Referrals are vital to a business. The best advocate for your company will always be a satisfied customer. They are unbiased (usually) and want to genuinely share their experience so it can be utilized by others. Great customer service is fair, honest and extremely helpful/forthcoming with information. Sometimes the best answer can be "I don't know, but I'll ask my supervisor." instead of an off the cuff (and often wrong) answer. Small changes/tweaks in customer service behavior can have a massive impact on your business. So wondering why I'm writing about customer service instead of marketing right now? I want to illustrate the difference between companies on Twitter and companies off of Twitter.
Twitter is the ultimate brand manager/customer service machine. You can have unsolicited (and often unfiltered) opinions of your company/brand freely flowing through out the space. Those companies that monitor the feeds and respond in a timely manner (or add value to those interacting with them) are going to have a major leg up over their competitors. You can address criticism, answer questions and be a brand ambassador merely by talking with people in the space. Why wouldn't you be doing this? Seems incredibly obvious to do so, right? Wrong...some people simply refuse to rethink some of their customer service strategies.
Take for example Verizon. This Saturday, my girlfriend had her phone battery stop working. She took the phone to a Verizon store and found out that her phone was no longer covered under warranty. She would have to shell out $40 in order to use her phone again. The kicker was that she was not eligible to upgrade her phone either. Apparently, there is a six-month gap between her warranty and upgrade eligibility. I thought this practice was unfair and hamstrung by the unwillingness of store employee to cut us a break. Most companies do NOT charge you for a dead battery (regardless of warranty) and you are able to upgrade your phone within 1 year (contract dependent obviously).
So I did what every savvy internet marketing person would do: I tweeted about it. Could I please speak with a Verizon person on Twitter? I tweeted on Saturday Morning...thus far I have yet to hear anything. Clearly, Verizon is not in that space yet. This definitely soured my feelings about Verizon. If they don't care enough to be on Twitter...where else are they cutting corners?
As a contrasting example I would like to use VistaPrint. I tweeted this morning about which company would be the best to order business cards from. I'm in the market for a new job...so this is essential for networking events. I instantly got about 6-8 responses (w/ VistaPrint and Moo.com leading those recommended). I checked out each company and liked VistaPrint's customizing/uploading options more so I decided to go with them. So I tweeted back to my followers, "Using VistaPrint, thanks for all the help!" After, I spent about 15-20 minutes setting up and ordering my business cards, I was greeted with an @ from VistaPrint: @Stuartcfoster If you are using VistaPrint, please visit www.vistaprint.com/twitter for a 25% discount.
It's that simple folks. VistaPrint reached out to me and offered me 25% off. I didn't have to do anything or ask for a discount. They just gave one to me. That is how you operate a customer service and branding campaign. VistaPrint was so good with their customer service that they inspired me to write about them (I was originally going to write about Zappos today...but I'll save that for another time).
People haven't changed their basic desires/ideals about what good customer service is over the past 20 years. The only difference is that our expectations have been lowered. If someone is good to us on the phone, internet or Twitter...we get ecstatic. We tell our friends and recommend that we use their service. Customer service has become that much of a rare and valuable commodity. So...Verizon, get on Twitter. It would save your customers (and yourself) a lot of hassle.
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tagged as Customer Service, referrals, twitter, verizon, vistaprint
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I just got a battery from Amazon (some 3rd party seller) for under $6 shipped for my gf's (Verizon) LG Chocolate. She's happy as hell and it was way cheaper and easier than dealing with VZ.
Haha, I definitely wish we had thought of that. She kind of needed one asap though…$6 beats $40 bucks any day of the week though.
This is a perfect example – although Verizon probably doesn't care much and VistaPrint does. I've been predicting that more and more people will get recommendations from their Social Networks and you've proven that at least some of us know that is a good idea.
If Twitter and the other Social Networking sites would get their acts together and use data mining to display niche information in an easy to find way you could have clicked through to what others have shared about online printers, read their reviews, checked to see who was online and asked if they were still happy and had even more information.
For more complex purchases you could easily find a subject matter expert to ask questions – or the latest coupon or special offer from the company you decided to use. I've made several posts hoping the Social Networking sites would finally get a clue and do just this. If you're interested you can find them by searching for monetization in my blog.
This is a perfect example – although Verizon probably doesn't care much and VistaPrint does. I've been predicting that more and more people will get recommendations from their Social Networks and you've proven that at least some of us know that is a good idea.
If Twitter and the other Social Networking sites would get their acts together and use data mining to display niche information in an easy to find way you could have clicked through to what others have shared about online printers, read their reviews, checked to see who was online and asked if they were still happy and had even more information.
For more complex purchases you could easily find a subject matter expert to ask questions – or the latest coupon or special offer from the company you decided to use. I've made several posts hoping the Social Networking sites would finally get a clue and do just this. If you're interested you can find them by searching for monetization in my blog.
This is a perfect example – although Verizon probably doesn't care much and VistaPrint does. I've been predicting that more and more people will get recommendations from their Social Networks and you've proven that at least some of us know that is a good idea.
If Twitter and the other Social Networking sites would get their acts together and use data mining to display niche information in an easy to find way you could have clicked through to what others have shared about online printers, read their reviews, checked to see who was online and asked if they were still happy and had even more information.
For more complex purchases you could easily find a subject matter expert to ask questions – or the latest coupon or special offer from the company you decided to use. I've made several posts hoping the Social Networking sites would finally get a clue and do just this. If you're interested you can find them by searching for monetization in my blog.
This is a perfect example – although Verizon probably doesn't care much and VistaPrint does. I've been predicting that more and more people will get recommendations from their Social Networks and you've proven that at least some of us know that is a good idea.
If Twitter and the other Social Networking sites would get their acts together and use data mining to display niche information in an easy to find way you could have clicked through to what others have shared about online printers, read their reviews, checked to see who was online and asked if they were still happy and had even more information.
For more complex purchases you could easily find a subject matter expert to ask questions – or the latest coupon or special offer from the company you decided to use. I've made several posts hoping the Social Networking sites would finally get a clue and do just this. If you're interested you can find them by searching for monetization in my blog.
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