Customer service was an early opportunity in social media that smart brands took advantage of — and it continues to offer a lot of potential.
At the forefront of this, Microsoft has been using social tools to interact with customers and offer support for years. In his recent BlogWell case-study presentation, Nestor Portillo explained how the company is doing it. A few big ideas from his discussion:
- Don’t wait for problems to come to you. Nestor’s team uses search and mining tools to find customers discussing problems with their products. This keeps them ahead of service issues before they get too big.
- Use social tools to point to consistent info. Rather than one-off responses through tools like Twitter and Facebook, Nestor recommends pointing to existing resources — such as a customer community with healthy forums. Doing so keeps responses consistent and helps customers quickly get the detailed solutions they’re looking for.
- You’re expected to be involved. With so many brands doing amazing things with social media and customer service, customers are starting to expect you to be available for help through these channels.
And if you like this presentation, be sure to check out our upcoming BlogWell in Chicago on Aug. 11.