• Self-serve knowledge portals from a website: These are administered by companies and are usually part of their overall support system. They typically integrate with the CRM system. You would link to all your social media platforms from here. You may or may not house customer reviews directly on this site.
• Community-based sites: These sites are overseen by companies and have the support of dedicated users who answer questions and provide content. To run these sites, companies use platforms designed by outside vendors (listed later in the “Growing your community” section). Hopefully, you can integrate them with your CRM system.
• External customer review sites: These sites are run by independent companies that aggregate customer reviews and provide a place to vent frustrations and alert other customers to their opinions.
• Voice of the customer platforms: Companies engage platform vendors who help them quantify and effectively capture the voice of the customer, or they create their own. For example, Adobe created an in-house program called the Customer Immersion Program. The purpose of the program is to help their executives experience what Adobe customers experience. They do such things as listen in on customer calls and search for product information on their website. The executives report that this gives them an eye-opening look at customer needs.

• Twitter: This is a great medium for getting real-time support. It allows customers to alert a company that they need immediate help. Their expectation is that the company will respond and, if necessary, send them to the appropriate representative to get that help. Most problems can't be resolved in 140 characters, but you can send the message that help is on the way.
• Facebook: Customer service on Facebook can get chaotic because the News Feed mixes all kinds of messages together in one place. Companies need to monitor their News Feed to cull out the service questions from the other comments. Customers use this method, but almost no brand relies on Facebook for the bulk of their customer service.
• YouTube: Some of the bigger brands pay to host a branded channel on YouTube. These branded channels pay more to be able to add superior graphic branding and features. Others make sure to post their training videos on the site with a link back to their website.
• Mobile messages (SMS): With some systems, companies can send responses to a help ticket directly to mobile devices. This is most useful in the case of emergencies with IT and other problems that affect critical business functions.
• Blogs: If customers aren't sure where to go, they may come to a company blog and leave a comment, but the best type of service a company can provide from their blog is links to all the support information available. They can also establish company experts from this venue.
• Community-based help: Companies establish platforms that support the interaction of interested users. This method is gaining favor as more tools become available.
• E-mail: The media keeps heralding the death of e-mail, saying it's old-fashioned and doesn't provide the kind of engagement other social media channels can offer. But in the customer service realm, e-mail serves an important function. You can e-mail customer service ticket resolutions and other communications directly to users.

  Remember that not every customer is immersed in social media. You need to think about making sure you keep up with them using their preferred engagement method.

• IVR (interactive voice response): This is probably the customer's least-liked method of interaction. It's the one that uses voice-recorded messages like “Press one for customer service.” Tales abound about customers getting into multiple loops that never end. Nevertheless, companies still rely on this as part of their customer service program. The use of this service will probably diminish as social media channels take over. Interactive voice response just isn't personal enough.

• Increasing customer satisfaction. Customers are happier when they have several ways to interact with the company and resolve problems.
• Meeting customer expectations. Customers appreciate the attempt by companies to meet their needs publicly, even if things aren't always resolved.
• Providing intangible benefits. Not all the benefits can be articulated, but customers simply feel more connected to companies that offer social service.
• Increasing loyalty. This most treasured of benefits is conferred upon companies that use social media to provide service.
• Reducing the cost of customer support. This one is music to the ears of any manager. Costs go down when people who take support calls can be available for more complex calls.

• Traffic: Do you find that your traffic from a particular source to your website is increasing? Does that lead to conversions? Can you determine what about that source is generating interest and repeat it?
• Influencers: Are people in your industry reporting about you and commenting on your products? Do these influencers give you opportunities to speak to their constituencies?
• Social media activity: Is your brand mentioned and discussed? Are the comments positive? Does your audience share and retweet your content?

• 81 percent of respondents say that they use social media for customer insights.
• 54 percent say that investing in relationships with consumers is more important to their brands than mass reach.

• Know your business goals before you develop your social customer service tactics. Sounds logical right? But, many companies rush headlong onto social platforms without understanding what their goals are. This is a real waste of resources. For example, if you don't have consistent messaging between Facebook and Twitter, you'll confuse your customers, and they will leave.
• Understand that you can't fake customer relationships. The French novelist Jean Giraudoux is credited with the famous quote, “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.” Joking aside, we all know that one of the hallmarks of social media is authenticity. Now that a customer can tell everyone on Facebook that your customer service is a joke, feigning sincerity is out the window. People know the real thing.
• Your business must constantly monitor the web, because you must be alert to potential problems. Plan to check in on your social platforms much more often than once a week. If you don't assign one or more employees (depending on company size) to constantly monitor your social media accounts, you're penny-wise and pound-foolish. If you're the last to know about some terrible problem with your product or service, it might be too late to save your reputation.
• To provide customers with the content they need, learning where your customers consume information, read reviews, and follow news. This follows the old adage, “fish where the fish are.” You can't expect to change your customers' long-established online habits. If they communicate on Twitter, you aren't going to get them to come to your website's newsroom to read boring press releases.
• To know what your customer wants, your research and communication must be ongoing. It's not a one-time thing. Social media takes time. When you add it as a layer to your CRM, you'll need to take the time to make the data make sense. Don't be frustrated that you don't immediately know how to value it. (But when you're ready, Chapter 14 can help you start analyzing data.)

• To receive an actual response from a company.
• To praise the company for a positive experience.
• To share information about their service experience with more people. To vent frustration about their experience.
• To ask other users how they could have gotten better service. Customers want to pay you more, if you'll just treat them right!

• Level One: Observing

  The customer is simply aware of the company and periodically looks at its messages.

• Level two: Following

  The customer allows you to use her e-mail address or other contact info so that she can learn about your offerings.

• Level three: Endorsing

  At this level, the customer endorses your products and allows you to identify her as an advocate.

• Level four: Contributing

  The customer actively spends time or money to help your organization. For example, she might participate in forums or sponsor events.

• Level five: Owning

  The customer now transforms into someone with a deep commitment to the company who does things like invest or join the board.

• Level six: Leading

  The customer volunteers to lead initiatives to help support the company's major goals.

• Complaints with a clear resolution: Your customer service reps and social media responders encounter problems that need solving. For example, a customer might say that the product must be returned, the fit is wrong, or he ordered a blue one and got a green one. These are the types of issues that support people hope they'll find every time they pick up the phone or respond to an e-mail, chat, or social media comment. The rep is clear on what kind of response is needed to solve the problem and satisfy the customer.
• Complaints without a clear resolution: The second form of complaint is much more difficult to deal with in today's always-on web. Perhaps the customer is irate, writing negative online reviews, and there's no clear problem to solve immediately. But solve you must. A knee-jerk defense could make things worse. For example, we've seen restaurant staff reply to irate customer reviews by writing insulting replies to the customers. This is your worst nightmare. Your reputation could hang in the balance.

• Use the right platform for the type of complaint — fast versus slow. If your product demands quick answers (in an industry such as information technology, for example) integrate a platform like Twitter that allows you to monitor customer concerns in real time. Customers will appreciate that you understand the urgency of their questions.
• Use video or step-by-step documentation in help and support areas on your website. Create quick videos or step-by-step documentation based on your FAQs to help those who learn better using different formats. Seeing the answers in action satisfies customers.
• Be generous with service. I know this one is obvious, but sometimes it's ignored in favor of cost cutting. If anyone questions whether this strategy works, just ask Zappos. (They quickly built a multibillion dollar online shoe company by strictly focusing on customer service.)
• Make sure employees understand that responding to negative comments in kind is forbidden. One customer's negative comments can become a war of words with employees. Shut this one down before it happens. It becomes a food fight and everyone but your company will enjoy the play-by-play. Share a set of clear commenting guidelines with anyone in your company who responds to customers.
• Give enough information online so that customers can make the right buying decision the first time. One easy way to get this done is to assign yourself the task of buying one of your products. On your website, look around, check out the data, look at shipping information, find out how to return an item, and so on. The key is to do it yourself. The further away managers get from the actual shopping experience, the more likely they will be out of touch with the concerns of the customer.

• Quality of fans and followers: This is a key distinction. Sometimes managers use the number of followers as their only measure of how well they're doing. This is half the picture and won't bring the returns you hope for. You may have acquired followers by virtue of one blog post or one offer, and they'll never return again. You want to evaluate how much engagement your followers display. A smaller active list trumps a large cold list.
• Social demographics: Understanding your customer demographics is a must for any business. We add psychographics to this list. Psychographics tell you about customer attitudes and opinions. Knowing who your customer really is ensures that the content you create and the offers you make will hit the mark.
• Most popular pages, posts, and tweets: Examining the response to your content is another must-do. Your content is the foundation for all your revenue-generating efforts. For example, if you see a great response to an article or topic, you may want to consider how to monetize it. By that we mean that if customers are very excited about several articles you've written about a topic, perhaps you want to create an expanded e-book or training course for sale.
• Conversions: This one is everyone's favorite goal. It's the one that keeps the lights on. But conversions don't only refer to purchases. It could be anything that turns an observer of your business into a participant.

• Amazon: This site (www.amazon.com) does something that's the envy of most other online retailers. They make buying simple. The user is one click away from purchasing any product. Instead of offering myriad support options after you purchase something, they make buying (or returning) so easy that customers are constantly delighted. Another really effective service is Amazon Prime. It allows you to get reduced pricing on shipping, among its many other features. Of course, one of the reasons that customers like Amazon is that you can buy so many different products from one place.
• Apple: No one is surprised when Apple makes the list of best in customer service. If you look at their support portal (www.apple.com/support), as shown in Figure 10-2, you see that they have a substantial self-serve area that includes video tutorials, manuals, tech specs, downloads, and online communities. Their stores have a Genius Bar, and they offer support through AppleCare and other sources. The thing that makes Apple support stand out is that they prize their service to customers. Stories about how Apple store personnel have gone the extra mile to support customers can be found on many review sites.

Apple Stores (Apple's bricks-and-mortar retail outlets) take advantage of something that researchers have uncovered about shopping: If you hold a product in your hand, you are more likely to buy it than if you just look at it. There's a method to their madness at Apple.

• Nordstrom: This retailer set out to provide the best possible customer service available, in stores and online at http://shop.nordstrom.com, and they succeeded. Their service is legendary. They knew that if they wanted to compete with other upscale retailers, they would have to distinguish themselves. Employees are trained that nothing trumps customer service.

  Also, they're always trying to upgrade their service. They recently gave handheld units to their sales associates so that they could check company-wide inventory while assisting customers. This ensures that if they have the merchandise in any store, they can sell it to customers without delay.

• Publix Super Markets: Publix (in stores and at www.publix.com) takes a different approach when it comes to providing customer service: They say they focus on treating their employees so generously that those employees are then motivated to provide excellent customer service. They also pride themselves on good prices. Apparently, customers agree.
• Trader Joe's: This company (online at http://traderjoes.com) does two specific things that stand out. The first is that it has an engaging theme, calling shopping at Trader Joe's an “adventure.” In order to differentiate themselves from the competition, they stock unusual items and provide enthusiastic service. In addition, like Publix, they claim that their employee benefits are superior. These benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage for all employees (full time and part time), retirement plans, and an employee discount on all purchases.

• Information shared by all your Google+ followers
• Information about the searches you do
• Your search history

• External networks: Leverage the relationships of fans that connect to you from their social platforms or social bookmarking sites. They might tweet a blog post of yours or put it on Digg, a social bookmarking site. This will help you find connections that your company might never make on its own.
• External networks: Use an API like Facebook Connect that lets you link your company's application with your customer's Facebook network. This means that users can log in to the application using their Facebook account. Since you're tying your application to a habit your customer already has (logging into Facebook), you're making it more likely they will use the application.
• External networks: Leverage your employees' networks outside the company — to their relationships on social platforms. If employees participate in the company's social outreach, they can help the company reach new people.
• Internal networks: Leverage your employee's relationships within your company to effect better employee performance and leadership roles. It's important to remember that employees have relationships with people in different departments. When the company makes it easy for those employees to communicate, they help foster collaboration.

• Bank of America's interest rate scandal: In 2011, Bank of America decided to double the interest rate on Ann Minch's loan. Not willing to pay such an outrageous increase, Minch unleashed a self-proclaimed “Debtors Revolt” on YouTube. As a result of the furor caused by her video, she was asked to make an appearance on a network TV news show. The PR was awful, and Bank of America relented, but not without a lot of bad press and a tidal wave of consumer protests. To date, the video has been viewed over half a million times.
• Too fat to fly: In 2010, Southwest Airlines told movie maker Kevin Smith that he was “too fat to fly,” as he humorously depicts in Figure 10-5. Airline staff insisted he exit the plane in which he was seated, citing safety concerns and a Customer of Size policy. He had originally purchased two seats, but got on an earlier flight that had only one remaining seat.

  Smith wasn't going to take that sitting down. Unfortunately for Southwest, Smith is also a comedian with a huge Twitter following. After several nasty and funny tweets went viral, the airlines issued several apologies and offered Smith a $100 voucher.

  As you may expect, the offer was met with much derision and more funny tweets. All the major media outlets picked up this story of bad customer service, and Southwest ended up looking like a bully. Their handling of the situation clearly showed that they weren't ready for a social media onslaught. Some thought about handling this type of fiasco was in order.

• The Consumerist: The tagline of this site (www.consumerist.com) is “Shoppers bite back.” Its staff has an irreverent attitude and presents columns like “Customer Disservice” and “What in the What Now.” This site, affiliated with the publisher of Consumer Reports, accepts tips from consumers about bad service or products. Staffers research stories and provide information that they believe will empower consumers. The site doesn't accept advertising.
• PlanetFeedback: This site (www.planetfeedback.com), shown in Figure 10-6, enables consumers to post letters addressed to the companies with which they have customer service issues. The letters are published online, and everyone can add a comment. (See Chapter 9 for information about two other customer review sites — Yelp and Epinion.)

• Social Mention: You start by putting a search term in the search box at www.socialmention.com. The search engine then returns mentions of the term on Twitter, StumbleUpon, and more than 100 other social media sites.

  What's useful about this search engine is that not only does it return the search results, it also provides these content measures:

  • Strength: The probability that your topic will be mentioned
  • Sentiment: Positive versus negative results
  • Passion: The probability that the respondents will repeatedly mention you
• Addict-o-matic: Promises the “latest buzz on any topic,” as shown in Figure 10-7, at http://addictomatic.com. Their searches cover blogs, articles, and social platforms, including YouTube. The key benefit of this site is the Bookmark tool, which allows you to save your searches and come back to them.

• Google Alerts: This tool (at www.google.com/alerts) allows you to set up automated keyword searches that alert you when content has been updated. They are very easy to set up, and you can have a multitude of them. You can put in your company name, names of industry influentials, or any other searches you do on a daily basis. Google searches its database and returns the results to you via e-mail or in Google Reader.

• Radian6: This tool is popular among enterprise users and is now owned by Salesforce.com. It's easy to scale, has a solid dashboard that shows you conversations across the web, and offers a unique feature that allows you to tag workflow. You can find more info at www.radian6.com.
• Trackur: This is an affordable tool (you can choose from several tiers) that allows you to track your brand mentions on the web. What's different about this tool is that in addition to returning search results, Trackur makes it easy for you to see who influences your brand. Find out more at www.trackur.com.
• Sprout Social: With this web application (available at http://sproutsocial.com), your company can customize its social media monitoring and create good-looking reports from the results. You can analyze your influencers and compare yourself to your competitors.
• Wildfire's Social Media Monitor: More of a comparison site (http://monitor.wildfireapp.com) than a tracking site, but it's very useful. You can compare Twitter feeds or Facebook pages on the fly. For example, you can compare your company to your competitors — based on Twitter or Facebook accounts — or check out the leader boards to see how the big companies compare.

• Members share a passion for the topic. A cohesive group can be formed only if people truly care about the topic and want to share that information with others. We've all visited forums where no one but the forum owner has posted anything. For a group to thrive, the members really need to care. This creates a commonality of purpose and sharing becomes automatic.
• The content includes both user-generated content and professionally produced information. The content should be of the highest quality. Companies should considering outsourcing material from experts who can add value. In addition, the community should feature user contributions.
• Access to member profiles is available. Members join communities to find connections and learn more about the topic. If you facilitate that by helping them share information about themselves, you'll help fulfill their need to find like-minded people.
• Navigation is easy. We use the term navigation here to refer to things like finding information or meeting a new member. If it's hard to move around your site and find what you came for, you will discourage people from returning.

• Software platform: Search for an easy-to-use software platform that provides your members with easy access to all the functions they need. Don't try to cobble something together. Part V introduces several platforms and helps you start your search.
• Rewards: Most people who come to these communities and share are there for the intrinsic value it provides. Rewarding them is icing on the cake, but doing so lets everyone know that your company values its most active customers. Creating something like a leader board that shows who is most active can be very inspiring.
• Member interaction: Make it easy for members to meet each other online and share information. This will strengthen the bond among community members and your company. This is a huge benefit because you're on your way to creating customer evangelists.
• Knowledge base: Devoting some money to building up the knowledge collected in this forum will help cut support costs. You can see what problems users experience when using your products and turn the knowledge base entries into the precise information they need. Real-time problems that crop up can be swiftly handled.

• Ease of navigation: Customers see a complete listing of the help you offer: FAQs, catalogs, product descriptions, specs, and so on.
• Shared information: Customers see what other customers are saying and doing in regard to your products.
• Access to status of reported issues: They can review their support tickets 24/7.

• Access to customers' real thoughts: Customers provide feedback, so you can see how effective each part of your site is.
• Visibility of current promotions: You can make sure customers see specific documents or promotions.
• Cost cutting: You cut down on costly tech support calls to a live operator.
• Increased call center staff productivity: Self-service increases the productivity of your call center staff. They can focus on higher-priority calls.
• The latest info on customer trends: Reports from your social CRM provide key information about what topics are hot.
• Less work for staff: Self-serve portals provide assistance without requiring costly phone support.

• Set expectations for everyone, communicating what's possible and what's not. Employees may have different ideas about the use of self-serve portals. Some see it as a big opportunity; others see it as a waste of time. When you begin, make sure that each employee knows all the benefits and cost-saving value your company will accrue.
• Evaluate staff responsibilities. Make sure you understand which employees will be impacted and who will have direct responsibility. You need to get buy-in from all involved, from top management to staffers.
• Evaluate resources and costs. Know what you need to spend to get the portal that meets your needs. Establish a budget and be realistic about costs.
• Think about scalability. One of the main reasons why some tech projects go wrong is that growth isn't considered. Right now, you may need a small portal, but consider how you will support it if your company grows in size, adds products, and has to serve more customers.
• Set a timeline. Many IT projects start with an unrealistic timeline. The dates are either driven by management expectations or a lack of understanding about complexity. Be realistic. Wishing won't make it so.
• Make sure you identify the data and metrics you want to use. We look at examples of metrics earlier in the “Starting to serve your social customer” section. You determine success metrics for your self-serve portal ahead of time.
• Make sure everyone knows about launch plans and follow-through. There's nothing worse than hearing a support person say, “They never tell us what's happening.” We've all experienced that. It makes us feel helpless and resentful that our time is being wasted. Make sure everyone knows when things launch and how to use the information to assist customers.

• Internal knowledge base (may also be a wiki): Companies have a wealth of information stored in the heads of their employees. They also have product information, manuals, documents, and a host of disparate information that gets lost in the clutter. In order to optimize the use of this content, companies create wikis that employees can use to input and search for important data. Examples of this include information about specific ongoing projects or company policies. Companies most often use a wiki for this type of database because it gives them the ability to extract important knowledge from employees.
• External knowledge base (may also be a wiki): These kinds of wikis are accessed by customers, product advocates, and departments to provide essential information for their customers. An external knowledge base can be part of a self-serve portal or a community-based site, or it can stand alone. Examples of the information collected here include product information, FAQs, help information, and manuals.

• MindTouch: One of the most well-known wiki vendors. Their products are cloud-based, enterprise contact management systems. You can find out more about MindTouch at www.mindtouch.com as shown in Figure 10-10.
• Microsoft Office 365: This is one of the big boys associated with knowledge-management systems. They are cloud-based and can be set up in Sharepoint. Find more info at www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365.
• MediaWiki: This one is free and open source. Check out www.mediawiki.org/wiki/mediawiki for more details.

• Comcast: We mention Comcast in our opening paragraph for this chapter. The 2006 YouTube video of the service rep falling asleep on his customer's couch while on hold with the service department is classic. You can watch it here http://bit.ly/VlqSYM.

  Needless to say, Comcast was humiliated. The press had a field day. Comcast was at a crossroads. They either had to improve their customer service or watch their company take a slide in revenue. The stakes were high. Comcast publicly committed itself to improving. So to paraphrase the constant refrain of former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, “How are they doing?”

  The American Customer Satisfaction Index in 2011 shows that Comcast continues to rise and is beating several of the competitors. Customers have actually praised their service. They had to put in several years of hard work to turn it around.

  They invested a reported two billion dollars in the last few years to overcome their abysmal record. They did such things as

  • Outfit their field staff with handheld devices for better communication.
  • Set up a portal for internal troubleshooting.
  • Establish listening posts on social media, like this one on Twitter https://twitter.com/comcastcares.
• Dell Computers: Another case in point is Dell Computers. Dell's reputation was on a downslide. Proof came in the form of a University of Michigan study that showed Dell's service was a cause for great concern to its customers. Popular blogger Jeff Jarvis chimed in with a harrowing tale detailing his efforts to get his PC fixed. Social media started picking up on it, and media like Newsweek got interested in the story.

  Just like Comcast, Dell had a decision to make. They could either ignore the reports or confront them head-on. They decided to take action. One of the things they did was create a place on their website to receive customer suggestions. This wasn't an easy choice. It's a very public way to handle criticism. But Dick Hunter, Dell's head of customer service, wanted to show they were serious. When Michael Dell returned to lead the company in 2007, efforts were accelerated.

  So how are they doing today? Customer surveys have shown that Dell really has improved. They are committed to social customer service, and in 2010, they opened their Social Media Listening Command Center. This effort continues to help them improve their service through social channels.