How (and how not) to reach out to customers

I’d like to share a couple of examples of companies communicating with customers on an almost instantaneous basis.

Slideshare.net

Jason posted a blog post about slideshare, and they responded on his blog.

Kayak.com

I posted on twitter about my love of Kayak.com, and they responded in a friendly, humorous manner.

There are many, many more examples. I have heard from lots of companies when I mention their product online, and seen many, many blog posts about bad customer service in which the organization responded quickly and professionally.

Compare this to the SWIFT debacle- when people tried to complain about them, they asked to have the posts removed. Not a good idea. The best thing you can do is to be proactive, listen to users, and don’t get defensive. Try to address concerns- you can’t make everyone happy, but you can at least demonstrate that someone is listening and collecting ideas and implementing what they can.

What are others saying about you?

One thing a lot of businesses fail to realize is that customer service is embedded in every phone call, every email, every IM and every in person transaction. The usability of your website translates directly into customer’s perception of your customer service. But you don’t have to have all the basics covered before you can start branching out.

• Is there an employee who uses twitter who wouldn’t mind watching for tweets about your library/organization?
• Do you have Google alerts and technorati searches set for your library/organization so you can respond to blog posts (positive and negative?)
• Do you check your website for broken links, etc. on an ongoing basis?

If you want to see some examples of good and bad customer service, take a look at this flickr search.