Self-help networks

People are creating their own networks and ecosystems built on social platforms where the sharing of information between trusted ‘friends’ is paramount.

In this new paradigm, customers are helping each other, complaining on third party sites, or simply self-helping through their own research.

Customers are increasingly bypassing the need to engage with a company altogether. In a sense, customer service is moving outwards, it is decentralising into the hands of customers themselves. If you have a problem, who better to ask than someone who has recently had the same experience. Even more so, geography is no longer a boundary. The difference now is that we have the tools to ask the question.

I remember one instance at the beginning of the year when I went onto Tweetdeck and read a tweet from someone who was trying to find out how to take the SIM card out of their iPhone. I sent them a link to a YouTube video showing them how to do it. Unfortunately, the person didn’t have a paperclip, but what was interesting was that this person was on a train, and the train was in the States.

Take the example of making a complaint. This is no longer the exclusive domain of email, letters or the phone.

You can now complain in different ways via video, audio, blogs, in a forum – and on any number of sites over and above a company’s web site – Twitter, AudioBoo, Plebble, YouTube, Facebook.

The rise of third party complaint or feedback sites is further blurring the lines for a company. This blurring has the potential to make companies rethink how they will engage with not only customers, but people.

So, in this new highly fragmented space, companies are now having to proactively and publicly reach out to customers on their terms and in their spaces to find a renewed sense of their legitimacy to provide customer service.

4th Annual Online Customer Engagement Survey (2010)

I was chuffed to be asked by Richard Sedley of cScape to contribute to the 4th Annual Online Customer Engagement Survey (2010). In a brief speech introducing the report, Richard recommended companies follow three things, which are also mentioned in the introduction:

1) quality
2) simplicity
3) customer service

‘These are three key areas that can foster an understanding of value and emotional connection within the customer’ (p4).

The report covers a whole range of topics including mobile, social media, customer service, multichannel, customer engagement and measurement.

Do your own thing, don’t follow ‘best practice’

We’ve all bandied the words ‘best practice’ around at some point like some self-justifying mantra. The mere mention of these two words like some magic spell that immediately protects the success of the project that we are working on. But please don’t follow ‘best practice’.

At a time when social media is giving each of us the possibility to express our individuality, and the tools to voice our differences and opinions, best practice does its best to water everything down into a homogeneous mush of sameness. At a time when the only differentiator is the history of your relationship with your customers, best practice does its best to nullify that, that one brief moment of competitive advantage. Don’t waste it.

Be different, celebrate your difference. Be you.

Make your customer service different. Smile where others frown. See complaints as opportunities to engage, to converse, to pursue something mutually better. Remember each customer and their history, where others might simply treat that ‘moment of truth’ as a production line divided into three minute blocks.

Don’t be indifferent. Be memorable. And leave the best practice to others…

AudioBoo: Do your own thing, don’t follow ‘best practice’

Customer service ‘on the go’

I’ve given a couple of talks recently about how social media is redefining the way in which customer service is being provided. One of the themes I talk about is the increasing ubiquity of devices like the smartphone, typified by the iPhone.

What we are seeing is the rise of customer service ‘on the go’. It is the idea that customer service agents are no longer bounded by having to be in one fixed place for a particular period of time to help customers or indeed people. As long as I have a means of receiving information and imparting it, I can answer questions, possibly resolve complaints whenever and wherever I am.

I remember one instance at the beginning of the year when I went onto Tweetdeck and read a tweet from someone who was trying to find out how to take the SIM card out of their iPhone. I sent them a link to a YouTube video showing them how to do it. Unfortunately, the person didn’t have a paperclip, but what was interesting was that this person was on a train, and the train was in the States. I live in a smallish town about 35 miles south west of London.

The above example, together with the fact that I can and have helped people for the 50 minutes I am on a train on my way home from work with just an iPhone loaded up with Tweetdeck or another Twitter client illustrates how the rules of engagement are changing. We are still at the outset of this journey, but it is prescient of what may come.

Let’s for a minute, extend this even further and forget about the idea of customers. Let’s just think in terms of people. And let’s for a moment, also forget about the idea of customer service agents, and let’s think about them, as people.

Social media platforms, such as Twitter are allowing people to more easily, just help each other. I’ve got a problem, I tweet about it, someone helps me. The traditional paradigm that I go back to the company that I bought the product or service from to help me out is changing.

We all possess tacit knowledge made up of our experiences and expertise that we have built up. We all possess the possibility of helping someone at some point. In the act of simply posing my question or problem to the Twitterverse I am also directly questioning the traditional model of customer service provision.

The idea that anyone, with an iPhone, a Twitter account and the inclination to help at any time is a very real challenge.

I’ve just come across this post by Mark Jaffe on the idea of customer service ‘on the go’ as well – Will mobile phone replace in-store retail salespeople?

 

On the transformation of knowledge…

Knowledge forms a key component of a company’s customer service provision. It is imperative that the knowledge a company provides for its customers and customer service agents is trusted, accurate, uptodate and verified.

And what we are seeing through the advent of social media is the rise of so called ‘knowledge experts’, and the creation of collective knowledge banks for the people by the people. The most well know being Wikipedia.

In parallel with this, we are seeing the increasing commoditisation and mobilisation of knowledge.

Knowledge is being bundled up into discrete highly portable packages. Any one who tweets, in a way is packaging up knowledge into these highly mobile 140 character parcels, placing that knowledge in the clouds on the understanding that we must simply let it go, for it then to take on another journey, perhaps as a retweet, at the hands of friends and followers.

Knowledge is more participatory, collaborative, convenient, transitory than ever before.

And although it has the potential to take on a life of its own, the fact that we participate in its generation, is good enough for it to be trusted. We are part of its creation, therefore we are part of its trust creation as well.

For a company, what are the implications of this. Not only is knowledge decentralising, but a company is increasingly no longer even the keeper of its own knowledge. Is it that Twitter or YouTube are becoming de facto knowledge bases? Think about all those companies with YouTube channels. Is this not simply the beginnings of a video knowledge base?

A search on YouTube for ‘change iPhone SIM card’ returns ‘about 914’ videos, a similar search on eHow returns 1,430 possible solutions. On one YouTube video it has been viewed 675,000 times. Proof that knowledge has the capacity to be viral.

What will it mean to the definition of trusted knowledge when companies run competitions to produce the best ‘how to…’ videos on YouTube?

Is this the ultimate outsourcing of knowledge, the ultimate sense of trust in our customers, in people?

AudioBoo: On the transformation of knowledge…

Ask and ye shall receive: live search with real people

I was thinking the other day what if you put Twitter or a Twitter-like application on top of something like Google. Not only would you get access to historical search results, but you would also be tapping into a ‘live’ knowledge base. A knowledge base that is truly up-to-date, a shared knowledge base, created simply out of the tacit knowledge that we all possess. We enter in our skills, expertise, experience and any and all questions pertaining to our criteria is sent to us, waiting for a response. Or we simply conduct searches for questions to answer. The system becomes the knowledge base itself. A single repository of knowledge that is constantly updated, constantly maintained, organic, growing, alive. The system through its users would check itself. The system would essentially unite all of us in a collective knowledge bank. Just a thought.

Customer service is like fireworks

I was thinking a moment ago that customer service was a bit like fireworks. They’re both situations driven by expectation.

You know from past experience what you are going to get, but you still go into it reserving a little bit of hope that you are going to see or experience something different, something that will surprise you, make you go ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that’. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. It might simply be a ‘How dreadful for you, let’s see what we can do to sort it out’ or something more than just Catherine wheels and sparklers.

What strikes me is that more often than not it doesn’t actually take very much for me to go ‘Wow, I didn’t expect that’. And yet more often than not, I walk away going ‘Ho hum, that’s what I expected’.

Perhaps companies try too hard to deliver the grand gestures, rather than focussing on the small, almost incidental moments. But theses small gestures (see David Armano ‘Micro Interactions‘, slide 28) are usually the ones that we remember the most. What small gesture can you make today, that might make a difference to someone?

AudioBoo: Customer service is like fireworks

Social media customer service: What if I do nothing?

I often see this question posed by companies who are looking at social media customer service and are undecided whether they should get involved in it. My response is simply this: that’s exactly what you are doing now – nothing. So, how is it affecting you?

• Have your customers stopped asking you questions because you are doing nothing?
• Are your customers complaining more because of it? Less? The same?
• What is it you feel you are missing out on by not being there?

For me, it’s more about trying to understand whether social media is relevant to the way in which you engage with your customers. Will it add anything into the equation – for you or for them?

At the end of the day, social media is simply another channel. You should apply the same criteria to it as you would to evaluating any other channel. The use of social media within the customer services paradigm isn’t exclusive. It’s not about using social media platforms such as Twitter, whilst ignoring email or the phone. It’s  about trying to understand where Twitter fits in (if at all). And if it does fit in, where can I best use it to engage with my customers. What can it do and what can’t it do. For example, Twitter is great for acknowledging and establishing contact with a customer in need, but to resolve an issue email or phone is probably better suited.

Featured AudioBoo: Social media customer service: What if I do nothing?
(This Boo was ‘featured’ by AudioBoo on 21.11.09)

Webinar: Twitter and customer service

I took part in my first webinar this morning on the use of social media within customer service. I was kindly invited by the Customer Services Network to share some of the experience I’ve gained over the last ten months or so from using Twitter to provide customer service. What was interesting was the medium of the webinar. Having never done one I really didn’t know what to expect. Once I got used to the way submitting a post worked, and how to respond to specific questions, I found that the time passed incredibly quickly. I don’t think I’ve typed so much or thought on my feet so much in such a short space of time. What was also strange were the pauses in the proceedings. When I was typing my responses, it was up to the person chairing the session to fill those gaps. I quickly became aware of the need to submit my responses part way through writing them, rather than trying to wait until I had finished answering fully each question. It was also necessary to keep going back to ensure that I answered any questions that were submitted when I was answering another one. What is also interesting is that you are not in control of the situation. Other people submit questions which you have no idea about, similar to a Q&A session I guess. What’s different, is that people can’t see you response as you type it.

I really enjoyed the experience, but it is very different to presenting or tweeting.

It’s all in the response

A new Twitter aggregator service was unceremoniously brought to my attention recently when a customer tweeted about the poor service they received:

@KarolisP http://bit.ly/308cwg #Carphone-Warehouse #sucks !!

Wow, tell it like it is, why don’t you!

I promptly had a look at the site and there it was for all to see, 21 people all using the hashtag – #Carphone-Warehouse #sucks. Not even people, they’re known as ’supporters’, even worse I thought to myself.

At the top of the page is written: New here? This page is for people who don’t like Carphone Warehouse and want to spread the word. There’s a button on the right hand side proudly announcing the fact that ‘21 people hate Carphone Warehouse’ and you can click through and ’see why’. You can even embed a badge on your site, retweet it, share it on Facebook, ask your friends to support it. It’s a great site with all the functionality you might need to share it. Unless of course you’re on the wrong side of the fence. What to do?

And then I thought to myself. For all the negative comments, it’s actually helping us out in a way. It’s conveniently aggregating all the negative comments about us in one place. Saves us having to look around. We can see who is complaining, get in touch with them, try to sort out whatever problem has arisen and possibly turn them from a detractor into an advocate.

So I tweeted @KarolisP in my usual way: “Hi I wrk for Carphone Warehouse. Looks like we got it wrong 4u – apologies. How can we help? Pls email cpwcares@cpwplc.com”

And @KarolisP responded as follows: “Thanks for taking time to respond. I hope it is sorted now. cheers.”

Companies make mistakes, companies get it wrong. But you have the option before you hit the submit button to respond as a company or as a person. Depending on which hat you choose to put on, can result in very different outcomes. Sometimes you do have to respond as a ‘company’, and sometimes it makes perfect sense to be ‘you’.