Bank of Social Media Response

@BofA_Help's Team

@BofA_Help is doing a really good job of helping customers on Twitter. I know from personal experience and from monitoring their efforts since they started – knowing that most of the real help goes unseen in private DMs.

The team roster is a nice touch too. It lets you put faces to the real people behind the support, and you’ll always know who you’re dealing with because they tag each tweet with a caret (^) and their initials.

Bank of America set up a subdomain explaining their efforts on Twitter, but I’m not seeing much on Facebook or anywhere else. I’d love to know what they have planned for the rest of the social web. Twitter is just one small piece of the pie, guys!

Again, the majority of help goes on behind the scenes after @BofA_Help asks the tweep to DM contact info (no account numbers, please) and the issue is handled offline, usually over the phone. But here’s a recent example that played out on Twitter as well:

@BofA_Help in action.

What do you think? Are they doing enough? Are they doing it right? What could they be doing better?

Smart Response Doesn’t Fan The Flames

Companies can answer customers publicly, but still contain the blast radius by responding only to customers directly vs. a big statement on company website, etc.

Something goes wrong. Doesn’t matter much what it is, but the social media pit bull has an iron grip on it and as usual, it’s Friday night.

What do you do? Here are your options:

1. Ignore it because statistically, overall awareness of these tempest-in-a-teapots is low and your customer-at-large will never know.

2. Assemble legal and public relations teams for an emergency meeting to hammer out a statement (which will take until Monday or Tuesday).

3. Show your social media stripes by apologizing via every channel you’re participating in, including posting the apology on your .com homepage.

4. Respond directly to the trigger-customer via comment (blog, Facebook) or  Direct Message (DM, on Twitter).

The best option? Let’s start by tossing out #1 and #2, assuming you want to stay in business. Next, #3 seems to be the newly enlightened approach that oftentimes backfires by fanning flames and raising unnecessary awareness.

Ah ha! #4 has the right stuff. Identify the trigger(s) and respond with an apology, explanation and a resolution. Show respect and engage in a dialogue with the offended person on their terms. Be human and compassionate. If the public ire has reached critical mass and is still growing, post a notice that you are working towards a resolution with the offended parties.

The trick is, you’ve got a few hours – tops – to accomplish this. Are you ready?

You’re No Apple

Photo: kyz

We here at Trustworthy are all big fans of Apple. And yes, we know this fact flies in the face of everything we believe about social CRM. Apple has chosen not to engage with their customers in the social web. That is not to say they don’t love their customers. Their in-store service and user group support is top-notch. That also doesn’t mean they don’t listen. Steve Job’s open letter to customers offering store credit after the first big iPhone price drop (that made all the early adopters – the ones who gave the iPhone its momentum – feel swindled) was proof of that.

Apple doesn’t need to be on Twitter because of the 33-year history, the cult of personality, the highest brand and repurchase loyalty (J.D. Power ranking), and let’s not forget superior products and trans-industry innovation. They are the tech anomaly.

Don’t base your social web strategy on the Apple paradigm. If the atypicality of their position doesn’t strike you, at least consider that only until relatively recently, Apple was a struggling company with a market share under 5%.

Yes, you should strive to attain that kind of rare advantage with great products and services, but you’re taking a huge risk if you don’t also participate in a human relationship with your customers on their terms.

To echo Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s remark to Dan Quayle during the 1988 debate: I know Apple, and you’re no Apple.

Game-Changers

Real-time Google results for "facebook privacy"

Two big things happened last week that will affect the way companies interact with their customers on the web.

1. Google launched real-time search, streaming tweets along with news above the normal results.
2. Facebook announced new privacy settings soon after striking deals with Google and Bing.

Both are game-changers, but let’s start with Google’s real-time search as I think it will have a greater impact on brands starting NOW. We’ve long-argued that a company’s reputation will live forever in blog posts, news stories and user-reviews on Google. We’ve also argued that for Facebook and Twitter, the walled garden limitations in numbers was offset by the trusted message coming from a friend. Well, Google just tore down that wall and now brand managers must face the fact that a casual search for a product might open a deluge of negative tweets ABOVE the organic results. Jennifer Leggio calls it a “wake-up call for brands” on ZDNet, using Starbucks as an example.

Here at Trustworthy, we see this as a good thing because it forces companies to face the music. More resources will go towards making sure no customer gets to the digital-outburst point. Hopefully this will lead to better products, better customer service, and an intrinsically consumer-focused approach.

The new privacy tools on Facebook have caused more debate here, as we try to put a figure on the ratio of public vs. private profiles. We cannot find the data (yet), but can feel a not-so-subtle push from Facebook to make more content public since that is the value they provide to search engines like Google and Bing. My guess is that the percentage of public profiles is already much higher than we’d expect. The folks working these deals are no dummies and the slice of Facebook’s 350 million on the table must have some scale. Others here think the majority are already private and the thought of their status updates being blasted out in public search will cause more to go private.

Either way, if you’ve ever downplayed the impact of someone with a small network on Twitter or Facebook: This. Changes. Everything.

Wake Up

Photo: vintagedept

On the fence about social media?

Not sure if your company should take it seriously as a customer service/marketing/PR channel?

Think it’s all about entitled customers yelling to their friends and queue-jumping?

Worried that supporting social media can’t possibly scale within your organization?

Wake up. That’s all irrelevant because you don’t have a say in the matter.

You don’t have the luxury of choice this time, so stop making excuses and start accepting the fact that your customers have chosen for you. For decades you controlled the flow of communication and if a customer was unhappy, your worst-case scenario was them telling a few friends in private. The power has shifted, and your customers don’t care about your issues with scalability. They’re not concerned with what tools you’ll use or what the “social media expert” at your PR agency is recommending.

Change is uncomfortable and it may feel awkward to give up control, but the road ahead is clear and there’s no turning back. All your analysis and reasoned business theory may comfort you during the transition, but it won’t change the new reality.

Actually, you do have a choice. But going out of business isn’t really a viable alternative, is it?

1-800-SCALABLE: Yes, Social Support Does Scale

I read a lot about how social support from big companies can’t scale.

The thinking – as far as I can reason – goes something like this: There are a rapidly growing amount of customers in the social web, and companies can’t possibly respond to each issue posted in all the different social media channels. At least not in any scalable way over the long term.

Well first of all, let’s compare it to the status quo: Phone support.

Toll-free dialing became available the year I was born, and a few years later, a 52-year-old scientist at AT&T named Roy Weber invented what we now know as the 1-800 number. Companies embraced it soon after and it’s become our one-on-one standard for customer service. The technology routed calls through a computer and call centers began popping up everywhere.

Was this a scalable solution for customer service? Bottle-necking calls and long hold-times until an overworked rep attempts to resolve each issue, one by one… But companies stayed in business even if all the while, they were fostering resentment from consumers. By my estimation, it took about twenty five years before companies started outsourcing overseas. Scalable or not, it has fallen short of its main objective: satisfying customers.

Now, let’s contrast with social support.

One-to-Many
Social support has the one-to-many potential to reach others with answers to similar issues. What if that call-center one-on-one call could be witnessed by thousands of lurker-customers who might have the same problem?

Immortality
Social support will live on in Google search results. Whats the first and easiest thing customers can do when they have a problem? Search. It’s even faster than complaining on Twitter. The call center resolution dies when the caller hangs up.

Respect
Responding with social support shows that a company respects how its customers choose to interact. And more and more, that’s in the social web. As Mike Troiano says: “It is about investing in relationships that create more measurable economic value than they cost.”

How’s that for scale? What do you think? Do you think social media response/support can scale?

UPDATE: Daniel Bingham of MH Group Communications added some great thoughts on scale in the comments of Jeremiah Owyang’s post (that inspired my post here).

We Got A New Freakin’ Website!

www.gettrustworthy.com

The Founders of Trustworthy are proud to present our brand spankin’ new website. Like everything we do here, this was truly a team effort with Holly designing, Rob developing, Travis programming the blog feed and me writing all the copy.

This is our first swing at getting our message out in a full, version 1.0 presentation, and we welcome all comments and constructive criticisms. We’re still tweaking and nitpicking away at it. And I’m sure we’ll continue to do so until we launch version 2.0.

Our goal with the site is to provide a clear and concise value proposition to companies who need help connecting with their customers in social media.

All too often, we see websites that offer platitudes and catch phrases without actually telling you what they do. Our aim is to cut through the BS and arm the busy executive with the information necessary to act and act fast. The social media landscape can be confusing enough to navigate, without being further confounded by the company ostensibly providing the solution. So, we built this website from the ground-up to give a plain and simple explanation of what we deliver.

Oh, and while we were at it, we gave our blog a nice facelift too! Let us know what you think in the comments.

Profit Is Job One

Flickr Photo: Cayusa

Being an authentic company means being honest about your motives. Being a transparent company means being open and letting customers see you for who you really are. If you’re a business, profits must drive your every move. Revenue is your lifeblood. Bottom line: well, it’s your bottom line.

Social media opens a big barn door letting the sun shine in for all to see. Your razor-sharp instinct tells you to engage with your customers and show how much you care at every turn. Sometimes, even at the expense of your margin. It’s all in the name of transparency and authenticity, right?

Wrong. Being open and honest means telling customers when the decisions you make are for the good of your company. That without revenue and profit, people lose jobs, creditors don’t get paid, banks fail and most importantly to them, you can’t make the product or service they love.

So don’t be afraid to admit you’re in it for the money. Pretend you’re not, and you’ll insult the intelligence of your customers. They’ll respect your honesty and trust you more if your motives are clear: great customer service is good for business.

Will Brand-Exploitation Scare Companies Away From Social Media?

Catching up on my feeds today, I read Jennifer Leggio’s ZDNet post, Does Social Media Reward Whining? which referenced Jeremiah Owyang’s Are Companies Teaching Customers To Yell At Their Friends? Both focused on the issue of customers taking advantage of companies who embrace social media.

I think it might be a good thing if the pendulum swings perhaps too far in the other direction for a while. Companies have doled out the same, piss-poor customer service for years, abusing the trust of their customers. Bad customer service has become cliché. So what if some fringe, bad apples take advantage of the more progressive companies in the space right now? Maybe this is a Social Media Revenge Tax businesses have to pay for ignoring their consumers.

In the long run, this is good for companies too.

Let’s not forget that the conversation works both ways. Social media gives a new and empowered voice to consumers, but the brand’s response is just as public and powerful. Companies have the right to defend themselves from being badgered by those who would make unfair demands. Plus, it’s been my experience that for every “whiner” out there, there are 5-10 fair-minded “defenders” who will challenge outrageous demands.

See, the Internet and social media were built on self-policing communities. This is the democratic ideal we all cheered on and supported, but now I hear the same people who were its champions advising brands to ignore some customers who may be abusing generosity or fanning the flames of an issue that might otherwise die a quiet death (Watch a few minutes from this 140tc panel on Twitter Branding starting at 38:30 and see Guy Kawasaki call out the hypocrisy).

Every beneficial public initiative runs the risk of exploitation by some, but we can never use that as an excuse not to act.

Is the customer always right? Well if you don’t want their business again, then maybe not. If you value their future business and the business of their friends then yes, they are right. Or at least their attention to your brand should be recognized, acknowledged and encouraged.

Should A Company Have A Heart?

The Virgin America "Difference" is heart.

Probably the most oft-cited example in recent memory of a company showing a big heart is the woman who, after explaining she had not returned shoes because her mother had passed away, came home to a lush arrangement of flowers from Zappos. The “I Heart Zappos” story reverberated through social media and customer service circles in 2007 and 2008, and helped establish the brand as the gold standard for online customer service.

Other companies took notice. And whether consciously or not, they began making similar promises of unconventional and remarkable service. My recent experience with Virgin America is a great example of this. I put their claims to the test and while I may have had to stir the pot a bit, in the end they proved they had a heart within 24 hours of my blog post.

But should they have? I was admittedly past my expiration. Don’t they have the right to protect their profits with policies and limitations? And if they make an exception for me, what about everyone else? Isn’t it enough for an airline to provide a great flying experience? Why do they have to worry about my problems? Hell, I obviously can’t even follow their rules.

The answer is yes, they should have a heart. It’s simply good business. In my case, Virgin America retained an otherwise loyal customer by simply extending $300 worth of credits I’d already paid for. That’s 100% net gain and it was easy for them. But it meant the world to me, their loyal customer.

The Power of Social Media

From the customer perspective, this is a great case study for getting better customer service through social media channels. My wife got nowhere after an hour on the phone, but thirty minutes blogging, tweeting and posting on Virgin America’s Facebook wall and I got response and resolution. Why? Well, hopefully because they’re living up to the “Our Difference” promise, but possibly because on the phone it is a private, finite conversation while online it is very public and complaints have the potential to escalate into PR nightmares. While the latter is a more cynical view, it is no less important if the end result is retaining a loyal customer. The end justifies the means.

From the company perspective, providing customer service via social media channels is equally rewarding. The most vocal people online are more likely to also be the more passionate and influential people. Whereas a complaint may die in quiet frustration over the phone, the same complaint may be turned into a positive reputation builder for the brand online. That means a company can potentially earn the positive recognition of many, by helping fewer people.

So companies, have a heart. It’s a win-win!