Social media customer service? It’s not rocket science

I’m slightly confused as to why people think their clients stick with them, or more importantly stay with them. Do they really think that they can serve up whatever user experience suits them and the customer will stick with it? I’m not just talking about functionality and usability, I’m also talking about customer service.

I have recently had a rather poor experience on a side-project that I run. I’m being moved from one provider to another against my will (the result of a buy out) and losing vast amounts of usability and some essential functionality as a result. Ok, I guess I can work with that and research ways around the problem eg other providers, different kinds of webhosting for downloading digital files.  I received assurances from the new provider that certain services would be extended to me for 3 months however these were then removed after 1 month. And when I called to ask if this could be dealt with in any way, reminding them of the previous conversation, I was basically told “computer says no” or not even that really. Finally, they emailed me to ask if I needed any questions answered about migration and I replied with 2 questions – that was 5 days ago and no reply as yet…So I am now in the process of having to migrate my project to another platform completely.

I’m lucky. I know the basics of programming and that gives me substantial benefits in terms of navigating my way around the multitude of website hosting providers, free software publishing platforms like WordPress and free creative tools that exist all over the web. So for me it’s more of an extreme annoyance than a complete full-stop to the project. But as I said, I’m lucky, most of the people using my old provider don’t have that kind of experience so they are left with reduced functionality and a new and rather slapdash provider.

While I appreciate that it’s not really an incoming company’s fault if they don’t offer the functions I need to make my project work, surely every company is now aware that even if they lose me as a customer, if they give great support/customer service then I am more likely to recommend them to someone else further down the line – net promoter score in a very literal sense! As it is I am highly unlikely to recommend the incoming provider to anyone.

There are so many simple, easy touches that make the customer experience better that there is no excuse any more for delivering a poor experience in usability and customer service. Web Hosting Rating asked me to look at their site and maybe write a review and frankly I am happy to, because they clearly demonstrate  just one easy way to make people feel more informed and better helped. It’s not rocket science, it’s a blog. And it’s not even a daily updated blog, it’s an information blog that provides guidance on making the most of the services they provide. More that this, it thinks widely. It references software you might want to host on the platform, how to install and apply it and suggests way to maximise your engagement. And of course all of this makes using their service more attractive and simpler.

There’s a lot of buzz about customer service via social media. It doesn’t have to cost the earth but I firmly believe it will make the difference between businesses succeeding and failing. I would be interested to learn how many of the people who were moved to my new provider are happy with the service they are receiving, how many will leave and how many will stay because they have to.

A collection of predictions for 2012

I have been mulling over what I might usefully write at the turning of the year. I feel the need to mark the completely arbitrary distinction between 31st December and 1st January in some way. And the easiest thing would be to prepare some predictions for you to display my foresight and unbelievable genius. And my talent for sarcasm.

The fascination with making predictions about what the coming year will deliver online/in social/on mobile is a bit like the prediction frenzy that goes on in women’s magazines. Not so, you say. We base our predictions on understanding of the market, new developments we know about and our own razor sharp insight, you say. Hmmm. Who remembers the predictions around the Year of the Mobile? 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005…

And what about the various woolly predictions from last year? Here is one I read about Google+, and I kid you not,

“Someone will do something interesting with Google+”

Well strictly speaking there’s no way you could fail on that one. The writer didn’t say they were related to Mystic Meg…

Anyway – rather than attempt predictions of my own I thought I’d point you at some interesting ones on a variety of topics. If nothing else maybe you’ll get a laugh. Happy New Year!

What 2012 holds for social media on thenextweb
5 predictions for the Chinese mobile market in 2012 on Forbes
Online video predictions for  2012 from ReelSEO plus some good tips and info on searching and marketing on YouTube
*&%@#! and Other Ads Trends for 2012 from The Wall Street Journal
9 Facebook predictions for 2012 that don’t suck from NorthSocial

And finally, almost as accurate and certainly more amusing

What does the year of the Dragon hold for you? from gotohoroscope
Mystic Meg’s money predictions for 2012 from The Sun
Gung hay  fat choy! (phonetic chinese)

Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’

Imagination rolls on to new heights. We came first in the top 100 design agencies this year and there was special mention of our digital offer, so congrats to everyone and may I say I am proud – typically it happened while I have been on maternity leave… Boasting over.

I’ve been interested to follow the Labour behind the Label campaign running this week. It’s using a combination of guerilla marketing and social media to get the message out that sand blasting jeans causes fatal lung illness.

The week started predictably and appropriately with putting an image on facebook to drum up awareness of the issue and moved on to directly messaging big brands questions about sandblasting via Facebook. Yesterday the same tactic was employed on Twitter and today the action is to pop leaflets in the pockets of jeans in shops – brilliant. Crowd source your activists, motivate them and give them all the tools they need to be effective in their own social graph.

Charities are well placed to use social media as they can garner a “love marks” kind of support for their brand and an activist following by the very nature of their identity, but I think that this is a particularly good example of how a social media campaign for any brand or organisation should be run, where online feeds offline and vice versa.

And it’s already been sucessful. Diesel have committed to stopping the use of sand blasting for their products immediately – originally they were going to wait until 2012.

Go Labour Behind the Label!

Foursquare – what’s the point?

I have had two discussions about the point of Foursquare with two very different people,  but both are heavily involved in social media – Russ Goldsmith and Ciaran Norris. In both cases we kind of agreed that at the moment there seems to be little point and actually, do you need to have a point with a game?

And it is a game – even though there are some interesting examples of brands using it to promote their activities.

What I find interesting about it, however, is emerging methods of use. After all, Twitter really became the vibrant social space that it is when people started to connect beyond what they had for breakfast. When they began to connect for business and world real-time gossip.

I used Foursquare the other day to find a restaurant. Instead of going to Google which I also have on my phone I went to Foursquare because I was sure it would be tagged and more importantly would tell me how far away from it I was and give me the address without even having to type it in. Being a bit of a useless navigator this was incredibly useful.

The fascinating thing about social spaces is the way that the users make them their own and I believe that this is where the interest lies in networks like Foursquare. It’s not about what you are told they have to do by their creators – it’s about what you end up doing by accident that shapes their future.

Women and Social Media

Firstly an apology – I have been absent from this blog I realise for about a month (maybe just over a month) I’m sure you weren’t all weeping into your cappucinos but it’s not good practise to simply leave a blog and jet off as I did to New Zealand for a holiday with no explanation. Well, that’s my excuse -I’ve been in New Zealand on holiday. We took the holiday because of another event that’s been rather on my mind recently – I am pregnant. So I think that’s 2 pretty good excuses for not rushing to update my  blog in the last four weeks. I hope you will excuse me.

And now on with the post.

For a long time I have thought that there is something about certain social media spaces that leaned more towards one gender than another. When I first joined Twitter I was struck by the kind of people I was linking up with and the kind of early adopters I knew in my network. They were all male. It struck me at the time that maybe this light-touch first past the post form of updating was particularly attractive to men rather than women. After all, it’s not about deep engagement but about long aquaintance, which can of course lead to deep engagement, but usually in a different kind of social space like a blog for instance.

On Facebook on the other hand I always had a more balanced gender divide. In fact I was invited to join by a female. And the stats at the moment suggest that it is a more female populated than male populated environment. There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook – 2.2% are of unknown gender *

So now I am on Foursquare and of my massive 31 friends only 4 are female  – 12%. Quantcast backs this gender bias up with their assessment  that only 42% of users are female. And none of the women in my network post a jot. What’s going on?

It’s another light touch update system not unlike Twitter. It’s kind of a boasting environment and its mildly competitive. And it’s a new frontier.

Being the pop-psychologist I am here’s what I think – It’s the light touch, it’s the competition and it’s wanting to be at the new frontiers that make it an environment more exciting to men. One of my female co-workers who Twitters a lot, said that it took her a while to see the point in Twitter and add it to her life. Maybe men don’t need a point they don’t want the handbook they just want to get their hands dirty.

Anyway, it’s an interesting thing to investigate for the purposes of placing social media activations in new and developing networks.

Oh, one other thought I have had – maybe I just have a lot of male friends…

IAB social media blog

So I am a bit late in announcing but the IAB Social Media Council (of which I am a member) has launched a blog which you can find at http://iabuksocial.co.uk. I am part of the team posting and as usual will try not to double post on here.

Current favourite posts of mine include Fleur Hick’s talking about online influencers and this very clear post from ain MacMillan, RMM and Robin Grant, We Are Social on the 10 ways that social media has changed the customer service game – send it to your clients!

The real question for 2010

We can make all the predictions we like about the development of technology, new communications methods bla bla bla, but the really important question for all us in the UK is – how will you vote in the forthcoming election? Because this time the choice isn’t between a little bit more money or a little bit less money in our pocket. Nor should it be about whether we like Gordon Brown’s tailor. This is by far the most important election for the last 12 years, because it will determine how or maybe even whether we ride out the economic storm.

And of course, for those of us leading fully networked lives there’s a different level of interest after the central role played by social media in the 2009 Obama campaign. Will the UK political parties go the same way? (yes they already are – eg webCameron) Will they suceed?

I was having a discussion about all this with @mccrudden at lunch. He thinks there are interesting opportunities for independent candidates – I definitely agree with that.  There may also be opportunities for progressive and energetic individuals MPs because social media revolves around the cult of personality. But will it be the decisive poll swinging tool that it undoubtedly was in the States? I have to say I doubt it.

Our politicians have less to differentiate them,   there is not a massively smarting disenfranchised electorate that feels ignored by one party out there waiting for mobilisation, there isn’t one person to vote for, there’s a party and I think that we still know that, and on top of that there is British cynicism.

I think there may be a real opportunity for apolitical organisations to drive election agendas using online spaces, which will not only be in social media. You only have to look at mydavidcameron.com, or the fact that 38 degrees has already launched into 2010 by polling its members about whether they should act to drive political discussion in the election, or this post about

The Guardian and many political think tanks have taken the opposite view to me. They think that this election will be substantially driven by social media – or at least by digital media.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/03/labour-tory-internet-campaigns

I think that it will play a substantial part, it will be integral, but will it be the change maker as it was in the States? Will it really swing the central, floating voters out of their complacency?

Whatever the result I am looking forward to the ingenuity of the various party teams – they’re going to have to work hard to catch our attention and I don’t doubt that they will.

Good cheer for the New Year

The strange days after new year just before everything goes ballistic again are my favourite time to investigate storytelling stuff – all the things you feel like you shouldn’t play with when work is on a roll I seek out now and actively enjoy while I have the time. (Yeah Yeah, I should have the time to look at things like this this all the time but unfortunately life’s not like that.)

Anyway, here are my top 3 for the rest of the afternoon (before you have to leave work early to outrun the incoming snow):-

Echo Bazaar – This is a game linked into Twitter and based around a dystopia of London.  It brilliantly weaves storytelling and your existing Twitter network so that you can play with and against your network and other strange and suspcious characters of this fantastic environment. I’m not telling you any more. Go and creep yourselves out!

HBO Imagine – HBO do it again with this amazing way of storytelling. High production values, all the stories interconnected, but seperated in the interface so that you have to work hard to put the pieces together. It’s drawing me in and I’m loving it.

Seth’s Blog – “Doh!” I hear you exclaim, “this person calls themselves a planner and they are recommending this?! Don’t they know we already read Seth’s blog have since we were but children?! ” Yes indeed, but as some of the people who read this blog aren’t planners I thought they might like to enjoy some of Seth’s daily goodness. And besides which Idon’t get the chance to read it every day – which is the point of this time of New Year Good Cheer.  So, if you already know about it then pat yourself on the back and take an instant diversion via Adam Crowe. If not, enjoy.

X-Factor vs Rage Against The Machine

I just joined the Facebook Group “Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No 1” . The point being to get Killing in the Name Of into the number 1 spot for Christmas Day instead of X-Factor cheese.

The irony is not lost on me that I will therefore be just as much party to creating a “false” number 1 by popular vote, I am just sick and tired of Christmas Bland.

Power to the Facebook people!

Digital divas

I went to Reboot Britain this Monday, a conference that was investigating how digital activations can address some of the incredibly difficult issues – social and political – that are approaching us and that are already here. One refreshing aspect of the conference which reflects well on the public sector was the mix of  really interesting speakers. It’s something I’ve noted before that there is often a lack of female speakers at high profile conferences. Though women have as much to say and as much experience in digital environments  as men they are often not up on the podium, so having enjoyed a conference which I think offered a good balance and some excellent female speakers I can’t pass up referring to it! If nothing else to bring these brilliant women to the attention of other conference organisers. Perhaps the title of this post gives that away! (But I’m not going to stop there. I also want to list some other women I would like to hear speak at conferences and who I believe have interesting things to say/contribute. )

But before I do I really need to mention a couple of the excellent sessions not by women! The keynote was given by Jeremy Hunt, the shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, who referenced the need in government in general to think more flexibly about the intersection between online and policy making and also talked about the digital divide, the fact that only 1/3  of our population are actually online. I also enjoyed hearing David Price from Debate Graph explaining how this tool works to enable people to understand and participate in discussions about policy. Finally, there was a great talk by Graeme Duncan from Caspian Learning about how video games, game play and virtual environments can provide amazing learning spaces for kids.

Enough already! What about the Digital Divas?

M T Rainey – started in adland, founded Horsesmouth. Articulate with interesting ideas about female and male self-expressions in digital environments
http://www.smarta.com/inspiration/interview-videos/interviews/MT-Rainey–Horsesmouth

Joanne Jacobs – social media consultant, ex-lecturer, iconoclast and straight-talker, not to mention coder.
http://joannejacobs.net/

Debra Szbeko – making a great case for and business from using media models to help people to understand and engage with difficult policy issues which affect them. http://thinkpublic.com/news/

And some others who weren’t at the conference but who I find interesting and think would speak very well about useful stuff:-

Janine Smith – Creative Director at Que Pasa, charming, mobile creative  - http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=6921338&authToken=Sx4q&authType=name&trk=coprofile_in_network

Amelia Torode – blogger, thinker and inspirational planner, Head of Strategy and Innovation at VCCP

Sandrine Plasseraud – Social media native and enthusiast, established blogger http://sandrineplasseraud.com