The Weekend Five 10.03.10
I have decided to do a weekend wrap-up every week, of 5 great posts that I have come across or read. Here the are for this past weekend (Oct. 1st-3rd, 2010).
Does Complaining About Customer Service In Social Media Make A Difference?
Complaining publicly and sometimes way too over-the-top, Mitch Joel and Joseph Jaffe discuss the way people are using social media and to voice complaints. A great well flowing pod-cast, this is well worth a listen.
“The Social Network” Tops the Box Office
This one gets its due because I honestly never thought a movie about the guy that started Facebook would be all that interesting. Granted, I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t say for myself. On face value this movie seemed to have little merit, but I guess I’ll have to see it to make an opinion. If you saw it, leave a comment and tell me how it was!
Earning Extra Income with a (Small) Blog
Get Rich Slowly is a fantastic blog about making money in the long-run. This time its by blogging. If you’re not blogging for profit (I don’t blog for profit), but you want to here’s a great way to think about using even minimal traffic to monetize your time and effort.
Your Career Is Not Luck
Amber Naslund is an amazing writer. She’s smart and knows the ins and outs of business development, and even personal branding. So it’s no surprise that this passionate post pretty much proves that no one is ever simply given anything. All rewards and returns are based from effort and dedication. A great read!
Going Direct with PR
Trust in sources is a changing game with such a rise in social media and PR today. I always say question all data, and here that point is emphasized. Being able to trust news sources and bloggers is a challenge for every news-seeking person. Geared towards businesses, this post focuses on how PR can get straight to the chase, with no BS and start gaining the trust readers used to have before.
Social CRM – Data & Humans
Being able to interpret CRM in a social era isn’t much different than caring for the relationship before social media became a huge source for inbound and outbound marketing. The delicate balance between using the data available, whether demographically, socially, or implied, and using what might seem like common sense for most causes your relationship with the customer to either be your forte or your deep black hole.
The Data
The data that can be collected through customer programs, email lists, or any of the hundreds of sources available is precious; you don’t need me to tell you that. Every small piece of information that can be collected or responded to via Twitter or Facebook is an entity sensible enough to tip a customer in or out of what you offer. Jeremiah Owyang mentioned at Altimeter Group that,
For companies, real time is not fast enough. Companies need to be able to anticipate what customers are going to say and do, in order to keep up.
However this may be true, it seems almost unfeasible. Problems can be expected and they will arise; we cannot predict when and how they will come about, but as a company focused towards our clientele the client can expect for us to know about them and their problem.
Using the data in a way to understand, predict and embrace the client we are catering directly to the client’s expectations about the relationship they have with the product or service and going beyond what they expect. Why? Because “we” know already what they are expecting. Take for example, a customer expresses their concern via Twitter before engaging us we are aware through the data we collected: their situation, their concern, them as a customer, and their expectation. The data allows us to meet and exceed expectations and engage the client before they engage us!
The Human
The client doesn’t care what your department is or what your job description is. If they have a complaint or a problem, they expect an answer or a solution quickly, efficiently and that works on the first time around. Mashable has a very well expanded post on Social CRM and this graphic was included by Jacob Morgan of Chess Media.
The focus here for me, is on the right hand side noting “Human Decision”. This point here in my opinion is the make or break point in any social CRM interaction. Whether the decision by the human becomes an automated response or a human response should depend on the type of problem and the type of interaction, these choices should never be programmed responses until verified by a person.
Because of the expanse of social media and the interactions the way they can flow through blogs, Twitter & Facebook updates being transparent in your policies and bring the whole company together to understand the client, the problems possible, expectations of resolution will always be the key to understanding the best way to approach and be socially responsible for the fallout or success.
Social CRM is not new, nor has it changed the ways a company should treat it’s customers. Why is it though, that every customer service I interaction I have had through Twitter exceeds the kindness and more importantly the effort put out by when I call or email a customer service department? This isn’t right.
Whether or not your are being reached through social networks or not, the key aspects to giving excellent customer service from my view are:
- Listen – Take in everything the customer has to say, let them workout the details for you, vent (if they’re mad), and really just be quiet until they are done.
- Analyze – What have they said? What are their priorities? What do they want your help with? How can you give them what they want?
- Empathize – Don’t feel sorry for them and don’t throw a pity party, that would only make them even more frustrated. Truly try to understand what their situation was, and how would you feel if you were in that situation.
- React – Find the best solution that gives them back what they need. If possible, do something extra for them. There will always be policies to abide by, but if you can give them something better or go beyond what they need I can promise you they will come back.
Incorporating the data and a human element (empathy) social CRM will and has begun changing the way we look at social media.
Image by mcgill.alumni