“Social media is a promise to your customers to listen and engage” was how Russel Lolacher wrapped up his presentation. While I had engaged with prospects and clients on social media, I had never really considered that it is a customer service tool. But it makes sense.
This week is the fourth in a series of articles I have written based on my opportunity to attend the annual Tweetstock.ca Conference in June, which was being held for the first time in Hamilton. I had never attended one before so was not sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the caliber of speakers who came from across North America.
The wealth of insights and information shared was so rich that I put together a series of articles, each one summarizing a lesson from the six key sessions that I attended.
You can read the first three lessons here;
Lesson #1 The Power of Video – Why Your Brand May Need Vine
Lesson #2 – 5 Social Things You Can Do For Your Brand
Lesson #3 – 8 Steps to Captivating an Audience
So on to lesson #4
“Over the years, the number one driver of our growth at Zappos has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Our philosophy has been to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and invest it into customer service and the customer experience instead, letting our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.” – Tony Hseih – CEO Zappos.com
50% of consumers start their first customer experience with a company on a computer or smartphone.
76% of Millenials see your customer service as a direct reflection of how you feel about them.
60% will say something bad about you if they do not get a fast enough response.
Bottom line is that customer service is an emotional experience. It needs to be a positive one. TURN is the acronym to ensure that happens.
Step 1 – Timely
- Be more dedicated – KLM, the Dutch airline, updates its Twitter feed every 5 minutes to let you know what their response time is. I tweeted that at the conference and they responded in less than 5 minutes to confirm they do work that way!
- Pay attention – 87% of all posts on Facebook pages go unanswered. 59% of complaints to brands on Twitter also go unanswered.
- Stop being a control freak
- Play nice with others
Step 2 – Useful
- Second most common search term on YouTube is “Easy Ways To…..”
- Fifth most common search term on YouTube is “How to…….”
- Stop being a narcissist
- Solved problems don’t sell.
- Direct messages on Twitter don’t need to be restricted to 140 characters.
Step 3 – Relevant
- Close your mouth and open your ears (eyes) – the old adage of you were given two ears and one mouth still rings true online.
- Dark social anyone. This could be a whole article. See definition here.
- Show that it’s a team sport.
- Don’t just collect numbers, build relationships. Social media is no longer all about the Likes – its about engagement.
Step 4 – Nearby
- Get in the game, stop hiding.
- User experience the crap out of it.
Again – “Social media is a promise to your customers to listen and engage”
Are you using social media as part of your customer service? How?