Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on February 2, 2010 under social media | 
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!
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on April 27, 2009 under Connecting Moments, Internet Connections, social media |
“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?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on October 14, 2008 under Customer Moments |
I discovered a new blog today: Customers Rock! written by Becky Carroll. She’s written a two part posting offering suggestions for using social media to enhance your customer service offerings. Social media – great tools for your customer toolbox.
In part one of Using Social Media to Build Customer Loyalty Becky talks about using social media to keep customers informed and to strengthen relationships. The beauty of the new interactive qualities of Web 2.0 is the ability for customers and prospects to respond back; offering opinions, questions and comments. If we are OPEN to the conversation- this two-way relationship will only make us a stronger more customer-focused business.
Yesterday on Twitter Guy Kawasaki – a professed Obama supporter – left a tweet stating that he planned on flooding Twitter with value based tweets just to frustrate those McCain supporters who took offense to the fact that he’d changed his Avitar to the Obama logo. He reached out with both hands to his followers and said “This is who I am, this is who I support and hopefully you can look past that to the value that am about to bring to the conversation.” (actually he didn’t SAY that – I’m reading between the lines.) What transpired was more than an hour of tweets from Guy pointing followers to video, blogs, articles and more. His followers began to weigh in – commenting on people who had stopped following him because of his political beliefs. They commented on the great stuff he was sharing and one follower said “I don’t care who you vote for; value is value and I’m enjoying what you have to say.”
Social media allows us to have on-going, honest exchange with our audience, our customers. Connecting around the world with kindred spirits. Are you using social media to reach out to your target prospects, customers and peers?
In part two of using Social Media to build Customer Loyalty, Becky shares the story of how Zappos is using Twitter to connect with customers:
The culture at Zappos.com is very people-focused and empowers employees. Zappos.com has many of their employees Twittering; 448 to be exact! You can track their tweets via this microsite, where you can also track mentions of Zappos.com and some of the brands they carry. Using Twitter is encouraged as a great way to stay transparent and authentic with customers. Tony is their CEO, and he leads the way by tweeting about his travels, tours he gives of the Zappos.com headquarters, requests for feedback from customers, and contests he runs. Customers even make suggestions via Twitter, the most recent of which was to list a short url on each product page that can be easily cut and pasted into blogs, email, Twitter, etc. so they can be shared with others (it is called zapp.me). Tony has over 13,000 people following his Tweets to get this kind of information.
Customers Rock! take on Zappos.com and Twitter: Zappos customers are extremely loyal to the company for several reasons: great customer service, an easy return policy (free shipping on returns!), and employees that care. Social Media at Zappos.com, including Twitter and their blogs, has been a great way to put a face on the company, make them feel approachable, get instant customer feedback, and create a two-way dialog that builds customer relationships. Zappos is truly a Customers Rock! company.
Yesterday, John Jantsch announced the upcoming conference in San Jose that will feature how Big Companies are using Social Media to grow their business. If you aren’t actively using social media to reach your customers – what’s stopping you?
Time?
Knowledge?
Desire?
