Social Media Conference a week ago update Take Away #1
There is a different environment today for manufacturers with a direct line to customer service through the internet. It used to be customers would return a defective product to the retail store, now savvy web surfers contact manufacturers directly and expect service. Sometimes the service departments aren’t ready for that or haven’t been able to meet the challenge and “negative tweets” start surfacing.
Several of the speakers were discussing the benefit of using Twitter as your newest and fastest means of handling customer complaints. By keeping a eye on your name or product in Twitter’s Search you can quickly react to any problems that might come up.
An example was given by one large manufacturer – they were seeing numerous tweets about a product of theirs, concerning the same design flaw. The “tweeting” customers were contacted by email and asked to give specific details of the problem. The company took the information to the engineers and they corrected the design problem and then the customers were sent samples and asked to give new feedback. The customers were pleased to be heard and asked to participate in correcting the problem.
Rather than let the negative twitter chatter continue, they made long lasting, loyal customers.
I found this to be a great way to proactive using today’s technology.
