Part VI – Social Media
Organizations are starting to accept the burgeoning social media environment as an opportunity to enhance customer service. These days it is imperative for organizations with a large public following to track, understand, and respond “real time” to the conversations occurring about their brand on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Bloggr, etc. This undertaking resembles that which already takes place in their customer service centers for routing, managing, responding, and reporting on every form of customer interaction such as phone, IVR, voice mail, email, and chat. As an example, how quickly was Toyota able to gauge and respond to those making comments on the various social media sites when announced a recall for sticking accelerator pedals? Many of these sites may have thousands of followers.
Statistics indicate that on average, customers who have had a bad experience will tell at least 9 people. Two thirds of customers who quit doing business with an organization do so because of company indifference. Organizations can become front page news without realizing the business impacts. A dramatic example is a You Tube video by Dave Carroll, a musician, whose guitar was broken by United Airlines baggage handlers. He followed up with United for a year before he was compensated. As of Feb. 1, 2010 this video has had over 7.5 million hits. As result, how much business did this cost United? Had United monitored, analyzed, and responded “real time” to comments like this from various social media sites, they could have mitigated the damage.
This will conclude my series of blogs, at least for now, on the history of the customer service center. My next series of blogs will be devoted to my passion of baseball history. I’ll begin by discussing my choice for the best players, by position and era, in baseball history for the American, National, and Negro leagues. I encourage your comments; agreement, disagreement, or your choice.
Hi Ron,
You can run, but you can’t hide. Your example regarding United Airlines is a classic one. It amazes me in this day of the Internet and mass media, to many small and large companies alike fail to take customer service seriously.
Hi Ron
Welcome to Masterclass 2010 from a 2009 student.
When I saw rhe name Dave Carroll, being from the UK, my thoughts turned to a guitarist of the same name who used to play for the Steve Gibbons Band years ago. where did the years go 🙂
Best wishes
Mike
Hi Ron,
It just goes to prove how powerful the social media network can be when businesses get things wrong and the do not respond quickly and appropriately to limit the damage. I know that if I get bad service from a company I certainly would not recommend them to anyone, and I will always warn family members and friends to steer clear. But I will always recommend companies who have given me great or outstanding service too. So I guess the lesson to learn here is that when things go wrong you need to use every type of social media there is to over exceed the customers expectations when putting things right for them. An appology alone is not enough and so the mistake needs to be corrected, and extra value offered as a form of compensation for the customer, and of course one must act quickly to limit damage. Thank you for sharing this very interesting post as it gave me a lot to think about.
Regards Sue.
Just thought I would pop by to say hello as I am also a Masterclass student!
I am really enjoying the course and getting a lot from it – how about you?
Hope to speak to you soon in the forum as I think that will be available
very soon.
Best Wishes
Keith
Hi Ron,
Quick intro.
I am on the 2010 John Thornhill Masterclass Course too.
An interesting series of blogs which culminated in showing the power of social media. It is not enough to do the right thing, we now have literally show we are doing the right thing and that reputations can be damaged so much quicker too!
I shall look forward to reading your posts about Baseball, of which I know less than little, possibly as I am a Brit! and unfortunately the time I remember watching some games I was in hospital post op and the pain relief was wearing off. I am a Cricket enthusiast and my game must be equally as confusing to those who know little about the objects of the game.
Good luck, and look forward to dropping by soon.
Richard Davy
Hi Ron, the statistics about bad experiences are interesting. Yes, bad words spread more quickly than good, it’s always worth remembering that.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
Hi Ron,
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
Best regards,
George Nieves