Originally posted on Visibly Intelligent, the official blog of Visible Technologies

By Jackie Kmetz, Director of Community Educational Outreach, Visible Technologies

It makes me ask the question—is the preponderance of negativity in social media having an effect on the face-to-face customer service we receive? Maybe it’s just a fluke series of unfortunate customer service experiences I’ve had, but lately I’ve been wondering if having online social venting outlets has had a serious trickle-down effect on the in-person customer service we’re getting. A number of my friends and coworkers have lamented about the similar incidents this week. While there certainly are a number of positive, productive online posts, forum discussions, “likes” and the ever popular tweets about store, brand and product experiences, anyone who has poked around even for a minute in the social arena knows there’s plenty of “witching with a capital B”, as my mom used to call it, going on.

On one side of the coin I think it is healthy and useful that there are places to share problems and information to help buyers beware. But on the other side, maybe all of this public negativity is starting to have a detrimental effect on the brick and mortar side of the business. It feels to me like store clerks are feeling deflated and making less effort than before. Bad news does travel faster than good in most organizations, and like it or not, a complaint, online or otherwise, is going to be shared with employees faster and with more emphasis than a kudo.

The most dramatic example I can share was during a recent purchase I made at a clothing retailer. During checkout I was asked if I wanted a free issue of a magazine. I said yes and assumed she put it in my bag. Turned out I was automatically signed up for an annual subscription, with one free issue, that would be automatically charged to my credit card. I happened to catch the fine print on my extra long receipt at home and immediately went online to vent to my Twitter and Facebook friends and then send a complaint to the company through their various corporate website channels. I of course was looking for the social validation from my digital friends of how I had been wronged.  It’s what we do now right?

The retailer did the right thing and cancelled the billing and their corporate response and follow up were very reassuring, keeping me as a customer. A few weeks later I happened to be back in the store and the same gal was there ringing me up and openly begged me to go to this link on the receipt and give a positive review of my visit to their store and her service. She openly explained how this store had received some negative reviews and complaints and they needed to boost their store rating and as the manager she would really appreciate my positive feedback. I had no doubt I was the cause of her store’s pain and was counting my blessings she didn’t recognize me!

My experience with this is not common, thankfully, and most companies would be horrified to hear of the inappropriate over-share of information to a customer. So how would you answer the question—is the preponderance of negativity in social media having an effect on the face-to-face customer service we receive? Have you had similar experiences? Is there a backlash? I’d like to hear what you think.

By Rod Brooks, CMO of PEMCO and WOMMA President

Another Quarter In The Books

Wow! Where does the time go so quickly? It seems as though it was only last month that I was writing a recap of my first quarter as President of the WOMMA Board of Directors. Now it is the twelfth of July and we are already a week into Q3. It’s been a busy and productive time for WOMMA and I’ll try to bring you up to speed with a selection of key advances and accomplishments that have been made by our maturing association.

It’s been a real pleasure to lead and work with such a passionate group of volunteers that make up the WOMMA board. You’ll be pleased to know that the membership is well represented by an outstanding mix of global, national, and regional brands and agencies that truly have the best interest of WOMMA at heart. Add to that a staff that is led by Executive Director Kristen Smith, who in her third year at the helm has found ways to grow membership and revenue while delivering continuously improving educational events, partnerships, and programs. I’d like to offer the board, Kristen, and the entire WOMMA staff my sincere thanks and appreciation for another outstanding quarter of productivity and accomplishments. Let’s look at a few:

As great word of mouth practitioners know, it all starts with effectively listening.

School of WOM: After making a conscientious effort to examine the feedback from attendees of prior years and carefully reviewing submitted surveys, a President’s “Innovation Task Force” was assembled to explore opportunities to better differentiate our two major events – The School of WOM and The WOMMA Summit.

Several great ideas were brought forward, a few of which were implemented in Chicago at the School of WOM.

• Several sessions were converted to 90-minute workshops that allowed for both presenting valuable information as well as working through examples in a practical hands-on format.
• A speed-networking session was piloted at the end of the first day of presentations. Those who participated were able to seek out and spend valuable one-to-one time with specific companies and individuals that they were looking for suggestions and advice from.
• And speaking of networking, WOMMA was able to use POKEN technology to help make sharing contact information both easy and fun, while encouraging attendees to say hello in a friendly face-to-face way. The clever device was sponsored by Nology Media and was a big hit, generating over 3000 contact “pokes” by over 83 % of the 300 registered attendees.

WOM-COMM: With a full year of producing this program and listening to participant feedback under our belt, we have grown to understand that members who enrolled were more advanced than the 101 levels of content that we were providing. You asked for richer and deeper content, quizzes that were more aligned with the material being presented, case studies that were directly tied back to the course work, and less overlap within the first three modules. As a result, we reworked our lineup of presenters and coached them on the importance of differentiating the content between each module so that there is a building progression of learning. The quiz, which is mandatory, is written by WOMMA staff and is more aligned with the presenter’s key takeaways. The newly reformatted WOM- COMM online certificate program has just graduated its first class of students and we are eagerly awaiting their feedback.

President’s Innovation Task Force: A group of thought leaders from among our membership has been brought together on a quarterly basis to provide feedback and guidance to me as President as well as to our WOMMA staff. During Q2 a subgroup of the task force volunteered to develop a set of tools that would better enable current WOMMA members to act as advocates for the association. This work is currently underway and will be rolled out in the coming months.

Bringing our message to the market where they live and work.

Talkable Brand Exchanges: I’m very excited that we are now taking the WOMMA message and deliverables into regional outreach and educational events. The pilot program for these Talkable Brand Exchanges is intended to bring brands and agencies together who might not otherwise attend one of our national events. In addition to the February event, held in San Francisco, there are three events being planned for Chicago, Seattle and New York City. Check our member website for details on the event in your area.

Wine Wednesdays: WOMMA has schedule four Wine Wednesdays that will take place this summer in Atlanta, New York, Denver and Washington DC, with tentative dates for Chicago and San Diego. Wine Wednesdays are great opportunities for member companies to showcase their WOMMA pride by hosting a networking event in their city. To schedule your Wine Wednesday go here.

Adding value to our members and recognizing their accomplishments.

Customer Care Guidebook: Hot off the press in Q2! The Research & Measurement Council recently produced Best Practices Guide: WOM in the Customer Contact Centerfocused on understanding social media and customer service with six brands sharing their case studies. As a member only benefit, members can access the Guidebook in its entirety, by going here.

WOMMY Awards: The WOMMY’s are in their third year and continue to grow momentum and relevance in our industry. As the only awards focused on WOMM and Social Engagement we’ve gained credibility and international recognition. The WOMMY Chairs have added three new categories to the awards submission: Mobile, Cause Related Marketing, and Customer Relationship Management. These were added due to WOMMA’s recognition that these are growing areas of relevance and importance to our membership. It’s not too soon to plan your entry for this year’s WOMMY Awards.

That’s just a few examples of the work that your WOMMA board and staff have been doing on your behalf. It’s a great organization and one that is gaining momentum on a weekly basis. I urge you to talk WOMMA up in your organization and among industry colleagues. It’s in all of our best interest to include the thought leaders and practitioners that will help us grow the quality of our association.

I continue to be very excited about the opportunities that are developing in the online and offline space for word of mouth marketers. I hope you will join me by enthusiastically supporting and attending our upcoming events. As you know, your referral and recommendation is more highly regarded than anything WOMMA can say or do on our own behalf.

Have a wonderful summer.

Best regards,

Rod

By Linda Dickerhoof, Director of Marketing & PR, VIPdesk & Chair, Customer Service Subcommittee, Word of Mouth Marketing Association

Responding to the need for a comprehensive look at best practices for the integration of social media and customer service, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has developed the “Best Practice Guidebook for WOM in the Contact Center” (available soon). The Guidebook presents suggestions for implementation of a social customer care program based on interviews with 11 organizations, the main findings of which are outlined here.

Why the Contact Center?

There are three universal benefits to incorporating social media into the contact center:

1. Immediate Response. Many contact centers are already staffed 24/7, aligning with the always-on nature of social media.
2. Consistent Customer Experience. Contact centers already have the processes and procedures in place to guide consistent customer interactions, and can easily extrapolate these to social media.
3. Centralized Feedback. A central repository for customer data ensures that complete records of every customer interaction are captured. In addition, if there is an unintended upswing of customer complaints identification of a problem and development of a solution can happen swiftly.

Step #1: Proper Planning

The first step of integrating social media and customer service should be development of a plan. There must be a true business purpose for incorporating social media into an organization’s existing customer service function, as well as a social media presence that fits both business and customer needs. Senior management from all departments within the organization should be involved in the planning process, as “top-down” buy-in within the organization will help ensure long-term executive support, which often leads to success.

Goals and metrics are an integral part of the planning process. Without stated goals for social media participation, how can you measure program success? Goals can consist of metrics to meet that mirror your existing customer service goals or can be specific metrics for the social channels that you use, depending on the purpose for which the channel is utilized and desired results. Goals for the social customer program must mirror the long-term goals of the organization as a whole.

Recruiting and Training

The best approach for staffing a social media customer support team is to look within your organization for current customer service representatives (CSRs) or other employees with knowledge of or an interest in social media.

• Existing employees already know the ins and outs of your business structure, people and practices within the organization.
• Existing employees have the background and understanding of your company that is required to ensure that all information distributed by social CSRs is both accurate and in tune with the overall goals and objectives of the organization.

Alternatively you can go outside of your organization to find skilled individuals, however they will lack the knowledge of your business and standard practices, so you must make a point to get ahead in some other areas, such as expertise in the social space. Whatever approach you decide to take, the qualities in the people you are looking will remain the same: comfort with social media tools, norms and protocols; extremely strong written and verbal communication skills; and familiarity with the company (or at least the industry).

Once you recruit your agents—either internally from other teams or externally—training is an absolute must. Training social CSRs is not that different than training traditional agents—the basic skills and principles of providing stellar customer service remain the same. However, training specific to the social space is a must as the communication “norms” are very different than in more traditional communication channels.

Staffing and Operations

How an organization decides to staff their social media response team is dependent on many factors including:

• Size of the organization
• Number of customers and their social media activity level
• Size of the existing customer service team
• Amount of resources that can be diverted from other customer service functions

A common staffing challenge is accurately determining the number of social CSRs required. Unlike traditional channels, it can be difficult to forecast the number of agents based on historical trends and patterns. Looking at what organizations in your industry are doing can be a good guide, however not always 100% accurate.

Another staffing challenge can be developing hours of operation of a social customer program and deciding upon response times for messages received via social media. While social media interactions happen 24/7, it is not mission-critical for most companies to respond in real time. Many organizations respond to social media during the same hours that the customer contact center is already staffed. In addition, many companies try to respond to all messages within social media within one business day or 24 hours. Whatever is decided must be clear and transparent so that customers’ expectations are met.

Response, Escalation, and Quality Assurance Protocols

Developing organization-wide response protocols outlining what types of questions and comments should be responded to vs. ignored, and the manner in which to respond, is a must. The first part of a response protocol—what is responded to vs. ignored—is something to be determined on an organizational basis: some prefer to respond to everything, some prefer to respond minimally. The correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

The second aspect of a response protocol—how to respond, and the content of a response—can be a bit more challenging. While it is a common practice of many contact centers to provide CSRs with messaging scripts, this doesn’t translate in social media. As such, social CSRs must be both trusted and trained as to what is appropriate to say in what situations—both content and “tone”.

An escalation process should also be outlined before it is necessary. This will highlight what types of messages should be escalated to upper management vs. responded to by CSRs on duty. As is the case with response protocols, determining the types of messages to escalate and those that do not require escalation should be determined on an organizational basis.

About the Author

Linda Dickerhoof is the Chair of WOMMA’s Customer Service Subcommittee, and the Director of Marketing & PR with VIPdesk, which is trusted by global industry leaders to enhance their brands through its customer care and loyalty programs. An experienced marketing and PR professional, she has spent more than 10 years helping organizations including VIPdesk, Network Solutions, ASAE and UUNET improve their name recognition and visibility, ultimately positioning their brands as leaders in their respective industries.

Originally posted on Likeable Media’s Blog.

Written by Jenna Lebel.

Customer service is a large part of any business. It seems to play a larger role now that (thanks to social media) consumers have a quick outlet to share their complaints, criticism and other negative feedback with the world. We’ve highlighted companies like Best Buy, Bank of America and Whole Foods who are setting the standard in customer service in social media. Unfortunately, while there are several companies that do it well, there seem to be a lot who don’t. For the most part, customer service online is the same as customer service offline. Think of your social media sites as virtual stores and treat customers accordingly.

Here we are going to explore tips for effectively using social media for customer service, but before we get into the specifics you need to first identify which platforms will allow you to better serve those customers. This all comes down to determining where your customers are and where they are talking about your brand. It makes no sense to have a Twitter account specifically for customer service if your customers aren’t on Twitter. Once you’re in the right place you can now employ these tactics.

Listen

This sounds like customer service 101, but you’d be surprised how many companies do not listen. We know it’s important to hear what customers are saying about the brand and the company. It’s often times more important to hear the issues, problems and concerns customers are having. Sometimes your customers are voicing those concerns directly to you and sometimes they are just voicing them to the world. By monitoring the conversation taking place with your brand (direct messages, posts on your Facebook wall, @replies) and conversation taking place publicly you can address both. While you’re listening, consider compiling a database of recurring problems to uncover any trends.  A simple solution can usually be reached if brands listen to customers.

Be Timely

Even if it’s just an acknowledgement of their complaint, it’s important to respond in a timely manner. If someone publicly voices a customer service complaint they expect an answer and they expect it in a timely manner. If someone called your customer service call center you wouldn’t leave them waiting on the line for 2 hours, so why would you do that in social spaces?

Be Personal

If someone calls your customer service number they get a person. If they are expressing dissatisfaction on Facebook or Twitter, they should also feel as though a person is addressing their concerns. This may mean including the names of the employees behind social media in your Twitter bio or Facebook info box or signing posts with the name of the person who is helping. Effective customer service in this area is all about relationships and humanness beyond the social media platform.

Provide value

When a brand is being criticized we often think we can make everything right by giving the person something. It’s important to make sure you are not just constantly giving away stuff, but instead trying to listen and get to the bottom of the problem. Once you identify the issue, resolve it appropriately: give relevant links, information, or further contact information and follow up.  Other people can see your responses so it is important that the answers are well thought-out and meaningful.

Pick your battles

The reality is that sometimes you just can’t fix everything. Some people will never be satisfied and just need to vent and intervening may just add fuel to the fire. In these cases, enhancing your brand image IS fixing everything. Listen, be timely, be personal, offer solutions and call it a day.

These 5 tips should start you off on the road to offering good customer service through social channels. Do you have other tips? What are some of your best practices?

David Reis, founder and CEO of social media agency DEI Worldwide

Originally posted in Promo Magazine.

A client recently told me they wanted 500,000 “Fans” on Facebook by the end of the year. When I asked them why, they just looked at me blankly. When I pushed, they just hemmed and hawed—ending up mumbling something like, “it is a good round number.” When I further pushed to ask what they wanted to do with all those fans, and if they were prepared to spend the significant budget to manage a community of that size—”You’re going to have to have lots of conversations with them, you realize.”  They recoiled with alarm—“I thought social media was free!”

While most social media platforms are free to use, establishing a successful social media community takes thoughtful management and daily monitoring. It’s more than a one-time investment or an afterthought to a marketing campaign; instead it should be seen as a living and breathing long-term communication channel.

Unlike traditional forms of media, which tend to send one-way messages, social media enables a two-way dialogue, creating a dynamic brand-to-consumer conversational platform. This invitation to converse creates countless opportunities for brands to listen and gain valuable insight from their customers, that is, if you are prepared to effectively manage the community. In order to provide value and serve as an effective marketing tool, brands must understand and embrace the real-time, authentic and conversational nature of social media and be prepared to invest adequate time and budget.

Of course it’s important to have fans, and the more the merrier, right? This is not always the case—especially when the goal is to build a real community. The question should not be how many people “Like” you on Facebook, but rather how many really like your brand and choose to express it via their social networks. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s often quality over quantity and in social media it’s no exception. Sure, you can pay your way to build a large fan base, but are you simply paying for numbers rather than meaningful connections?

Most likely if you are advertising fancy promotions through multiple media outlets; you will attract a plethora of “gamers” as opposed to true brand loyalists. Although you will accomplish a wide reach and increased numbers in the short-term, this is far less valuable than a smaller but long-term community that was earned through organic word of mouth, highly targeted promotions and incentives, and careful, specific, social ads. Remember, social media is about connecting and engaging with loyal consumers, it’s not meant to be a traditional billboard on a social platform.

If you’re looking to build a truly engaged dynamic community, instead of buying fans through heavy advertising, fancy, overly broad, promotions and reach blocks, a better strategy is to be patient and slowly and carefully grow a targeted and influential fan base. Maintaining small and relevant promotional incentives (e.g. product giveaways or coupons) and valuable content/conversations, you will provide real value to your community of fans. By offering more relevant promotions that appeal to your specific consumer-base and promoting them through word of mouth and highly targeted social ads, you’ll be able to successfully, over time, attract long-term valuable fans and witness far less post-promotion fan attrition.

Your most valuable fans are the ones who, given the slightest encouragement (maybe a product coupon or even just social recognition), will shout from the rooftop (or more likely their personal Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc.) about your brand to their established networks of followers. These passionate fans will help to organically spread the word about your brand through their own personal networks, which is the beauty, and true power, of social media.

With careful community management, brands have the ability to foster and enhance organic word of mouth about their products and services through these channels. What good does it do to get a whole slew of fair-weathered fans who are only there for the freebies and will abandon you as soon as they spot a better promotion that comes along. The focus and attention should be shifted to those highly engaged and influential consumers who, with careful nurturing can be changed from brand enthusiasts into brand advocates.

It’s important to listen to what your fans are saying and encourage their engagement. Fans generally “Like” your page because they already enjoy your products/services; don’t try to hard sell to them or push your marketing objectives. Social media should reflect a natural flow of brand/consumer conversation. Instead of pushing branded messages, offer engaging and valuable content that they will want to share with their personal networks. Always monitor for trends or opportunities to address their feedback, complaints and compliments; it’s important to show that you are listening and value what they have to say.

In order to get people excited to talk about your brand you must have a presence and a voice in the space; it’s essential to make these communications two-way. Brands must interact beyond posting updates and static content; fans want to be acknowledged and recognized by the brand and have a genuine exchange of dialogue. Take a look at the percentage of fans actively engaged on your page. If you’re not satisfied, simply take a look at who “Likes” your page and to determine if you are attracting the right audience. By increasing the proportion of engagement posts (conversation starters) you’ll likely witness an increase in interactions among your engaged fans. The more interactions you can encourage leads to higher impressions, which in turn, spreads social currency about your brand.

Brands already in the social space and those who are thinking about it need to look at social media as an independent channel. It’s far more than a traditional marketing platform and if you are only looking at the number of fans, chances are you’re not realizing the real potential of social media communications. Once the value and opportunity are realized, brands will begin to shift their thinking from pure numbers of fans to the more important quality of fans and engagement with their social communities.

Slow and steady should be the mantra of social media. Perhaps if we were to look at traditional advertising—based on the 30-second spot, and immediate gratification, as an attempt to get you out on a date that night, social media should be looked at more as the less dazzling, consistent over time, commitment to a long term relationship and family—perhaps less exciting in the short term, but infinitely more satisfying, and valuable, in the long term.

David Reis is founder and CEO of social media agency, DEI Worldwide.

A theme that’s popping up more and more with word of mouth marketers is the strategy of using customer service as the new marketing. Zappos has built its business around a customer service culture. Comcast has focused on customer service to help repair its brand image. And, Best Buy uses customer service as a differentiator.

At WOMMA’s recent School of WOM conference nearly every presentation from the keynotes to the breakout sessions touched up customer service as a way to make a brand more talkable.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Dana Mattioli writes about how “some executives see a chance to woo frustrated customers from rivals through word of mouth and by creating pleasant experiences.”

Mattioli details how Comcast is improving its customer service, resulting in satisfied customers, higher sales, and no doubt … more positive word of mouth.

“Cable provider Comcast is bolstering customer service operations in an effort to retain customers and sell higher-priced services. The company has been trying to improve customer service for the past couple of years, but it’s still a sore spot: earlier this year The Consumerist, a consumer issues website, granted Comcast its “Worst Company in America” award.

In January, Comcast started putting its 24,000 call-center agents through additional training and has told call-center supervisors to spend 70% of their time coaching their agents, more than double the amount of time they spent before. So far, Comcast says it’s seen a decrease in repeat customer calls—queries about the same problem—and in customer requests to speak to a supervisor.

‘Our primary focus has been on ensuring that we’re delivering superior customer service and that clears the way for us to be able to up-sell,’ says Tina Waters, senior vice president of customer operations at Comcast.”

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal article | June 7, 2010]