Real Customer Service Before Social Media Every Time

I have just finished a meeting with a client who is the umpteenth person I've spoken to, to give me the,” if we can get the social media marketing in place, we'll be OK despite our recent problems."



I think everyone knows I love marketing and Social Media is an inexorable and valuable part of the marketers weaponry moving forward, but please don't forget one important fact.



And that is that it's one thing to have a great brand or product offering that your advocates can 'go viral on' and share with the world, but first you need to be deserving of it, and then maybe it will happen.



This particular client had a person answering phones who if they felt they were not being respected, would put clients on hold for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. Sadly on one occasion, she pressed the wrong button and whilst telling her associate she had another loser on hold, was also letting the individual know. Yes I'm sure that word of mouth and social media will give this firm what they deserve.



However as I write this I can also remember the story of a lady I worked with a few years ago in the pharmaceutical industry, Frances Walls who has subsequently gone on to become founder and CEO of renowned strategic consultancy, FAW Consultants based in California in the US.



Today her reputation for developing and implementing innovative and break through strategies is well established but the reason I think she comes to mind is because during her time at Bristol-Myers it was her role to oversee the design, implementation and strategy for the electronic portal that was being developed for the firm.



As you could imagine, the difference between the most knowledgably person and the majority who at the time had virtually no understanding of anything IT was immense.



Her success I believe was based not purely on her extraordinary knowledge or strategic capabilities, but also on the fact that she worked with each individual product manager and tailored the message and the approach perfectly not only to their needs, but importantly also their level of knowledge, behavioural style and departmental constraints.



In the end the organisation gained more than an industry leading customer portal. It had in fact been given a template that outlined how to approach, work with and support the needs of any customer.



So for us the song remains the same. Ensure that real customer service is in place before social media every time.