Customer Service is the New PR

Four years ago I wrote this...

"One day CRM systems will bolt in blog monitoring functionality so these posts automatically get funneled to the right place. For now, they need to be handled onesie twosie - but handled nonetheless."

Now today Salesforce.com has added Twitter customer service tools to its already formidable suite. Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang sees Twitter's future as social CRM.

However, I don't think Twitter will be the only game in town. There will be lot of venues to vent, all of which can have an impact on brand reputation as journalists discover all of this conversation through Google, Twitter Search and other search engines. GetSatisfaction.com is growing. I wrote about this in our most recent white paper (see trend one).

In addition, I cover this in my first vlog on the Edelman Facebook page (forgive the acting!). My takeaway is that this isn't just a CRM concern, but rather it requires close coordination between customer service and PR. There's a great study on this from SNCR. What's your view?

Comments

[Martin Ferro-Thomsen]

Before customers went to the company to complain. Now the company need to seek out the complaining customer wherever s/he is venting. The main difference is that communication now is public - and easy.

In my job I try to manage this constant conversion (which would be impossible without a good product, so that comes first obviously) and the 'community' is everywhere: Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Blogs, Online newspapers, Getsatisfaction, YouTube - and loads of emails. I have multiple tracking tools set up and my 'inbox' has grown exponentially the past few years.

The downside is that often people complain about something that's not really the company's fault - but you need to answer nonetheless because you're worried about bad press escalating. You can also worry about creating what I call 'support junkies': People not taking initiative to understand the product, but rather lets support 'think for them'. But beware: Perception is more reality more than ever, and to potential customers your product is more or less equal to the feedback (and thus the way you handle it).

On the upside is definitely many more satisfied customers and hopefully better products. Above all, company transparency and ethics are key focuses in this age of the 'constantly broadcasting consumer'. The good thing about the sites mentioned above is also that they scale a heckuva lot better that email (e.g. 1000 people can read my Twitter feed; only 1 reads my email).

[Hillary Johnson]

I experienced this phenomenon recently when my blogging partner and I both vented on Twitter about a bad customer service experience with TypePad. We got email right away from a SixApart community manager named Ginevra Whalen, offering to personally shepherd us through getting the problem solved. Her email signature included her email, IM, and a link to her personal blog, which was entirely personal and not about her work. This made her an accessible individual with a personality and a face. Many emails were exchanged in solving the problem, and Ginevra's tone was always personal and unguarded, never corporate. She shared the steps she was taking, talked about the people involved, and was completely transparent. In other words, it wasn't just that she used social networking to monitor customer complaints, her behavior was social network-y through and through, instead of corporate, distant and officious.

That Typepad responded privately, instead of publicly (thus broadcasting their helpfulness)cost them the positive broadcast, but it was definitely more effective for us. I don't know if this experience was the product of one brilliant community manager who totally "gets it," or a company-wide attitude, but the experience was actually a template for how to use social media for customer relations and do it right.

[eamon]

Just as 'advertising' / communications / PR / publicity - in branding / brand promotion - are more interwoven than ever before, so, I think, the same goes for PR (more crisis-management PR than branding PR i mean) and customer relations. For similar reasons (opportunities/ possibilities of new media/internet).

[Sean]

Marketers and managers will need all the tools they can get, I'm specifically curious how CRM software will handle the real-time nature of twitter / blog / social media-enabled customers and their strong opinions... seems like the new call center reps might have to be really savvy in the comments section to have their fingers on the pulse of the popular understanding of a brand...

[peter levitan]

Right you are... Customer love as insight and now the tools to help deliver that love. That said, as an agency that has espoused the concept of creating "Delighted Customers" for years, we have seen that the first step has to be a management group dedicated to actually delivering superior service and communications. It is first about having the smart business objective -- then the tools.

Sadly, most senior management still has not acted on this simple opportunity.

[rodica]

Great customer service has always been the best kind of PR. Before PR professionals were "invented" (for the lack of a better word), business promotion happened through a grassroots movement of happy customers & word of mouth.

The social web has brought us back to basics by empowering this grassroots chatter. The only area where Client Services and PR overlap today is in the case of the MOST VOCAL consumers. True client services support helps everyone who has a problem, not just of those who "yell" the loudest.

[Mark Emery]

Steve,

This is a really timely piece. The argument about which domain (enterprise) is responsible for social media has been relatively binary; it's either unilaterally a marketing function, or something ambiguous that is part of everything a company does (marketing included). I've never really been happy with either of those explanations, and I think you're closer to the reality - that customer service (which really DOES permeate the entire fabric of a company) is the spice of social media.

My company, Neighborhood America, is doing a lot of work at the point where social media and CRM intersect (or, collide, to be more accurate).

[Mark Bradford]

Smart businesses understand that conversations and complaints, are already happening in new media. Slow companies are going deny the significance, while smart marketers will take advantage of the opportunity to create positive word-of-mouth. Convergence is happening and it's exciting to help nimble entrepreneurs activate meaningful integrated campaigns with new media and actually helping their customers.

[JanetJoz]

I almost believe that there will be a new function. It will be Customer Service + Marketing + Sales = New Department (no clever name yet ;) Collaboration at its best :)

[Mark Emery]

Maybe the most significant effects of social media on businesses will be entirely internal: the blurring of departmental lines to the point of irrelevance...

[JanetJoz]

Totally agreed, transparency. Although I wonder if we are all "evolved" enough for it. I love this quote by @missrogue "@stoweboyd I don't think doing away w Globalism is doable...what about rethinking it? Borders IMO are begging extinction." Taking @missrogue term & morphing a bit organizations need to de-silo & change internally with "Borders Begging For Extinction" = BBFE :)

[Chris Johnson]

Great Post - My position and feedback on the topic of customer service being the new PR is clear. PR now touches the entire organisation. Years ago, PR was much easier to manage - media was passive, mostly one-way and non viral. Today it is two-way, viral and conversations cross the planet in seconds. The Internet has introduced electronic content that is orders of magnitude larger than we have ever seen. The challenge we face today is; how do we manage in an environment where those millions of conversations about your company can have an adverse effect on your reputation?

It's not an easy task, however I believe that we must enable the organisation to listen and engage in the process. Not only do I strongly advise companies to use technology to manage Corporate communications and PR -- I also advocate exteding technology to Human Resources, Investor Relations and Finance, Lines of Business as well as Government Relations. All of these groups have a vested interest in listening and engaging with online stakeholders. Corporate Communications and PR can't do it alone - there are far too many online conversations emerging for this one group to manage.

My point is: We need to integrate the entire business and create listening organisations. Allow, those that are passionate about their area of business to engage! Corporate Communications and PR can do a lot -- but they can't do it all. Customer service is the new PR - enable those outside of traditional PR to take part and serve the customer.

Chris JohnsonFounder & CMOdna13

[Aaron Uhrmacher]

I thought customer service was the OLD PR? Think about Avis and Marriott as two examples. They weren't the biggest in their industries, but they made their names by providing customers with exemplary service.

Now, there are more voices talking about all of the companies out there, so the need for transparency is greater than ever before. With nowhere left to hide, companies MUST rely on the strength of their customer service teams to reinforce the image they portray through advertising, marketing and other means.

To me, it seems like social media creates an opportunity for firms to showcase their customer service experience, and for those who undervalue it to receive an important lesson from its community.

[Benito Castro]

I think PR grows and is more sophisticated thanks to social media. CRM is not as involved in social media as PR is. Historically PR means dialogue, at least more than other discplines. So PR and Corporate Communications are in better positions than CRM to manage social media.

[Randall Beard]

The whole "Customer Service is the new PR" discussion reminds me of two important points we sometimes forget.

First, customer service that anticipates customer needs and exceeds expectations, even when there is a problem, is truly the best PR and drives great word of mouth. My family and I experienced this firsthand when we returned from a long vacation trip only to find that our Lexus parked in airport longterm parking wouldn't move when placed in "drive." I called Lexus customer care fully expecting they would send a tow truck and get me a rental car. Surprise--instead, the service rep walked me thru a 5-step process which solved the problem on the spot and we drove away both surprised and delighted.

I've told this story to many people--which illustrates the second point. Research shows that most word of mouth, positive or negative, still happens offline. While there is no doubt that web based social media are becoming increasingly fast and powerful, it's still true that most word of mouth happens in day to day off line conversations.

As marketers, we need to remember this and engineer marketing plans that use exemplary customer service to surprise and delight customers and drive conversations both on-line and off-line.

[neon]

Maybe the most significant effects of social media on businesses will be entirely internal: the blurring of departmental lines to the point of irrelevance...