Nicole van Zanten April 3, 2019
Here we
are already, the second quarter of 2019. How’d that happen? Time flies, like
they say. Among my March whirl of experiences was being on the always-brilliant
Jay Baer’s “Social Pros” podcast. You can listen
to that here, but Jay also has a transcript available – of
course!
But,
for the tl;dr version of the podcast, I’m happy to share some
of what we discussed in the episode, called “Why Social Media Customer Service
Is Changing and What You Need to Do Next.”
Social is More than “Just Social” Now
We
talked about why companies like ICUC are so vital in brand management and
social identity, because of how social is no longer just about hopping on
Twitter or Facebook and broadcasting the brand. Now it’s about managing
a crisis, doing public relations, identifying market opportunities, and so much
more.
But the
scope and possibility of what “social” is, what it can be, and how far its
reach is, those are changing every day, so whatever evolutions we’ve already
seen, I promise you, soon they’ll transform even more. Put simply, it’s not
about crises and messaging and communication – it’s about customers. Earning
them, valuing them, informing them, and keeping them.
That’s Why “Chief Customer Officer” Needs to Be A Thing
While
“Chief Digital Officers” have been on the rise, the reality is the customer
experience transcends just digital, despite digital being a huge slice
of that cake now. For me, the important question to ask is exactly what I said
to Jay: “how can you impact the customer experience across all aspects of the
customer journey, not just social?”
The
companies that do that best, across all avenues, from the social experience to
the phone experience to the counter experience, they’re the ones who will win
the battle for repeat customers, client loyalty, and solid word of mouth.
There’s no benefit to having a great social media game while dropping the ball
on in-person service, is there?
Consistency
is everything for brands today.
Firms
that focus instead on just the “social” experience are missing
service opportunities. They fail to realize how much service and client care
needs to be a complete package over the entire customer
journey. In a perfect world, a Chief Customer Officer will oversee everything
from service and follow-through to crisis management and social engagement,
online and off.
Listening is a Game-Changer
The most
valuable, profound thing we do in social and customer service is simply to
listen to what people say. I tell my teams, and advocate to our brands,
that listening is everything and can radically change how a
customer feels.
Jay
Baer agreed, choosing this comment of mine as his show-opening soundbite: “If
you take a conversation off a public Twitter timeline, let’s say, and bring it
to direct messenger and just listen to someone… I would say that would be my
one piece of advice, just listen to someone.Because, at the end of
the day – if they’re on a delayed flight, for example – they just need to rant.
There’s nothing that we can do to make sure their plane leaves on time. What
we can do is listen.”
That,
Jay said, was “simple, solid advice.”
It
really is, but I’m not the genius who invented that concept, I’ve just learned
how true it is over my years in customer service.
One of the most emotional examples I’ve seen of this
is the video of a Thai cop facing off with an armed man raging
with a knife, and all the cop does to de-escalate the danger is simply to
listen, then hug the man. In tense cases, even when it’s just someone who’s
inflamed over a lacklustre dining experience, most angry, frustrated people who
suddenly feel they’ve been heard have an
emotional shift, because they feel validated for all that they’ve
just expressed.
If you
only do one thing better tomorrow, listen. Do it in your work day,
with your team, with the public, with people who serve you, and even do it at
home with your family and friends. Watch how much it impacts your ability to
truly connect and have meaningful experiences.
Service Isn’t a One-Size-Fits-All T-Shirt
Whether
it’s providing customer service, doing social listening, engaging with
consumers, or simply putting a branded message out there, we’ve learned there
is no generic, plug-and-play roadmap to success. There are some
universally-applicable listening/engaging methods that can work, but we find
strategies need to be tailored to every situation, every brand, every industry.
What works for Starbucks won’t work for a pharmaceutical company, who may need
to incubate strategies for up to six months just to ensure best practices and
due process.
Turning
to another company’s strategies in hopes of riding their coat-tails to success
just doesn’t work. If you opt for the same-same-but-different method
of branding your public identity, you’ll lose the finer details of why
consumers should bother choosing you or maintaining loyalty to you. Be
different, be you.
And So Much More
The
conversation between Jay Baer, Adam Brown, and me is literally 10 times as long
as the copy in this email. We talked about chatbots, and “dark service,” and
going one-on-one with messaging. We dug into the process of how ICUC has
“service pods” for our clients with brand-dedicated experts, and how we never
make important decisions unilaterally, that it’s always a team decision on
responding to situations.
We
chatted about the joy of “surprise and delight” marketing, like how we’ve built
enough trust with our brand Kimpton Hotels, so we can jump into their CRM and
help deliver a cost-effective but touching and highly-memorable bit of extra
service for their guests, and why that level of trust needs to be earned over
the long-haul (and why I’m okay with that).
We even
talked about how crazy it is that entire brand platforms seem to be running on
phone-based APIs now and how it’s a somewhat-daunting reality. But that’s still
only some of what we talked about.
I hope
you’ll check out the podcast or the transcript and find some inspiring ideas to
help inform your practices going forward.
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