If you’ve read “Who’s Your Gladys?”, you know that the companies that we interviewed for the book all recommend asking for customer feedback. You don’t know what you may be doing wrong if you don’t ask them. But what if you have a customer that’s complaining on social media? While writing, “Who’s Your Gladys?” one of the business owners and CEOs we interviewed was Peggy Wynne Borman, the owner of Preston Wynne Spas in California. She monitors consumer review sites and turns complaints into customers.
We found another fantastic example of proactive service recovery using social media last spring. A great friend of ours, media trainer extraordinaire Shawne Duperon, was experiencing a severe issue with her computer and wasn’t happy with the response she was getting from Geek Squad, the computer/technology installation and repair group that’s affiliated with Best Buy.
Shawne’s laptop was acting up and she was unable to access any of the contact information and other valuable material that it housed. She took it to Geek Squad and waited for them to remedy the situation. Then she waited and waited some more, longer than she’d expected. When she didn’t get a return phone call, she turned to Twitter. She posted a quick tweet about the situation and got a response from a member of the Geek Squad. Here’s his take on what happened from Alan Pugh, one of the Geek Squad “agents” on duty that day:
The short version of this story is that I have TweetDeck running on my PC watching out for certain keywords so that I can detect ‘Disturbances in the Force.’ This is a Star Wars reference used by Geek Squad’s founder (Robert Stephens) which translates to identifying problems and finding solutions. It isn’t something required of us or something we’re measured on; it is more of a culture of protecting our reputation.
The first key to providing client issue resolution, in my mind, is realizing and admitting that we make mistakes. That can be pretty hard for some people, but the reality is that perfection doesn’t exist. What sets us apart is acknowledging them and fixing them instead of pretending they don’t exist.
With that being said, I spotted a tweet from Shawne that stated she was having a customer service issue (she may have used ‘nightmare’) with us and I simply reached out to see what the issue may be. She expressed a very valid frustration and provided her information in a private message, which allowed me to use my network a bit and track down the right person to ask. That person was a data recovery agent in Louisville. He was able to physically track down the product and not only provide the first true status update, but also finish the repair then and there. I did my best to keep in contact with her while I was working with him so that Shawne was aware that we were still pursuing the answer, and once we had the answer, I relayed it to her.
The most fascinating thing about this for me is that, despite 20,000+ agents in Geek Squad working across the country and the world, social networking can link us all together as if we’re neighbors and it replaces the cumbersome chore of tracking down the right person by making a dozen phone calls or sending a dozen e-mails, giving us the opportunity to assist more people in less time. It also gives us a live, 24/7 glimpse into our clients’ compliments and complaints, allowing us to respond immediately. We’d be crazy to ignore that opportunity.
Thank you, Alan! You’ve given us a fantastic example of how to use Twitter to turn complaining customers into raving fans. Needless to say, Shawne was ecstatic about Geek Squad’s response to her Twitter complaint. She even went on to tweet great things about how her issue was resolved.
If you’re not monitoring the social media feeds, you may be missing out on an opportunity. Go ahead, dip a toe in and learn how it works. It doesn’t take long and like Alan, you can have a feed running in the background on your computer that lets you keep an eye on how your brand is being discussed. Your customers are there. Shouldn’t you be there, too?
What do you think? Are you proactive in seeking out customer feedback, both positive AND negative? What opportunities might you be missing by not using social media?
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