my pleasure.” Their pleasure? Two simple words that make you feel valued.

This mentality comes from the top as President and COO Dan Cathy stresses the importance of attentive and courteous customer service. That philosophy and commitment to “guests” even play a huge role in the decision process for opening new restaurants.

In 2008, Chick-fil-A received over 22,000 applications from aspiring store operators…they selected only 100 who they believed were in tune with Chick-fil-A’s mission.

Tim Richardson is Maroon PR's Executive Vice President. Contact him at tim@maroonpr.com.