I’m preparing for a series of four classes I’ll be teaching on social media - especially how social media can be used to connect with your customers. So I thought I’d just jot down a few of my thoughts and maybe even start an Internet meme.
Blogging – sharing my thoughts about customer service and learning from others about topics I’m interested in.
The Global Conversation. Is it just me or do you find it cool that you can meet and develop a relationship with people anywhere in the world? Following Ian Usher who sold his life on Ebay. He lives in Australia but for 100 weeks he is accomplishing 100 goals. He was just in Easter Island – the one place on earth I really want to go to and we conversed via the comments section of his blog WHILE HE WAS ON EASTER ISLAND. It doesn’t get cooler than that.
YouTube – let’s face it – when you need a break from work, there’s nothing like viewing the funny/stupid videos of the day. However, it is also a great way to communicate your message in a visual fashion.
Twitter – I am amazed by the famous people I have had the opportunity to tweet with and the connections I’ve made in just 140 characters or less.
The immediacy. Gone are the days of waiting for the daily paper to arrive on your doorstep. If you missed the recent episode of the Bachelor – you can find out right away who didn’t get a rose. Plus, you can listen to comments from your customers the instant they have something to say.
Sharing of pics, videos and fun stuff. I love that I can upload a video of my daughter’s flute recital, photos from my trip to Italy or, an Animoto video of my customer service book and share with customers, friends and Tweeple.
It’s just so simple to connect with customers!Jump in with both feet. Bite off a little or a lot, but really the applications are point-and-click easy.
So what are your favorite things about social media? I’d love to hear all your answers, but specifically I’d love to hear from Chris Brown, Ron McDaniel and Drew McLellan. Tag you are it!
There is nothing worse than silence. Whoever said “no news is good news” or ”silence is golden” must have been the parent of a new born because as an entrepreneur and the mother of a college student – there is nothing worse than NO NEWS.
It’s Friday. The end of the work week. I should be wrapping things up – preparing for a girly weekend with my middle schooler, but no. Why?
SILENCE.
On a personal front, my son is facing the consequences of his actions today and I’m awaiting news. His phone is turned off – probably to avoid my text messages – and the silence is killing me. So I focus on work. Except, guess what?? SILENCE.
I am presenting a series of four workshops on Social Media scheduled to begin February 10 and follow for three additional Wednesdays. I’m very excited about the events and have receive great feedback from potential attendees.
Using the social media I so strongly believe in – I set up registration for all four classes on Events Bot. It was a fairly simple process and even included HTML code for spreading the word and creating cutsie REGISTER NOW boxes. Except here’s the rub. Sign up for my class and get charged an unexplainable shipping and handling fee of $19.80. What needs to ship? Who are we going to handle?
So I contacted the help desk. The email gave me no answers.
I sent another message to the help desk. Nada.
So I sent a message to the abuse email. Nothing.
I changed my account and paid for premium service thinking that maybe there was a glitch in the free service. I got a lovely canned welcome email. It included another customer service address to contact. So I sent them a message. No return message.
This is my first time using their service and could have been a long and mutually beneficial relationship as I am now using their premium service. But no communication isn’t sitting well with me. I see from the reports that a really good number of people are clicking on the events. If only 10% of them purchased, my classes would have been filled yesterday. So how many are getting to the invoice – seeing an additional $20 charge and cancelling out on their reservation?
Silence from Events Bot is not helping my business or theirs.
I was reading a recent post by Drew McLellan on follow up and the importance of being available and touching base and being responsive to your customers. HA.
How true is that?
So once again, I’m hoping social media will work for one of two things:
1. You might know of a different event site I can go to and set up my events – please share and quickly.
2. Events Bot has a Google alert set up for their name – will see this and finally give me an answer.
Cuz here’s the deal. I’m new. This is my first time. It could very well be my fault. In fact, I’m sure it is. I’ve probably clicked something I shouldn’t have. But TELL ME.
As for my son? Prayers.
Okay. don’t be silent – help me out here. Anyone have advice for me? Thanks a bunch!
Yesterday morning I attended the monthly ABC meeting: Akron Bloggers Connect and we had a wonderful turnout w ith some friendly, familiar faces and a few that were new to the group.
Chris Brown of Branding and Marketing (Marketing Resources and Results) led us through a packed agenda. But first we went around the table and introduced ourselves. It is an electic group of bloggers and blogger-newbies:
and Jill McCauslin and Mary Helscl who are just getting started.
We talked about creating FAST content for the web that is a constant task master wanting more and more words of wisdom. We talked about using Market Samurai to research key words and the value of finding the right niche product to connect with targeted prospects. We shared resources and websites/blogs that we’d found of value like Nathan Kievman with Link Strategies Group and Frank Kern’s videos.
In the end,we all commented about the wealth of information that had been shared and in particular, how some so experienced, were willing to share what they knew with those just starting out.
It was a make or break moment in my mind.
We’ve been taught to hold our cards close to our vest. If we find out something new and exciting – we should keep it a secret so that we have a leg up on our competition. Yet isn’t there some value in sharing what we’ve learned so that we can all become better in business, better using social media, better with our customer relationships?
So do you hold knowledge as a closely guarded secret or do you share the wealth?
Are you local? Consider joining us for our lively discussions. We meet monthly at the Mocha Joe’s in Stow - last Thursday of every month from 9:30-11am. Hope to see you there.
Photo courtesy of Chris Brown and her amazing camera!
It’s hard to build a relationship on the Internet. You can’t make eye contact. You can’t ask questions and if you could – you certainly wouldn’t be able to hear the answers.
Yet the Internet is where our prospects and customers seek information and make decisions about potential vendors or companies with which they’ll do business.
So how do you tell your story? How do you communicate your vast knowledge and experience without a bunch of WORDS PEOPLE WON’T READ?
YouTube offers a platform to share your story – but you have to be creative if you want to capture the attention of viewers and hopefully create a message that “goes viral.”
In a recent edition of Advertising Age, Teressa Iezzi of Creativity Online shared the top creative picks of 2009. I’ve talked about one of them in an earlier post – the musical stairs in Stockholm. But this time I want to share the story of Johnnie Walker in their historical, yet extremely creative video called “The Walk” which chronicles the history of one of the greatest adult beverages known to man.
You have a unique story as well. One that people would be interested in hearing. Have you considered using YouTube to tell about how you got started? Or maybe your start-up story is ordinary, but how you came to focus on a particular product or service is unique.
For more information on how to connect with your customers and share your story using YouTube, check out this video from Small Business Trends by Jim Kukral with 101 ways to use YouTube and this article from Meryl Evans on the 34 ways to use YouTube for Business.
According to Trend Watching – one of the top ten trends for 2010 will be customers leaving tweets about your business. What will they say?
Real Time Reviews takes into account that people around the globe are jumping on the band wagon of telling anyone who will listen what they are doing right now. Whether they are using the status updates on LinkedIn, Facebook or tweeting away in 140 characters or less on Twitter – they are sharing their opinions.
Last year we asked “why would anyone care what I’m doing?”
This coming year we are going to be asking “what are people saying about us and what can we do about it?”
Gone are the days when a dissatisfied customer grumbled on the way out the door and maybe told 15 of their closest friends. Now they are on their mobile device sharing their bad experience with the world – or at least the hundreds of friends, family and various and sundry other folk that follow their updates.
Companies need to quickly get on board with reading what is being said about them on line – hopefully it is ALL GOOD – but on the off chance it isn’t, Twitter will become the fastest, easiest, most visible way for companies to “nip it in the bud” and show consumers they are on top of their customer service.
As more people are reviewing and contributing, the sheer mass of opinions will lead to a real-time stream of information, findable and viewable to all. In addition, online access and device convergence will allow more on-the-spot reviews. Twitter is the much-deserved poster child for real-time reviews: it has established itself as the real-time snapshot of what people are thinking/feeling/experiencing and yes, reviewing, around the world.
So what can you do?
Make sure your company name, your name, your top product names are set up with Google Alerts so you receive an email the minute someone writes using those names
For Twitter – consider the Twitter Beep for alerts about your company
Just read a post on Dennis Snow’s site in which he reminds us that social media now allows unhappy customers to tell millions about their bad service as it happens. In the past the negative word of mouth would extend to 7 or 9 or 15 people and now in a blink of a text our mistakes, mis-steps and ineffective service can be communicated round the world!
Dennis suggests that we train our front line employees to ask themselves:
“In every customer interaction you have, imagine the customer is going to immediately ‘tweet’ about their experience. What would they communicate instantly to all of their contacts about their interaction with you?”
How would that change your approach to building customer relationships? Should social media be added to your customer retention strategy? When we think of social media in general or rather Twitter in particular; we say “I don’t see the value” or “I don’t have time for that” or “How can it help my business?”
We dismiss Twitter as a silly thing the young people do to waste time and miss altogether the fact that it doesn’t matter if WE USE social media. Our customers DO! And very effectively.
Although customer service ENDS at the customer/sales associate interaction – it BEGINS with management. In this economy companies are down sizing. In some cases they are treating their employees like an expense item on their P&L rather than as the greatest asset in their arsenal. Bosses let employees know they should be grateful they have a job rather than encouraging, training and thanking them for hanging in there during the tough times.
Fewer employees are having to cover a greater number of tasks and all of this leads to declining customer service. In an age when customer service should be the number one focus; with increased competition and fewer spendable dollars, we should be doing everything we can to help customers spend with us!
Yet -if the employees who actually interact with customers are beaten down, feeling overworked and under valued – they aren’t going to see the need to do anything extra with each customer experience.
The combination of declining customer service and increased communication abilities through Twitter is a disaster waiting to happen.
As a manager – an owner – an entrepreneur – we need to recognize Twitter for the opportunity it is to create awareness and build customer retention.
Not long ago I talked about Ramon DeLeon - the owner of several pizza shops in Chicago and how he stays connected with his customers via Twitter and other social media venues. Through the use of Google Alerts and Twitter search plug-ins – you can stay connected and learn when people are talking about you. At the very least make sure you follow conversations about your business so that you can respond.
However, a more proactive customer retention strategy would be to actively engage your customers in conversation via social media. For more information about using social media to connect with customers, check out Becky Carroll’s post called Where Does Social Media fit in?
At the very least – go back to Dennis’ question and ask yourself – just what is the customer I’m talking with RIGHT NOW going to Tweet about this experience?
“I just have a local business. How can social media help me? It looks like a big, confusing waste of time to me!”
Have you heard this? Do you say this? As a speaker of such topics as customer service and marketing for entrepreneurs, I often talk of the value of making the most of your online presence. I’m surprised by how many business owners still resist the Internet for their business. Some even lack a basic website.
Ramon DeLeon owns several Domino Pizza locations in Chicagoland and has effectively used social media to reach out to his customers and the community at large. I learned about Ramon thanks to Ben at Church of the Customer. Ben shares how the Lincoln Park Dominos used a video apology to connect with a specific customer, and in the process also sends a message to the blogosphere that shows how connected and commited they are to their customer’s satisfaction.
Beth Harte shares even more details into Ramon (owner of multiple Dominos in Chicago) and his use of social media.
You may not see the need to be connected to the social network, but I guarantee you; your customer is!
You’ve heard it said that a dissastified customer tells seven or ten or fifteen people. Those were the old days. Thanks to social media a dissatisfied customer can spread the word to the WORLD that you missed the boat. If you are actively involved on the web you can quickly respond to your customer and fix the situation.
How do you get started? The first place to start is monitoring the web for your company name. Sign up for Google Alerts to see when you or your company is mentioned. On Twitter, you can sign up for Monitter which will monitor Tweets to see when you or your company are mentioned. Jump into the conversation with both hands and connect with your customers.
How do you use social media to connect with your customers?
I was at dinner with Mom and her friend, Terry a few weeks ago. Terry said that she was following me on Twitter. Thus began a really silly conversation about the funny name Twitter and the equally silly “tweet” verb. I tried to explain the benefits in connecting with customers and like-minded individuals. They listened patiently and I know that Terry was ready to start right that minute, but Mom was a little hesitant.
Well, Mom, the celebs we love to watch in the morning on the Today Show and on The View are on Twitter. The Today show has over 30,000 followers!
Twitter may still be a silly name. It may still be difficult to understand why anyone would want to know what you are doing (the question Twitter asks all its users) but it is a phenomena we need to learn about whether we think the name is funny or not.
Are you connecting through Twitter? How have you used it to reach out to your customers?
Peter Kim recently asked several social media/marketing leaders to share their thoughts about the trends for this phenomena in the upcoming year. The 23 page document entitled Social Media Predictions for 2009 holds lots of interesting insights and Peter sums up the thoughts this way:
After reading through the thoughts here, some key themes emerge for me:
- We understand the technologies but need to employ them with a human empathy
- Mass participation will continue to grow, while experienced users employ refined filters to drive
increased relevance
- Measurement needs to be addressed, soon
I think the last point was covered well by Todd Defrean who said “…it may be the way of the future but you still gotta eat.” True.
As I read through the thoughts one theme kept resonating for me and that was the theme of human emotion: relationships, empathy, passion and a sense of commitment.
In order for social media to be successful (and by successful, it isn’t necessarily the number of Twitter followers as it is the wave of influence and quality of relationships built) it has to be used with a desire to reach out and connect.
Those blogs that TALK AT their readers are less interesting to read than those that ask questions, share a controversial but passionate opinion and reach out for a response.
Rohit Bhargava compared the current social media experience with what the trend should be in 2009 and in one case said that we currently assign the task of social media to the most logical person on the communications team when in fact it should be given to the most PASSIONATE.
Peter Blackshaw says “intimacy touches emotion; emotion POWERS conversation.”
It is all about building relationships – making connections.
Companies need to get off their high profitability horse and face facts that if they want to remain in the game going forward, their focus needs to shift from the bottom line to the customer relationship.
If ever there was a make or break moment it is TODAY. The start of the new year. The bottom of the economy. A “no place to go but up” time in our lives and if we want to succeed – we have to start listening to our customers in person and on line.
Andy Sernovitz nails it on the head when he says “there will be a customer satisfaction uprising.” People will not hesitate to share their views on the Internet.
What will your customers say about you?
What trends do you see for social media in the coming year?
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