Expectations

Before we can discuss Customer Obsessed Service, we need to make sure we understand customer expectations. Customers have changed, and customer expectations have greatly changed! Social media has put everything into a new light as empowered customers are taking up their mobile phones and tweeting their distress for all the world to see. Here is a typical customer service tweet:

Does anyone know if COMPANY X has a Twitter? I want to make sure everyone knows how POOR their customer service is!! I’m sooooo annoyed.

If nothing else, brands need to be using social media to listen to the customer conversation for concerns or issues. Sometimes customers may be whining, and sometimes customers may have a real problem that needs to be addressed. Customer Obsessed Service means a company is attentive to what their customers are saying via social media (and via other mechanisms as well, including surveys, comments to sales, feedback to customer service reps, etc.) and then takes action to make sure the customer’s issues are resolved to their satisfaction.

Action: Do you understand the expectations of your customers for your products, and for your customer service? If not, spend some time listening to customer conversations, talking to customers for clarification, and determining the top pain points.

Employees

Most employees in an organization don’t understand what it takes to provide great customer service, much less Customer Obsessed Service. Yet employees are a key factor in whether customer service sucks or rocks. This is true whether the employee actually works in customer service or whether they are not customer facing at all!

Customer Obsessed Service starts with hiring the right people – those who are naturally people-focused, have a passionate spirit, are empathetic, and like to think creatively to solve problems. Southwest Airlines, who is generally great at customer service, calls this having “…a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart, and a Fun-LUVing Attitude.” I couldn’t agree more!

These employees also have to be empowered to do what is right for the customer. This doesn’t mean giving every customer a discount, or something for free when they complain. It DOES mean listening to the customer’s needs and doing what they can to make it right without always having to get a supervisor’s approval. Guidelines need to be clear, and when they are employees are freed up to get the help they need to turn around a bad situation with a customer.

Action: Start with an assessment in your organization. What do your employees think about your customer service? What would they do to make it better?

Customers as Assets

Customer Obsessed Service is also achieved based on how we measure it.

Incredibly, many companies today are still measuring their customer service based on how many calls they can process in an hour. Get the customer off the phone/chat as soon as possible in order to respond to more customers. The end result is usually customers that have to call again in order to finish getting their questions answered. These types of metrics are used when organizations look at the customer service department as something to be measured on a P&L statement. Customer service is viewed as a cost center.

Organizations espousing Customer Obsessed Service view customers as a valuable asset that belongs on a balance sheet. Each customer interaction is a golden opportunity to improve the relationship, and each customer touch could result in a customer who is so happy they become an evangelist for the brand.  Don Peppers and Martha Rogers talked about this in their book Return on Customer Companies that treat their customers as an asset create a very different approach to customer interaction; each customer contact is reviewed to see how it will add to or detract from the value of each customer.

Action: Review your customer service metrics to see how you view your customers.

What About You?

What else do companies need to get right operationally in order to create Customer Obsessed Service? Who is doing it well? Leave a comment with your thoughts, and let’s start a discussion on Customer Obsessed Service!

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? That’s the perspective many customer service experts have had toward social media-based customer service, or social CRM. With so much noise in the social channel, is it worth it to ferret out a few random requests for customer service? And with a sawmill full of fallen logs ready to be processed, few could blame customer service executives for focusing on contact center through-put.

But to a marketer that pristine forest of social media represents opportunity to be harvested. Consequently, many companies leave the task of social CRM to the marketers. Marketing creates the proactive messaging and offers on Twitter and Facebook while attempting to handle service issues as they arise.

But consumers are taking service issues to social channels in ever growing numbers. According to Gartner, the Social CRM segment will double this year, surpassing $1 billion. Included in the growth are those who simply prefer social media to the traditional contact center. According to Mike Merrill, @MikeDMerrill and Director of Marketing at ReachLocal, “I find it more convenient to ask for help via social media, since I’m on line all the time anyway. When I raise the issue via social channels, I’m not stuck on hold. It puts the ball in the business’s court.”

Customer service is better suited to handle social service issues for three reasons:

Coverage. Consumers expect prompt responses regardless of when their complaint is aired. Marketing departments aren’t staffed evenings and weekends, although many contact centers are 7 X 24.

Product Knowledge. Customer service agents are trained on product and service specifics and are better versed in how to handle the issues that arise.

People Skills. Customer service reps trained to handle the wide diversity of people issues and personalities that crop up in day to day business.

So where’s the gap?

Brand Voice. Marketing departments report that there is work to be done to get customer service representatives ready to speak in the company’s “brand voice”. Agents need to understand that since conversations are public, service needs to be delivered with a different tone than would occur one-on-one.

Volume. We’re back to the original issue. Unless there is a corporate fiasco, most companies don’t currently have enough service issues aired via social channels to warrant integration into the rank and file agent’s work queue.

But, if growth is inevitable, how can the customer service organizations get ready for the very logical integration of the social media channel into the service function?

Take it slow.

• First start by following marketing department responses. Learn “brand voice”.
• Then, start handling service issues that arise from corporate social media properties with a small, focused group under the customer service function.
• Next, establish service specific social media properties. This is a big step, since it brings a dedicated staffing requirement to Customer Service. It is important to carefully gauge workload before beginning. Remember this activity doesn’t create new workload—it simply focuses it away from general corporate social properties onto service-oriented properties.

Mainstreaming social CRM into the contact center is a big step. Evaluate the baby steps you may need to take tor prepare for a stronger customer service role in social channels, so you are ready before someone yells “timber.”

(Image credit: ardaguldogan)

Good News for Social Customer Service

Having been a Lithium customer for the past two years, when I was the Verizon Community program manager and social media strategist, I am probably a bit different from other “thought leaders” who attended the briefing and the event. I have used many if not most of the functions of the Lithium offering. I was happy to see a renewed focus on both sides of social business – customer service, as well as marketing.

In fact, I had wondered how much new functionality we would see in the area of customer service. In the past, support communities have been Lithium’s bread and butter. In the past year or so, Lithium had put a renewed interest into marketing and had some great successes; Sephora’s Beauty Talk is a great example of how to engage the social customer. With the renewed interest in the marketing side of the house, I was a bit concerned that Lithium would swing too far in that direction and neglect good ‘ole customer service.

I was pleased to see great improvements in their customer service functionality, mainly the new Lithium Response offering. It takes the already strong features in the Lithium customer service platform and expands further on them, allowing customer service agents to have all the information they need at their fingertips so they can do what they do best – respond quickly. From what I have seen, it seems to be able to provide the full fire-hose of social media information, prioritize issues that come in to the business, route them to the right agents, and surface content (from both the community as well as from self-service pages) that can help solve customer queries. It also includes case management, which had been lacking. It looks like a great step up from the customer service functionality previously available with an online support community, and it will make the interaction between social media customer service teams and community managers much easier. I look forward to seeing more of it in action soon.

Improving Social Media Marketing

On the marketing front, Lithium announced some new partnerships, such as Shoutlet. This particular partnership will allow Lithium customers to take advantage of Shoutlet features that will help make the social conversation easier, especially in the area of marketing campaigns and CRM. It will be great to watch some of Lithium’s marketing communities take this on and deliver strong social media ROI. Other areas where the focus on marketing is visible include additional opportunities for photo sharing, group spaces/private communities (great for research and innovation), as well as improved single sign-on (much needed functionality) and more robust ratings and reviews (served up via widgets). All around, the Lithium social marketing offering has taken a big step forward, and it will make an impact in organizations that take advantage of it. In the future, I look forward to seeing these two pillars (customer service and marketing) of social business come together, as our customers don’t see departments as they go through their journeys with us. These pillars need to meet up in order to create the rockin’ customer experience that will be vital for business success in the coming months and years.

Heroes

I greatly enjoyed the conference itself; it was nice NOT to speak at an event for once! There were a lot of new faces this year at LiNC, both customers as well as Lithium employees, and this helped to keep the conference feeling fresh. New faces always means a lot of energy, and that was definitely apparent. I absolutely love the way Lithium showcases their customers at their events, and this one was no exception. Using the theme of Heroes, the Lithium event team had customers share the stage with Lithium executives. They told some inspiring stories of how their companies, including such leading organizations as Skype and Cisco, are using Lithium to get solid returns on social media as well as innovate in their space. I highly recommend more customer sharing at future Lithium conferences as well as throughout the year; hearing from other community managers was always very helpful, as well as inspiring, when I was a Lithium customer.

Thank you for an exciting and entertaining LiNC event, Lithium, and thank you for having me there.

(Photo credit: Top, Becky Carroll; Bottom -Lithium Technologies video from LiNC 2012, Paul Gilliham)

As many of you know, I have been doing quite a bit of traveling lately, speaking about my book and sharing the Customers Rock! message all over the world – most recently in Bogota, Colombia! As most travelers are aware, the customer experience is especially important when you are away from home; it becomes something we are truly living.

So as you can imagine, the sign in the above photo really caught my eye. It was on the wall of a restaurant, Max’s Cafe, at the San Francisco Airport. Here is what it says,

“We run the restaurant for the ENJOYMENT AND PLEASURE of our customers, not the convenience of the staff or the owners.”

Who wouldn’t want to eat there? As customers, isn’t this what we are hoping to find in the businesses we frequent? Whether the business is a restaurant serving hungry travelers or a company providing office supplies, we want things to work for US, the way WE want them to; we don’t want to be inconvenienced.

This particular restaurant has thought through what could make the experience better for their customers, travelers who are rushing past to catch their flights. For example, Max’s Cafe is known for their packed sandwiches. They have thought about travelers who need to grab and go, eating their meal on the planes, and have created a container for their sandwiches which keeps the salad and those juicy pickles separate from the bread. Very convenient for their patrons! Oh, and the man creating my sandwich felt like my own personal lunch advisor; he was very engaged in creating a great experience for me.

Missing the Mark

But this great experience is not always happening, is it? The results of the mis-steps in this area are not positive for businesses. According to the new American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, more than nine in ten Americans (93%) say that companies fail to exceed their service expectations.  One in two (55%) have ditched a purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience. Businesses are leaving a lot of money on the table due to their poor customer experiences, including marketing and customer service.

Tips for Improvement

How can you go beyond just customer service and generate more opportunities from your existing customers? I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mike Stelzner of the popular site Social Media Examiner. Watch the interview to get some tips on how to exceed your customers’ expectations and create a ROCKin’ customer experience.

What about you? How do you create a great customer experience? Are you struggling to keep your current customers at the forefront of your business? What tips do you have for others on how to get more opportunities from your current customers?

This post is part of the Social ROI Blog Carnival at Think Customers: the 1to1 Media blog. Visit the blog carnival post at the link above to check out the full list of posts from numerous well-known social media thought leaders.

There are many ways to measure the success of social media at an organization. Some of these metrics are often focused only on tactical results (ex: number of followers or fans). Other metrics tie directly back to the bottom line (ex: value of sales coming directly from Twitter). On occasion, we see true ROI calculated from social media initiatives.

Most companies, however, view social media ROI in the same way they view the legendary pot of gold. They believe that it is there, and they keep looking for it even though it eludes them. Finding ROI in your social media initiatives doesn’t have to be imaginary. As we move into 2012, I fully believe this will be the year that executives begin asking the difficult questions to their social media teams, including what kind of returns they are getting on their social media investment. In order to answer this question, one must consider the true cost of managing a social media program.

What are the costs?

In order to consider calculating ROI, one must understand the costs involved with social media. Some of these are fairly clear, including cost of the platforms (such as community software or social media monitoring tools), cost of social media consultants or agencies (to help create strategy or execute campaigns), advertising spend (yes, you probably need to spend money advertising your social media efforts), and cost of personnel involved in social media (community manager, customer service social response team). Other costs are not quite as obvious. These include the opportunity cost of personnel that may be involved with social media in some aspect (ex: an executive spending time writing a monthly blog post is not spending time doing other things), the cost of training employees in social media (even those that are not executing social media should be trained on it), and the cost of social media influencer programs. I encourage you to understand these costs for both social media campaigns as well as your overall social media program so ROI can be calculated on both.

Measuring the gains

There is more than one way to measure the gains from social media. The first area that usually comes to mind is revenues; this is often a bit difficult to determine from social media, much as it can be difficult to determine from other marketing programs. However, the fact that social media is a web-based activity gives companies (especially those in the Business to Consumer space) the opportunity to measure actual product purchases coming from social media. Dell is one of the most commonly cited examples of this from their Twitter Dell Outlet account. Sanuk is another example. Per social media manager Rachel Gross (shared in an interview I did with her for my book, p. 44-46), even though Sanuk doesn’t often post direct links to their website from their corporate Facebook page, they are able to track conversion rates. They do this by looking at how many visits to their website (via Facebook) result in a sale, thus measuring their return on using social media as an engagement tool.

The other side of the coin from revenue is cost savings. One of the largest areas where companies can find significant returns on their social media investment is in customer service and the use of online branded communities. Most brands that host a peer-to-peer support community find that they are able to directly measure the number of calls deflected as a result of the answers provided by community members to each other; this occurs for both B2C as well as B2B businesses. Companies such as Best Buy and Verizon (where I was most recently actively engaged in this as the community program manager) see these gains and are able to use them to calculate an ROI on their communities. While we are on the subject of online communities, there are other benefits that can factor into the ROI equation. For example, Verizon’s residential community also has an Idea Exchange, where customers have the opportunity to help Verizon improve their products and services, as well as innovate around new products. The returns for such a community can include additional sales from new products as well as improved uptake of existing products with current customers due to improvements made via the idea site.

Finding the Pot of Gold

While you may not find the elusive “pot of gold” in your social media programs right away, more than likely you will see both direct and indirect benefits by engaging with customers and prospects via social media. Hopefully this post has helped you get past thinking only about the numbers of followers and fan your sites have. Read some of the other posts in the Social ROI Blog Carnival to learn how you can better answer your executives when they ask you what your company is getting out of social media, and let me know what your key takeaway is from the carnival.

(Photo credit: DNY59)

How can this be effectively done? Let’s take a cue from local government. No, really.

Tweet the Mayor

One of the most interesting stories about local government and social media is that of Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker. He has become one of the best examples of how to use social media to build relationships with people, in his case, the people of Newark. Last winter, when much of the East Coast was buried in snow from one of the largest storms in decades, Newark’s citizens reached out for help – via social media. And Mayor Booker and his team were listening via Twitter and went into action. Take a brief look at the segment I did on this for NBC San Diego, then come on back after the video:

View more of Becky Carroll’s videos at: http://nbcsandiego.com.

• Citizens told Mayor Booker where streets were still snowed-in, and he sent trucks out to plow and went himself to help them.
• Mayor Booker shoveled snow for the elderly.
• He helped push stuck cars out of the snow.
• He delivered supplies to needy residents (including diapers!)
• He directed salt trucks to icy roads.

As anyone in social media knows, not everyone is your friend online. When one constituent bad-mouthed Mayor Booker on Twitter, Cory showed up at his door and helped him shovel out.

A Whole New Era of Politics

This is so different from how citizens interacted with government in the past, when people tried calling, emailing, letters, and even going into the politician’s office, often without much response. Social media, by contrast, provides not only the opportunity for an instant response but also for a personal response.

Mayor Booker has continued to reach out via social media and has recently launched a new program, using Twitter and Facebook, to encourage Newark citizens to become more fit in 2012. Called the Cory Booker Challenge, it encourages Newark residents to share their resolutions online via a social game to help them in their efforts to become more physically fit. The site allows participants to track their progress by checking into activities, uses a leader board to encourage healthy competition, and even has prizes. (Hat tip to The Next Web for highlighting this program.)

Making a Difference in 2012

In this election year, it will be fascinating to see whether other politicians follow Mayor Booker’s lead in becoming more personal with their constituents via social media. Not to have solely an aide or agency respond but to truly build authentic relationships through personal involvement. I challenge businesses to do this as well.

Make 2012 the year you use social media to build relationships with your customers. You’ll be glad you did. Share your efforts to do so here so we can celebrate with you!

(Photo credit: hh5800)

I have been on the road A LOT these past few months since my book launched, so I have had the opportunity to stay in many different hotels across the country (and at a variety of hotel brands). I thought it would be fun to post photos of some of the bathrooms I encountered during my travels (mostly in my hotel room). Which bathrooms do you think belong to which brands? The following are some of the brands where I stayed: Marriott, Westin, Ritz-Carlton, and a boutique hotel, Paramount Hotel in New York City. (Answers are at the end of the post.) Do they say would you would have expected about that brand?

Be sure to check out the list of all the participating bloggers, also at the end of the post. A big shout-out to CB Whittemore for leading the charge again this year!

Bathroom 1

  Bathroom 2

  Bathroom 3

  Bathroom 4

Here are the list of Bathroom Blogfest bloggers (answers afterwards):

Answers: Westin, Marriott, Paramount, Ritz-Carlton – how’d you do?

What do you do at your organization? Do you reach out to influencers in an effort to get them to share about your brand? Do you work with your brand advocates to help energize their natural passion for your brand? What is working for you?

Today’s post is written by a guest blogger, Harry Rollason. Harry is with Useful Social Media, and I will be presenting at their New York Conference on Social Media and Customer Service next week. Plus, Harry interviewed me about my book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers. Here is some food for thought from Harry.

The rise of social media has changed customer service beyond recognition.

In today’s competitive landscape, customer service is more important than ever. A company’s reputation for satisfying their customers has never been so valuable.

It’s worth pointing out that it takes three times as much internal resources to acquire a new customer as it does to retain one. In these lean times it puts an awful lot of pressure on companies to ensure retention rates are as high as possible. And good customer service is a great tool to do this.

But are companies getting it? Does it look like big corporates are responding to this change in the landscape?

The short answer is no:

• Over 58% of tweeters who have tweeted about a bad experience have never received a response from the offending company
• 55% of consumers expect a response the same day to an online complaint – yet only 29% receive one
• 43% of consumers say that companies should use social media to solve customers’ problems

These statistics lay out clearly how the game has changed. Customers will no longer be happy with ‘old style’ customer service. To satisfy your customers, it’s essential to have a responsive social media presence.

To be fair, things are changing. By the end of the year, 75% of US-based companies expect to use social media for customer service. It’s a reaction to the changing game. Gone are the days when social media was all about marketing through Twitter and Facebook. It’s now an integral tool to ensure you are responsive not reactive, contactable not aloof and authentic not robotic. And increasingly, it’s about solving customer’s issues in real time through social channels, showing your dedication and transparency to your customers.

I ramble I know, as I have a tendency of doing, but there is a reason for my rant. On my return back to the office last week – having recently returned from #CSMSF and #CSMNY – I stumbled across some great examples of companies embracing the power of social media for customer service and I thought I would share them with you. It looks like companies are trying to solve this problem, but aren’t quite there yet. So maybe I can help.

We’ve got some free presentations from Gina Debogovich, Director and Social Media Leader from BestBuy – on how BestBuy have rolled out Twelpforce and made it company policy. And Baochi Nguyen, PR and Social Media Manager from Boingo on the best ways to create a customer service centric policy at your company – all interesting stuff!

You can grab a copy of both presentations by heading here.

Or if you would rather talk than read – then connect with me at @HRollasonUSM or drop some feedback in the comments below!

I recently exchanged Facebook messages with Deb Robison, a smart marketing and social media gal. She wanted to share a customer service story with me and get my take on it.  Here is her story:

I got a new computer recently and needed to order some accessories. Around this same time, I needed some shoes and books. I placed orders with Zappos, Amazon, Apple, and a designer’s shop, Jonathan Adler. Of course, the three big guys sent me order acknowledgment and tracking info all through the process. I got an order notification from (ordered a laptop sleeve) Jonathan Adler, then nothing, so a few days after I placed the order, I sent an email asking if my order had shipped. Later the next day I got an email from a customer service rep explaining that they did receive my order and that “my colleague is trying to find your bag at one of their stores.” Once it ships, I would get a shipping notification. That was two days ago. And, I noticed they have already charged my credit card.

So my question is this – are my customer service expectations skewed because I have dealt with some big companies that have solid customer service and shipping systems in place? (Note: Zappos had the best and most prompt services of the three big companies, of course.) Jonathan Adler is a smaller brand, but a high-end one and kind of trendy right now, so is it fair for me to set the same expectations on them?

My expectations have clearly been shaped by the immediacy which other retailers respond & deliver. Is that fair? As customers, we never had this kind of relationship before. We used to get out the catalog, fill out the form, put a check in the envelope and wait.

Yes, Deb, customer expectations are absolutely set based on our experiences with companies such as Zappos and Amazon. In fact, every interaction we have with a company sets our expectation for the next interaction, whether with that business or with another completely different organization. Additionally, the online experiences that customers have with companies, whether on the company website or via social media, are creating a higher degree of visibility. In social media, this becomes even more important as the social customer’s friends and followers are also watching, and sometimes sharing the experience with their network (unfortunately, this is more often the case when the experience has been poor).

Customer Expectations of Service

It is important to understand the needs of your customers, as well as their wants and desires. It is also critical to understand what they expect when they contact your company. Typically, customer expectations of service tend to fall into three areas:

– Customers want fast service: They want their problems solved or questions answered quickly. “Help me get back to what I need to do.”

– Customers want friendly service: They want to feel that the company appreciates their business. “Help me know that you care about me.”

– Customers want it to be easy: They want to be able to accomplish the task in the most efficient way possible. “Help make this simple for me.”

The three areas listed above may change in priority based on who your customer is, what kind of relationship they have had with your organization, and, as mentioned by Deb, what types of interactions they have had with your company and with others. Do you know what your customers want from you?

Taking Action

What can you do tomorrow to improve the experience your customers are having with your company?

1. Ask your customers. Really – go ask them! Find out what they expect from you, what you are doing well, and what you need to improve. Your customers will probably be happy to tell you, and they will also be glad you asked.

2. Look in the mirror. When is the last time you or someone from your organization called into your customer service line? Ordered something from your website? Tried to get help via your social media channels? Find out what it feels like to be your customer; I encourage you to look for both areas of improvement as well as your own best practices to share with your organization.

3. Look at the competition – from your customer’s perspective. Understand who is competing with you for the best customer experience, keeping in mind that it may not be anyone within your industry.

A world-class customer experience doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a plan that can be executed across all aspects of your organization. Your customer experience strategy should facilitate consistent treatment of customers, cultivate customer trust, and enable meaningful interactions at all points of customer contact. Most importantly, it should meet and exceed customer expectations. Now you have a customer experience that will ignite passion, inspire brand loyalty, and cement relationships.