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In an economic drought, good customer service is digging for water. You have to work at it and be smart about it, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few things you can do right now to improve your customer service.
1. Listen to your customers
Listen to their complaints. Listen to their problems and their solutions. Listen to their successes and failures, their goals and plans, hopes and dreams; their boring and crazy stories. But don’t just be passive. Ask your customers to talk!
These are the people you need, and who need you. They are the lifeblood of your business, and they are your community. Get to know them, build relationships. Build trust. It starts with listening. Share their excitement, but be quick to root out and squash the causes of their frustrations. …Read more »
Seriously, why bother? Isn’t this kind of a waste of time? It’s not like blogs really matter – it’s just throwaway content, after all. What really matters is the website.
False.
Look, the web is about two things: content and search. Content because that’s what you’ve come for, and search because that’s how you find the content. Nothing else matters.
In light of this, a blog can be the most important tool you employ for two reasons: …Read more »
"People are in social media to be socially active, not to be sold."
Earlier this week, I attended a Social Networking seminar at Western Dakota Tech, put on by the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce. It was really quite interesting with approximately 85 people from local businesses in attendance.
I was particularly interested in what Adam Beshara (Marketing Specialist at Golden West Technologies) would share about Twitter and then how Realtor Lee Alley (with Prudential Kahler Realtors) would talk about Facebook for business. Both of these presenters impressed me with their realistic take/talk about social media for business in general. So much so, I want to share some of their key (form my perspective) points.
Most of us who are active in social web spaces (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) do it privately – that is to say, we’re engaging online with friends and family. But what if you’re doing it for a business? How should you present yourself?
It can be difficult to know where to draw the line between the personal and professional when dealing with brands, vendors, clients, customers, etc. After all, you are YOU, and though you may represent your organization, you’re still a person. And people engage with other people.
Look, I “tweet” personal stuff all the time. Granted, I’m not the principle of the organization, or even a high-level operative (so to speak). So although I do represent my company to a degree, I’m safe from being seen as “the company voice.” Not so, for others. Being seen as the representative of the organization can put you in a tight spot where the line between personal and professional gets a little blurry. …Read more »
I recently tripped over a former high school classmate on Twitter. His user name looked really familiar so I checked his profile to see if it was, in fact, the person I was thinking of. After following his profile to his personal website, I found the proof I was looking for: a photo confirming my suspicions.
Cool! It’s always neat to run into tweeps you actually know outside of the twittersphere.
So after poking around his site, I find he’s also running a little side business with its own website. Being the curious cat (see: nosey) that I am, I checked out this side project. What I found was a one looooooooong page of a website making all sorts of extravagant claims and looking like an all around scam.
BUT.
Since I knew this person from a number of years ago, I found myself thinking, “Yeah, this might be something I would actually buy.” Full stop. What’s going on here? I’m presented with a totally unprofessional site that just screams “Nigerian email scam”, yet I am seriously considering opening up the wallet. Wow.
How much more do you believe the statement you’re reading when you trust (or in my case, vaguely know) the source? How much value does the source inherently bring to the table?
Your grandma makes her cookies from scratch. If Big Box Corporate Cookie Manufacturing Co. advertises their cookies are made from scratch, just like your grandma’s, would you believe them? Note: if your grandma is lead chef at Big Box Corporate Cookie Manufacturing Co., then my analogy fails. Oh well, I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles! (Oh come on, the joke wasn’t that bad…)
Moving right along: customer reviews and peer testimonials are immensely powerful forces in the purchasing process. Similar to the situation with my acquaintance and I, people will trust another person, even if a complete stranger, more readily than advertising (though advertising does have its place).
Think back to the last time you bought something online. Go ahead, I’ll wait. OK, did you read customer reviews before buying the item? Or did you at least Google it before buying? How much did your research sway your final decision? I’d be willing to bet it factored in quite a bit.
What people say about your brand experience is not easily ignored by others, and should be highly valued (pssst: you need to be paying attention to what your customers are saying, because they’re saying it whether you’re listening or not). It’s up to you to listen, interact or even facilitate the conversation on your own website by offering a rating or comment system for your product.
“But what if a customer posts something negative on my site? Won’t that diminish my product?” Not necessarily. Instead of seeing this as a liability, see it as an opportunity to interact and ultimately provide great customer service. If other users see you reply to a specific concern and address the issue head on (“I know you are, but what am I?” is not a valid response), it only increases your value to the customer and you gain a little bit more of their trust. Conversely, if you ignore the problem or, even worse, censor it, what message will you be sending? I’ll give you a hint: it starts with “B” and ends with “ad”.
The RSA Interactive team recently presented, “Hands on Social Media” during the South Dakota Telecommunications Association’s (SDTA) annual meeting in Deadwood, SD.
Our focus was to demonstrate the use of various social tools and spaces – Google Reader, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and iGoogle – as well as show our audience how to integrate these social spaces and streamline their online efforts for both business and personal use. Though most of the presentation was “hands-on,” here are a few takeaways: …Read more »
Social media is all the rage these days. It is no longer just the interest of your 16 year old daughter or the chronicles of life on a college campus. These past couple of weeks, I have had several people (outside of work) ask me about social media – what it is, how to do it, how it works, etc.
Meet Mr. Social. He’s practical, sensible and sensitive.
From my cousin asking about Twitter or my boyfriend’s mother about Facebook, to random people I meet that gripe about social media being a waste of time, it seems to be everywhere I turn.
But why?
What makes social media so special?
Whether you look at it from a marketing perspective or simply as a way to stay connected to friends, family and the rest of the world, social media is quite practical in our modern, speed-of-the-web society. Here are 14 practical uses for social media.
Definition: Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates (called Tweets) as often as they want (and limited to 140 characters). When you follow other people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see your tweets.
According to the Twitter website, ‘Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?’
Relatively new to the ‘twittersphere’, my first reaction to this question ( just as the video ‘Trouble with Twitters’ comically conveys) was a simple answer: ‘Does anyone care?’…
Previously I wrote about understanding social media, and explained how it is equalizing global communication and interaction, with specific consequences for business. I want to expand on this idea a bit and talk specifically about ‘marketing‘ on the social web.
Social web?
Yeah, that’s my term du jour. I’ve been slap-fighting a little bit with the whole concept of “social media,” and the fact that this commonly-used phrase just doesn’t work as a definition. It’s too broad; misleading, even. “Social web” is broad as well, certainly, but more specific in scope. It’s made up of spaces across the internet where people can interact with one another – we’re all familiar with some of the more popular technologies that facilitate this communication. The point is that conversations are happening here.
What’s that got to do with business and marketing?
Quite a bit, potentially. A business that approaches the social web the right way can benefit greatly, while providing value for their customers or prospects. Vague enough for you? …Read more »
Social media campaigns should have a start and finish. BUT campaigns are only a piece of the social media marketing puzzle.
For several months, I’ve had an issue with people using the term “campaign” when talking about social media marketing. This bothers me because, overall, social media marketing needs to be looked at as ongoing process/strategy and it should not be thought of with a beginning and an end.
Last week, Tracey, Kyle and I attended a presentation by social media strategist Jason Baer.
His talk was lively, entertaining, to the point and right on – breaking down 7 ways to use social media:…Read more »
