Customer Service Needs New Channels- Or Does It

April 9, 2008 · Comments

Michael Arrington opens this discussion by sharing how Comcast responded faster to his complaints in Twitter than they did to his customer service department phone calls. If I said nothing more and pushed “publish,” a business owner should at least raise an eyebrow and ask herself, “Where are my customers? Do I have listening posts and responders there?”

Customer service exists on phones because the bulk majority of people in most countries use and have access to a phone. But do YOUR customers use phones as a primary source of contact? Email? Where are they? What are they using to communicate quickly?

In the 90s, I worked in customer service, and eventually became manager of the local telephone company’s 411 offices (who handle directory assistance calls). I have about six or seven years (a while back) of front line and management customer service experience, so I understand about handling times, about the cost balance, etc.

But are there low cost, flexible, measurable ways you could be improving your customer service channels by investigating and understanding where your customers are spending time and energy online? Absolutely.

For everyone? Definitely NOT. But I could probably name about 1000 businesses who’d do better having someone monitoring blogs, twitter, and facebook than they would reducing handling time at a call center in Dublin.

What do you think? Who are you doing business with that would be better suited to reach you online?

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

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Tagged as: customerservice, socialmedia, socialmedia100, socialnetworks

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Beth Kanter

http://qik.com/kanter

I was live broadcasting my kenmore repair call - they didn't show up four times in a row - my washing machine has been broken for a month and we are running out of patience. So, I greeted him at the door with my N95 - this was after a frustrating call with the customer service center to find out why the guy was an hour late.

I shouldn't take it out on the repairman but he threated to leave without fixing my machine if I continued to live broadcast .. he has not idea that I'm twittering about Sears/Kenmore's crappy customer service. And, I suspect Kenmore/Sears is not monitoring Twitter (or qik)

ahg3

Chris,
Must be in the water today. Seth posts here about a poor experience with customer service at Herseys (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04...) and B.L. Ochman here about a great experience with Zappos (http://www.whatsnextblog.com/archives/2008/04/w...). The whole unified comms crowd is discussing customer service and the all center. It seems to me that the real discussion is: what is your story? who is telling the story? how are they telling the story? If the marketing team says one thing, but the phone is answered by someone who didn't get the release -- your're screwed.
ahg3

ahg3

all center <-- call center (as much as I kinda like the typo)

Steve "Snowball" Saylor

Hey Chris,

As someone who is still working in Customer Service as a Rep (which is a job I want to get out of) I find that the more ways to get in contact with a human person is much better than just the phone.

I'm not sure what businesses I would prefer to reach me online, but I would say any big company that adopts the online communication that we are used to, makes me sit up and take more notice. I also might be willing to talk to Customer Service more because of that.

That's my two cents anyway.

Steve "Snowball" Saylor

Kristen Forbriger

Funny you bring up this topic today, because I was pondering customer service while waiting for some at the Verizon store. After the guy helped me, he gave me a slip of paper with a link to a survey they want me to complete online. No incentive, just please go take a few minutes to tell us how we're doing. Nah, no thanks, I'll pass.

Here's what I did instead. I got on Twitter and complained about Verizon (http://tinyurl.com/68yytj) like I see people doing all the time about one company or another. Do I expect Verizon to hear me? No, but I get more satisfaction out of knowing that tweet (1) will actually be read by someone who cares about me and (2) might hurt Verizon in some little way.

It would be pretty easy for Verizon to set up a tweetscan, then respond to people who complain, and thank people who compliment. Case in point (and this is by no means a comparison): I asked Twitter today if anyone was on Disqus and Blogger because I was having a problem. Within an hour, Daniel from Disqus tweeted back with his email adress and offered to help.

Sorry for the lengthy story. I guess you struck me at the right moment. Thanks Chris, relevant topic and great post, as always.

David Alston

Great post Chris. Perhaps rolling out a social media monitoring platform today could be akin to setting up an inbound call center with the right technology in the 80's and 90's. Like with a call center, starting with a single phone number, a phone and a person on the end of it is at least a start. But once you promote the fact that you want to hear from customers, the inbound volume takes off and efficiently managing traffic becomes important. Being able to see trends over time, growing issues, etc...would also be important for product development, marketing, etc.. We have seen an entire technology industry built around efficiently and effectively handling customer contact on the phone side.

So with the volume of the customer voice skyrocketing within the social media channel it goes without saying that answering the "social media call" makes perfect sense.

Chris, this is a great topic. Looking forward to further discussion on it.

Cheers.

David Alston
Radian6

Justin Premick

Totally agree - to provide great customer service, you have to go out, find where your customers are hanging out, where they're talking about you instead of forcing them to use the channels you're accustomed to.

To take it a step further: monitoring what people are saying about you on blogs/forums/FB/Twitter/etc is good, but it's reactionary and can be improved upon.

Better to get involved in those communities and get customers to seek you out there. Put a face on your company via a customer service or employee blog/forum/Twitter acct/whatever (first example that comes to mind: Matt Cutts' blog). Make it known to customers (or at least make it known to customer segments who are likely to want to interact with you there).

That way, you're acting as a magnet for customers who want to interact with you that way, rather than always having to "track them down" online to get them answers (often before someone else gives an inaccurate one).

I see a lot of larger companies having difficulty with this because it requires that the individual/s tasked with providing customer service via these channels be far more empowered than in many traditional CS mediums. It's one thing to escalate an inbound phone call, but Tweeting someone to say "let me ask my supervisor about that" just doesn't work IMHO.

For companies with a culture of employee empowerment and providing outstanding customer service, it's well worth the time and effort to get involved in new communication channels with your customers.

Chris Hambly

I've used an Online live chat app for years, probably since about 2001 as a method of providing customer service, it does work wonders when a surfer is browsing away and has a query. You can log the page they are on, and how long they've been waiting on it, and pownce!

So yes, various channels are good, IF a website is selling a product and the client is ON it.

Saying that I've come full circle to enjoying the phone more again now. As an example I've been working with a client on some SEO for them where there is around 10 people using AOL chat, all with a vested interest in the project, but not so savvy about SEO, and sometimes you can't beat the sound of a voice to make the point so I'll dial the number.

People need emotions.

chrisbrogan

I'm sitting at an airport. There are LOTS of ways to be confused at airports. Lots of things need fixing. Why wouldn't customer service types be AT airports, roaming around with headphone cell phones and Asus EEE pcs with EVDO (or wifi) and just spot-fixing stuff that otherwise takes a call to a disinterested person in some other state/country/state of mind?

I think there are TONS of ways this can be viewed. Who's blogging good customer service stuff these days? Who are YOU reading?

Jeff Hibbard

Hi Chris,
Perhaps I am naive to believe that any company not taking advantage of every channel available to them to ensure their customers are satisfied, (or at least, not complaining)is missing the point. In my short time of using social media in my everyday life I have signed two long-term contracts with cellular providers based on feedback from twitter.(Also, I have NOT signed 2 for the same reason) If a potential customer already believes they are going to have a positive experience when they commit to a service, the company just has to do what it does best. If a company can minimize the impact of the inevitable customer service fumble by employing people to monitor and interact with the rapidly growing social media space, they will be rewarded with the perception that they do care about customer service. I for one am happy to give my money to companies who I believe care about my satisfaction. And I will tell everyone who will listen that I am happy with them.
Jeff

Amie Gillingham

While I'd like nothing more than to do a purely web-based customer service presence (and our company answers all of our emails personally, chats with our customers directly via our site forums, our blog, our twitter presence, and as individuals keeping an eyeball on the blogosphere) I find there are customers who actually want the phone experience regardless of every other option given to them to communicate with us. In fact, I just got off the phone with a new member who wanted a clarification of something that was sent to her via email. As in, she needed to hear a live person restate (in exactly the same words, no less) what was written on the page to *get it.* So while we're actively listening and involved online (which makes sense; we're a totally virtual web company) our customer base is very often older, not terribly tech savvy, and wants a friendly phone voice to hand-hold, something we're not really set up for but will do if we have to. So really, the approach greatly depends on your customers.

Stu

Chris,

You know, it's this universal problem, across the board.

Someone comes up with a fantastic tool (Telephone) and it is used in a wonderful way (Call someone for help). But then the Society Brain sees this fantastic tool, and wonderful way, and embraces them to the point where they become institution and to break ..

Wait. This is starting to sound like a movie .. or a book .. or History. Heh heh.

Daz Cox

I worked for one of the top Japanese home electronics companies as phone support. They have a nice call center in a small city in Illinois that services dozens of un-related companies.

The reason why it is in Illinois (they said) is that the local accents are somewhat 'neutral' and wages are lower than the bigger cities. The wages weren't great but it was steady work and a decent work environment and because of that we were in the right frame of mind to help people who were fustrated with either a defective product or the complicated features of the product.

What was essential, more than anything else, was to let the caller vent, once they had talked, the problem was often far less horrible to them than they had worked it up to be in their minds.

Having a way to vent, wether it be by phone or twitter seems to me to be a cost effective way of keeping customers coming back to the product.

beckymccray

It is important to bring in new channels to communicate with customers. It is also important to use let customer pick which one they are most comfortable using. It's not about what channel is most convenient for you as an entrepreneur or a business; rather it's about your customers' preferences.

I just lectured on this a bit in the Small Biz 100 series - What is the best channel to communicate with your customers? http://is.gd/4Rr

Angus Gordon

I agree with your post, Chris. I think another point that businesses need to understand is that when a customer starts a conversation in a given channel, they probably want to continue it in the same channel. I used to manage an e-mail enquiry service in a call centre, and had to fight the urge among my staff to give generic responses to e-mail enquiries, then close off with "if you have any other questions, please call [general enquiry number]". From THEIR perspective, it was easier to answer a query over the phone, so why wouldn't customers see it the same way?

They didn't realise that there are people out there (I'm one of them) who prefer dealing in text and will happily send several e-mails back and forth if that's what it takes. (We're the same people who send half a dozen text messages to set up a coffee date!) If people want to make a phone call, they'll do that in the first place.

Mike

Customer service on phone doesn't have the charm that it used to have! Maybe it's the people behind it who are careless?

Marc

Great article.

Your readers might want to try www.Measuredup.com a leading customer service review website where people share reviews with other users and with companies. Companies that are involved with and value customer service read Measuredup to keep up on what people are saying and to be able to improve customer service.

Your disputes could be resolved using MeasuredUp if the company you reviewed reads your review or another consumer could give you advice. When you have good things to say a company could reward you.

It is free and easy to use and your info is private.

I have tried some other sites that are also good but really like this one.

LisaN

Great post. There are so many companies these days trying to get your business, and IMHO, the ones that succeed will be the ones with great customer service. It's what sets a company head and shoulders above the rest.

Helen Thompson Mosher

Hmmm, I was thinking about this earlier this week (here) when Mixx buzzed me when I gave them a fail.

And then, seeing this phenomenon start to actually happen, I drafted up a comic that I'll try to get inked this weekend. :D Need inker to move in, dammit.

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