Mastering Story, Community and Influence: How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader by Jay Oatway

Author:Jay Oatway [Oatway, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-03-18T14:00:00+00:00

Great Service is Always a Great Story

The other granddaddy of customer service case studies is that of Larry Eliason’s work at Comcast.4 He started the account @comcastcares. He got out from behind the brand, put his face on the account, and would respond to hundreds of complaints every day.

It became the stuff of legend: so many disgruntled customers, so many of them completely turned around by Eliason’s tweets. It wasn’t just that he responded, but that he responded in real time. The immediacy mattered. Being able to interpret the problem and deliver a personalized response mattered. He provided authentic caring that turned complaints into opportunities.

Those are the same five reasons I gave for why we can’t automate or outsource our social media presence: immediacy, interpretation, personalization, authenticity and opportunity. Combine these with great service and in no time we are building social capital.

Make no mistake, these exchanges are social currency. They are part of our story. They do become part of the master narrative. If done really well they become legendary case studies.

Of course, many brands are emulating this now. And, sadly, we are faced with a wave of early social media adopters who wish to exploit our customer service kindness. These early adopters have discovered that they can threaten to tweet about how they were ‘mistreated’ and get complimentary goods and services to appease them. It’s the equivalent of extortion.

All the more reason you need a large network of true supporters. You need to be able to check out the online influence score of the person who is trying to blackmail you into giving them an upgrade. Can they back up their threats? If not, turn to the community for support. See if those who are your loyal customers think the extortionist deserves better.

Keep as much as you can transparent. But remember that means you have to be squeaky clean. Keep your cool. If you have to deal with someone who is real nasty, and you just want to give them what they want to shut them up. Move the conversation to a private channel. But if you can solve people’s problems the way @comcastcares did, publicly, it makes for a much better story.

Eliason has since moved on from Comcast. His new focus as Citi’s senior vice-president of social media is ‘building a lifetime of trust’ with customers.5 That is where the Socialeaders are setting the bar: lifetime of trust. Now that’s a legendary story in the making.

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