What #Social Business Needs to Look Like in 2014

Author: Shane Paul Neil
Published: January 03, 2014 at 8:04 pm ShareTweet Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending Useful Social Media’s Customer Service Summit in New York City. During the summit companies like UPS, Publix Supermarkets, Zappos and Fedex discussed the the integration of social media into customer service. The key takeaways from the summit impact not only social customer service but the business of social as a whole.  Empower your social staff to be decision makers.I recently had a frustrating experience with the Geek Squad crew at Best Buy. For the sake of brevity I will just say that due to a lack of communication on the part of the Geeks it took me an extra day to replace my dead cell phone. While it was a total first world problem it was a problem none the less, and more importantly it wasn’t my fault. I tweeted about my frustration and received a response from Best Buy.   As a customer there are two things that still frustrate me about this tweet. First, the fact that Best Buy “hopes” things can be taken care of. Second, their hopes seem to rely on what I can do to rectify the situation. All this tweet managed to do was solidify my annoyance. Customer service, even on social, needs to be solution oriented and solutions only come from those empowered to create them. In my case something as simple as a coupon could have gone a long way to helping me get past my frustration. More importantly good customer service on a forum as public as Twitter goes a long way to encouraging others to do business with your company. In this case my roughly 2,600 followers and Best Buy’s nearly half a million. 

This only happens however, if you trust those who speak on behalf of your brand to act on behalf of your brand. The best automation ends in actual human contact. Recently, automated customer service has gone from mildly annoying to downright creepy. Whether it’s a computerized operator who doesn’t know she’s not a real girl or a company that robo tweets about a family tragedy unchecked automation pretty much never ends positively. Automation is great when it makes connecting to a person easy rather than eliminating the person all together. Social media management systems like Sprout Social and Conversocial, when used correctly can be a lynch pin to meaningful s social interaction between companies and their customers, the result being effective communication and a satisfied customer base. How UPS Wins At Social:
  The days of the social media specialist are over.This one is for all the social gurus looking for a job. There was a time when telling a potential employer that you “do” social media meant something.  This was back when social media felt was the Wild West, or at least more so than it does today. Companies were so confused and scared by the social landscape that they hired social media managers like they were rock stars in need of a bodyguard. However over the last decade plus the social landscape has shifted from ominous to ubiquitous with your mother spending more time on “The Facebook” than you do.  Companies that have gone social with their customer service aren’t hiring social media experts and teaching them about customer service. They are hiring customer service professionals and training them in social media (if they need to be trained at all). Whether it’s customer service, sales, or any other core business function smart companies are learning how to integrate social media to achieve their end goals.  Just knowing how to tweet simply isn’t enough. 

    About this article Article Author: Shane Paul Neil

Shane is a native New Yorker having grown up in the Bronx and currently residing in Brooklyn. He has a background in small business having run his own real estate franchise as well as a sports training company for runners, triathletes and cyclists. …

Shane Paul Neil's author page — Author's Blog

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