Branding Friday: Customer Service + Social Media are a Match Made in Heaven
Written on April 23, 2010 by admin
I’m pleased that more and more people, including myself, have happy stories of how they got good customer service through social media. Sure, we’ve all heard about @comcastcares and how they help people through Twitter, but what about other examples? I’ve got one of my own.
My mother loves her computer. She’s come a long way since she and my father bought an eMachine in the late ’90s to keep up with me when I was traveling through Europe. So when her Dell monitor stopped working last week, she was a bit panicky at the idea of not having her computer running.
Thinking it was under warranty, she called and asked for a replacement. The customer service rep confirmed that the monitor was under warranty and said they’d be shipping a new one asap.
A few days later, no monitor. Mom calls Dell to find out from 10 other reps (yes, she got the swinging vine effect getting transferred to different people) that no, the monitor wasn’t under warranty and they wouldn’t be sending a new one. The first rep had made a mistake.
(Um, Rule #1 of Customer Service? The Customer is always right? And if you make a mistake it’s on you? Hello??)
She was disappointed but ready to buy another.
Enter stubborn social media lover daughter.
I do a little research and tweet @RichardatDELL because he allegedly handles such complaints on Twitter. Within an hour he replies that he will look into it. Within another hour, one of his team members emails me for details. Within days, my mom is being shipped a new monitor, no questions asked, and plenty of apologies all the way around.
Now that’s customer service.
I find it a shame that we can’t get the same results when calling an 800 number. I guess it’s because customer service reps are a dime a dozen and not authorized to make such decisions. This goes back to my post on Disney and how they enable each and every Cast Member to make the decision that will best make the guest happy. Dell could do that not only on Twitter but on the phone too.
Still, Twitter is an amazing customer service tool, and one you can really make a name for your company. While we were ready to join Dell Hell, we’re both now touting the niceties of a company that went out of its way to help my mom.
Thanks, Dell. I had faith in you and you pulled through.
What about you? Are you using Twitter as a customer service tool? Let’s hear your stories.
[...] 2. Fear of being naked. No one likes the idea of having everything out in the open. Companies can’t hide when it comes to social media. I tweeted Dell about a customer service issue I had. Everyone saw it. Dell could either ignore it and incite more anger from me and other customers, or apologize publicly and handle it. Which they did. [...]
[...] wrote a month or so ago about my mom’s bad experience with their customer support line and how my [...]
Hello,
My name is Jeff Bertolucci and I’m a contributing writer for PC World. I’m working on a story about how consumers are using social media sites (e.g. Twitter and Facebook) to get tech support from companies. I came across your blog describing your experience with Dell and found it very interesting. Would you be interested in a brief phone interview, either today (3/17) or tomorrow? I’d like to include your story in the article.
Thanks for your time.
Best,
Jeff Bertolucci (for PCWorld)
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