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 May 28, 2009 under Connecting Moments, Customer Moments, Resolving Conflict, social media |
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?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on May 5, 2009 under Connecting Moments, Websites |
In our little local paper I recently read that the County Engineer has decided to use Twitter to keep the local citizens informed of road construction updates.
What a clever idea!
Spring/Summer is a classic time that cities start/complete road construction projects, fill pot holes and repave roadways. What better way to keep the public aware of the best roads to take – or not take – during a certain period of time than with Twitter?
In Summit County Ohio you can just follow @summitengineer for the latest roadway updates.
Who said Twitter was just a silly time waster with people complaining about their day?
How are you using Twitter to communicate time-critical data to your employees/vendors/customers? How COULD you use Twitter for critical updates? Not part of Twitter yet? What’s stopping you?
