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The Curse of Social Media in Customer Service

Social media makes us so connected in quantity and at the same time reduces the quality of our interpersonal connections.

While it’s so easy to pass on information to 1,000s of people in an instant, we’re losing the ability to truly connect on a human level with other people.

As a service provider, this can be your downfall. In this age of abundance, consumers have too much choice of who to buy their products and services from. If all the products are the same and cost the same – where will they go? Where they get the best service. Where they are treated well. Where they get help in a friendly and quick way. Where they feel appreciated for being a customer.

Trying to think of creative ways to “change the customer’s behavior” and prevent them from complaining on twitter, facebook, etc. is futile. That’s trying to change a symptom without treating the cause.

Customers’ opinions on social media are symptoms. They are results, outcomes of experiences they had with your company. They can be good. They can be bad.

If you’re not happy with the symptoms, how about trying to change the cause?

You want customers to talk about you on social media. They can be your strongest sales force, your most powerful marketing allies! …If they talk about you positively. So what would it take for you to have them talk positively about you?

Improve your customer service.

Focus on changing the behavior of your customer service staff. And remember that their behavior is also a symptom: if they do not deliver the outstanding service you expect – why is that? Do they lack knowledge, skills or motivation?

Do they know how to truly connect with your customers on a personal, human level? Do they know how to surprise your customers with genuine customer “care” – something that we don’t get to experience often anymore it these fast times?

Your employees are your most important customers

And most importantly – do they care? Are they interested in giving your customers the best service? Only a happy employee will create a happy customer.

Your employees are your most important customers. Are they happy? Are you showing as much interest in them as you show into your customers? What does it take to motivate and engage them again? How can you be a better service provider to your employees?

Type “customer service” into twitter. You’ll see how the negative “avoid this company”- tweets outnumber the “go to this company, I highly recommend them”-tweets.

What would it take for your company to turn this around?

Turn it into a game! Let your customer service staff be the players!

How can you involve your customer service staff to turn this into a game and set goals to leave their customers so happy, that they’re going to tweet about it to the whole world?

Have positive social media coverage about your company be a result.

Let your outstanding customer service be the cause.

This Is How Your Staff Will Give Better Customer Service To Your Clients

In order to have happy, loyal customers, you need to have happy, loyal staff that your customers love to deal with – be it on the phone or in person. Talking with your customer service staff should be a pleasant experience.

If your staff currently is not creating pleasant experiences for your customers, a training on “How to give better service” might not be the solution.

Most people intrinsically know the “HOW”. They just need a good enough reason to get creative. And that is exactly what is lacking in many employees these days: the WHY.

Why should I give better service? Why should I care about my employer’s clients? One client more or less won’t make me lose my job…

As a business owner, this is the first inquiry you should engage in: ”WHY should my staff give better service to my clients? What’s in it for them? I am passionate about my business, but are they?”

Ask the HOW question to yourself:

How can I can give better service to my employees?

Your employees are your number one customer. If you fail to turn them into loyal, happy employees, how could they possibly transmit this positive feeling, enthusiasm and experience to your customers?

So much money is being wasted by pushing knowledge about the HOW into your staff.

Start by pulling knowledge about the WHY (or WHY NOT?) out of your staff first.

• Show interest in them.
• Pay attention to their needs.
• Take them seriously and respond.
• Create new solutions WITH them (i.e. use their input to train their managers to treat them better).
• Then reap the benefits.

It’s exactly what you’d do with your customers:

• What do they (the “market”) need?
• Adjust your services accordingly and give them what they need.
• Then reap the benefits.

Ask. Give. Receive.  

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Need help? Yellow Umbrella can assist you in diagnosing dissatisfiers, suggesting solutions and solving issues through coaching and training.

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The Geeky Way of Measuring Employee Happiness

Reading this New York Times Article on Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss will make you go “…Hello??” in only a few seconds.

In a quest to improve people management skills, Google had a team analyze countless performance reviews and feedback surveys, turn them into code and hard numbers over a period of several months, only to come up with the following:

“… [They] found that technical expertise — the ability, say, to write computer code in your sleep — ranked dead last among Google’s big eight.

What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers…”

Oh really?

Now there are certainly going to be responses popping up all over the place, resonating with Stever Robbins, who says, “Wow. That’s an eye-opener. I’ll bet no one’s ever observed that before.”

Admittedly my first reaction was the same. The time and money it must have consumed to come to a result of “Duh!” …

On the other hand, being familiar with personality types, it occured to me that we do have to recognize that an organization like Google consists to a large percentage of data-driven analyzers. It comes with the territory. If you’re very data driven, something has to give – that’s usually people skills. It’s the very reason why “data geeks” often are not great people managers (by nature. That doesn’t mean they can’t become very good at it.)

And let’s not ignore that the opposite is true, too: Try to keep a “people geek’s” attention long enough to explain them a simple Excel sheet…

People only become motivated to change, when the reasons for change make sense to them.

The only way to convince a data geek to change is with data-driven analyses and statistics. They need proof that makes sense to THEM (=numbers, data), in order to “get it” and see a reason to change. Geeks need geeky measures

So if this approach made the managers “coachable” and open for change; if  they’ll become better people managers to their staff now, then this “waste of time” might have been an effective means to a good end, don’t you think?

How To WOO Gatekeepers

“You can lead a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.”

The trick is to make it want to drink.

Whether it’s employees, business partners or networking contacts  whose support you need – recognizing other people’s importance to you and your success, and treating them accordingly will pave your way to gaining their sympathy.

Gatekeepers belong to the group of people whose sympathy you want – they are receptionists, secretaries and personal assistants for example. They are that last “one degree of separation” between you and that important contact you want to get to.

They are the keepers of their boss’s time – your most desired commodity.

Why should you pay attention to the gatekeepers?

Well, just recognize the power they have over you: they might be inferior to you in job title and income level, however if they don’t like you, they won’t let you in. It’s as simple as that.

Recognize their value: they are the keepers of your most desired commodity: their bosses’ time. They are sitting on the treasure that you came here to hunt – and that makes them superior to you. They can either give you a piece of that cake or not.

They are also the ones who can make or break your reputation by painting their boss a good or a bad picture of you. The better they talk about you, the higher your chances for success.

So how can you get them to like and rave about you?

In the same way you get a date to like you, or a potential client, a recruiter

Is “Recognition” A Management Style?

I was recently discussing which is the best management style out there and while I’m all for a “coaching management style”, I vote for an eclectic one that uses different styles in different situations.

If I had to give it a name I’d call it “Recognition-based Management Style”. And – if you’ve been here before – you know that by Recognition I do not mean “Rewards” which many people misinterpret at first.

The Recognition Based Management Style

If we recognize what employees expect of their manager – information, decisions, support, recognition (of their needs more than their achievements) – we’ll always know what style is called for in a particular situation or with

How To Kill Creativity In Its Infancy

An thought provoking clip by Youngme Moon that many of us can certainly relate to…

How To Retain Talents When You Can’t Give Them A Raise

“Can we only keep our good employees by giving them a raise or are there other ways?”

I was asked this question today by a manager who works for an organization that couldn’t give raises to their staff in a while, due to the financial crisis. Here is my response:

People do not only have a need for money – there are other motivational drivers that are way more important (as long as they have enough money to cover their basic needs – see Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs or Dan Pink’s Talk on “The surprising truth about what motivates us”).

Employees want to feel heard, they want to be respected for who they are and what they know and they want to feel valuable by making a difference. So my recipe for your particular situation is this:

1. Share & Communicate openly

Explain to them that you are aware they haven’t received a raise in a while and that you can’t foresee when you’ll be able to give them one. Give them reasons for it. The “why” is very important (in as much as you can, without giving away confidential information). If it “makes sense” to them, it will lead to acceptance.

2. Make your staff feel valuable & appreciated

Tell them how much you appreciate them and that you’re concerned about them leaving. Tell each individual what you appreciate them for, so they all go, “Wow, my manager DOES see me and recognizes my talents, knowledge and needs.”

Do NOT generalize, as in “You’re all appreciated.” You need to reach every individual, even if you speak to them in a group meeting.

3. Involve them

How Was Your First Day, Honey?

Here’s a great Wall Street Journal article by Mike Michalowicz on involving the significant others of your employees into motivating those same employees…

What would it do for your employees if they came home to partners every evening, who tell them, “Wow, you’re so lucky to work for that company!”

What would it take for you to achieve that? Get some ideas here.

Recognize the significance of the significant others

Find out what and who is important to your employees.

Respond.

Not Smiling Is Not Professional :)

This comes straight from today’s newsletter of manager-tools.com. I agree 100% and have nothing to add…

Smiling At Strangers

I spend a lot of time in other company’s offices. And that means I walk up and down hallways, and make eye contact with people I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for 20+ years, and about the only thing that’s changed is the dress codes. One of the things that hasn’t changed, even though I had hoped and wished it would, is how so many people look right at you without smiling. For some it’s a personality thing, for some I’m pretty sure they’re engaging in a power move: “I don’t have to smile at you, I outrank you.” Regardless, though, it’s all ineffective. It happened to me recently. I was in a hallway, and walked right by a guy. He looked right at me, looked into my eyes, and gave no indication that he had seen anyone. He certainly didn’t smile. He acted as if I didn’t even exist.

An hour later, though, he knew I existed.