People Talk. You Should Listen

Below is my second article for The Danish Communication Association, this time about social media and customer service. Enjoy!

People are talking. You must be there to listen.

Social media has pushed customer service from being something that used to involve a two-hour phone call at your expense, to something that is an intrinsic part of an organisations marketing and communication. 

As I mentioned in my last article, intangibles have become the new currency. Choice and cost are no longer as pivotal in decision making as they once were, and as a result, organisations must now focus on these intangible methods, such as customer loyalty and reputation, in order to stand out from the crowd.

A good reputation is an extremely valuable asset – maybe even more valuable of tangible or physical assets – yet it is also uncontrollable. Reputations are bestowed on us – on organisations – by society in an intrinsic effort of self-preservation, and are built on and destroyed by consumers’ conversations – conversations that are going on every minute of every hour of every day on social media.

Just a phase?

So when I read Social Semantic’s latest report on social media use in Danish businesses I was flabbergasted to find out that just 9% use social media for service and support. If 40% believe that social media can increase customer loyalty and sales, and if 87% of management believes that social media can be used to create a positive reputation, then what better way to increase loyalty and create a positive reputation than via social media?

Apparently 12% of Danish businesses still see social media as a one-day wonder, and 21% haven’t carried out any kind of social media search for their own organisation as they don’t deem it to be important. Words can not express my incredulity at these figures. In the 1990s, interactive marketing and design agency Razorfish started with the simple premise of everything that can be digital, will be. Today, this has changed to everything that can be social, will be. It’s really very hard to overemphasize this statement. With 2.6 million Danes on Facebook (according to the report), and about 28,000 Danes on Twitter, all of whom are talking about brands and organisations, making and breaking reputations, it’s nigh on impossible to understand the opinions of those 12 and 21 percent.

Fullrate break the mould

Earlier this year, I had an experience with what I considered to be outstanding customer service from a Danish company, Fullrate. My internet connection kept cutting out, and one evening I tweeted, ‘Getting really sick and tired of #Fullrate. Massive complaint email coming soon.’ The next day, I received this email;

Once over my shock, I answered, and within hours the problem was solved (faulty router, new one on the way). I posted a screen dump of the email on Facebook, where it was picked up by a journalist, and before you can say customer service, Fullrate were being accused of breaching my privacy and being ‘big-brothery’. My Twitter profile is set to public precisely because (amongst other reasons), I hope that brands and organisations will be carrying out searches and will hear me. While others might have been put off by receiving such an unsolicited email, I was positively overwhelmed. My email address can easily be found online, and how different is it to a letter in my letterbox?

Berlingske, B.T, Klean, and of course Fullrate were among those which covered the story (with varying levels of sensationalism), and I’m happy to say that Fullrate emerged unscathed – and with a new loyal customer. B.T’s headline of ‘Beware of companies monitoring your moaning on Facebook’ (link is the same as the other BT one so wasn’t sure if I needed it?) might have been intended to worry people, yet for me – and many, many others – it simply confirmed what I had hoped was true in the first place; that companies were monitoring social media.

A Danish mindset?

What worried me the most about the whole episode was that other Danish businesses might have been put off by the initial reaction, the melodramatic shock and disbelief that organisations are using social media as a research tool. There’s always a first, and as is so often the case, the first tends to be received warily. But what about abroad? The internet is positively packed full of cases;Easyjet on Twitter, Air Asia on Facebook, Twelpforce Best Buy on Twitter, and let’s not forget KLM, Lufthansa and Eyjafjallajokull – Google ‘social media and customer service’ and take a look.

Act now

While 93% expect to invest in social media in the next one to two years, I believe that that is far too long. Invest now. It doesn’t have to cost a penny. I know I speak for many when I say that I hope many more Danish businesses will follow Fullrate’s example and use social media as a channel through which they can deliver efficient and effective customer service. It doesn’t have to be a whole dedicated channel – just use the search functions available. Search in Facebook, check pages, groups, and posts by everyone. There might be blog posts, Tweets, or comments that can give feedback.

 

You don’t even need a profile to search on Twitter – just use the search box.

Overskrift.dk allows search in Danish blogs, Twitter feeds, tags, content etc, providing a wealth of information for any organisation.

 

Google blog search, Social Mention, Addict-o-matic – there are a lot of free tools available for keeping track of what is being said, and there’s a lot being said. It’s not a breach of privacy. If someone hasn’t set their profile to private, then it’s public knowledge.

In short; if something is found; act. Make contact, no matter if it’s a compliment or complaint. Companies have to monitor social media, just as they monitor traditional media. People want to be heard, they want their voice to be acknowledge, and just sitting back and thinking that this social media lark is just a fad is not going to help you.

P.S. Fullrate actually have an advert in the report; 'Social networks demand good relations. For us, social media are a natural part of our customer service, and are essential for the future to make sure we have the happiest broadband customers.' I can vouch for that.

P.P.S. I do not work for Fullrate.

Facebook

I know this probably doesn't make sense, but ever since that thing went around Facebook saying; 

"Have you noticed that you only see updates in your feed from the same group of people and pages recently? Have you also noticed that when you post things like photos, status updates and links, then it's the same group of people that comments and likes your updates every time, while everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Relax, they still love you, and no one has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large percentage of your friends can not see anything you post on Facebook! Here's why:

The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa - you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!

HERE'S THE FIX: Click the little blue arrow right of "Latest news" in your newsfeed, or scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed on the homepage and click on "Edit Options", click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages".

my News Feed is totally messed up. I didn't have to change anything as I had it set to 'all', but since this started popping up all over my feed, I don't get as much news as I used to. It's as if everything just slowed down. A lot. 

Am I the only one?

Fullrate; the Aftermath

Well who would have though 140 characters could have lead to such a flurry of tweets, articles, blog posts, and comments? Not I, that's for sure. Now that I have emerged - dignity intact - on the other side, I thought I might as well write a quick follow-up post (if you're wondering what I'm on about, read my last post 'Fullrate & Big Brother').

Not that there's that much to say in regards to the actual issue. I mean, most of the articles ultimately said the same thing. Some failed to mention that I was happy about this whole exchange, which was a little annoying, but most took this in to consideration. It's been interesting hearing all the varying views on the subject. All of which (bar one little very angry troll) all agree that Fullrate in no way violated my privacy, and that they had demonstrated good customer service. 

In hindsight, I do think that a more suitable way of contacting me would have been through Twitter (why-oh-why do they not have an active profile yet!) but as luck would have it; I don't care about the email. I wouldn't want every brand/company I tweet about emailing me of course, which is why a Tweet, or even a DM ('direct message' via Twitter) would have been better, and is of course, how most communication via Twitter is carried out. Not through search, database check, and email. I do wonder why my tweet was 'chosen'. I know that mine was not the only unhappy tweet (when I first encountered problems with my router, I had searched for '#Fullrate' on Twitter, only to find quite a few complaints). I presume it was because I was easier to find in their system, but who knows. 

It was nice to read that Forbrugerrådet (Danish Consumer Council) admitted that they spoke too soon regarding the matter. I hope anyone who believed that this was a breach of privacy took that into consideration (did anyone think it was a breach?!), and it was also nice to read all the comments on my blog and elsewhere that were positive, and reflected my beliefs. At the very least, I'm happy that my little tweet sparked some interest in Twitter.

It does surprise me that none of the articles ever picked up on the fact that the original journalist was inspired for her article after seeing a picture of Fullrate's original email on my Facebook profile.

As it happens, I've started noticing issues or articles relating to privacy and social media wherever I go. In this month's Wired there is an advert for next month's magazine, which will centre around the end of privacy. As the ad states; "Every day your emails, financial transactions and status updates are mined for data by corporate interests and government agencies. How the age of transparency is killing confidentiality - and why you need to get over it." Indeed. Of course I can understand why this might give some people sleepless nights, but there are ways by which you can secure your information. It might be in the small print, but it is there. People can't run around complaining that their information is being mined when it's right there, for all the world to see.

Did you ever hear about Tinkebell? She's a Dutch artist who once skinned her cat (after it was dead, I might add) and made it in to a purse. Sure, cat lovers might protest, but the difference between that and a leather purse? Who knows. Anywho, of course people flipped out, and soon enough she received death threats and all sorts of other hate mail. Then (and this is the bit I love), using the sender's email addresses, she Googled away, and soon had addresses, photos, status updates, videos, education details, work details - suffice to say, a huge amount of information about those who had emailed her. Then she published this all in a big book. Of course, it didn't last long - no permission was given to use the information - but the fact remains that all the information was just there, waiting for someone to find it. Wish I had that book...

Then of course, there's Meltwater Buzz. Meltwater Buzz is an "an innovative social media monitoring tool that enables comprehensive tracking and analysis of user-generated content on the web." It "enables users to monitor more than 200 million blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, forums, video and photo websites, product reviews and other social media sites to gain a better understanding about end-user sentiment on hot topics, new products, companies and the competition." The heads of those who thought Fullrate finding my tweet was a breach of privacy are probably exploding right about now.

What I can't find out if this includes private profiles. I presume it doesn't, but you never know. 

While I too find this rather extreme, I am not - and simply can not be - surprised. 

Employers Google potential employees and people Google (not to mention Facebook) their exs. There's no difference in a company wondering what their customers are saying about them. If you don't want to be another statistic, don't tweet/Facebook/blog about brands and companies. But hey, if you do, then something good might just come out of it. I'm proof!

If you're remotely interested then here are links to some of the articles about the whole saga.

Comon

Comon #2

Klean

Fullrate - yes!

BT

Avisen

Berlingske

Techtjek