Customer Service and Twitter
The popular notion stating that if a customer receives poor service, he/she will tell nine other people, has been grossly out of date since the advent of the Internet. In reality, customers can electronically tell millions of people about their experiences. And now, with Twitter, people can tell others about their experiences as they happen.
Think about the power of that ability. In the past there was at least a cool down period between the negative service situation and the opportunity to share the news – and we might’ve just let it go without taking the time to write it up. Now, we can now share the situation while our emotions are still high, and do it in 140 characters or less. It takes mere seconds.
I’ve seen tweets such as; “Can you believe Dr. (insert name) has kept me waiting for two-hours?” “I’m at (insert name of restaurant). The service here stinks.” No blog needed, just a Twitter account and a smartphone. It’s liberating for customers and scary for businesses.
But I believe there’s an opportunity here for businesses to stress the importance of service. What if every customer interaction was conducted with a “Twitter-worthy” mindset? In your next team meeting, ask your employees to think about this question:
“In every customer interaction you have, imagine the customer is going to immediately ‘tweet’ about their experience. What would they communicate instantly to all of their contacts about their interaction with you?”
It isn’t just a hypothetical question – it’s a real issue that is increasing every day.
[...] read a post on Dennis Snow’s site in which he reminds us that social media now allows unhappy customers to tell millions about their [...]
Dennis, you have nailed it. Companies need to know that whatever they do, good and bad, can be exposed to thousands – even millions. And, it goes beyond Twitter, Facebook, etc. I’ve seen disgruntled people create home videos they load up on YouTube. With a little creativity and luck, these videos become viral and are seen by massive numbers of people. Great article/blog!
Shep Hyken, author of “The Cult of the Customer”
This is a nice article and it is true that Twitter is a useful Customer Service tool but sites like MeasuredUp.com are totally focused on Customer Service have a ticketing system that allows companies to respond immediately in a way that they can actually solve a customer problem as well as build their brand reputation and customer service.
It is time to give the power back to the consumer and the internet and sites like Twitter, MeasuredUp.com and others do that but also to do it in a way that consumers and companies to connect and build relationships.