Friday, June 27, 2008

Customer Service Social Media Strategy

When researching for products and services online, customers are beginning to stray away from looking at corporate websites and are increasingly turning to social media like blogs and discussion forums to share their opinions about what they like and dislike. This post from Marketing Roadmaps details that customers are now for different ways to communicate with other customers, and they want it do it fast. The post lists three things I believe companies can benefit from by adding a blog to their customer service strategy.

  • Content, or posts, presented in an article-like form, in reverse chronological order.
  • Ability for readers to leave public comments
  • Ability to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed or by email

One thing not mentioned though is the reduction of cost going towards customer service. Blogs are relatively cost-free to maintain, and so companies need not worry about budgeting money for it. Even though customer service agents will not be going away soon, consumers are starting to look to their peers for product recommendations, advice on technical support, and other issues.

1 comment:

author said...

Good overview of the space. One of the other ways that companies have embraced social media is by setting up Fan pages on Facebook and tying it to Conversational Marketing via Twitter.com - Check out Zappos, Comcast, H&R Block and others on there.