BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Outstanding Customer Service In Social Media

Following
This article is more than 9 years old.

When I taught the Dale Carnegie Course on Effective Communications and Human Relations Skills, we often started class with this mantra: “I know people in the ranks who will stay in the ranks. Why? Because they haven’t the ability to get things done!”

I thought of that a few weeks ago in the aftermath of a fender bender in a parking lot near my home. It wasn’t just a fender bender. It was more of a back-end-of-massive-SUV smashes driver’s side door of smallish sedan.

No one was hurt and the other driver admitted she hadn’t seen my car but we had to go through the usual rigmarole to a) get my car door fixed and b) get the claim settled.

It was an open and shut case, but it dragged on and on. The culprit wasn’t my insurance company (Travelers), it was the other driver’s insurer, the one that had to pay to fix my car and reimburse me for my deductible. Apparently they avoided paying deductibles for non-customers, e,g. me. So I spouted off about it on Twitter and people wrote back about their problems with car insurance companies.

Pretty soon, there was a lot of chatter on Twitter about two car insurance companies. Perfect opportunity for a Social Media whiz to make someone happy.

Lucky for me, Heather Kiley-Bunia of Travelers is such a whiz, a person who gets things done. She reached out and took care of my problem. Period.

Social Media is a customer service platform

And not a lot of companies have grasped the opportunity.

My number one thought about social media, using Twitter as an example, is that a company should separate its regular Twitter account from its Customer Service Twitter account. AT&T does it nicely with @ATT and @ATTCustomerCare. That way, you keep your controlled company voice interacting with people without the clutter of problems obscuring your brand and promotional messages.

People expect a lot from social media:

  1. Quick response time. I was once in an American Airlines mess at O’Hare, and tweeted for help in the middle of the night. No one at AA answered, but dozens of my followers all over the world retweeted my pleas. You can’t be online 9 to 5 EST when your customers are all over the world. 24/7 is a much better strategy.
  2. Don’t let different shifts interfere with a customer’s question. I was stuck with an internet provider that kept handing me off to different operators for a week. Reps should be able to see an issue through to resolution.
  3. If an issue requires some explanation, direct message the customer your contact information (direct dial phone number and/or email address).
  4. Your voice should represent your brand. Make it sound personable from everyone who works in the social media department, and make sure your spelling is correct, especially customers’ names.
  5. On Twitter, mention positive outcomes. So, if a customer says thanks for terrific help, mention that.
  6. When people take the time to tell you something nice, make sure you say thank you and, if you can, sending a personal snail mail thank you note is a wonderful idea.

Social Media, even – or, maybe especially – customer service, is a marketing function. The media themselves are new but most of the concepts behind their roles are not.

For example, Lillian Vernon’s PR whiz, David Hochberg, spoke to my class at NYU and brought up a fascinating point. He said that most people would expect that returning a gift that had been personalized (and many of them were) would be a big problem. Not so. The company always took them back.

Being direct marketers, they tracked everything and learned that over time, people who had returned a personalized gift tended to become “best customers.”

Let me know how your social media customer service function is working for you, okay? Thanks