Five brands nailing multichannel customer service

Multichannel customer service is a must in 2016. Who’s doing it best?

If digital has disrupted the marketing industry, that’s nothing compared to how much its complicated customer service. There are now many more ways for brands to reach consumers, but the reverse is true as well. And whichever method they choose, they expect it to be seamless.

According to the 2015 U.S. State of Multichannel Customer Service Report from Microsoft and Parature, today’s consumers regularly use four different channels when interacting with a brand. Of the 1,000 people surveyed, 92 percent expect brands to have self-service customer support pages and even more factor customer service into their brand loyalty.

Cross-channel customer service has never been more important. Which brands are nailing it? Here are five examples.

1. Amazon

A few weeks back, I contacted Amazon after failing to receive a package. Full disclosure: the whole thing was totally my fault; it was my first order after moving and I forgot to update my address. Still, the situation couldn’t have been easier to resolve. On Amazon’s customer service page, you enter your phone number. Less than a minute later, someone calls it. Problem solved.

User experience is a facet of customer service and Amazon’s is designed to make life as easy as possible for shoppers, right down to the “Buy it Again” buttons on your previous orders.

2. Lyft

Lyft is extremely user-friendly from the first second. As soon as you open the app, you see the different car options with both corresponding times and explanations of what they are. Making an inevitable comparison, I can’t be the only one mystified by terms such as uberT, uberXL and UberRUSH, right?

Lyft goes multichannel by having a driver call you to confirm his or her location, as well as yours. Given how most ride-share users tend to be concentrated in big cities, it’s a nice touch that eliminates a lot of potential confusion.

3. Nordstrom

In the retail world, Nordstrom is well-regarded for its customer service. Looking at the brand’s Twitter feed, it’s easy to see why. All tweets, whether positive or negative, seem to get prompt responses in the kind of conversational language that really makes you think they were written by an actual human.

Rather than simply say the item wasn’t available, Nordstrom volunteers a similar item, taking the onus off the user to find a replacement themselves.

Going beyond social, the retailer’s website also has a Live Chat features with several options, depending on what you need to discuss.

4. Southwest Airlines

Delta sends emails reminding you to check in, but only seems to respond to the positive comments on social. Virgin doesn’t send those reminder emails, though it does call to check on you if you’re late for boarding (Sorry, everyone on my flight to Las Vegas!) But of all the airlines, Southwest’s customer service is the most well-rounded.

The airline’s Twitter feed is almost entirely comprised of tweets to consumers – there have been four new ones since I started writing this section – and it reminds you to check in and it emails you to let you know of changes to your flight. According to J.D. Power’s 2015 North American Airline Satisfaction study, the average airline scored 717 out of a possible 1,000 points; Southwest’s score was 781.

5. L.L. Bean

Between August and October, StellaService administered a survey and found that L.L. Bean has the best customer service of any brand (from this list, Nordstrom and Amazon-owned Zappos also placed in the top 25). In addition to a very responsive social team, the Maine retailer has a very involved website.

Like Nordstrom, there’s a chat option and like Amazon, you can enter your phone number to have someone call you. But L.L. Bean minimizes your need for either of those services with its detailed FAQ page, a one-stop shop for everything from order tracking to a sizing chart based on measurements.

Source

Read More

How to Gather Fan Feedback on Social Media

When was the last time you phoned up a company to leave them feedback, or even just sent them an email? Can’t remember?1

Well, you’re not alone. Customers today are turning towards social media instead to let companies know exactly what they thought of their experience. According to a recent study carried out by Conversocial, 43% of customers expect social channels to be integrated with other customer service channels.

That means for online businesses today, it has never been more important to pay attention to what customers say on social media2 and to acknowledge their feedback. (highlight to tweet) Here’s how your business can gather that feedback using social media, and how you can use it to boost productivity, customer loyalty, and even sales.

Get Customer Feedback on Social Media

Before we dive into exactly how your business can gather customer feedback on social media, it’s important to understand why. One of the main reasons your business can benefit from gathering feedback using social media is because, quite simply, your customers are already talking about you.

As an online business, it’s your responsibility to ensure you find out exactly where these conversations are happening, so you can join in to either provide support or praise your most loyal fans. But not all of your customers will tweet or even message your brand directly when an issue arises.

This is why your business must develop a listening strategy to find out exactly the type of feedback your customers are leaving online and what they are saying when mentioning your company, so you can take the appropriate action.

Here are six ways your business can create an effective social media listening strategy in order to gather customer feedback.

1. Update Your Status

While this may sound obvious, posing a question to fans via a status update is one of the easiest and quickest ways your business can gather instant feedback on social media. Your fans are already following your business online, as they trust you and feel as if they are getting value from the content you post and share.

By asking them questions directly on social media, your business will be able to gather instant feedback from your community and discover exactly what they thought about your product, service, or even an event. Here’s how the casino Mohegan Sun used this approach to find out what fans thought about one of its recent events:

2. Create Feedback Forms and Surveys

Not all fans following your company on social media will be open to leaving public and detailed feedback via comments or replies. Some prefer to keep their opinions either low key or completely anonymous. That’s why creating a survey is your perfect solution for gathering customer feedback without spotlighting any customers in the process.

There are many free websites out there to choose from, but one of the easiest isSurvey Monkey, which offers a free version to get you started. Once you have created the survey, you can then share the unique link in any of these possible spots:

• Via a status update
• In the bio section on your social profiles
• In your responses to customers, along with a request for direct feedback

3. Monitor Comments

Your business does not always have to approach customers directly when asking for feedback. Sometimes your best resource to find out what your customers are saying about you is to simply monitor their engagement on your social channels. This means keeping an eye on three core factors when scanning your comments:

• Customer sentiment (Was their response positive, negative, or neutral?)
• Tone of voice (How have they portrayed their thoughts or personality?)
• Key issues (Were there any recurring themes that fans kept highlighting?)

Once you have gone over the comments using these three core guidelines, you will begin to notice the key areas in which your business is performing well, as well as areas where it could improve. It’s your job to then check these comments on a daily basis—especially during key campaigns—to gather a better understanding on how your marketing or messaging has been received.

Here’s a great example from the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, who listened to what was being said about LinkedIn by a user, dove in to respond, and alerted his product managers to take action.

4. Utilize Social Media Listening Tools

In a recent study carried out by We Are Social, it’s estimated that close to 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts. For an online business, this can seem pretty daunting when trying to keep up with the never-ending stream of conversations online. That’s why your business needs to utilize social media listening tools to help track the conversations that really matter.

Mention, as its name suggests, allows you to track where your company has been mentioned online. You can choose what items you would like the tool to track, be it a keyword, campaign hashtag, or even your company name. The tool will then alert you when those key terms have been used on social media or via blogs and websites.

This presents your business with the perfect opportunity to view exactly what others are saying about your business, and more importantly, to join in on the conversation. You can then monitor this feedback and respond to urgent matters without having to spent needless hours searching online. The free version of the tool offers 250 mentions a month, with paid plans offering additional features.

Another tool is Hootsuite, which allows your company to track key words, hashtags, and mentions. It also has the added benefit of being able to respond in real time and schedule content directly within the tool itself.

Sprout Social also provides powerful social listening, presented in a single feed. Its sleek dashboard offers content scheduling, keyword monitoring for Twitter, free reports for all account tiers, workflow management features, and even a “Discovery” feature that provides follow/unfollow suggestions.

These tools are perfect for ensuring your business provides great customer serviceas well as enabling you to keep up with customers who mention your company online. Remember: Make sure you continuously update the keywords you are searching for in line with recent campaigns or launches. Not all customers will include your brand name in their updates, so having keywords helps identify any missed conversations.

5. Use Social Analytics

Using analytics on social media is another great way for your business to get feedback on your fans’ key patterns of behavior. All social networks have this analytics feature built in, allowing your business to get a snapshot of its performance and deeper insights into what type of customer engages. Key metrics to track include:

• Engagement: How many interactions do your posts receive? What kinds of content do your fans engage with most frequently?
• Exposure: How many people are talking about your business? How many are reaching out directly?
• Influence: Where is your brand being talked about, and by whom? How can you capitalize on that influence?

By analyzing this data on a regular basis, your business can determine the top pieces of content your community engages with, as well as what topics and discussions spark the most conversation.

It’s important you review your social analytics on a weekly basis, at minimum, to help determine any key patterns of behavior and adjust what is and what isn’t working. This will ensure that all content and conversations created by your company are in line with customer expectations, and will therefore have a higher impact.

Lastly, when reviewing this data on a weekly basis, you want to keep in mind that no single strategy will work long term. Change the way you create and construct your content on a regular basis to see how this affects engagement and feedback.

6. Engage One-on-One

While it’s important to appreciate your social media community as a whole, you will always find those fans who show that extra passion and commitment towards your business. These are also known as your brand ambassadors—the fans that can’t wait to engage with your content and tell others about what a great job your company does.

It’s important to identify these brand ambassadors in your business because they are the ones who are going to give you the most detailed feedback to help improve your overall customer experience, as you have already built up a high level of trust with them.

Through your social channels, your company can engage with its brand ambassadors by sending a simple Direct Message, or DM. This takes the conversation out of the public domain. It allows you get specific and have a conversation with the fan on what they think about your business and overall experience.

To really help boost loyalty amongst your brand ambassadors, you can choose to reward them for this feedback via discounts, promotions, or even by spotlighting them on your social channels. This level of recognition will show your ambassadors that you value their input.

Here’s how I have used this technique to get direct feedback on a training series I put together:

When gathering feedback from your fans, it’s important to filter through the comments and data. Not all activity and comments from your fans will translate into new changes your business needs to take.

That’s why, when looking at social media insights and comments, you must identify the key trends in both behavior and conversations to help determine what your social media community really wants. Implementing these changes will then ensure your business has created an experience in line with customer demand and behavior.

Source

Read More

Incorporating Social to Build Across Your Organization

To correct the imbalance within the division of labor and increase corporate presence on digital platforms, consider adopting a workflow process built around modern social technology.

I was having lunch in London and talking with a colleague about the real challenge faced by most businesses when adopting social technology, which is the division of labor that exists in most organizations. Ironically, we were in the same place - England - that originated this practice as the Industrial Revolution began. And it was the same place - thank Sir Berners Lee - that has now given rise to the most significant force regarding that division of labor: hyper-connectivity and the social web.

Nearly three-quarters of marketing professionals and executives will claim that his or her firm has a social media policy. However, only 20 percent believe they have the employees with the right skills to pull it off. They'll agree that social channels like Facebook and Twitter in the U.S. and Western Europe have become a preferred channel for customer care - 6 percent of consumers consider call centers a last resort. Yet, the majority of posts directly to brands go unanswered.

Even more striking, the approach to using these digital channels is quite traditional. A specific team owns it - usually marketing for outbound publishing, and customer care for inquiries and replies - with relatively little interaction between the two. There is also little to no involvement from other departments.

This division of labor mirrors the same kind of thinking that defined the organizational structures put in place at the start of the industrial revolution. It's no wonder that organizations typically tap only 40 percent of their actual potential when it comes to resolving issues. Or when asked, more than 70 percent of employees say they feel underutilized.

Given the mismatch, it's no surprise that many of the champions actively pushing for adoption of social technology and processes feel overwhelmed. Social is put in a box, handed to one or two departments, and funded at a few percent of what is spent on advertising and phone banks. I don't see success coming given that approach.

The reality is that what is required is a holistic review of the fundamental business structure. How do employees across departments work together? How do complex customer inquiries get passed to the deep, internal subject matter experts who can respond with a solution instead of, "So, (caller name) what you're saying is (repeat whatever the caller just said)."

What's required are workflow processes built on contemporary social technology -ironically, the kind we all use at home, at work, and on our smartphones. Contemporary social workflows should involve:

• Capturing and sharing events
• Comments
• Indications of relative favorability
• Presentation
• Discussion of options

Additionally - and perhaps most importantly - social workflows should result in a realization of an eventual solution based on collective input from diverse sources.

Here's how the social web works: as consumers, we naturally post questions and observations, seek options, ratings, reviews, and we use that information to make decisions. This isn't rocket science - it's the same way young people "shop socially," and they do it all day long. Yet, when we walk into the office, we expect our own customers to listen to us and accept what we say as the only answer. 

Think instead about how various disciplines within your organization could work together to create amazing customer experiences using social technology. Human Resources and Legal could craft hiring and response policies that enabled your subject matter experts to participate. Customer Care could then incorporate those experts into its workflows, and marketing could learn from the interactions involving those experts. Marketing could then understand what the brand really stands for, as determined by customers. That would change things. Of course, it would also require a different approach to organizational structure in which collaboration and collective thinking was rewarded.

Imagine workflows that included customers directly, engaging with the organization at various levels depending on the nature of the inquiry. Basic customer care can be delivered through peer forums and support agents that also rely on and curate those support forums themselves. Conversations expressing purchase intent could be shared with pre-sales engineers who would then nurture the conversation into an eventual sales lead. Ideas and feature requests could find their way onto the desks of product managers and designers, after being vetted in peer forums and ad hoc research communities. That would accelerate innovation, reduce support costs, enhance loyalty through earlier detection of likely churn, and create a more engaged workforce.

Start now by re-examining your fundamental business objectives. Ask yourself the question, Who in the organization could work with our customers to make these happen? Then connect them.

Source

Read More

How to Offer Great Customer Service With Social Media

Have you experienced complaining via social media? Was it addressed promptly or were you seen-zoned? Honestly, I have and it was an unpleasant experience. I guess, I am one of those people, who were included in HelpScout.net’s statistics, which shows that 78% of customers have bailed out of a transaction due to poor customer service.

If you are a business owner, you can turn this negative into a positive remark. How? By offering great customer service. However, offering it through social media is difficult. First, it’s all online and there’s no personal touch. Second, people are used to talking to a live person.
But nowadays, companies use social media as an absolute channel to gain more customers and solicit customer experiences. Companies use customer insights to better their product and services.

So, if the majority of your customers are in social media, read this write-up to effectively use it for your advantage.

#1 Create a clear social media strategy

One of the major mistakes of startups (or even the old ones) is being overly excited when creating a social media strategy. As a result, the campaign doesn’t flourish. What you need to do is understand social media management to support your objectives and create a win-win relationship with your customers. You have to know where your customers are, so you can properly address them. If most of them are in Facebook, focus on that platform only. Your social media strategy must be relevant, clear, and concise. As I have mentioned, behind a successful business is an effective strategy.

#2 Think before you “speak”

It was Benjamin Franklin who said: “Think twice before you speak, and you will speak more wisely for it.” Apparently, this saying is hard to practice, especially if you get emotional. Although, there is an “edit” or “delete” option, you must think a million times before you post anything on social media. Professionalism must be practiced, as often as possible.

#3 Time is of the essence – Fix complaints, immediately

Following my no.2 option, negative comments are really scary. In fact, customers do remember the bad service more than anything else. However, you can prevent these – by solving their issues, immediately! Customer service is critical, especially, if the client is not happy at all. Action it with care, go an extra mile, and fix it as soon as possible.

If I may suggest, add a personal touch in solving complaints. If you think the conversation would stir up the moment, take it “offline,” send a private message instead or call if necessary. Remember, the faster you solve the complaints, the happier your customers are.

#4 Consider outsourcing your customer service

Depending how big the company is, customer service outsourcing could be a great alternative. Essentially, these companies offer well-trained workers that have impeccable customer service skills. They also follow a strict set of metrics to maintain the high-quality standards of customer service. If you are passionate about customer service, customer service outsourcing is a great investment for you.

#5 Always ask for feedback

Your customers’ feedback is an integral part of your business. This is your determining factor for how significant your product/service is to their needs. Customers give us feedback, like leaving a tip to a server. Feedback is another way for customers to insure promptness.

Customer service handling through social media is challenging. You don’t see the person’s face or reaction. The tone of your message can come across rude when it isn’t your intention at all. That’s why, create a social media plan and listen carefully to your customers.

Bear in mind, offering a great customer service isn’t costly, but an awesome sales opportunity.

Source

Read More