With social media your customers are having experiences on their own terms. They are in control. All of their experiences add up to their interpretation of your brand, product and service. But with them being in charge what must you do to make sure you’re winning the competitive battle with engaging social media experiences?
This question is a significant one for many organizations and as soon as you think you have the upper hand your competitor will take it away from you – or your customer changes their expectation.
But don’t be complacent if other companies in your industry are not good at providing an excellent social media experience for customers. It just means that you have a small window of opportunity to make it a major differentiator for your business.
Social customer care and delivering a social media experience for customers that differentiates is your opportunity to disrupt – instead of being disrupted. I was fortunate enough to meet up with Dan Gingiss, one of the best people to help provide insight into what the best brands and top brands are doing at delivering and engaging social media experience at Customer Contact Week in Las Vegas.
I only had a few minutes with Dan at CCW, so you can learn a lot more about his book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media by checking out his interview on the Fast Leader Show.
Here is an edited transcript of my CCW interview with Dan:
Jim Rembach: Hey this is Jim with the Fast Leader Show and Call Center Coach and I’m here with Dan Gingiss. Dan is actually the author of Winning at Social Customer Care. He pulled a lot of information from real stories about companies that are doing it well.
I know there’s a lot of stories in there and I just got my own book signed by Dan so I’m looking forward to going through and on my trip back home. If you were to start talking about something that kind of is the real power-punch in this book that kind of makes all of the others – you know kind of get in line behind – what is it.
Dan Gingiss: You know it’s actually really simple, it is always respond. So, whether customers are complaining about your company, whether they’re complimenting or whether they’re asking you a question. What they’re looking for on social media is a response. They’re looking for engagement with the brand.
One of the reasons I got interested in social media as a marketer was it is the first and only marketing channel in which customers can talk back. Every other marketing channel the brand gets a megaphone and gets to just shout and customers have to listen. In here they get to talk back and when they talk back what they want is a conversation and relationship with the brand. So, the best thing you can do is respond.
Jim Rembach: I think relationship is really a key both internally and externally. Without a doubt. So, we’re actually going to have Dan as a guest on the Fast Leader Show coming up. He actually just got through a bunch of book signings and he’s kind of fried. So, I’m not going to ask a whole lot more questions other than to say Dan, thanks I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and we wish you the very best.
Dan Gingiss: My pleasure, great to meet you. Thanks Jim.
