Chad – Rappin' On Social Customer Service

Throughout the Dreamforce conference Nov. 18-21st in San Francisco there will be certain themes commanding a lot of attention. One of those themes is Social Customer Care. I’m fortunate enough to be helping facilitate a session on that very topic Monday, November 18th at 12pm PST at the Westin St. Francis called Social Customer Service – The Basic Building Blocks.

I’ll be presenting along with Matt Staub (https://twitter.com/staubio) an expert in the field of social care. He formerly ran social customer care at H&R Block and recently joined social media agency Graphicmachine (https://twitter.com/graphicmachine).

During our practice sessions he really impressed me with how he can tell the story of social care in how to launch a program for beginners while leading up to creating a center of excellence for those brands that are more advanced. Needless to say, you won’t want to miss it!

Here are some of the discussion topics we plan to cover.

1. Why is social customer care important? Let’s start with the basics and a simple example. Below is an existing BMW customer, wanting to buy a new one, that chose Twitter as his preferred channel to express his frustration over poor customer service.

By the way, nothing against BMW, I could have gone to any Global 1000 brand Twitter or Facebook page and found a complaint very similar to this one. The more important take away? This example shows why social customer service is so important.

2. Why is it critical to be transparent and resolve social customer care issues in the social channel? Resist the urge to take the conversation offline! Nothing is more frustrating than tweeting a brand only to get a response that says “Call or Email Us”.

3. How do I measure social care and how is it different from traditional social metrics? Here are a few examples;

Social Media Marketing Metrics	Social Service Metrics
Sentiment & Share of Conversation	How Many Customers Thanked Today
Friends, Followers, Views, Likes, ReTweets	How Many Customers Helped Today
Word Clouds & Hot Topics	Volume of Service Issues by Source (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Forums, Blogs)
Influencer Analysis	Top 10 Complaints & Inquiries in Social
Geo-Location Insights	Response Time & Escalations By Source

 

4. How do I link social customers to ‘real’ customers in your CRM system? For the answer, remember back 12 years ago when you started interacting with customers over email.

Apply for a store credit card (enter email address), call customer service (can I have your email address), join a loyalty program (email address), buy something online (create a username aka email address), want to receive coupons and special offers (email address), etc.

Fast forward and what do most Fortune 500 companies have? Giant CRM systems filled with customer information linked with an email address. At every consumer touch point its time to start collecting social profile information and linking to their customer record. (Social sign-in with Facebook is a great way to start)

5. How quickly should I respond in social? In industries like retail, restaurants and travel most social care issues are posted from a mobile device at the point of incident. Waiting 24 hours to respond, or only offering assistance 8am-5pm EST Monday-Friday, and the customer is long gone, literally and figuratively. 

6. Should I hire brand new agents or leverage agents from the call center team? That’s not a black and white, yes or no answer. Rather look at the profile of a successful social agent. Their character likely portrays a great sense of humor, good writing skills, creative, lover of social media, helpful person offline, pride in your products and brand. Check those boxes and I think you have your answer.

7. Marketing owns social media so how do I team with them on social care? One idea is to consider creating social media ‘swim lanes’ so marketing can focus on what they do best and customer care and focus on retaining consumers and driving loyalty. Here is a simple swim lane example;

Marketing/PR	Customer Service
Future Product Questions	Product Complaints
Campaign Complaints/Inquiries	Product Suggestions
Crisis Communications	Existing Ownership Product Inquiries
Blogger/Influencer Interactions	Warranty & Rebate Questions
Upcoming Events	Service & Policy Issues
Charity/Environmental Concerns	Thanking Customers For Compliments

 

8. How do I integrate my social media listening tool with my CRM system?  We’ll be discussing how social hub is helping clients monitor MORE social conversation with LESS people by automatically routing ‘actionable’ social interactions to the right resource. Who couldn’t use a little productivity bump?

9. It’s a surprise! I can’t tell you everything from our session! See you Monday at noon in San Francisco.