Twitter for Customer Service? Fortune Puts it to the Test

The answer to a customer service question should always be accurate, as simple as possible while still covering the problem completely and it should arrive in a timely manner.

For most companies, this means running customer service phone lines or responding to email, but some intrepid explorers are giving Twitter a whirl. It’s a logical step, seeing as how people love to use Twitter to complain about companies, so why not use the same method to turn the consumer around?

The folks at Fortune decided it was time to put this new option to the test, so they took their problems to eight companies known to have customer service agents manning Twitter. They dealt with banks, airlines, shopping sites and even got technical assistance for their cable TV. In each case, they delivered the question by Twitter, Phone and through the company website.

Care to guess which method was most effective most of the time? It was our old friend the telephone.

Of the companies tested, only Microsoft, Rubbermaid and Comcast Cable were able to completely solve the problem by Twitter but it wasn’t a short process. It took Comcast twenty minutes and several replies before the rep offered to refresh the box. Seven minutes into a phone call, the reporter got the same result and it took only five minutes when he connected through online chat.

What’s clear from their first hand testing is that poor customer service often stems from a failure to communicate and that’s hard to get around when you only have 140 characters. Simple answers and answers that can be solved through a forwarded link, are really the only kinds of customer service problems Twitter is equipped to deal with. Anything more complicated and the required amount of back and forth posting is simply too great.

Now if you’re thinking, not my end of the company, doesn’t matter. Think again. Poor customer service can undermine everything a good marketer puts out there and it can happen in a flash. We’ve talked about this before and it can’t be emphasized enough. Acquiring a new customer is hard work, keeping that customer is even harder, especially if you have the rest of the company working against you.

As a marketer, you may not be directly responsible for customer service issues, but you should still make it part of your routine to scan social media for problems. Sending a “how can I help you” tweet to an unhappy customer might be all that’s needed to prevent a public blowup. Just make sure that you actually do help them once they contact you or you’ll be compounding the problem.

The other thing we can take away from Fortune’s test is that social media isn’t the solution for everything. Yes, it feels like it’s the key cog in the works these days, but there’s still no substitute for talking to an actual human. Don’t let your social media drive keep you from practicing tried and true marketing and customer service techniques.

Now, let me get that door for you and if you need a place to stay, I can recommend a great hotel where they give you a hot, chocolate chip cookie when you check-in.

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Recap: Building a social customer care strategy

Last week i had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop on developing a social customer care strategy at the annual conference for SOCAP the association for customer care professionals. Many of the conversations took me back to a past life where I worked on a reservations knowledge management solution for a large air line.

A key dilemma customer care professionals face is that good service and bad service generate word of mouth. It just spreads farther and faster via social channels. To illustrate this point i ran a quick report. On one extreme I used “awesome customer service” and on the other “customer service sucks”. As you can see it was nearly split down the middle.

So what does this mean. Well according to Forrester “good customer service experiences boost repurchase probability and long-term loyalty,” while bad experiences lead to defections and negative word of mouth.

To make the conversation a little more lively and get a pulse of the room we did a real time poll. “Who should own the social media strategy”.

Like many times when this question is asked, it depends on who you ask. As you will see many selected “no one”. This led to an interesting discussion about the need for each business unit to have a social media strategy to achieve their objectives but the need for cross functional collaboration to ensure the customer experience was optimal.

The focus on the customer and how to best serve them and not market to them was also resonate a theme. Speaking of customers. Identifying the most social customers and their goals for interacting on social channels is an important input into a social customer care strategy.

After spending time discussing approaches for active listening we moved into a lively discussion about the barriers of a successful customer care program.

We had dozens listed but some clusters started to form.
- Cross functional collaboration to ensure the right person is acting on what customers are saying. Which is even more complicated when a brand is global and the replies are at a local level.
- Building a metrics model that links to business strategy and has indicators built in to inform when to scale a team.
- Developing a customer advocate program that rewards customer for helping one another.

No conversation with customer care professionals would be complete without a discussion on social CRM. This was another place where I conducted a poll. Only about 5% of the room said they were actively deploying a social CRM. As we peeled back the reasons why more people were not deploying social CRM it seemed like a function of how far along these organizations were in their use of social media for customer support.

As you look to extend customer care programs into social media ensure you have the proper customer management processes, dedicated teams to listen & engage and cross organization collaboration amongst all groups engaging customers thru social media.

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Hustle like ‘Shanky’

I’m not a sports guy and I hardly ever go to sporting events. However, I did have the chance to go to a special event with my Dad and Grandfather to see the hometown team play an away game. That was a once in a lifetime trip for me because I had never gone on a trip with just my Dad and Grandfather before. We went a baseball game and what was most entertaining for me wasn’t the action on the field but the hustle in the stands.

Because of all this social media and blogging stuff that I am involved in I’m always looking for ways to relate real world marketing to the virtual world. I learned so many lessons just by watching one of the vendors in the stands. His name was “Shanky”.

When I first saw Shanky I thought to myself, who is this guy? He was loud, personable and quickly established rapport with the crowd. He came down the stairs carrying a container of Bud and Bud Light aluminum bottles. He announced that he had ice cold Bud and Bud Light. The people in front of us flagged him down, he put down his container and asked the “party people” what they would like and how many. He got them the beers quickly and when they were done he asked how much change they wanted back.

Shanky came in and out of our section over and over and always sold at least 20 beers. I watched him hit a bunch more sections in the time it took other vendors to get through one. Each time he came through he was excited, personable and loud. As the night went on he went back to his usual fans and sold them Red and Blue (colors of the aluminum bottles). He made sure to let us know that he’d be back for the 7th inning stretch and last call. Other vendors came with Bud and Bud Light but no one bought from them. People in the crowd took their photos with Shanky. It was a sight to see. And I learned a few things, too.

Say What You Do

There was no mistaking what Shanky did. He told every customer that it was his job to keep them in Ice Cold Bud & Bud Light and it was their jobs to have a good time.

Be Personable

We knew the guys name was Shanky because he told us. I can’t tell you any other vendors name because they did not hustle, and were not personable. They didn’t connect with the crowd int eh way that Shanky did. He made it a point to make an impression on each person in our section and all the other sections as well. He also remembered his customers and made sure that when they were done their beers he was there to get them a refill.

Make it Easy

Shanky broke it down to the easiest transaction possible. The beers were $7.25 each, he was selling Bud and Bud Light. He broke that down to asking whether people wanted “Red” or “Blue”. Everyone knew what he was talking about and it made the transaction quicker, made the decision making quicker too.

You Gotta Ask

As for the money my Dad pointed this out to me. For each person that bought a beer Shanky made either $0.75 to $1.75 on the sale. Why? He asked what the customer wanted back for change. Did they want $1.00 or $2.00 or rather 1 or 2? By doing it increased his tips so much. First of all he didn’t ever fumble with coins so he could get change back to people fast and get on to the next customer. By offering the choice of 1 or 2 he essentially made it a simple decision about the tip for each customer. Also by doing this the customer was going to give him a tip or be uncomfortable not giving one. No one opted for the uncomfortable route.

I didn’t get to see every vendor in the park but I am sure that Shanky was one of the top sellers because he hustled, was personable and asked for the sale. Did I mention that it was near 90 degrees that night and we were sweating in the stands just watching the game? That made it all the more impressive to me.

So, how can you apply these tips and tricks from Shanky to your blogs to start making more profit?