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For the last several years, companies have been working to understand social media for marketing purposes. Then, they started to work to understand how to add it into their Customer Service toolset. With the onset of social, customers’ expectations changed. No longer was it acceptable to get a response in 48-72 hours via email or wait on hold for 2 hours, no, when customers tweeted a complainant or service issue, they wanted an immediate response. Companies recognized this and worked to scale towards this new set of expectations. Some, particularly in the travel industry, have done a phenomenal job. It’s a rare day that I don’t get an immediate response from brands like Starwood, Delta or AT&T. Love them or hate them, these are some of the brands who have really integrated social media networks into their customer service toolset at a scalable level.
As companies continue to scale and the space continues to move at a record breaking pace, it’s time. It’s time that customers step up and start reciprocating. If you as a customer want a “personalized experience,” a “one to one” connection with a brand, then you have to give something back. And, you have to give more than your cold, hard cash. Customers need to start being comfortable with handing over data. No, it doesn’t have to be every detail of your life. It could be as simple as this:
Instead of saying, “@ATT you suck,” the complainant could be reframed as, “@ATT Power Outage in 43219 area. When can you send a tech?”
If customers want to be recognized, then things like Googling passengers or providing personal data via Facebook Connect has to be commonplace. The practice of cookie’ing so future emails and advertising is personalized needs to be allowed.
For the last several years, brands have stepped up their game. Now, to get to the next level, it’s time for customers to step up.
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