The Great Social Customer Service Race – Analysis and Infographic
Today’s blog is a guest post via Ashley Verrill, a market analyst with Software Advice.
In March, I will head to Florida to speak at an HP conference about an experiment I conducted recently called “The Great Social Customer Service Race.” The four-week project tested how quickly and how often 14 top of the nation’s top brands respond on Twitter.
The project started after I read a report saying as many as 73 percent of consumers use social media for customer service. I wanted know whether any of these mega companies have responded to this trend.
To make this assessment, myself and four of my coworkers at Software Advice used our personal Twitter accounts to send one tweet to each brand every day for four weeks. We asked questions that the companies should have prioritized according to social customer service best practices. This included questions that were either urgent, an FAQ, negative, positive or technical in nature.
Half the time we used the @ symbol with the brand’s Twitter handle (triggering a notification that someone mentioned them in a tweet), and the other half of the time we just mentioned the brand without an @ symbol.
HP invited me to come and share what I learned from the race. Here’s a brief breakdown of a few of these key takeaways: Read the rest of this entry
Why Scheduling Social Media Posts Isn’t Always the Best Idea
An unbelievable tragedy broke in our nation today, as a gunman stormed an elementary school in Connecticut, with a death toll of over 20, consisting of mainly children. Unspeakable, unbelievable, and unexpected. My heart goes out to those affected.
Though scheduling social media posts is convenient for times where we’d like to be present online, it’s still imperative to check in and make sure that you’re on top of what’s happening currently.
Case-in-point:
Elizabeth is absolutely right. Though whoever was managing the Smirnoff account probably hasn’t seen the news yet, I hope someone does and takes any tweets out of their account for the rest of the day. It looks insensitive, uncaring, and generally like the brand does not have a pulse for what is going on in the world right now. Just one of the trickier sides of social media – no matter how many tools you use, or how safe you think automation may be, there ALWAYS has to be a human present.
It happens to the best of us.
If you find yourself in a predicament as such, the best thing to do is to apologize and own up to it. Jason Falls does this here – he’s sincere and I guarantee his community believes him and accepts it because it does a) in a timely manner and b) admits fault and c) apologizes.
How NOT to Treat Your Customers on Facebook: 5 Takeaways
I didn’t think it had to be said that this is not the way to treat your customers on Facebook, no matter how awful their complaints might be. A similar example of a brand blow up was featured in Scott Stratten‘s Unmarketing book (a very good read, if you haven’t picked it up already): a customer who complained on a BBQ brand’s Facebook page was met with a backlash of profanity and insults. No bueno.
What should have happened:
1) There should be “Terms of Use” rules in the “About” section of the Facebook that say that use of profanity or foul language on the page will not be tolerated.
2) Pigalle Boston should have apologized profusely for her negative experience, because that’s just what you do. The customer is always right, even if they aren’t. Apologizing and vowing to make it right (sincerely) publicly show your other customers and prospects that you care. Being profane to this customer didn’t just affect one – it affected everyone watching on the Facebook page. I guarantee several people who currently shop there and saw this exchange will never return, and people considering going there who saw this exchange will never return. I’m not in even in Boston, but the name of this place is forever negatively ingrained in my memory.
3) Take it offline. Fighting your bloody battles in public is not correct etiquette for a brand. Pigalle could have given her their number earlier in the conversation, asked for her number, or found her address in the whitepages and shown up at her door with an apology. Going above and beyond is necessary in a case such as this.
4) Don’t delete comments. It’s apparent in the beginning of the thread that the brand posted unsavory comments and then deleted them. If you’re going to say something on social, own up to it, don’t hide. This causes a serious loss of credibility in the eyes of the customer.
5) Remember to keep your cool. Though the customers comments were absolutely inappropriate and infuriating, it’s important to remember where they are coming from. It’s hard to not take comments like that personally. But you have to go at it like a problem solver – just because those comments were made, don’t mean that the issues couldn’t be solved. At least trying will make you a better brand, to yourself as well as to your customers and prospects. Her irrational side would become clearer to those viewing the conversation and your customers would likely end up defending you, instead of turning their backs on your business.
A harsh lesson learned.
UPDATE: Eater.com’s take on the incident with some screenshots I missed.
Social Media Tulsa 2013: Let’s Get Social #SMTulsa
It’s official: Courtesy of Cheryl Lawson, I’ll be keynoting Social Media Tulsa 2013. I’m a ball of nerves and excitement, and I honestly can’t wait. If you’d like to attend, here’s the event page with more info and registration.
I’ll be covering the evolution of public relations, social media and search engine optimization and these points:
-Why PR should be doing SEO (if you aren’t already) (only one quarter of PR pros know as much as they should about SM)
-How social media affects SEO
-What’s next in PR and social media (hint: customer service, marketing, mobile)
-ROR (Return on Relationships) instead of ROI
And for a look at the other speakers, here’s a glimpse.
