Flickr Image: xJasonRogersx's

Not long ago, there was little recourse for poor customer service.  Sure, you could bite your tongue while waiting in line or demand to see a manager. Really though, the only way to get your point across would be the old-standby, the “dissatisfied customer letter” sent to management. If you were lucky, you might receive a reply back with their apologies and a coupon for $20 off your next purchase of four new tires.

The emergence of social media now presents an engaging and provocative problem for customer service. A client’s recourse is now immediate and omnipresent. Companies better be on their toes at all times or they run the risk of angering the wrong person with the right medium.

In his Adage story “Are Major Marketers Training John Q. Public to Whine on Web?,” Michael Bush states that customers are becoming used to quick responses to their posted complaints. He goes further than that saying, “… magically resolving complaints broadcast to the world by social media raises a question: By rewarding complainers with lightning-fast responsiveness, are marketers training consumers to publicly flog them rather than take the discreet and often-frustrating route of calling customer service?”

So as a company, not only do you now have to respond quickly to an upset customer or risk their issue going viral, you also have to worry that in doing so, you’re just setting yourself up for similar actions down the road.

Your clients can now use their phones to tweet their dissatisfaction with your service while they’re in a line experiencing it. This is all happening in real time. While the days of mailing out an angry letter may be nearing an end, we’ve just begun to feel the impact of the angry posts: You neglect to monitor your company’s online profile at your own peril.

How has social media and online communications affected the way you interact with clients? Do you think it’s true that customers who complain openly in public forums receive faster and better service than those who choose to complain privately via letter, email, or telephone? Share your thoughts with the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

If that’s the case, and it is indeed true that the customer is always right, then we should probably just poll our clients and ask them what they want from us, right? Then we can simply deliver on those promises to ensure the ideal client services relationship.

Mark Cuban writes from a different perspective in his post entitled, Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers. He says that listening solely to what the customer wants is risky and you do so at your own peril. It can create a “never ending revolving door of trying to respond to customer requests… Resources and brainpower that can be applied to ‘inventing the future’ instead are being used to catch up with features that (lock you) in the past.”

He proposes that instead of simply responding to your clients’ concerns and being reactionary, the real goal should be to anticipate what your customers are going to want and deliver it to them proactively.

“Someone is always out there who thinks they have a better idea than you have. A better solution than you have. A better or more efficient product than you have,” says Cuban.

He closes by saying that your customers can only “tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy.” However, this is not something to bet the farm (or your business) on.

You still need to determine for yourself what your customers are going to need, want, and desire for tomorrow, the next day, and 20 years down the road. Harry Hoover also touches upon this point in his post entitled, “Stop Listening to Your Customers.” He writes: “You must ask the right questions of your customers and then figure out what it is that they are really saying. Your customers are smart and can provide some excellent input. It’s our job as marketers to ferret out the true meaning of that input.”

As marketing, public and client relations professionals, how are you listening to your clients and incorporating their feedback to meet their needs while balancing those of your company or agency and remaining proactive? Are you utilizing CRM systems, surveys, or social media communities, among others tools to help you get to the heart of what clients really want? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

The game of “Telephone,” along with “Duck Duck Goose” and “Red Rover”, bring back fond memories of elementary school antics. As we got older, during middle school and perhaps even into high school, “Telephone” was used as an example of the power of word-of-mouth and how a message can become skewed as it is passed along the chain. Now, “Telephone” has been revolutionized by Facebook – igniting the flames of word-of-mouth from a burning bush to a wildfire.

Facebook, once exclusively available to college students on participating campuses (I can still remember petitioning for my own University to become a member), gave individuals the ability to connect and reconnect over the Internet. Throughout the years, Facebook has increased its scope by allowing anyone with a valid email address to join (before it was just limited to .edu addresses) and giving users the ability to share and tag each other in pictures, videos, links and status updates. Facebook has even given marketing and public relations professionals the opportunity to reach constituents based on specific audience segments and demographics.  

Facebook has also enhanced the notion of six degrees of separation (think Will Smith’s movie circa 1993). Thus, creating a huge reach beyond traditional mediums (i.e., seeing the person, speaking with them on the phone, or communicating via email). Whereas before your audience may have told a few others about your company or brand via these channels, now individuals can essentially, with a few clicks of the mouse or strokes on the keyboard, influence each other on a much broader spectrum. As Facebook gains in popularity with currently 400 million active users (about 70 percent outside of the United States) companies are paying even closer attention to see what is being said about them and responding accordingly.

Companies are starting to implement an integrated marketing communication strategy on social media fronts, combining the power of the organization as a whole (marketing working with sales working with customer service) to best utilize Facebook as an outlet to track, react and respond to consumer issues. 

According to an article written by Janine Milne, “The information flow is two-way. Customers get to understand more about the vendor and how other customers view the vendor. Organizations get to hear exactly what their customers think.”

I am a Facebook (and real life) ‘fan’ of Sally Hershberger Professional Hair Care. While browsing their fan page, I realized the importance of social media in relating to clients and potential clients. One Facebooker wrote on the Sally Hershberger page that she wished there was a coupon to entice her to try one of their new products. The Sally team responded quickly and advised that not only do they have a $2 coupon on their website but they also have a contest running where you can win a Sally makeover. The potential client immediately went onto the sallyhershberger.com and attempted to enter the contest only to find that the website was not working properly for her. She wrote about her issue on the Facebook fan page and received a response minutes later letting her know that they were working on correcting the issue and would get the coupon to her right away.

Not only did the Facebook page create a space where the company could interact with potential consumers but it helped the company to find a glitch in their system that may have never caught on their own.

How is your organization using social media to engage stakeholders and remedy potential client concerns?

*Bio: Soon after graduating from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, in 2006 with a B.A. in communication and a B.S. in business/marketing, I joined the BurrellesLuce client services team. In 2008, I completed my master’s degree in corporate and organizational communications and now work as the supervisor of BurrellesLuce Express client services. I am passionate about researching and understanding the role of email in shaping relationships from a client relation/service standpoint as well as how miscommunication occurs within email, which was the topic of my thesis. Through my posts on Fresh Ideas, I hope to educate and stimulate thoughtful discussions about corporate communications and client relations, further my own knowledge on this subject area, as well as continue to hone my skills as a communicator. Twitter: @_LaurenShapiro_ LinkedIn: laurenrshapiro Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Last week while I was on vacation I had the pleasure of getting my wallet stolen. (Please note the extreme sarcasm.) This led to me speaking with multiple customer service agents from my bank, credit card, health insurance and rental car companies, and the NYC MTA. Overall, my experience was positive; so, I won’t use this blog post to vent about any frustrations. However, being a client service account manager, my recent experience made me think about what pushes customers to the point where their calls become YouTube videos.

My fellow blogger and BurrellesLuce client service team member, Lauren Shapiro,  recently described a company’s client service department as its brand ambassador. She wrote, “The relationship between the client and your client service representative can make or break your organization’s brand.” I can easily name brands that I’ve vowed never to use again because of difficult interactions with their client services. But what can we do when serving our customers, clients or patrons to keep them from reaching a breaking point and retain their business when their effort to get answers or solve problems doesn’t produce the desired outcome. It may be time to consider giving your company’s customer service a facelift in order to protect your brand and customer base.

One of the most frustrating aspects of reaching out for service support, and a recent issue played out in the media, is when is it is unclear as to how to successfully contact a company or representative regarding issues. Google came under scrutiny with the U.S. launch of their smart phone, Nexus One. Not only was there no clear contact information listed on their website, but customers weren’t even sure what party would be handling their service questions. Should they call their service provider, the phone manufacturer, or Google? Some companies purposefully bury contact information as a way to deter clients from calling. If client service departments are the face of companies, then it makes sense for them to be easily assessable.

In fact, for the most part, the client and public relations industries are becoming more keen to the importance of personal touch and communication. There are even websites dedicated to providing people with phone numbers that are supposed to have humans on the other end. But once a client locates a number to call, who will they speak to at your company? How many times have we heard others say or have even said ourselves, “I just want to talk to a human!” It may save money to filter client inquiries through touch-tone assistance to direct calls. However, at what cost is it acceptable to frustrate your most loyal clientele?

I’ve really enjoyed Ally Bank’s recent commercials that pick apart the absurdness of service policies and service support. The commercial I saw this morning involved a man telling a little girl that the automated doll she wanted to play with couldn’t understand her request to play and that the toy was in control. Isn’t that when we find ourselves most peeved – when we lose our sense of control?

As professionals that deal with clients and patrons, we should create environments where our constituents feel comfortable and confident when approaching our client service representatives, our brand ambassadors! We should never make our valued customer base feel as though the following quote from “The Office” is true.

“Okay, Dwight, let me explain something to you. I set the rules and you follow them blindly, okay? And if you have a problem with that, then you can talk to our complaint department. It’s a trash can.”  - Michael Scott

Does your company’s client service department need a facelift? Does it make economical and branding sense to do away with automated systems? How is your company making it more accessible for clients to reach the right contacts?

*Bio: Emily Mouyeos joined the BurrellesLuce account management team with a background in nonprofit communication and development. Her background and current experience with BurrellesLuce allows her to effectively address client needs and consolidate feedback for senior management. To Emily, nothing feels better than helping others achieve their goal, whether it’s professionally or personally.  By focusing on client management through the Fresh Ideas blog, she hopes to evaluate new client management trends, as well as provide insight to the pros and cons of current practices. She looks forward to connecting with the readers of Fresh Ideas for new perspectives and dialogue on issues that affect overall success. LinkedIn: Emily Mouyeos Twitter: @BurrellesLuce Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Image: DailyMail.Co.UK

Have you ever been put on hold? Wait, that’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? How about, “How does it make you feel when you’re put on hold?”

Well, I’m not a fan, to say the least.

Maybe because I work in customer service that I’m more sensitive than most, but I don’t understand how anyone can feel that time spent on hold is anything other than wasted. With all the modern distractions and the ease of accessibility, your time is an invaluable commodity. It’s no different for your clients. 

Becky Carroll writes on the blog Customers Rock, “The best wait experience is no wait experience at all.” Stay on the phone with your clients and let them know exactly what you are doing. If you have to transfer them, mention that you will need to do so, as well as explain where they are going and why. Ideally, you would give an explanation for your activity and provide an estimated time of how long it’s going to take.  

Carroll says that an estimate of wait time, “…helps set the customer’s expectations so they know whether they have time right now to wait or whether they should call back later.” Carroll goes on to conclude that “the best experience for your customer would be to provide this estimate and give them a choice to either wait or, if it’s more convenient for them, have you call them back.”

This may seem like a common courtesy, but I can think of several recent examples of my own (cable company, insurance company, cell phone company) where I was put on hold without warning, without asking if it’s ok, and with no guarantee that I’d speak to a human at any time in the near future.

In consideration of your own customers, I suggest the following perspective: Every second that your clients are on hold, they’re using that time to consider your competitors and wonder if they’d ever do this with their clients.

If the modern world is all about immediacy and accessibility, then why bother using the phone at all?

Well, there’s an integral part of human contact and interaction that’s lost when you circumvent the conversation. It may be “easier” to send an email, but you’re leaving the recipient’s interpretation up to chance. Heinz Tschabitscher discusses email communication in his blog post, What Can Be Misunderstood Will Be Misunderstood.

“The lack of nonverbal clues makes it easy to misinterpret something,” says Heinz, “but we’re not careful enough to avoid these misinterpretations because email feels so instant, easy and accessible…”

In client services, not only can you best gauge the client’s mood on the phone, but you can help ensure that they will correctly interpret your own.

The ideal choice is to make the call. In the India PR Blog, Palin Ningthoujam writes that

“You can explain issues and things in proper and in length over the phone than on email.”

On the phone you can explain yourself fully and deal immediately with your client’s needs.

Best of all, you’re in complete control of how you express yourself and by proxy, how you represent your company. Don’t risk the relationships you’ve built with your valued customers just because you choose the “easy” email over the personal phone call. They are your clients; this is your business; and they deserve it.

Do you prefer to send an email or place a call when interacting with your clients? As a client, how do you feel when you receive a call from an account manager or client services representative? Depending on which side of the conversation you’re on, how do think these interactions affect the business relationship? Please share your ideas with the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

“Can you email me?”

How many times a day do you hear that question? In BurrellesLuce Client Services, we hear it quite often and rightfully so; we are officially citizens of a digital era, habitually bound to the confines of the written word. When you study computer-mediated communication (CMC) or for purposes of this blog… email there are a lot of big words and complex theories to sum up a very simple concept – How you type your message is equally important, if not more important, than the actual message itself.  

Unfortunately for most of us, we have yet to find the Emily Post of netiquette. However, we do know there are many variables that can contribute to an email going bad. The most overlooked (and most dangerous) is the misinterpretation of email tone. Studies show that email receivers tend to experience a neutrality effect: Recipients often interpret positively toned emails as neutral and neutrally toned emails as negative.  This makes our job as email senders very difficult and forces us to be mindful of how others will read our message.

It is extremely important to take a step back and re-read your email from the receiver’s perspective and then edit to ensure that the positive nature of your email comes across clearly. In a post on www.sitepoint.com, Alyssa Gregory discusses how a poorly toned email can easily be misinterpreted. This misinterpretation poses a threat to the budding e-lationship that is being built.

Whether it’s in PR, marketing, or client services, what steps are you taking to help ensure that you are effectively communicating with your constituents? What steps can we take as an industry to help promote good communication?

*Bio: Soon after graduating from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, in 2006 with a B.A. in communication and a B.S. in business/marketing, I joined the BurrellesLuce client services team. In 2008, I completed my master’s degree in corporate and organizational communications and now work as the supervisor of BurrellesLuce Express client services. I am passionate about researching and understanding the role of email in shaping relationships from a client relation/service standpoint as well as how miscommunication occurs within email, which was the topic of my thesis. Through my posts on Fresh Ideas, I hope to educate and stimulate thoughtful discussions about corporate communications and client relations, further my own knowledge on this subject area, as well as continue to hone my skills as a communicator. Twitter: @_LaurenShapiro_ LinkedIn: laurenrshapiro Facebook: BurrellesLuce 

“While the term CRM generally refers to a software-based approach to handling customer relationships, most CRM software vendors stress that a successful CRM effort requires a holistic approach.[1] CRM initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation, without providing the context, support and understanding for employees to learn, and take full advantage of the information systems.[2']“ 

Having access to all of our client’s information from any computer in the office has proven to be essential at BurrellesLuce. We use an application called Siebel as our CRM tool.  Siebel has allowed our staff to react to a client’s recent inquiry quickly, as well as revise their account efficiently, all while updating the account activities in one location.  Getting into the habit of using a CRM program certainly pays off in the end.  It’s a permanent record of client activities. 

As long as you have a computer, you can answer a client’s question and/or confirm something for your company’s internal processes.  And if you’re meeting with a client in their office, you no longer need to call into your office to ask a colleague a question about that client’s account.  With remote access, you can log into your CRM program and review the account activity with them in person.  Now that’s customer service.  At BurrellesLuce, we’ve embraced this enhancement and have become a CRM company indeed!

*Bio: During my 22 years with BurrellesLuce I’ve heard and seen a lot in the way of media monitoring and measurement. I originally started as a sales associate specializing in fashion and higher education. Now, I am the SVP of client services. Over the years I’ve developed a close relationship with many PR and marketing professionals. When I worked in the nation’s capital, I sat on the board of Washington Women in Public Relations, where I also served as membership coordinator and, in 1995, as president. Today, I remain an honorary member of that organization. I continue to enjoy meeting with clients and assisting them in any way. LinkedIn: cdelcolle; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

With the financial markets being closed for the present – the economic amorality part, denies all businesses in crisis (media included) a life vest. Of course, they could have crossed the stream before they needed the life vest, but that is the denial part.

Just like with the “outed” it all comes back to lemonade or, to use another word, responsibility. So I ask, “Who are you responsible to?” Note, I did not ask, “Who are you responsible for?”

I am going to go out on a limb and say that a big part of our current problems are the result of this very semantic confusion. I have recently accepted the responsibility for the technical effort here at BurrellesLuce and in so doing my ultimate responsibility is to insure that our technology meets the needs of our customers and exceeds their expectations. The reality is that it is the IT team that is actually meeting the need, not me. IT’s customers are the sales department, the production department, and the finance department. What IT is responsible for is how it meets its responsibility to them.

What about the company’s customers you ask? In respecting the ability of the sales, production, marketing, and finance management to be responsible to their customers, the IT team can focus on IT’s customers. Meeting the needs of my customer requires having a belief that this will lead to my needs being met.

This is no small task for the “outed” generation. It is about an orientation to “you” from “me,” to “I respect your ability” from “I am better,” from lemons to lemonade.

What’s clear right now is the Marketing department simply cannot do it alone. (Is anyone else hearing the song, “I Can’t Do It Alone,” from the movie musical Chicago, in their heads right now?) Colleagues from the Sales, Client Service, Media Measurement, Content Management, and Technology areas are among the contributing authors to Fresh Ideas. Additional BurrellesLuce staff members, including myself, are active on Twitter.

Lately, some tweets hit close to home. Here’s one story I’d like to share: This month’s invoice stuffer (produced by the Marketing department) was devoted to our “green and easy” initiative – where we ask our clients to forgo paper invoices in favor of emailed statements. Promoting a green initiative via a print piece didn’t quite mesh with one client. The client, we’ll call her Mary, tweeted that she had opened her bill to find a color invoice stuffer on fairly heavy stock suggesting she go green. “You first, BurrellesLuce, you first,” she said.

Because we constantly monitor and listen to various social media outlets, we found Mary’s tweet quickly. I used data from our CRM system to phone her (Twitterers: I couldn’t send her a direct message because she wasn’t one of my followers) and introduced myself as senior vice president of Marketing. I thanked her for sharing her concerns, and relayed how our mailing equipment malfunctions if we use lighter-weight paper. As more clients accept email bills, our plan is to cease mailing altogether and gain the environmental benefits listed on the invoice stuffer. I also encouraged Mary to contact me in the future should the need arise.

Within a few minutes of our conversation, she tweeted her thanks for the phone call. I follow Mary on Twitter now, and she follows me. Engaging in these types of conversations can be a little frightening at first, especially to non-millennials like me raised on the command-and-control battlefield of corporate communications. But with each interaction, we learn more about our clients and prospects and the value of social media. “You first” challenges are both easier for me to accept, and more rewarding.