Mashable and Blackberry have nominated 5 companies for “Best Social Media Customer Service in 2010” (http://mashable.com/2010/12/09/social-media-customer-service-finalists/).
All 5 nominees emphasise the importance of proactively going where your customers are. These companies scan for comments about their service online and join the conversation to proactively understand the issue and provide help.
This is clearly the way to surprise and delight your customers online. However, as more and more customers expect companies to join their conversations online, a fundamental change to customer servicing is required, particularly with regards to the concept of customer value and value-based servicing.
In traditional, one-to-one servicing channels, companies have differentiated their service levels according to the value of the individual customer. E.g. American Express will identify a customer’s colour card when they call the customer centre and dedicate more resources to service a black card than a green card. However, as customer servicing develops in one-to-many, social media channels, companies must also factor in their customers’ social influence. The more socially influential a customer is, the more resources companies must dedicate to address complaints and encourage positive comments.
In order to successfully do this, companies must develop tools to identify their customers online, assess their social influence and monitor any comments online. As these tools emerge, the concept of customer value and service will change radically.
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