Delivering Effective Social Customer Service

Social Customer Service is new. Social Media is the biggest thing happening to the customer service industry since the mid 1960s when modern day call centres were born. It is taking customers and organisations into untested ways of relating: transparently, collaboratively, instantly. The consequences of great and poor service are forever changed.

Customer appetite has promoted this form of interaction to the very front of a race to understand. How do digital brands and empowered customers actually behave?

Social Customer Service has become Marketing’s R&D lab and a listening hub for the rest of the organisation. It is now where corporate reputations are most likely to be won and lost.

‘Delivering Effective Social Customer Service’ is a complete reference for achieving excellence in this new discipline. It caters to both novice and expert. It is perfect source material for service leaders and digital marketers to read together. Every CXO will recognise in the book a blueprint from which to build their next generation organisation. Even ambitious team leaders should snag a copy for instant subject matter expertise kudos!

The centre of the book offers an in depth self-assessment of the competencies that matter. The book is jammed full of strategic insight, action lists, best practice tips and interviews. All the resources anyone needs to build a solid strategy and roadmap.

Early adopter workshops based on the book have already taken place and will continue to be offered as another way of engaging with the book’s key lessons. An online resource of the reference material is also provided. Options for an online community are under consideration.

This book is the first of its kind. A distillation of what has so far been collectively discovered. Then filtered and expanded through the collective experience of two leading authorities on customer service: Carolyn Blunt and Martin Hill-Wilson.

Foreword ix

A Quick Introduction to Reading This Book xi

1 Where Were You When It All Changed? 1

2 Understanding Social Customer Behaviour 17

3 The Ecosystem for Social Customer Service 37

4 The Roadmap for Social Customer Service 61

5 Using Peer-to-Peer Support in Your Service Strategy 115

6 How to Use Facebook for Social Customer Service 145

7 How to Use Twitter as a Service Channel 165

8 Reputation and Crisis Management 185

9 The Legalities of Social Interaction 199

10 One Agenda: PR, Marketing and Customer Service Working Together 219

Ending or Beginning? 229

Index 231

"This book is an excellent introduction for those companies seeking to develop an online customer service resource through social media platforms and forums. It highlights the major minefields and provides workable, practical advice for organisations operating in any industry." (B2B Marketing, December 2013)

"Delivering Effective Social Customer Service is a complete reference for achieving excellence. It tackles the big strategic planning issues and also provides a wealth of practical best practice advice. Regardless of where you are on your social customer service journey, this book delivers a wealth of actionable insight." (Call Centre Helper, November 2013)

"It goes without saying that Blunt and Hill-Wilson's book will stay relevant for a good while yet." (Elite Business, November 2013)

Carolyn Blunt and Martin Hill-Wilson are the top two ‘Most Respected People in the UK Contact Centre Industry’ according to readers of Call Centre Helper magazine. They have collaborated to bring you this resource for social customer service at a time when many organizations are crying out for help.

Carolyn Blunt is Managing Director of Real Results Training Consultancy, a people development company that specializes in contact centre customer service training. For the past decade, Carolyn has been writing, speaking and training on contact centre customer service, and has been observing the positive and negative impacts of using social media for customer service first hand.

@carolynblunt
Carolyn@real-results.co.uk

Martin Hill-Wilson is a customer service and social business strategist. His company Brainfood Consulting provides customer strategy services to a range of B2B and B2C brands. Martin is also a long-tern member of the UK customer service community passing on his expertise as a keynote speaker and blogger.

@martinhw
martin@brainfoodextra.com

“Martin and Carolyn are about to put you through boot camp to explore the wilderness of peer-to-peer communities and social networks. They won’t give you the magic key to your social media support conundrums but they will give you the field manual and a few war stories.”
Rorey Jones, Global Community Manager, Spotify

“Welcome to the new world. Customer service has changed for good with the advent of social media. And so have the rules. The problem is that the rules have not yet been written down. And many of them have not yet been invented.

So how do you play on a field where the rules of engagement are at best vague? This is where Delivering Effective Social Customer Service comes in. It is a handbook that helps you to navigate the whole new world of customer service. It is in many ways the new rule book for customer service.”
Jonty Pearce, Editor of Call Centre Helper

“Martin and Carolyn have made a major contribution to knowledge. Social will redefine customer service and its delivery over the next decade and this book will help leaders set strategy to meet the challenges ahead.”
Jon Snow, Chairman, Directors’ Club (GB & NI)

“A thought provoking and insightful read for today’s customer service professional in an evolving customer experience world.”
Cormac Connolly, Director of Channel Development at Virgin Media

“When two of the most respected individuals in the UK contact centre industry collaborate on such an important topic then we must surely listen to them! Customer service continues to change, both in how we define it and in the number of channels available for our customer to choose from. Whatever we feel about it, social media is certainly growing in use and this book gives every organization some invaluable and practical tools to help them face the challenge.

Recommended reading for all of us who are involved in delivering services to our customers and a valuable contribution to the current debate.”
Ann-Marie Stagg, Director of the Call Centre Management Association in the UK & Vice-President of the European Confederation of Contct Centre Organizations

Do you know what your customers are saying about you online? Sticking your head in the sand is not a strategy. The chatter about your organization is happening right now. Regardless of whether you like it or respond to it.

Social media is the biggest thing happening to the customer service industry since the mid 1960s when modern day call centres were born. Traditionally written customer service letters were replaced with live telephone conversations. Now social media has made this conversation public. It’s real-time and it’s global.

Fear is understandable, but there is no going back. The technology won’t uninvent itself. Social is here to stay. Failure to learn new ways will leave your organization light-years behind the competition.

The upside is that when you get it right for your customer, others can now witness how you actually look after them. Your behaviour becomes your credentials. The relationship between service, experience, loyalty, recommendation and purchasing behaviour has been widely proven. Effective customer service matters.

Social customer service simply ups the stakes.

"We're in an era where customer service is being refined almost daily. Martin and Carolyn are gifted in exploring new territory, identifying the trends and issues that matter most, and making them accessible and relevant. The book is insightful, fun to read and thought provoking – a welcome addition to literature in the customer service profession."
—Brad Cleveland, Author and Consultant, founding partner and former President/CEO, International Customer Management Institute (ICMI)

"Social media doesn't have to be an unmanaged 'complaint box'. In Delivering Effective Social Customer Service, you'll learn how to use social media to improve service, engage with consumers and build loyal relationships."
—Bob Thomson, Founder&CEO, CustomerThink Corp.