Whether you’ve accepted it or not, social networking and social media are becoming a larger part of the customer experience.
Newer social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have pushed social to the masses, but community-driven applications like blogs, bulletin boards and forums have been around for many years. Regardless of the platform, when your customers speak out in public you’d better have someone listening and, here’s the important part, engaging with those customers.
Just being there doesn’t mean squat.
I realize I’m beating a dead horse here, but we’re still seeing this every day; static accounts acting as placeholders for a “someday social strategy.”
Does your company have a Twitter account? A Facebook page? A group on LinkedIn?
News flash: None of those matter one diddlyshit unless you are proactively starting and engaging in conversations with your social customers. You should kill all of those accounts until you do.
You have to engage. You have to respond. You have to initiate a conversation.
Do you wait for the phone to ring and then sit there silently when it does? No, of course not. You have a phone so that you can speak with your customers; to support them, sell to them, and wow them with your blissful service.
So, the next time you hear someone say,
“Yeah, our company is really into social media. We have a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and we just set up a group on LinkedIn.”
Please kindly remind them that social networking is only a slice of the social media pie and that setting up an account is worth as much as a fart in the wind. Please, don’t be that guy. Leave that to the Homers.
Image credit to Ed Wheeler.
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I don't think you are beating a dead horse at all. The message still needs to reach so many. I just spoke at a conference where only a few business leaders used Twitter. I bet most of them had never thought of social media as a channel for customer service. We need to continue showing by example and education. I learned in my first customer service job at eddIe Bauer over 18 years ago, that you needed to make every effort to offer top service to the customer without driving them nuts. In the store we gave the customer every channel to offer them the best experience while shopping. Why should it be any different today. Great post. I will use it to continue to spread the word Tim.
Nice post Tim and I agree with John, you won't be beating a dead horse until we stop seeing this every day.
I recently blogged about a company who were guilty of being “Social Homers” themselves. They set up a Twitter account and use it to push cheap sportsgear offers to their followers and don't have conversations with anyone. Meanwhile customers are trying to make contact with them on Twitter with queries and after-sales service issues and not getting any response. It is clear that nobody is monitoring the conversations people are trying to have with them. The result of this is that a channel that is supposedly being used for marketing purposes is actually making the company look very bad and probably losing them customers.
Your post highlights the mistakes this company are making perfectly and I love that I can now think of these companies as “Social Homers”. Thanks Tim.
Jed
Nice post Tim and I agree with John, you won't be beating a dead horse until we stop seeing this every day.
I recently blogged about a company who were guilty of being “Social Homers” themselves. They set up a Twitter account and use it to push cheap sportsgear offers to their followers and don't have conversations with anyone. Meanwhile customers are trying to make contact with them on Twitter with queries and after-sales service issues and not getting any response. It is clear that nobody is monitoring the conversations people are trying to have with them. The result of this is that a channel that is supposedly being used for marketing purposes is actually making the company look very bad and probably losing them customers.
Your post highlights the mistakes this company are making perfectly and I love that I can now think of these companies as “Social Homers”. Thanks Tim.
Jed