Customer service is your new marketing department

In the earlier article Use Negative Comments to Accentuate the Positive, we discussed the benefits of letting your customers’ less-than-flattering Twitter and Facebook comments ride. The main reason was that, often, happy customers will emerge to be your brand advocates. But you can’t rely on your customers to do all of the work. That’s where customer service comes in.

Bring your customer service team from behind the scenes and make them your new marketing department. Nowadays, when customer service and social media come together, they can lead the way to brand success.

That’s because, when you put your brand on Twitter or Facebook, you put it on a two-way street. So don’t just post coupon codes and corporate kudos and be on your way. Use your voice to satisfy your customers and, hopefully, invigorate brand loyalty.

Brands like Hewlett-Packard and Boingo Wireless do it right. They have dedicated customer service agents on Twitter — yes, with names and faces — responding to technical questions and also just keeping the HP or Boingo conversation going. Plus, their presence is consistent.

When someone tweets a question, problem or criticism to your company, they’re also tweeting it to the world — and that customer’s entire social network is awaiting your reply. No pressure, though. It’s simply a matter of social media acculturation that needs to take place with your customer service personnel. They don’t need to be social gurus; they need to be what they already are — brand stewards and customer service professionals. At Starmark, we’ve constructed endless social media SOP documents to help you seamlessly integrate your marketing voice with your customer service voice. Because when you put the two together, brand magic happens.

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