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Social Media Won't Fix Your Broken Customer Service

This article is more than 9 years old.

I’ve spent a lot of time working with globally recognized organizations to strengthen and refocus their customer service offerings. I’ve also spent a lot of time as a customer and have observed glaring holes in the process businesses have designed to handle customer issues.

Social media, in particular, has done much to empower customers and encourage ownership of the brands they enjoy. However the medium has completely baffled industry in its basic ability to serve its customers. I personally think that what needs to change is bigger than social media, and that it’s really a mandatory shift in the way organizations handle customer service to build better businesses.

Businesses need to stop blaming the technology for its service flaws, and take responsibility for the lack in commitment they give to how customers are treated. It's not all so bad. There are great examples of companies constantly reshaping the way they handle customers--Clearly Contacts, Zappos, and a litany of startups with a burning passion to do better come to mind--but for some reason, the core fundamentals have been lost on a great deal of organizations large and small. A company’s social media channel isn’t a new way to file a complaint—it’s just a more visible and on-demand medium. It’s certainly going through an awkward stage of development, and a lot of the chatter online talks up the impact social media has on customer service. Here’s what the noise doesn’t tell you:

Social media and customer service live in silos

Social community managers are running a different process than the folks sitting in call centers or online help desks. In my experience of working with people in these positions, they’re not trained to handle customer resolution issues because social is managed by marketing people. The result is a litter of canned responses which ultimately re-route the customer to another channel or online form. This enrages the customer because it adds more time to the resolution process. If you’re going to direct the customer elsewhere, make sure they’re going to find what they’re looking for.

A former newspaper client of mine had made the uneasy jump into a paywall format for online readers. I spent close to two months working with teams in customer service, marketing, the editorial department (yes, even journalists need to be trained—customers would turn to their favorite columnists for help when the call center wouldn’t), and the digital team commanding the paper’s website to develop training guides and processes that would ensure a smooth collaboration between a call center in the Caribbean, and the digital teams at head office. We did a couple of dry runs to stress-test our process, and to make any tweaks to the manuals, response times, and personnel shifts required to handle volumes. One of the key insights we found was that customers generally had the same issues—billing and delivery services. The entire team was instructed to optimize all channels and place a priority on those areas. So, for example, on the online knowledge base, we made sure billing and delivery information was the first thing the customer saw if they landed on that resource. In addition, consistent message training across all areas of the newspaper ensured a unified approach. It was one of the first instances I’d experienced where marketing and the ever protective editorial team worked together to help customers.

Customers jump the queue through social media

Brands often think that their Facebook or Twitter presence will have loftier uses like “customer appreciation”, “relationship building”, and “engagement." In reality, customers bombard a public-facing presence because they aren’t getting the same love through a brand’s other existing customer service channels. Frustrated because of a slow turnaround or a useless answer, they turn to the channel where other people experiencing the same problem can rally together for a speedier response.

The customer may finally have their issue resolved, but this process ultimately disrupts the existing chains and protocols in place to properly resolve issues. For example, the person who is responsible for camera lens malfunctions has to drop what they are doing to resolve an issue that needs immediate attention on social. This will delay resolve times for other issues, and in turn will force those affected to also utilize social channels for their grievances.

This is a problem that your social media channel will not solve. There are inherent flaws in the customer service approach within existing channels—time spent on issues, responses given, and the resolutions themselves—that are forcing customers to go elsewhere.

Marketing and PR needs to be kept in their place

Marketing teams love to step in and apply that personal touch that will “foster a dialogue”. Customer service teams are seen as wonky, overly technical people who have no empathy. All customer service channels require that “personal touch”, but companies shouldn’t only do it because people are watching. There needs to be a more cohesive fusion between the message makers and product aficionados. No amount of wordsmithing can quell an angry customer, and it gets in the way of solving the actual problem. A marketing team’s number one cure for the problem is to comp the customer, or send them a freebie replacement. That’s terrible business, and it’s a temporary solution to the resolution process—customers will turn to public channels to applaud their freebie, and in-turn encourage other customers to request the same resolution. In fairness to marketing teams, I think that many corporations could do themselves a huge favour and improve outdated warranty or repair services (especially if you have an affiliate or sub-contracted repair service, rather than your own).

Customer service teams in most organizations don’t have the bandwidth to commit a resource to social media, but there are baby step solutions. The guides and processes I built for a consumer electronics client also involved direct input from the different product directors who knew the complete workings of their devices. This meant that community managers tasked with customer service management within the marketing teams had direct access and knowledge on how to provide the right information before funneling the customer to another tier of service. This is key: robust education within the organization will keep everyone informed, and strengthen every department’s ability to work together while holding them accountable--especially when resources and teams are tight from the get-go.

What does accountability look like?

Social media doesn’t change the metrics for success a customer service team must achieve. A well-written training and resource guide must outline the following:

  • Contact information and roles of all involved within the customer service process—who does the team reach out to, and at what stage? When does the team involve marketing? When does marketing involve the product teams?
  • Response level—what are the easiest and frequently asked issues teams can handle without much input? What are the moderate to difficult issues that require added internal input (legal, product teams, senior management)?
  • Response time indicators—how long does the team have to resolve easy, medium, and hard issues?

Having all this information in an easy-to-access guide--that is updated frequently as processes and insights change--is a pivotal starting point.

In the end, it’s always about good service

This is no secret, but it has to be repeated. Forget what all the pundits say about this “scary new channel”, and focus on the business basics. Invest time and money across your organization to strengthen all corners of the customer service process. The experience has to be seamless no matter where the customer enters—robust training, ample resources and knowledge for staff and customers, and a commitment to the people buying the product are what matter most. Remember that no process or protocol is set in stone, and that constant tweaking will be required as you learn what your customers need.