Customer Care

It’s a fresh year, replete with fresh resolutions. Whether we make such resolutions overtly or not, we should all strive to improve in everything we do. Thus, in contemplating the litany of questions I get around “What will customer service look like in 2011 from the perspective of social media,” I have come up with 10 such resolutions for myself. Admittedly, they are loosely ordered by priority, but outside of the top three I could easily argue any one of their importance.

1. Remove “social” from my vocabulary – Can we all agree once and for all that it’s Media, not Social Media? And Customer Service, not Social Customer Service? Media is by it’s very nature (at least if it is successful) social. The same can be said for customer service.
2. We do not have all the answers - Who am I referring to as “we” here? Take a guess. The answer is yes. No one, not a company nor it’s customers, has all the answers all the time.
3. It’s the customer, stupid – So if you buy into #2 above, then what does that mean? It does mean an open, honest dialogue with your customers. It does not mean the old, in my view false adage that, “the customer is always right” which implies a do-anything to retain them approach.
4. Everything is important - All data is good data and can be used to either validate, debunk or redirect your approach to creating, marketing and supporting your products and services. It’s what you do with this data that makes you more successful than your competitors.
5. Understand what you’re looking at before you respond – Don’t rush to judgement or to an answer too hastily. 2010 is littered with examples of how doing each without understanding the context behind the issue can lead to public relations firestorms.
6. Know your customer – Know who your customers are, their demographics, where they participate socially, and ultimately what they want.
7. Sometimes the best strategy is identifying what NOT to do – Sometimes it can look like if you aren’t rolling out the newest and freshest doodad, you aren’t doing anything. The art of knowing what, whether and how to avoid can be as valuable as engagement.
8. Oversaturation can lead to dilution – No company has the resources to answer every question in every networking location throughout their customers social graphs. Know where your customers congregate, and build established and trusted presences there.
9. KISS (keep it simple stupid) – Do not overtly monetize the social channels from a customer service perspective. Customers are interacting with you in the social realm in all likelihood because they didn’t care for the more traditional help channels. Remember that just because a customer can fix something themselves or find the answer via self help, it is their prerogative to choose NOT to.
10. The only constant in dealing with today’s customer service challenges is change - In all likelihood, what you need to do for customer service today will be different one, three or six months from now. Once you attain recognition for doing something right, you can bet your competitors will match you within a quarter or two. Do not rest on your laurels once you earn them.

Over the coming weeks, I will discuss each of these 10 items in detail.