Treat Social Media As The Court of Support

Sometimes I think that customer support has reached a point of critical mass. And it's all because social media has captivated our society, forcing companies to either sink or swim against the current. Once upon a time (and I still remember that time!) Facebook was only limited to college students. Nowadays, children, teenagers and adults alike regularly treat it as their diary, logging into the network at least once a day. With Facebook’s user base crossed the 1.5 billion mark and the Twitter user base making its way past 300 million, it’s hard to imagine companies jumping out of the rat race. But it’s been happening… In late 2012, Charter, the fourth largest cable provider in the US decided to pull the plug on its social-media based support. Known as “Umatter2Charter”, it was taking customer requests through Facebook and Twitter before axing the service. In a more drastic move, Wegmans pulled the plug on their entire Facebook operation – losing some 6,000 fans in the process. The move was made due to their desire to focus on in-person customer support. Unlike Wegmans, however, Charter still does have a Facebook presence. Thank God for that – I happen to think that catching your favorite HBO special on time takes precedence over figuring out if I can get skim milk at a particular Wegmans location.

The Field of Dreams Syndrome

The other is what I call the "Field of Dreams" Syndrome. In the movie when Kevin Costner was asked why he was building a baseball stadium in the middle of an Iowa cornfield his reply was "If I build it, they will come". The only thing it's been true for has been social media. Social media has turned into an arbitrator of sorts. And there’s no hiding from this little fact. Just like your town hall which has been there for the last 100 years, it seems like social media will always be there to lend an ear, hearing out your customer’s case. So, whether you have a Facebook page or not, disgruntled users (who may or may not have contacted your support prior) will always have a platform to strike back. This way, users can guilt companies into responding to them by leveraging social media’s immense user base. It’s similar to the town hall analogy we just used – except the population of the town is growing fast and the town hall bulletin is getting more crowded with each passing day.

Bad News For Companies

To be sure, the explosion of social media doesn’t paint a very rosy picture for organizations. There’s lots of ground for companies to cover – ranging from keeping track of questions, complaints or plain support requests. Then there's prioritizing, sorting and responding to everyone. Popular opinion varies widely, but to see who is shaping future accepted behavior on social media, we just have to look at millennials. These people have no clue of what the world was like before social media, but they do know that the power is on their side.

There's a Better Way

What if you could have a support system that allowed you to keep discussions on your own website - where team members could get uninterrupted access to anything your customers say about your brand? Aside from a comprehensive user feedback community and knowledge library, you need a ticketing helpdesk to keep every request accounted for – whether it originates from email, community or the feedback widget. The online landscape has been compared to a sort of a snowball effect or an exponential growth pattern. For every time your company is mentioned, whether in positive or negative light, user experience is created and shared. With each share or comment this message is amplified, leading to an almost uncontrollable force in the cyberspace. Wouldn't it be nice if you could control it all?