“Offer great customer service, because it will make you more money.” — Barry Moltz
Barry Moltz, author of BAM! Bust A Myth! Delivering Customer Service In a Self Service World, began the GrowSmartBiz Conference marketing track by speaking about “How Social Media has Made Customer Service the New Marketing—Deliver or Die.”
What other people say about you, your product, and your services matters more than advertising.
He says businesses reward employees backwards. Sales professionals are paid a lot whereas customer service reps are paid a little. However, he says, things are changing due to social media.
Your customers are listening to you on the web, and so are your competitors.
If you aren’t going to help your customer when they complain on their blog, Twitter feed, or on your company’s Facebook page, then know that your competitor’s may listen and help that customer instead. Barry Moltz cited the experience of one man who was unhappy about his JetBlue flight being late. The man tweeted about it. JetBlue tweeted him back to help. Guess who else tweeted him? Southwest Airlines. They asked if they could help redirect him to another flight.
Listen for mentions of your own brand and also listen for mentions of your competitor’s brands.
Suggestions from Barry include:
Value Your Customer on the Following
- Revenue – cost
- Revenue timing
- Referrals and buzz
- Retention
- Customer’s brand
- Additional products they buy
Put Together a Customer Service Manifesto for Your Company
Your customer service manifesto should go a little something like this:
- We deliver on what we promise.
- If you are dissatisfied, we will listen.
- When things go wrong, you can find us—social media, email, phone. Have you ever tried to contact Amazon?
- We’ll resolve the issue in a reasonable time.
- We’ll admit to making a mistake. (This disarms people since they don’t expect it.)
- We’ll make it easy to stop doing business with us.
- We won’t charge fees or surcharges. (Hello ATM machines?)
- We’ll treat you with respect.
Get more notes from the Steigman Communications blog.
