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Wednesday
Oct072009
Social Service for Success - Simple
Young Urban ProfessionalI love stories like this one from a small iPhone app developer that acts the way I wish some larger companies would - and in the process become wildly successful through service. This is such a simple formula. Why don't more act this way?
"This is our customer service approach:
1. Answer ALL emails and tweets.
2. Build a support site that is SEO’d and contains all the questions people ask (support.gymu.com).
3. Find our evangelists and love them.
4. Find our haters and love them more than our own mothers.
5. Do whatever it takes to fix a customer’s problem, even if that means meeting them to give them pre-release code!"
Reader Comments (14)
Wow, thanks Steve! We really appreciate those comments!Customer service is mega important to us and we try really hard (as the post hints at) but as a business we're not all that successful (yet). If you want to see a company that has incredible customer service AND is successful financially check out Flirtomatic (also a UK company) - they not only provide a very human approach but they've managed to scale it also. I'm continually in awe of them!--GymFu Jof.
Times like this I wish Posterous had Tumblr's "reblog" feature.
Simple. But seems to be the hardest to follow.
I think it is an attitude to treat your client as God with detailed
Sorry for the typo, what I want to say is "I think it is an attitude to treat your client as God with attentive and satisfactory service".
There's a typo in the link: "gymfu".
Actually, I every company would behave like this, you wouldn't have to spend all that much on marketing...
Excellent insight, especially like #4!
It has been my experience that you can waste a lot of time trying to turn around a determined detractor. The time is probably better spent getting your side of the story out. For example, those that attack Walmart endlessly are unlikely to change their views. Walmart can more effectively counter these haters by counter their claims and getting their comment ranked higher than the detractor's remarks.
I know what you mean, Melissa, and knowing when to quit is a great skill. But people who attack you with all their energy have two important characteristics 1) a lot of energy/passion 2) they feel like you are letting them down. Combined that can make your life quite hard, but the value of turning around someone by making them feel valued can far outweigh the negatives; GymFu is my second startup, and both companies the haters became our greatest evangelists.Unfortunately I learnt this skill only recently, but since then I realized it's something you can apply to startups and Customer Services - it works for every aspect of your life. I hope to write a detailed post about it in future - it's been a really powerful concept for me.
correction:"...apply to MORE THAN JUST startups and Customer Services..."
Love the simple rules and Im willing to believe that they are as effective as honey is to bees.
Great simple rules to follow, may just be hard to follow if you have a big user database. BTW the support link in 2. is broken, it should be http://www.support.gymfu.com/ "Gymfu" not "Gymu"
Scalable? Or, scalability in a large organization?