Of Stars & Schmoes: The Mandate to Synch Social Media & Customer Service
As corporations tentatively embrace the idea of direct-to-consumer marketing techniques via Social Media, they are likely to be encouraged by the warm reception they receive online. Really, it’s not as scary as it’s made out to be, and as we’ve noted in the past the Risk Of Ignoring will be inescapable for most Big Brands.
But, we’ve also talked about how “Customer Service is the New PR.” That was a major theme not that long ago, yet it seems to have receded a bit. Don’t be fooled. It will come back, with a vengeance.
Here’s the thing: you start to get accustomed to Red Carpet Service. You tweet, “Comcast Sucks!” on Twitter, and you get the royal treatment from @ComcastCares. You moan about the “Blue Screen of Death” online and someone from Dell asks, “Hope that’s not one our machines that just crashed? Can we help?”
As a consumer it feels GREAT to be taken so seriously, and to see such a rapid response.
However when the person treated like a STAR online is subsequently treated like a SCHMOE when they dial the #800 line, the “disconnect” is all the more egregious.
The brand enthusiast created by great online experiences becomes an even bigger threat when they become disgruntled by the lack of attention paid to all other customer service channels: “Treat me like a STAR one day, and give me a nightmarish experience the next 
day, just because I’ve reached out via a different channel? F* you! I’m gonna tweet about this — you are a fraud!!”
The message: you can’t be great at Social Media if your service sucks. But that’s just the beginning of the nightmare.
Let’s say that as a company you’ve decided that you will try to do a few things well in Social Media, i.e., you will actively monitor and enthusiastically respond to bloggers and Twitterati, because they are deemed most impactful. How do you synch up what happens online in Twitter (etc.) with your existing Customer Service systems??
“Who is @TDefren? Is this person a he, a she, a customer, a prospect? How do we figure out that @TDefren is a customer? How do we figure out that @TDefren is Todd Defren? What’s his phone #, email, credit card #, the last 4 digits of his SSN? Has he called before? Has he tweeted before? Has he blogged about us? Commented at another blog? When? What did he say? Was his issue resolved?”
This raises obscenely difficult backoffice CRM issues. But within 18+ months of your decision to take Social Media Marketing seriously, I predict you’ll feel an overwhelming need to put a laser focus on all aspects of Customer Service. The mandate will come from below, from the people you’ve impressed online.
But don’t think of all this as “obscenely difficult.” Think of it as “doing the right thing.”
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I have had some issues with Chase Auto Finance’s customer service last week. When the folks answering their 800 number were not helpful, I immediately turned to Twitter — hoping that they had someone providing assistance online. When I searched for Chase, I found tons of negative complaints — but clearly no one from the company responding or engaging. In this day and age when many major brands are accessible online, it’s even more frustrating when a company has no interest in participating in the online world. Brands need to wise up, or risk further damaging their reputation.
Heather (@prtini)
Morning Todd
This very problem is being played out now with companies in the UK such as Carphone Warehouse, which is doing well with its foray into social media for customer service, but continuing to find it a challenge to replicate that level of excellence in other channels. I should know – I was a customer!
The guy heading up their social media effort talks about it here http://pr-media-blog.co.uk/prwin-carphone-warehouse-gets-social/ and the accompanying comments reflect how emotive this whole thing is.
Just cuz it’s hard doesn’t mean it is not worth doing. The fact that Carphone Warehouse is acknowledging the problem gives hope that they will commit resources to figure it out.
As we talked about over dinner this is a VERY hard thing indeed. I know when I get on the phone with any company now I always think in the back of my head about the great companies I’m interacting with online and wonder why everyone can’t do it.
Customer Service use to be about the person in the store or the person on the other end of the line. Now it is even more places. Companies have to figure out which channels they are going to use and then make sure that on ALL channels they are providing a constant and positive level of customer service.
The chain is only as strong as the weakest link….
“The chain is only as strong as the weakest link” – DOH! You just summed up the entire post. Now I feel like I’ve over-written the whole damn thing!
I have read recently that Salesforce.com is incorporating Twitter into its CRM module. Is Salesforce.com a Shift client?
This addition will apparently be in their next release–I think I read this in Information Week.
In any case, I think Twitter is a better place to intercept the customer issue and address it than waiting until the customer calls you.
Great post–as always!
Todd,
You raise a good point about companies needing to sync up their customer service across all channels. Having worked with a number of companies now in this area, I can say with confidence that many understand this even if they are still figuring out how to make it all work.
One other point I think is important to mention here. Smart companies with great customer service don’t normally respond to every angry consumer who lambaste their brand. They understand the criteria for when to reach out and when not to. It’s a new world for sure, but one companies are quickly getting the hang of.
Mike Spataro
SVP, Visible Technologies
Amen – reality is, companies will have to integrate all documentation of customer interaction into one central location – collect as much information as possible i.e email, phone, twitter, address, etc. and use this information for the customer’s benefit. How do you collect all this information? Just like we engage our customers, one person at a time, one question at a time, one search at a time, etc.
Customer service is much more difficult and expensive than a social media or even traditional PR campaign. It is a cultural foundation and commitment of an organization. To work and be sustainable, it needs to be built in not added on.
Social media won’t do much for the numerous firms, whose implicit motto is “Screw the Customer.”
Todd this is right on. I have a question…
Do you see a time when to make this easier people just get told – contact our customer support team – they’re on Twitter?
I see one possibility – knowing how business works – that they won’t fix their poor telephone support – they’ll abandon it and send everyone to Twitter. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Thank you for this post, Todd; you have wrestled with a subject that is near and dear to my heart. This has been an issue with customers in the past, even before social media. For example, a customer might get treated fabulously in the store, but when they try and interact with someone on the phone, they are treated like just another number. Or you tell a customer they are a VIP, but the only communications you have with them elsewhere are sending out invoices.
It is a little tricky to track everything you know about a customer, but it can be done. It will be important for customer systems to start tracking all the methods a customer wants to use to communicate with a company, including their Twitter handle.
Perhaps now customer service will start getting a seat up-front at the strategy table!
Thanks again – you rock!
“It will be important for customer systems to start tracking all the methods a customer wants to use to communicate with a company, including their Twitter handle.”
True statement but INCREDIBLY hard to knit it all together at the backoffice level.
As always, an insightful and thought-provoking post. Thank you.
It’s not just the disconnect, though. I think the bigger issue for companies is that we might be on the edge of an expectation gap.
As consumers get more savvy and more accustomed to getting everything they ask for (thanks to blogs like The Consumerist and the instant reaction of brands on Twitter, as well as high profile customer care examples like Zappos), they run the risk of hitting the same quality break point that they hit when they moved customer service to big, impersonal call centers.
At some point, having a couple of social media pros (yeah, I used that term) on staff who are empowered to make gut decisions to keep customers happy and their brands untarnished, won’t be enough. The question becomes: How will customer service evolve once social media becomes as ubiquitous as an 800 number?
The expectation gap is exactly what I am talking about, well said! It will only grow when “social media becomes as ubiquitous as an 800#!”
I cannot say enough about Verizon Wireless’ hit-or-miss in store cust svc. I have had both good and bad experiences in person, but the icing on the cake was a client of mine who spends $10K/month with them and after asking for a software update on one of their phones, the sales rep said they weren’t “allowed” to do that and if the client wasn’t happy, that he should go somewhere else. I know the customer very well and can vouch for the fact that he was not irate or tough to deal with, just encountered the wrong guy at the wrong time.
Customer service reps should be the MOST important hire a company makes. They are the face/voice/lifeline of any brand. They also offer the best opportunity to make a good impression of the overall brand.