In a recent Telegraph article, BT was named the worst customer service provider. We hear a lot about formulas for good customer service; what's the formula for bad customer service?
And I don't mean a little, the-rep-you-ended-up-with-was-just-having-a-bad-day bad. This study rates the majority of interactions as consistently unpleasant and ineffective for the customer.
How? The criteria seem to be these:
Consistently rude staff
Taking several minutes to get to an agent
Being passed around to different agents
Having to repeat one's request several times (lack of communication among agents or between the IVR system and the agents)
Staff whose accents are hard to understand
Long hold times
Having to answer more than one security question
If you're the company, how do you rate with each of these? (Hint: if you don't know, try doing random customer satisfaction surveys at the end of calls. Trust me; they'll tell you how you rate.) If you're the customer, what would you add to this list?
AudioBoo is one of the newer tools in the social media storm of late, and some podfaders have gravitated towards it as an easy, on-the-go alternative to the sometimes labor-intensive audio podcast.
What is AudioBoo?
AudioBoo is basically Seesmic for audio recordings, with the added benefit of recording directly from the iPhone via the iPhone app. To get started, download the free app from the App store. The interface is three-button, no-nonsense.
Push Record to record an audio message. This could be a Twitter-like comment or something longer, like an interview, with two people speaking into the application.
After reviewing your Boo, just hit upload to post the message, and message posts to the public timeline at AudioBoo.fm.
The site works like most other social networking sites, with a public timeline so you can discover friends with similar interests, the ability to tag posts for more discoverability and the ability to friend and follow others.
Another nice added feature is the ability to create different account and link each one to the iPhone app--great for community managers like myself who might want to post from different accounts on behalf of clients.
The big benefit of AudioBoo is its ease of use, hands-down. If you've discovered that you don't have time to orchestrate a full-on podcast but still want to connect orally with friends, fans and followers, AudioBoo can basically act as an easy, three-button, instant podcast. At the next event, try hitting Record to capture an interview with a speaker or attendee immediately after a session and posting right away.
It's the instantaneous nature of Twitter combined with the more personal connectivity of audio via the human voice. This could be powerful.
And yes, it's now integrated with Twitter so that you can tweet your Boos, so no worries about having to manage two micromedia platforms simultaneously.
For a more detailed explanation, this video is excellent:
Have you tried AudioBoo? What do you think? More importantly, how do you anticipate using it?
If you go to any seminar on customer service, ask any expert or read any book on the topic, you'll get one basic, rather tired message:
Go the extra mile.
Even a Google blogsearch turns up over 24,00 results. And there are some great examples of going the extra mile, to be sure, but I can't help but wonder, what does that really mean? Who decides what customer expectations are to begin with and what falls into the "extra" category? What if customer expectations are unrealistically high? Or low?
Harvard Business writer Scott Anthony asked this question as part of a 10-part series on customer service. In particular, he addresses the issue of cost-cutting: when a company considers cutting costs for customers, how does it determine what to cut?
In short, when you not only can't go the extra mile, but the company is going to have to stop at 5,000 feet, how do you decide which 280 feet to cut out?
Instead of starting with the balance book, Scott suggests a customer-focused approach: um... ask the customer. It's a crazy idea. Listen to what customers really want and need, not just to decide what new products to develop but also what to cut when times get tough:
A far better approach is to develop a deep understanding of how the
customer defines quality. There might actually be elements where a
company is providing performance that actually overshoots a customer's
needs — a natural target for cost cutting.
(Emphasis mine.) In the social media sphere, we always suggest listening first. We always recommend monitoring for weeks or even months before making any commitments to any type of active social media participation. The same is true for for any type of customer service--even when it's making a decision about cutting down on service. If your customers are rave about your phone agents, don't cut the call center budget. If customers don't like or use the online chat, ask them why or why not; an inexpensive fix might maximize that usage. Or you might discover that your customers just don't like that medium, and it can indeed be cut.
In short, if you can't go the extra mile, don't take shots in the dark on shortcuts based on the balance sheet. Make it a habit to take the time to ask customers what they want, over and over again. Develop that deep understanding of what the customer needs and wants today. And if you're not sure? Ask. The shortcut you take just may end up looking to the customer like that cliched extra mile.
With the explosion of social media into the public space (even my mother has discovered Facebook), there is now a constantly-burning question, especially for those who use social media to highlight their professional accomplishments: how personal is too personal?
HarvardBusiness published an article last month asking the question, What does your Facebook profile say about you? and delves into the constantly blurring line between the personal and the professional. When companies first started blocking Facebook in 2007, business blogger and podcaster Shel Holtz criticized the move, citing (among other) objections the now-emerged trend of work-life integration. He argues against the productivity objection, saying:
Most employees will not risk their jobs to screw around online. If they
spend an hour online for non-work-related purposes, they’ll put in an
extra hour to get the job done. That hour may be spent doing work at
home, but on the other hand, employees are routinely expected to take
work home with them. That’s the nature of work-life integration: If you
expect me to do work at home, then I expect the employer to tolerate me
engaging in non-work activities at work. The measure of productivity is
the amount of output created.
And the Harvard article asks the question: why would offer personal information online, anyway?, quickly followed by the salient answer: "Sharing personal information further humanized people whose roles may otherwise make them seem remote or inaccessible." Just look at Frank Eliaison's Twitter team humanizing customer service for Comcast or GM's Fastlane blog to find out how big business can reach out to the public in a real and transparent way and succeed in chipping away at its monolithic image.
Still, this is inevitably the first question I'll field from participants at a Facebook for Business session: isn't that just for your family and friends? And this will be followed by: how much personal information should we disclose? how personal is too personal? is it OK to post pictures of my dog?
The answer: work and life are becoming integrated. More and more, in the office we show ourselves as complete human beings, with both a passion for our work and a passion for our hobbies and family life. And as "workplace" is becoming defined no longer just as the office cubicle but also as the seat in the airport terminal, the table at the local coffee shop, the iPhone in the car before the meeting, the home office and the Tweetup networking event, the line between the professional profile and the personal profile has grayed as well.
General advice for your Facebook profile:
Be yourself. Show your hobbies. Post your photography, your dog winning the second place ribbon at the dog show, your favorite campsite at Yellowstone.
Have an opinion. Whitewashing is for fences. You don't have to be a jerk to give an opinion; if you create a space that invites and engenders informed discussions, you're more likely to build an engaged network than to make real enemies.
Share your passion for your work (without giving away company secrets). Let your passion for your work show in a real and daily way. Passion begets passion, and as the Harvard article points out, "Seeing a more rounded person can't help but extend and develop professional relationships, furthering the trust that's crucial to collaborative knowledge creation--the lifeblood of innovation"
Don't post anything you wouldn't want your grandmother, boss or shareholders to see. An open-door policy doesn't mean everyone gets to root around in your closet. Post photos from the company picnic, but leave out the one where the boss looks a bit tipsy. Mention you are enjoying client challenges, but don't mention the client by name. Share video of your family trip to the Poconos, but keep the second honeymoon to Bermuda private.
What about you? What advice would you give to professionals looking to Facebook as a way to reach out and get engaged?
First, apologies for the radio silence. It turns out that two weeks before my move to Seattle, I was hospitalized for a week and took a week to recover--just in time to see off the movers and pack the car for the cross-country trip! Well now, thank you, but the illness was serious enough to warrant a hiatus from blogging and Twittering.
For today, a fascinating video I ran across that is a five-minute explanation of Information Overload. It's a cross between Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded and your RSS reader. Annoyed that the question of what it all means is left up to the viewer to decide, but also a bit relieved to know that I'm not alone in the daily battle of organizing and evaluating the tidal wave of information that comes to me via iPhone and MacBook:
