Podcasts about customer service podcast

Enreach applies Automation and AI in new places, legacy spaces, agent augmenting instead of replacing human contact “Right now, it's really about agent augmentation, it's not about replacing agents, and saving money that way,” says Blair Pleasant, President, and Principal Analyst, COMMfusion. “It's really about giving the agents the tools they need to help customers.” In this podcast, Pleasant is joined by Anne Bakker, Head of Enreach AI, Enreach, as we explore how Enreach has been opening new areas of opportunity for the channel by finding practical applications of automation and AI for customer service. Recently, Pleasant authored a white paper, “The emergence of Automation and AI for Customer Service”.  Pleasant discusses her findings and what they mean for the customer service technology industry. “We feel that this technology trend is really at a pivotal point,” says Bakker. “This is a point where it shows value, not just for the enterprise, but for the smaller companies where I think they can really benefit from these technologies.” In the white paper, Pleasant's research found that an estimated 18 to 23 percent of all customer service requests will be handled through conversational AI by the end of 2023, growing up to 28 percent by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, platforms such as WhatsApp are becoming ubiquitous for consumers and even as platforms of commerce. Bakker and Pleasant discuss how these technologies and platforms can come together to seamlessly enable small businesses such as restaurants, health care practices, and even legacy industries such as taxicab companies, offer better customer experiences, and even find ways to expand their services while controlling costs. We learn about how Enreach helped a taxi company offer Uber like functionality and access, possibly to a new set of customers. Learn more about Blair Pleasant and her work https://www.commfusion.com/ Learn more about Enreach Read the white paper

Chase and Timothy talk with Chris Fenimore about his work as a lifestyle/street style fashion photographer, doing what it takes to get your foot in the door, and their favorite fast casual dining spots. Follow Chris Fenimore: @c.fenimore on Instagramhttps://christopherfenimore.substack.com/ Customer Service Podcast on Instagram @customerservicepodCanoe Club on Instagram & YouTube @shopcanoeclub www.shopcanoeclub.com

In one of the episodes of Tony Reid's The Art of Customer Service Podcast, they talk about Money with Mission with Dr. Felecia Froe.  This interesting interview made Felecia recount her challenging journey in real estate.    Felecia Froe, MD is a licensed urological surgeon with over 20 years of experience. She is the owner of Money With Mission, an investment company focused on empowering professional women to build wealth and achieve financial freedom through social impact investing.   As a real estate syndicator, Felecia has partnered with like-minded investors and has raised money for several social impact projects, including a residential assisted living home in Kansas City, Missouri focusing on providing elderly residents experiencing memory problems with personalized care. With her partners at the Eco Alliance Group, she is providing healthy food to food desert areas with indoor vertical farms and grocery stores.   00:00 - Emergence of Dr. Felicia Froe's “Social Impact Projects” 02:54 - Different Skill Set for a Different Project 04:44 - Social Impact Real Estate Investing 07:24 - Multiple Strings Of Income 12:56 - Education and Mentorship 14:29 - Give To The World What You Can 17:44 - Dealing With The Dream Stealers 20:54 - Money With Mission Investment Club 22:37 - Connect with Felecia Froe, MD   Follow the The Art Of Customer Service Podcast: Podcast: https://theartofcustomerservicepodcast.buzzsprout.com/share  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tonyreedco  Website: https://tonyreed.co/    Be the Boss of Your Own Money and Own Your Future. Connect with us and Discover Investment Strategies Designed to make a Difference. Free Download: 7 Steps To Building Resilient Wealth For Women Website: https://moneywithmission.com/  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moneywithmission/  Quotes:   “You can invest in things that are going to make you money and have that positive social impact.” - Felecia Froe, MD   “Don't be the smartest person in the room.” - Felecia Froe, MD  

In one of the episodes of Tony Reid's The Art of Customer Service Podcast, they talk about Money with Mission with Dr. Felecia Froe.  This interesting interview made Felecia recount her challenging journey in real estate.    Felecia Froe, MD is a licensed urological surgeon with over 20 years of experience. She is the owner of Money With Mission, an investment company focused on empowering professional women to build wealth and achieve financial freedom through social impact investing.   As a real estate syndicator, Felecia has partnered with like-minded investors and has raised money for several social impact projects, including a residential assisted living home in Kansas City, Missouri focusing on providing elderly residents experiencing memory problems with personalized care. With her partners at the Eco Alliance Group, she is providing healthy food to food desert areas with indoor vertical farms and grocery stores.   00:00 - Emergence of Dr. Felicia Froe's “Social Impact Projects” 02:54 - Different Skill Set for a Different Project 04:44 - Social Impact Real Estate Investing 07:24 - Multiple Strings Of Income 12:56 - Education and Mentorship 14:29 - Give To The World What You Can 17:44 - Dealing With The Dream Stealers 20:54 - Money With Mission Investment Club 22:37 - Connect with Felecia Froe, MD   Follow the The Art Of Customer Service Podcast: Podcast: https://theartofcustomerservicepodcast.buzzsprout.com/share  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tonyreedco  Website: https://tonyreed.co/    Be the Boss of Your Own Money and Own Your Future. Connect with us and Discover Investment Strategies Designed to make a Difference. Free Download: 7 Steps To Building Resilient Wealth For Women Website: https://moneywithmission.com/  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moneywithmission/  Quotes:   “You can invest in things that are going to make you money and have that positive social impact.” - Felecia Froe, MD   “Don't be the smartest person in the room.” - Felecia Froe, MD  

Chase and Timothy talk with Ken Fredrickson about what makes a good wine, scent memory, and the importance of community.Follow Ken Fredrickson:@kenfredricksonms on Instagramhttp://kenfredrickson.com/Customer Service Podcast on Instagram @customerservicepodCanoe Club on Instagram & YouTube @shopcanoeclubwww.shopcanoeclub.com

Chase and Timothy talk with Rachel Karten about social media consulting and branding and do a round of rapid-fire food hot takes. Follow Rachel Karten: @milkkarten on Instagram https://milkkarten.substack.com/ https://milkkarten.com/ Customer Service Podcast on Instagram @customerservicepod Canoe Club on Instagram & YouTube @shopcanoeclub www.shopcanoeclub.com

Chase and Timothy talk with Chris Kaskie, the co-founder of Pitchfork, about music culture. They discuss the importance of curation in music and fashion, the slippery slope of critique, and The Grateful Dead. Follow: Chris Kaskie on Instagram @chriskaskie https://www.varyer.com/ Customer Service Podcast on Instagram @customerservicepod Canoe Club on Instagram & YouTube @shopcanoeclub www.shopcanoeclub.com

Chase and Timothy talk all things home goods with Fabiana Faria of Coming Soon. They discuss must-have scents, interior design dos and don'ts, and their hot take on the best potato chips. Follow:  Coming Soon on Instagram @comingsoonnyhttps://comingsoonnewyork.com/ Customer Service Podcast on Instagram @customerservicepod Canoe Club on Instagram & YouTube @shopcanoeclub www.shopcanoeclub.com

Customer service can make or break it for a business, and poor customer attitudes can be the catalyst in loss of service or amenities.  Life really works so much better when both customers and businesses can work together. While preparing for an upcoming podcast on customer service, Lindy takes a few moments to share her own personal thoughts on customer service.  This short introduction is intended to be  thought-provoking, and will hopefully generate  discussion about how we can all worth together.This podcast is not intended to provide any legal, medical or personal advice, and is recorded for fun and entertainment purposes only. Thank you for listening. Positive comments and reviews are always welcome on my website at https://www.lindysaudiocafe.com/reviews/ .Remember to select Subscribe for updated episodes on your podcast app.Join my Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lindysaudiocafepodcast.

“We are always reinventing,” says John Spagnuolo of IQ Reseller. According to Spagnuolo “IQ Reseller is most complete ERP for ITADs.” In this special ASCDI and TR Podcast, we learn how IQ Reseller offers the software basis for running a modern ITAD. A system that is customized to the very specialized needs of a business that must carefully track a chain of custody, must keep very accurate work records and many more very comprehensive asset management activities, all while not pushing the costs of maintaining that control to a level where margins disappear in a margin thin industry. We also learn how the IQ Reseller ERP, enterprise resource planning, is critical in meeting customer expectations. “We understand your needs,” adds Spagnuolo, noting that with IQ Reseller, you're benefiting from years of experiences and thousands of transactions. As we enter a challenging economic environment, ITADs will become even more vital to the wider IT community, and a purpose-built ERP, more critical. Visit https://www.iqreseller.com/

Why in 2021 is there more jobs available than ever in American history, while simultaneously there are more people unemployed than there were during the market crash of 2008? Is it because of COVID? Is it because there are only low paying jobs available? This week the staff discuss this issue and more on Customer Service Podcast.

This week the staff talks about their customer service experience in different states in America. Also, deaths at the Astro World concert. Bomb Threats at Ivy League Schools. NFT's, Elon Musk is at it again on Twitter and Don's Corner comes through with sports. It's the Customer Service Podcast.

It's been way too long!In this episode, a multitude of things are discussed! Ashish let's you know what he was up to this weekend and dissects his outings! He also reveals his favorite soccer teams! There's a good rant in here about customer service too! What did you do this weekend? What are you looking forward to in the future? Let us know!!

Subscribe to our 'best stuff' newsletter: https://www.sentisum.com/resources/support-insights Outsourcing is one of the secrets of scaling up. As a startup with fast customer growth, you're likely to see rapidly rising demand in customer service, too. You'll need to react fast through recruitment or innovation in order to maintain customer experience and prevent churn. But, what if you can't meet that demand quick enough? "If your workloads increases by 10x, but your customer service doesn't, you just mathematically can't meet customer demands. So you're too slow. You're not available enough. Nobody likes having issues, but after [a customer has] committed a certain part of their wallet to using a product, and then you can't even reach those wonderful people who've had ruined your day, that's the worst, right?" This is where outsourcing helps. A great outsourcing partner can extend your coverage, bring you security and expertise, and drive efficiency through economies of scale. In this episode of the State of Customer Service Podcast, we cover three core questions: What are the benefits of outsourcing? What are the risks of outsourcing? How to make sure you choose the right outsourcing partner To answer these questions, we're talking to Roman Siepelmeyer. Roman is the Head of Operational Excellence at GetYourGuide (who raised $484m from Softbank in 2019) and the ex-Head of Shared Service Center at Delivery Hero. Roman has a lot of experience in designing and managing contact centers, including extensive experience in the outsourcing space, making him the perfect expert to chat to about this subject. Hope you enjoy the episode!

This week on the State of Customer Service Podcast, we've got the incredible Teresa Anania. Teresa is VP Global Customer Success at Zendesk. Her role places her right at the heart of the customer service world. Every day Teresa and her team are focused on sharing best practice and problem-solving for customer service teams at the most successful global companies. We got the answer to three core questions: What are the top three trends facing customer support leaders right now? What principles does Zendesk follow to deliver a great customer experience? What are three ways Zendesk users can maximise ROI from Zendesk? Bonus: Teresa's advice to those wanting to get to VP-level leadership This is a rare opportunity to hear from someone who talks to and helps support teams from all over the world.

In this episode of the State of Customer Service Podcast, I caught up this week with Heidi El Hawary, Head of User Support at trivago, the global metasearch company in the travel, hotel, holiday industry. In this episode, we cover: Customer service philosophy: empowering agents and putting the customer first The good tactics and the bad tactics used by customer support teams right now Why customer support insights are important How to leverage insights to build a customer-centric organisation How to prepare for the post-pandemic world Join us on the SentiSum LinkedIn channel for short video clips from customer support leaders like Heidi every day.

If you want to have extraordinary practice, then having exceptional customer service is truly job one.  A foundational Parker principle by Jim Parker is, "Loving service is a foundation of a successful practice!"  You're in a service-oriented industry.  Getting yourself and your whole team on-board with delivering your exceptional customer service is vital.  No matter how good you are at describing the philosophy and teaching the philosophy, and no matter how good your adjusting skills are, only exceptional customer service will insure that you have people to whom you can teach chiropractic and whom you can adjust. Quote of the week: "You can have everything in your life you want if you will help others get what they want." - Zig Ziglar The very special guest on this episode of the Mile High Podcast is Dr. Kelly Henry, who is a 1998 Parker grad.  He has delivered award-winning chiropractic care for 20 years, helping his patients live healthier lives, with his foundation of focus of providing customer service. Dr. Henry is the author of a new book titled Define and Deliver Exceptional Customer Service.  Check it out! On this podcast episode you'll learn: Why customer service is so important Key principles of exceptional customer service Common mistakes practices make when trying to provide good customer service Key actions you can start immediately to improve customer service And MUCH more! The practices that do well in 2021 are going to exhibit exceptional customer service. Enjoy this episode with Dr. Kelly Henry and if you haven't already done so, register yourself and your team for Mile High 2021 in Denver, June 3rd – 6th.  Reserve your seats at www.milehighchiroregistration.com

Kelly Henry: Exceptional Customer Service [PODCAST] If you want to have extraordinary practice, then having exceptional customer service is truly job one.  A foundational Parker principle by Jim Parker is, “Loving service is a foundation of a successful practice!”  You’re in a service-oriented industry.  Getting yourself and your whole team on-board with delivering your exceptional […]

WhatsApp oder nicht? Der Megatrend ist nicht aufzuhalten. An WhatsApp und Conversational Kundenservice ist kein Vorbeikommen mehr, finden Dennis Böhme von helphouse.io und Erik Pfannmöller. Wie du dich mit dem Thema auseinandersetzen solltest und welche Besonderheiten es zu beachten gilt, erfährst du in unserem aktuellen The Art of Customer Service-Podcast. Du erfährst... 1) …wie WhatsApp im Kundenservice eingesetzt werden sollte 2) …was beachtet werden muss 3) …Informatives zu Best Practices 4) …wie bei der Implementierung vorgegangen werden sollte

Seit ca. zwei Jahren ist thomann.de immer wieder Thema in den Kassenzone.de Podcast. Mit fast einer Milliarde Umsatz dominiert Thomann.de seine Nische und muss weder Amazon noch Alibaba fürchten. Sie haben enorm treue Kunden, sehr starke USPs und eine faszinierende Geschichte wie sie dorthin gekommen sind wo sie heute stehen. Sven ist schon seit langem ein Teil dieser Geschichte und würzt das Gespräch mit vielen tollen Details. Reinhören! Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/ The Art of Customer Service Podcast: https://www.digitalkompakt.de/customer-service-podcast/ Kassenzone @ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWFaQtOgMnyk23ErfUtFbYw Zu Kassenzone: https://www.kassenzone.de/ Zum besten E-Commerce Buch: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3866413076/ (bitte bewerten)

Dan's 20-year career has consistently focused on delighting customers, spanning multiple disciplines including Social Media, Customer Service, Marketing, and Digital Customer Experience. Dan is the author of the new book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media, which is available on Amazon. He also co-hosts the Experience This! podcast, a weekly look at what’s working – and not working! – in the world of customer experience. Previously, Dan hosted the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, where he interviewed nearly four dozen brands which are renowned for outstanding customer service in Social Media, garnering tips and best practices. The podcast was named one of "The 50 Best Customer Retention Podcasts to Help You Attract, Engage and Retain Customers" by NGDATA. A frequent conference speaker, at conferences such as: Social Media Marketing World, Social Shake-Up, Corporate Social Media Summit, The Customer Service Summit, The Secret Service Summit, and more, Dan has also been named to several notable industry lists, including:   "The 30 Most Influential People in Social Customer Service" by Conversocial "The Top 15 NPS & Customer Service Thought Leaders to Follow in 2017" by CustomerGauge   Dan has also been responsible for Social Media, digital marketing, and customer experience at several Fortune 300 brands, including being the Senior Director of Global Social Media at McDonald’s Corporation, Head of Digital Marketing at Humana and Head of Digital Customer Experience and Social Media at Discover. He played a key role in Discover winning its first J.D. Power Award for “Highest in Customer Satisfaction.” Dan also holds a B.A. in Psychology and Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, and he has an M.B.A. in Marketing and Strategy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He resides in Chicago with his family and is an avid Cubs fan.   Questions   Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey What are some tips for an organization who is now embarking on using social media as a part of their marketing tool or their marketing strategy? What are some of the main things you have noticed over the years as being in customer care on social media? Why do you think people tend to flock to social media? How do you stay motivated every day? What is one online resource, website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? What are some of the books that have had the biggest impact on you? What is the one thing in your life right now that you are really excited about – something that you are working on to develop yourself or people? Where can our listeners find you online? What is one quote or saying that you live by or that inspires you in times of adversity?   Highlights   Dan Gingiss has been a marketer for more than 20 years and the role that really pushed him into customer experience was at Discover Card. He was recruited into a role in the digital team and asked to lead Digital Customer Experience and it was interesting to him because the guy that recruited him there who is the Chief Digital Officer noticed something about him or was able to verbalize something about him that he had not actually figured out about himself yet and he said that the reason why he wanted him to lead this with very little digital experience on his resume was that he had a unique ability to always be wearing the customer hat in almost every meeting he was in. And so, as he thought about that he was like, “Yeah, that actually is me.” He loves to put myself into the customer's shoes and try to be the customer so that he knows what it is that he’d like to see or what he’d like to experience and that helps him to design better experiences so that was a really fun role for him because his team was leading the website and eventually the mobile app. And just to give an idea, Discover which is not even one of the biggest Credit Cards in the U.S. gets almost 50 million logins a month on their website. So, it is the key way that customers engage with their Credit Card company. And so, there's so many opportunities to improve and develop new experiences as they do that. So that was his role. It also got him into Social Media and in Social Media as a marketer, the thing that interested him the most was that it's the first and only Marketing Channel where people can actually talk back to you. So, every other Marketing Channel the brand gets to have a megaphone and kind of shout its message at people and people either have to listen or perhaps they can turn off or change the channel. But this is the first channel where people can talk back to and that was immediately fascinating to him because he knew that companies that engage with their customers were going to be differentiated and that in itself was a way to improve the customer experience. So, that's kind of how he got into this and from there it's just been something that he has been fascinated by. He has written about it, he has been podcasting about it, and it continues to be a topic that he thinks is absolutely critical for virtually every business out there.   Yanique mentioned that the whole platform of customer experience over the years clearly has changed as indicated in the introduction where Dan said before traditionally marketers would be using a megaphone and kind of shouting their messages to the customer. A big part of customer experience now especially with Social Media is that the customer now has a platform by which they can express their voice and so testimonials have become such an integral role in terms of customers making decisions. It's no longer what you say the brand is but it's not what your customers say the experience and the brand experience is like.   Dan agreed and stated that we all expect that when we go to a business's website, that website is going to tell us great things about the business because it's speaking, so we're used to that. And that's a good first step to figure out what it is we're getting ourselves into but with almost any product or service the very next step is to figure out what other people are saying and whether that's a ratings and reviews site or it's looking up the company on Facebook or on Twitter. These are really important steps in the buying journey. And so, the extent to which companies can ensure that as prospects go through that buying journey they're hearing good things about their company or if they're hearing complaints that they're seeing a company that cares enough to listen to those complaints and respond to them. That's becoming really critical and he thinks the companies that are figuring it out are the ones that are getting more business because people are taking into consideration besides price and product, they're taking into consideration the willingness of the company to engage with me if I have a problem as a as a big part of the decision.   Dan stated that when social started that's exactly what brands did is they said, “Hey, this is another way for us to shout our message at the masses.” It's a cheap way for us to do that especially back in the day before it became mostly a paid channel. And he thinks that they quickly figured out that this was a different kind of channel and that customers were not going to stand around for just hearing marketing messages. If you think about it, what's amazing about Social Media is that all the power has shifted from the company to the customer, the customer at any time can unfollow a company or just not pay attention to it anymore. And as we all know when we look at our streams and Facebook and Twitter we're seeing a lot of content. So, it's very easy for us to just scroll past it if it's something we're not interested in but he does think that more and more customers as they're evaluating companies they want to do business with are looking at their social presence to make sure that it isn't just marketing and to make sure that when people do bring questions or complaints to their attention that that company is engaging back. It is a new world in which consumers want to have a relationship with companies and that relationship is two way and it involves being able to have a conversation with the brand. When I want to and where I want to. And so, looking on the Twitter feed or the Facebook feed to make sure that a company is willing to do that as he said he believe is becoming more and more part of the decision-making process.   Yanique mentioned that one of the things that her customers sometimes ask her and as an expert in Social Media Customer Care, she would love to hear his feedback on it. Typically, what do you think is the global standard or do you think it should be a standard based on the industry that you are in if you post complained or comment on someone's social media page. What is a standard time within which they should get back in touch with you. Is it immediately? And when we say immediately, what do we define that as, 24 hours, an hour, 30 minutes?   Dan stated that the time to get in touch with a customer after a complaint or comment was posted does differ slightly by industry. He would say that best in class is 15 minutes or less. He doesn’t think that people expect instant yet unless they're on a channel like a live chat. But he thinks 15 minutes or less is considered best in class. Now there are some caveats to that. If you are an international airline that operates 24 hours a day you know the expectation is that you are available 24 hours and that you're responding quickly because your customers might be stranded in an airport having just missed a flight and they cannot wait for a response. If you are a mom and pop retail store that has one location that's open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm every day, there's probably not as much expectation that you are responding 24/7. And into that kind of a company he would advise that as long as you are upfront with your customers about when you're available and you set expectations properly it's absolutely fine for you not to be available all the time. The challenge is that more and more consumers are evaluating every company they do business with in comparison to every other company they do business with. If you are a restaurant, you're not necessarily being compared to another restaurant, you're being compared to Amazon or Sprint or Comcast or whatever company. I just had a really great experience with on social media and who answered my question in 15 minutes or less. So that's the challenge is that you don't get to say, “Well. I'm just a small restaurant.” And so, my customers’ expectations aren't as high because unfortunately you're being compared to all those other companies. Now the good news is those other companies are also being compared to you. So, when he goes into a restaurant and he has a really nice waiter or waitress and the food is delicious and the overall atmosphere and experience are fantastic, the next day when he walks into the Sprint store or some other place, he is comparing that experience to what he just had at the restaurant. So, he thinks that the short answer to the question is, he has always tried it at the companies he has been at to aim for 15 minutes or less, that is best in class across all industries but certainly depending on the size of your company, the size of your customer base and your hours of operation. There's flexibility there.   Dan stated he has an easy equation that he has in his book and for those of who don't like math don't worry you're not going to be overwhelmed. The equation is that expectations plus emotions equals a willingness to share. When companies exceed customer expectations we make them happy. And unfortunately, today they're still surprised at that because companies don't exceed expectations very often and when we have a great experience we are more than willing as customers to share that publicly because it is still a unique thing to have a great experience. When companies only meet expectations or barely meet expectations, you created a motion that's really blahhh, nothing and an okay experience, there's no reason to share that. Why would anybody want to tell their friends about an OK experience. But when companies miss expectations we make customers sad or worse angry. And unfortunately, there's a very high willingness to share there as well. So, his advice to companies is to make sure that your positive experiences outweigh your negative experiences and you will have more positive sentiment on Social Media than negative because your fans will be louder, your lovers will be louder than your haters. And that's hard to do because especially as your business gets bigger you are going to make mistakes, you are going to miss customer expectations. But even then, you have such an opportunity in a public space like Social Media to show that you care, to show that you have empathy and to make it right. There's countless occasions where he has seen companies turn negative detractors into positive advocates just because they are responsive and willing to help.   Yanique stated that Dan mentioned one very important word that she thinks is critical to achieving customer experience and building loyalty. And that's empathy. And asked if he could just share with us what are his views on empathy and why is it even necessary in our customer service environment regardless of the industry that you're in?   Dan stated that it goes back to what he was describing before is the ability to step into the customer's shoes. He thinks that very often companies create products and services and even worse processes that they haven't actually as consumers gone through themselves. So, they make a lot of sense to the company but as a consumer you're stuck going through a process that is difficult or time consuming or doesn't make sense. And when you have a complaint, what you want is somebody to listen to you and to believe your complaint and to be willing to help and all of that kind of gets wrapped up into empathy and the best customer service agents are the ones that are able to step into a customer's shoes, understand that they're frustrated and be willing to try to help them. When people ask him what kind of people you look for in Social Customer Care. He always says you want to look for the customer service qualities first among which empathy is one of the top things to look for because you can teach almost anybody how to do Social Media. It's very difficult to teach empathy and it's very difficult to teach someone to be great at customer service, to want to solve customer problems, to be willing to listen, to be willing to remain objective and not get emotional when a customer is upset. These are things that are really tough to teach and they're kind of innate in people. But when you find those people that are good at that you can teach them Twitter and Facebook, that's pretty easy. He believes that empathy is one of those things that customers are looking for when they're frustrated and when they find it, it eases their frustration and again can make them actually turn the negative experience into a positive one.   Yanique reiterated by saying you take the same approach that you would take to employ someone that you are putting face to face in front of your customer with the right attitude. And then you can teach them the technical skills but that same characteristic that you're looking for in that individual that's who you're going to put in front of your Social Media as well.   Dan agreed stated that when you've got people answering in Social Media they are the face of your brand. The other thing he advise for social agents in particular is to make sure that they're good writers which is something that you don't need necessarily in a phone agent but when you see companies responding to customers and there are spelling and grammar errors that's a reflection on the company and so the people that you select for this really important role, they've got to be good writers, they have to be able to show empathy and patience and caring and a willingness to solve problems because all of that is reflective of your brand.   Yanique stated that the book actually covers a lot of the areas that Dan speaks to. She is encouraging listeners that are going to have the opportunity to listen to this podcast. This book was actually written by Dan and Jay Baer wrote the foreword to the book. Jay Baer was a past guest on our podcast couple months back so you can always archive one of those podcast episodes and listen to Jay. But it's important and just wanted to emphasize to our listeners that this is an awesome book. It focuses on a lot of areas and questions that Dan may not be able to fully answer in this podcast, he's only touching on little areas but he goes deeper in the actual book Winning at Social Customer Care. So, she would encourage all of you and have the opportunity to listen to this episode to head on over to Amazon and purchase this book because this could be your winning tool for 2018.   Dan stated that he stays motivated because he thinks that customer experience is still in its infancy. He thinks we've been talking about it now for a couple of years as being important and you see all the surveys that say that CEOs and CMOs know that it's a key thing to focus on. But he still thinks we're not quite at the point where customer experience is going and thinks that it will be the last true differentiator among brands. Think that the industries that compete on price find out very quickly that that's a very tough way to make money. And we know that most products and services can be copied in some way. And so, the real distinction that companies have is the way they treat their customers and that is very difficult to copy because it is made up usually of human interactions. And so, he has talked before about hiring the right people and having the right front line, that's very difficult to copy and that's what motivates him because he looks around and his podcast is all about great experiences that he and his co-host have had with different companies or that their listeners have had with different companies but it is amazing just waking up every day and living your life and interacting with brands. It is amazing how few of those there still are, as often as we've been talking about customer experience and Yanique has this great podcast and other people are talking about it, it is amazing still how many companies don't get it or aren't executing on it. So, to him that just means opportunity and he thinks that a day is coming where all companies are going to have to prioritize it and that will be exciting because as customers, that is going to make our lives a lot easier.   Yanique mentioned that it's interesting that Dan said that because we are all customers regardless of the businesses that we interface with or the lives that we lead but a lot of the challenges that we face in life that contribute to our stress level being high which leads to chronic illnesses. It really boils down to the interactions and the relationships that we have with people and a lot of it boils down to the services experiences that we have, how we treat each other, how we respond to each other. If more organizations could make an effort to understand how important this is to their business it would actually improve the quality of life not just in the business but generally how we relate to each other in the world, it would improve the world overall.   Dan agreed and said that Jay Baer was on a previous podcast and Jay wrote a terrific book called Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers by Jay Baer and one of the key takeaways there that he loves is that people who complain about your company, complain because they care. The ones we need to be worried about are the ones that have already picked up and moved to our competition. But the ones that are complaining actually care about our brand and want us to be better. And again, there's a sort of a human nature to that that if we're just willing to listen and hear out a customer that has a complaint more often than not we're going to realize that that complaints are valid and that that customer might actually be suggesting ways for our experience to be even better. And as long as we're open minded about that we shouldn't be afraid of complaints, in fact we should welcome them because it's feedback and feedbacks a gift whether you are a company or an individual, getting honest feedback is a real gift. It's what we do with it that matters and he totally agrees, if we had fewer bad experiences with companies we'd probably all be happier as a population.   Dan shared a tool that he cannot live without and stated that he’s going to probably choose the obvious one and go with Twitter and the reason is as much as Twitter has struggled as a public company, he thinks that Twitter is still the place to listen to what your customers are saying about both you and your competition and companies that are not paying attention on Twitter to the conversation about your industry, about your company or your competitors are just missing so much rich data that can help you improve your business. He thinks he’s two angles and both of which he talks about in the book. One is identifying the pain points that your customers are having with you and fixing them. It's one thing to respond within 15 minutes and help that individual customer but you need to take it to the next level and actually fix the underlying problem so that you don't have repeat complaints that actually will end up saving you money because your customer service expenses will go down. The other thing though is that there's so much opportunity to grow your business with new products and new innovations that are suggested by your customers. One of his favorite examples is the company Otterbox which makes cases for mobile phones and just from listening on Twitter they figured out that a lot of their customers were bringing their phones into the shower of all places in order to listen to music and this was a use case that they had not considered previously. So, they took this information and the data and they brought it back to their R and D (Research and Development) team and they ended up creating their first ever waterproof case which turned out to be one of their best sellers. And that doesn't happen if they're not listening to the conversation on Twitter so to him that is the absolute must have. If you're not paying attention get onto Twitter, you don't even have to tweet if you don't want to. You just have to create some lists, follow some people and listen to what's going on to what the conversation is about and you will learn a ton.   Yanique mentioned that she is an Otterbox user, she didn't know they had a water proof case, that's awesome. Listening as Dan said is so important and it's not just about going on Twitter and hearing information or looking at what's there but actually using that information, providing it to the people in the business that can actually do something with that information. So, it's good that they listened, they took it back and the team actually did something by creating a product that customers actually wanted because a lot of times in a business your customers are telling you what they want, it's just if you're really listening to what they want or are you just giving them what you think they want.   Dan shared a few of the books that have had a big impact on him and stated he would go with two of them. And one of them is going to bring back his friend Jay Baer, Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers by Jay Baer was a book that he thinks was a real turning point because Jay for most of his career had been a marketing expert. In fact, Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype by Jay Baer his earlier book is also one of his favorite books and he shifted over to the customer service realm and Dan looked at Hug Your Haters as and Jay actually sort of wrote this in the foreword to his book is that Hug Your Haters really outlines the why of why it is that we have to engage with customers in Social Media and in all other channels and then his book tried to be a follow on to kind of say here's the how into the social media space specifically but he thinks Hug Your Haters is an absolute must read. He's got great examples from lots of different companies in there. And then another book that he’s a huge fan of is called They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer by Marcus Sheridan who is a wonderful guy. Marcus is the single best speaker he has ever seen in public at a conference and his book really talks to making sure that your company is the source of the best information about your product, service, industry anywhere on the planet. And he tells a wonderful story about his own company which was a swimming pool installation company and how he turned his website into the number one swimming pool website in the world in terms of people asking questions about installing swimming pools into their backyards and his company is just this little company on the East Coast of the U.S. It doesn't even service the world but it has become the go to resource and that book is really important because it shows the overlap between marketing and customer service and he thinks that there is a huge overlap there. He talks a lot about the sales process and how having all of this information will draw in prospects but it also can be used for servicing perspective because the more we can get our customers to self-serve with great content the less they have to call us and frankly create expense in a call center. And so, he thinks that book is a terrific one as well that he would highly recommend.   Yanique mentioned that she liked the fact that he linked marketing and customer experience because she thinks there is a lot of organizations that have these departments and the departments aren’t even speaking to each other so they’re collecting, doing their own thing but they are operating in silos and she’s not sure if marketing has recognized that what they’re doing connects directly to what the customer is experiencing and of course whatever it is that the customer is experiencing needs to filter back into what marketing is doing on their end to ensure that they’re actually meeting the customers’ needs, that’s powerful and that’s like a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) that a lot of organizations that light bulb has not gone off in their business as yet for them to recognize that those departments really should be working in tandem with each other.   Dan agreed and stated that how many of us has gone on to a website and have been greeted with an obnoxious pop up ad from the marketing department, the problem is those ads tends to work which is why companies do it but they work at the expense of annoying the 90% of customers that don’t click on it and that’s frustrating and marketers have to be way more aware of the overall customer experience and their contribution to the customer experience than they are today and he believes that silo busting is going to continue to be a theme in 2018 with companies, the ones that are figuring out to get silos integrated with each other instead of separate are going make great strides towards improving the entire customer journey.   Dan stated that right now he is thinking about what’s next for him and his career and looking at whether he wants to continue speaking and writing and kind of making a go at it independently or whether he wants to continue working at big companies. He sort of had this rare combination over the last few years because most of the folks that are speaking in podcasting and writing books are doing it independently or they run their own consultancies versus working for big brands. He has been trying to do both for a while and he’s really trying to think inward now and figure out what makes him happiest and what he wants to do next, that’s probably what’s on his mind right now and as we turn into 2018 and he’s excited for whatever lies in the future.   Dan shared listeners can find him at – Twitter – @dgingiss LinkedIn - @dangingiss     www.winningatsocial.com     Dan shared that a quote he leans one that he talks about in the book. When he was introduced it was mentioned that he is an avid Cubs fan and the manager of the Chicago Cubs name’s Joe Madden and Joe has all of these great sayings and great quotes that are meant to be about baseball but Dan actually thinks that when Joe retires from baseball, he’s going to become a business consultant because almost everything he teaches his players is very applicable to business. His favorite one of his is, “Do simple better.” He loves that because it in itself is very simple, it’s three words. When he’s talking about baseball, he’s talking about making sure that you always run out a play or the simple ground battle or the short stop that those are not the ones you make errors on. But in real life and business it’s such a good mantra to live by because so many companies make things overly complicated for customers and if you can figure out how to do simple better, generally you’re going to get to a much better outcome for both the customer and the business. When he struggles at work with some sort of complexity or the legal department wants this or government regulation wants this or the PR department is asking for something, again, it’s about putting that customer hat on and saying, “What’s the simplest route for our customer? How do we make it as simple as possible and do simple better?” There are some great examples in the book and elsewhere about this. One quick one that he gives which is one of his favorites and talks about in the book about this company that does conference calls servicing and we’ve all been on conference calls where we’re waiting on hold and we listen to this awful music and this one particular company hired a guy who actually now works for Facebook to record a song with his guitar called “I’m on hold” and he would encourage listeners to go to YouTube and look it up by Alex Cornell, this song is absolutely amazing and as you’re listening this song, it’s just this nice guy strumming a guitar, and you find yourself realizing you don’t want the person on the other line to actually join the call because you want to listen to the music instead and that is doing simple better, that’s taking a very simple experience of waiting on hold and making it memorable and remarkable instead of either annoying or unremarkable. He thinks that when companies can find opportunities to do that at every step of the journey, you really make things much better for your customers and you can really change the whole perception of dealing with you as a company.   Yanique agreed and stated that even though it’s just three basic words, it’s not so much the words but it’s the meaning and the purpose that’s in the depth of those words that you really should extrapolate and try to inject into the DNA of your employees so that they can really function from that mindset because you’re right, sometimes things are very simple and we find the most complicated and complex routes to frustrate the poor customers who kind of want to get in and out in the shortest possible time whether it be online, face to face, over the phone, “It’s just a simple question I want answered” and somehow it’s just a very discombobulate way that the organization has put in place for this. If we could really start with that in mind, do simple better, it will definitely improve the quality of all of our lives.    Links   Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media by Dan Gingiss Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers by Jay Baer Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype by Jay Baer They Ask You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today’s Digital Consumer by Marcus Sheridan Otterbox  

After two years and more than 50 episodes, the first known podcast dedicated solely to customer service in social media is saying goodbye. The Focus on Customer Service Podcast officially ends its run today as a new podcast about customer experience is also launched. Sponsored from its inception by Social Media Today after its late founder, Robin Carey, took a chance on two guys named Dan with no podcasting experience, FOCS featured interviews with top brands making waves in social media by engaging with customers – answering complaints, questions, and compliments. What made the podcast unique was that its hosts were also social care practitioners at large brands, and many of the brands featured were recommended by listeners for their great service. The podcast spawned a book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media (available on Amazon), which details learnings and best practices from more than four dozen interviews with brand leaders. INTRODUCING: THE EXPERIENCE THIS! SHOW As one podcast ends, another one begins. A new show, called Experience This!, has hosts Joey Coleman and Dan Gingiss trying to create a remarkable customer experience out of… listening to a customer experience podcast. There are no guest interviews, no singular topics, and no boring commercials. Instead, Experience This! features a rotating set of fast-paced segments that touch on real customer experiences with real takeaways that can make any company better. Segments include “CX Press,” where the hosts read and explain the latest customer experience articles “so you don’t have to”; “This Just Happened,” which details real-life experiences that leave a lasting impression; “Required Remarkable,” which features required parts of the experience that could be boring (think legal disclaimers and flight safety videos) but are instead fun and memorable, and “I Love It!/I Can’t Stand It!” where the hosts look at all of the positive and negative aspects of a particular industry’s experience, gaining input from listeners’ own experiences along the way. Even the sponsor message is the unskippable “Check Out This Number,” sharing a critical customer experience statistic that every practitioner should know. Experience This! can be found on iTunes and other favorite podcast apps, and show notes are at www.experiencethisshow.com.

Dan Gingiss is a Social Media and Customer Experience Executive, Author, Podcaster and Speaker. He’s currently working as Senior Director – Global Social Media at McDonald’s, responsible for global strategy and best practices sharing of social media marketing, listening, customer care, crisis management and insights/analytics. Dan is the author of the book “Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media” and the host of “Focus on Customer Service Podcast”, presenting brands that focus on delivering outstanding customer service with social media. In this episode, Dan shares actionable tips for using Twitter as a channel for great Customer Service and Social Customer Care and how to make the most out of Twitter as your best service channel. He stresses the importance of managing and exceeding customer expectations, both offline and online, always monitoring conversations and mentions of your brand. He reveals why it’s important to jump in, listen to what people are saying about your brand (even if they are complaining), and engage proactively in the conversation. My Favorite Quotes: “Twitter is really four things that other service channels are not – it’s public, searchable, shareable and permanent. That’s why Social Customer care is so important on this particular channel” “Expectations + emotions = a willingness to share.” “Setting your hours or availability is about setting those customer expectations. It’s OK if you’re not 24/7, but you need to tell people when you’ll be there to respond.” “Always show empathy for the situation and be friendly.” Your Call-to-Action: Your call-to-action for this episode is to start using Twitter for social listening. You need to jump in, see what people are saying about your brand and engage in the conversation. Make sure to respond to everyone, whether it’s a compliment, a question or a complaint. Follow the tips Dan discussed in this episode and start implementing them for better customer service. Send me a tweet @MadalynSklarand tell me how these tips have helped your business. I want to hear from you! How to Reach Dan: You can reach Dan on Twitter @dgingiss, LinkedIn or through his website, www.winningatsocial.com. And be sure to check out his podcast Focus on Customer Service and his book Winning at Social Customer Care. Ask Me Anything! I want to answer your questions about Twitter. Leave me a voicemail at MadalynSklar.com/speakpipe and I will pick a few to answer on the show. Don’t be shy. I want to hear from you. Share Your Love For This Podcast: Want an easy “one-click” way to Share Your Love for this podcast? Go here: www.madalynsklar.com/love to tweet out your love. Read the Show Notes We take the notes for you during the episode. Get the show notes at http://www.madalynsklar.com/twittersmarter46

At Dell, social media has been around much longer than Facebook or Twitter. The popular Dell Community Forum was borne out of the original Dell.com website, so its community is well established. It’s a user-to-user forum where anyone – including Dell employees and other customers – can answer a user’s question. “Facebook and Twitter are typically folks that are having issues at the moment that just want to be heard,” says Amy Bivin, manager of community outreach for Dell. In contrast, the Forum often features more complex or esoteric questions, sometimes from owners of older legacy systems. Bivin took some time out recently to discuss Dell’s integrated social support model on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast.

To understand how some people just have an innate sense for great customer service, you need only look back at Shep Hyken’s job during college. Before Shep became a world-renown customer service expert and best-selling author, he worked at a gas station... Today, Hyken consults with many companies and teaches them how to employ this same mindset to what is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage... Hyken graciously talked with me for Episode 45 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some of the key moments of the interview and where to find them: 1:17 How Shep’s childhood shaped his customer service expertise today 6:38 The cost of doing business and the cost of not doing customer service well 7:45 Managing customer expectations 12:06 Are all companies in the customer service and customer experience business? 14:57 Examples of great experiences that don’t cost a lot of money 18:30 How has social media impacted customer service overall? 20:41 Customer surveys and what it means to deliver “10” service 24:46 Why companies should respond to every single comment on social media 29:05 How companies can build relationships with customers in digital channels and raise expectations for everyone else 37:35 Where is social media customer service going next?

Fitbit, a global leader in wearable fitness technology, has made it easier and more fun for millions of people to live a healthier life. And they’ve done it by focusing on the experience. “Customer experience is really paramount to everything we do here,” says Allison Leahy, the director of community at Fitbit, adding that in the online space, “Fitbit is trying to be everywhere you are and more”. The company employs a bilateral approach to online customer care, focusing separately on social media and communities, though both groups report up through the same department. Leahy joined me for Episode 44 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, sharing Fitbit’s best practices for being successful in both social care and online community management. Here are some of the key highlights of the episode and where to find them: 0:38 Allison talks about her background and Fitbit’s social media philosophy 3:45 How social care and community care operate together 6:50 How Fitbit uses customer listening to improve its products and services 12:07 How the Fitbit social media and community service teams are organized 16:09 How digital customer service integrates into traditional customer service 18:13 Allison shares some memorable customer experiences 22:50 What Allison has learned along the way and her advice to others

As a young entrepreneur, Davy Kestens didn’t quite know what to do when Volkswagen called and was interested in becoming his first big customer. “When you’re a one-man show, you try to do everything you can to not come across as a one-man show,” Kestens recalls. That “failed miserably of course,” he adds. Kestens, the founder and CEO of customer service platform Sparkcentral, now leads a 100-person company based in Silicon Valley and his native Belgium. Sparkcentral seeks to “optimize the customer service experience and customer engagement workflows over social media and mobile messaging channels,” says Kestens. Today, as social care has migrated from the Marketing department to Customer Service (“75% of our customers live in the contact center,” Kestens reports) the focus is more operational – and that means convincing executives that putting resources behind a comparatively small customer service channel is a good idea. “Even though the volumes are fairly low, there’s [something] to be said about the ROI in regards to saving money, preventing people from actually calling and using the more expensive communication channels within your contact center,” says Kestens, adding that social media usually represents “less than 2%” of all customer service. “Companies are starting to realize that it’s a leading indicator of a much larger problem or a much larger opportunity.” So what does he tell the C-level executives that he meets? “It’s not about social care. It’s not about Twitter. It’s not about Facebook. Stop thinking about those channels as a new problem to solve… [these are] merely the most prominent examples of how the expectations and the behavior of the modern consumer has changed.” Kestens explains that customers have flocked to social media to circumvent an archaic telephone customer service model that “has been broken for the last few decades”. “Social was the first wave of that,” he says. “Now the whole mobile messaging explosion worldwide is the second wave of that. But it’s not going to stop there. It’s really about the way consumers communicate has shifted, and their expectations that come along with that.” They key for companies, he adds, is “to reduce the amount of effort that customers have to put in to get issues resolved”. With the proliferation of messaging apps around the world, Sparkcentral’s goal is “to enable brands to talk to customers across any channel because really it’s not about the channel, it’s about the customer,” Kestens says. Messaging bots, which have received a lot of media attention recently, run the risk of becoming a “modern IVR” [Interactive Voice Response system, also known as the phone system that never seems to recognize pleas for help from a live agent] if companies don’t build them correctly. “Consumers are using these communication channels to talk to a human being,” Kestens warns, “so you shouldn’t be doing the exact opposite with bots.” Kestens met with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 42 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast to discuss the 5-year evolution of social customer care and the technology that is attempting to help brands keep pace. Here are some key moments of the podcast and where to find them: 1:17 Background on Sparkcentral and Davy’s career 7:00 How a young entrepreneur handled his first major client 9:36 The evolution from marketing to customer service owning social customer care 13:30 How Sparkcentral convinces call centers to purchase a platform for social media when the volume is so much lower than other customer service channels 20:02 Davy’s perspective on the ongoing shift into private messaging for customer service 27:16 How messaging bots will affect the customer experience 33:06 What keeps an entrepreneur up at night? 35:07 What Davy knows now that he wishes he had known when he started the company

Can a federal government agency be good at customer service? The Transportation Security Administration – better known by its acronym, TSA – is setting out to change perceptions and make traveling easier by answering all sorts of questions on social media. The agency, which screens 2.2 million passengers and their luggage daily, while also protecting train stations and ports, launched the AskTSA Twitter handle last September with little fanfare. “The audience was there,” says Jennifer Plozai, Director of External Communications. “We didn’t promote it…Right when we launched, we had passengers sending us good questions on Day 1, and it’s just grown from there.” The most common questions include permitted and prohibited items, what types of ID are accepted, the popular TSA Pre✓® program, and people traveling with disabilities or medical conditions. TSA’s goal, says Plozai, is to “provide guidance, clarify our policies, answer questions, [and] resolve issues.” “This was a win-win for TSA to be able to launch a customer care account and help passengers be less frustrated with the process and have an better overall travel experience,” Plozai says. Since the TSA is one of the first government agencies to establish a customer service handle on social media – the United States Postal Service was another – Plozai had to learn from other sources, most notably airlines and airports. She and her team spent just four months from internal approval to launch, creating an answer database and establishing a social media policy. “There wasn’t one that we could find already existing in government,” Plozai says of the policy. “We needed a very well-defined policy for managing this program.” She has since shared the policy and best practices with other government agencies. TSA’s staffing model for social customer service is unique – and corporations should take note. The team uses a rotating group of TSA employees on “detail assignments” – that is, this isn’t their permanent job. The result is a unique mix of “very diverse backgrounds”, including airport officers, trainers, federal air marshals, and global strategists. “They all bring different expertise to our team and are able to help customers in a better way,” says Plozai. Each employee completes a four-week training program which focuses on social media, customer service, and combining the two. Plozai says the agency also uses social media to “have the pulse of the traveling public” and “to identify trends in operational issues by hearing the concerns of the public and being able to address those.” Results so far, she says, have exceeded expectations. “Interacting with the passengers in real time, whether it’s before, during, or after their travel experience, the appreciation that we’re there to listen… we’re just really pleased with the program and how it’s gone so far,” she says. Plozai met with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 41 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Key moments in the episode are below: 1:03 A brief overview of the TSA and Jennifer’s background 2:17 The recent launch of the Ask TSA program 4:35 How TSA was able to obtain leadership buy-in to start their social customer service program 7:26 Jennifer describes the process of setting up a pilot program 9:43 The types of questions that TSA sees in social media 14:16 The TSA’s expansion into Facebook Messenger 15:25 How recent negative press affected the questions TSA received on social media 19:55 Jennifer shares a memorable customer interaction 21:14 What Jennifer wishes she had known when she started Ask TSA 22:42 What the future looks like for TSA in social media Additional episodes of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. If you have experienced great customer service from a brand on social media, please let us know in the comments below or tweet me at @dgingiss.

Topgolf, the golf and entertainment venue “for all ages, all skill levels, all year round,” has built its brand by integrating social media into the live experience. “We’re very lucky that our brand has such a natively social element to it,” says Director of Communications Adrienne Chance. “We see a lot of social media activity without having to push for that.” The rapidly expanding company – it currently lists 26 locations on its website but Chance says 10 more are being added per year – promises a fun and challenging game for amateurs and pros alike. “You don’t have to be a good golfer to be good at Topgolf,” says Chance. The setup involves golf balls with microchips that track accuracy and distance, and special targets throughout the course that award points. Unique to the experience is that social media is built in. Each venue has a “social wall” on which live tweets are streamed, encouraging patrons to tweet and see their post on a big TV screen. In-house DJ’s seek song requests by tweet, social contests can allow lucky patrons to skip the line, and the company has seen successful engagement with Snapchat filters even though it doesn’t currently have a corporate Snapchat account. Topgolf’s goal, says Chance, is to “merge the online and offline audiences”. Of course, the company also practices traditional social customer care, “constantly responding to guest questions” and proactively engaging with Topgolf references that are not aimed directly at the brand. Interestingly, posts are answered at the local level by “marketing managers” who are responsible for all marketing of the venue – social and non-social – plus customer service. Another refreshing difference is that Topgolf almost exclusively looks at qualitative measures of success on social media. “We’ve measured our success by the type of engagements we’re getting per post, what’s the number of engagements per post, [and] the quality of interactions that we’re having,” says Chance. Chance took time away from her golf game to chat with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 40 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Highlights of the episode and where to find them are below: 0:38 What is Topgolf? 3:00 How Topgolf merges the offline and online experience 7:07 Which social media channels are most important to Topgolf? 8:50 Exploring Topgolf’s decentralized social model, in which each location has its own accounts 11:35 The role of the “marketing manager” as both multi-channel marketer and customer service agent 13:25 Answering social media questions about Topgolf’s expansion plans 14:48 Topgolf’s focus on qualitative social media metrics 17:38 Adrienne shares a particularly memorable interaction with a customer If you’ve seen other brands successfully integrate the offline and online experience, or if you’ve experienced great customer service from a brand on social media, we want to hear about it! Please tweet using hashtag #FOCS and we will invite that brand to a future podcast episode. Subscribe to the Focus on Customer Service Podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Although it’s one of America’s oldest companies, Wells Fargo has become one of the industry’s most forward-looking thinkers when it comes to social media and customer service. That’s thanks in part to Kimarie Matthews, Senior Vice President of Social Care and Capabilities, who has been building out Wells Fargo’s social care program since its first Twitter handle launched in 2009. “I really craved working on something that’s meaningful and important,” Matthews says. Wells Fargo, a banking institution with more than 80 different lines of business, has been around since the days of the Pony Express – more than 160 years – and currently serves more than 1 in 3 U.S. households. The complexity level is high, which is what makes Matthews’ work so important. “We want to be where our customers need us, in the ways that they need us,” she says. “Having a coordinated enterprise approach in social media was a real priority.” That coordinated approach encompasses both the marketing and customer service facets of social media. On the service side, questions are triaged to the right person to “get the answer back in an efficient manner”. But on the marketing side, Wells Fargo is taking a unique approach. “We’re now folding the social marketing functions back into the traditional marketing functions so they’re not separate,” Matthews says, adding that the same trend is likely to occur on the service side eventually. “The future is not that social is separate. It’s really that there are a lot of different digital text-based tools, like chat and SMS and social, and they really need to be treated together and holistically.” One key reason for an omni-channel customer service view is that “customers sometimes want to move between channels,” Matthews says. “We need to be able to enable these agents to start in one channel and then move with the customer to the other channel….There needs to be a lot more fluidity in terms of how we use these different channels.” As with many large companies, Wells Fargo is seeing increased customer usage of Facebook Messenger for customer service inquiries. One big benefit of this new channel? “We’ve seen a big decline in customers going to our public Facebook page with a customer service question,” Matthews says. Wells Fargo is also experimenting with chat bots on Facebook Messenger, not to replace human customer service but for proactive alerts such as low balance notifications or for simple service questions like finding the nearest ATM. Matthews was kind enough to sit down with me and Dan Moriarty to discuss her pioneering career in social customer care and look toward the future of what customer service might look like in the coming months and years. Here are some highlights of Episode 39 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast and where to find them. 0:57 Kimarie’s background 2:55 A bit about Wells Fargo 4:00 A look back at 2009 and the dawn of social customer care 6:21 Choosing the right technology for both marketing and customer service 8:59 How Wells Fargo’s organization integrates social media marketing and service 13:08 Developing an omni-channel view of the customer 15:33 What types of characteristics does Wells Fargo look for in hiring social care agents? 19:42 How Wells Fargo is approaching private messaging as an emerging customer service channel 23:00 Preparing for a future with chat bots 26:31 Kimarie describes how a chat bot engagement might work 32:30 Recalling a memorable interaction with a customer 35:53 What Kimarie has learned after 7 years in social care that she wishes she knew at the beginning

Unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows to any device for a monthly fee – sound familiar? Up until recently, this service that Americans take for granted wasn’t available in many countries throughout Asia. Enter iflix, a Malaysian-based video-on-demand startup that aims to “bring the world’s best content to emerging markets at a price that everyone can afford,” according to Philippines Country Manager Sherwin Dela Cruz. That affordable price, by the way, is just $3 a month for content from 150 sources that ranges from the most popular television shows in the U.S. to local Asian favorites. Dela Cruz, a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur”, and Jeremiah Carcellar (pronounced “Car-seh-yar”), iflix’s communicatons manager, oversee customer service operations in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. The company is looking to expand its offering to Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Middle East and Africa by year-end. Operating on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, iflix uses three guiding principles in its approach to social customer care: Effectiveness (actually addressing the customer’s concern), Creativity, and a Personal Touch. “We really try and practice as much as possible to have that personal touch, human-to-human conversation,” says Carcellar. He says the company handles about 3,000 posts a week in the Philippines alone, representing about 50% of all customer service inquiries. The brand demonstrates a friendly demeanor online, often employing emoji and retweets of compliments to “make sure that customers are left with a better impression of our company.” “If we can get to the point where we’re part of their everyday conversation, [where] we end up talking to them because we’re a part of their life, then in that sense we’ve achieved something and we end up building a trusting relationship which can go a long way,” adds Carcellar. As with many brands, speed of response is critical. “This is the world we’re living in now,” says Dela Cruz. “Everybody’s expecting an answer almost immediately.” Carcellar adds that iflix’s customers are showing lots of appreciation for the startup’s efforts in social media. “People really respond positively to the genuine effort and attention you give them,” he says, explaining that even when they experience issues with the service, the company has earned “the benefit of the doubt”. With the company expanding rapidly into new countries which require additional language capabilities, Dela Cruz and Carcellar are trying to duplicate their success. With their relentless focus on the customer, they are confident they will succeed. “The heart of the whole company is the customer,” says Dela Cruz. “If that voice goes unheard, then we’ve lost that customer.” The Focus on Customer Service Podcast featured iflix in its most recent episode. Here are the highlights of Episode 38 and where to find them: 1:15 The lowdown on iflix 4:20 What iflix is doing in the social customer care space 8:37 How iflix decided to make the investment in social customer care 11:43 What types of questions iflix sees in social media 12:45 The most popular video content in Asia 15:08 How iflix handles inquiries from multiple countries and multiple languages 16:36 The role of Instagram in social customer care 18:11 How social media integrates with other customer service channels 19:28 The future of social customer care for iflix 21:45 Sharing a memorable interaction with a customer 23:01 What the iflix team has learned in its first year of social customer care

When you consult almost any list of top companies for customer service, USAA’s name will be front and center. The financial services company founded by and for military veterans and their families has a fiercely loyal customer base, in large part due to the exceptional service they are provided in every channel. So when Richelle Caroll, the Director of Social Servicing for USAA – also an Air Force veteran and 23-year employee – was tasked with starting a social customer service practice, she knew she had big boots to fill. “USAA takes a lot of pride in being leaders in the industry for customer service, so delivering an exceptional and personalized member experience is key to being successful,” says Caroll. “We wanted to make sure that our members got to engage with us in the channel of choice.” The 22-person social customer service team started early last year with the goals of providing exceptional service, “making it simple,” and ensuring members can reach them wherever they are in the world at any time of day or night. Like much of the rest of the company, it’s staffed by many veterans and military spouses – making it easier to relate with customers. “We really want our employees here to have a better understanding of what our membership goes through day in and day out, some of the challenges they experience, so we can relate and provide a better member experience,” says Caroll. “We take a lot of pride in things like honesty, loyalty, integrity, service” – just like the military, she adds. USAA’s social customer service agents are highly-skilled individuals with extensive product knowledge and usually a long tenure at the company. The team works closely with other departments such as PR, marketing, strategy, governance, and the line of business product teams to ensure a positive experience and to identify and fix customer pain points. “One of the secret benefits of operating in the social media space is it really provides us with the opportunity to bubble up those things that our members are talking about or concerned about, and provide better experiences or even products and solutions,” Caroll says. Since social media is often “the quickest way to engage” for active military members who are traveling all over the world, customer service on the channel should be “at parity” with other channels and never a “channel of last resort”, she adds. In fact, customer satisfaction in social media is evaluated in the same way as it is with other channels. What really separates USAA from its peers is the deep connection to its members. Service – and especially military service – is “entrenched in our daily lives,” says Caroll, and more than once she referred to it as an “obligation”. “Our members have sacrificed a lot for our country. Having the ability to empathize with them, making sure we’re meeting them where they’re at, is one of the key components of entering into social the way that we did.” Richelle joined me for Episode 37 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Highlights of the episode and where to find them are below: 1:02 Richelle’s military background 2:23 A quick overview of USAA 3:05 What is USAA’s customer service philosophy ? 4:25 Does USAA have an advantage by focusing only on military families? 7:07 How the company started its social customer service practice 9:43 The social care team and how it works with other areas of the business 12:40 Is social media the customer service channel of last resort? 14:19 Operating in a regulated industry 17:22 What has changed in the last year of social customer service 18:57 Metrics that are key to success 22:22 Richelle shares a favorite member interaction in social media 24:59 Richelle’s one piece of advice for starting in social customer service

When Joshua March built an app for the new Facebook Application Platform in 2007, “social customer service was not a phrase,” he says. But March, now CEO & Co-Founder of Conversocial, saw an early opportunity. “I thought this was a really exciting opportunity for brands to engage with customers in a way they never had before.” Conversocial, a digital customer care platform, aims at “bridging the gap between the rapidly shifting worlds of social media and… the discipline of a large-scale customer service platform,” according to March. As someone who lives and breathes social customer service every day, March prides himself on being an early adopter of new technology. And while many companies are just starting to pay attention to messaging apps, March has been working for months with brands like Hyatt, Sprint, and Alaska Air to pilot customer service for Facebook Messenger. He calls messaging apps “the future of customer service... they’re really exciting in lots of ways.” Advantages of Messaging Apps for Brands March cites two big advantages that messaging apps bring to brands that “traditional” social media channels do not: 1) Private vs. Public: “One of the big hesitations that a lot of companies have had in promoting social as a primary customer service channel has been the very public aspect of it… The great thing about [messaging apps] is that you can have a ‘Message Us’ button and really promote this as a one-on-one, private channel.” 2) Persistency: “Messaging is a persistent conversation between you and a brand. You can have a real-time chat with an agent, then you can go away and come back a day later and see the history… That’s really exciting because that starts to have an impact on consumer behavior.” In their beta testing with Conversocial, Sprint saw a decrease in public complaints on Facebook as messages on Messenger increased. As a result, Sprint now lists its social customer care options – including the “Message Us” button – above the phone number on its website. March is expecting 50+ more clients to launch live chat via Messenger this year and “thousands” overall. Are the Bots Really Going to Take Over? March also had a lot to say about Facebook’s recent introduction of the “Bots for Messenger” Platform. He says that bots will be useful for certain types of transactions and “can help contact centers become more efficient by making things easier for agents.” But, he cautions, “we are not at the stage yet where you could have a really comprehensive chat bot for customer service.” One challenge that bots will face, he says, is that messaging is already less expensive and a better customer experience than on the phone, so moving to a bot runs the risk of worsening that experience and creating additional phone calls. “A lot of people turn to social because they’re fed up with the ‘computer says no’ attitude or big, complex IVRs [Interactive Voice Response systems on the telephone], or the bad experience they’re getting through these other channels and they want to connect with brands in a more human, engaging way,” March says. “And that’s really, really important that brands don’t forget that.” Here are some key moments in Episode 35 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast and where to find them: 1:45 A background on Conversocial 3:00 Conversocial’s (very) early entry into social customer service 7:00 The intersection of Marketing and Customer Service 11:23 The emergence of messaging platforms for service 15:21 What does the rise in messaging apps mean for companies? 22:57 Are messaging bots going to take over customer service? 30:55 Public vs. private customer service 34:43 What’s the future of peer-to-peer support? 40:00 What will be different in social customer service in one year? To hear more Focus on Customer Service, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud.

With the seemingly endless popularity of puppy and kitten pictures, videos, and memes on the internet, it would seem that the social media script for America’s largest pet pharmacy could basically write itself. But while the customers of 1-800-PET-MEDS do like to post lots of photos of their pets, the company itself is serious about its business and about providing exceptional customer service. “We’re a really fortunate brand in that we get a lot of people who love the content that we share,” says Vanessa Penagos, content and inbound marketing director at 1-800-PET-MEDS. But “we definitely don’t go out of our way to [post puppy and kitten pictures] just because we can.” With more than 8 million customers, 1-800-PET-MEDS operates in a regulated industry in much the same way as traditional pharmacies do. So while they can help customers with their orders, there are certain topics that are off-limits. “We certainly want to be helpful, but we can’t just be giving out medical advice,” Penagos says. Still, the company differentiates itself with its friendly interactions and personal touches – like including a free dog or cat treat with every order (which results in a lot of social media praise) or remembering a pet’s name in a future interaction after a customer has mentioned it or posted it with a photo on the company’s Facebook page. A smooth customer service interaction is important because pet owners are particularly emotional about their animals. “We strive for fast, easy, helpful service” that is “100% consistent” across channels, says Penagos. Most customer engagement and customer service inquiries come on Facebook, though Instagram and Twitter are also popular channels. Customer service agents are trained to “put themselves in the customer’s shoes” so the emotional aspect is expected. “A lot of times customers just want to be heard” when it comes to complaints, Penagos says, recounting a time when a customer ended up deleting a negative post after the brand responded because the customer hadn’t expected a response. As part of its customer service promise, the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee with “no questions asked” on non-prescription items such as treats and toys. All returns are donated to animal shelters, likely resulting in even more photos of happy puppies and kittens. Vanessa joined me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 34 of the Focus on Customer Service podcast, sharing her experience as a marketer, SEO expert, and social care leader. Here are some of the key points in the interview and where to find them: 1:15 The background on 1-800-PET-MEDS 1:55 The company’s approach to social customer care 3:45 How the social media team is organized 4:32 The intersection of social media and SEO 7:05 The kinds of social media posts that 1-800-PET-MEDS sees from its emotionally-invested customers 8:49 Why 1-800-PET-MEDS maintains a “pharmacy first” approach even in the midst of lots of puppy and kitten pictures 10:20 Managing marketing and customer service in a regulated industry 15:58 Which social media channels are biggest for a pet-related company? 16:43 The potential role of Facebook Messenger for customer service 17:45 How 1-800-PET-MEDS engages with animal shelters 18:48 How a social CRM might prove helpful in social care 19:39 Vanessa shares a memorable customer interaction 21:20 The one thing that Vanessa knows now that she wishes she knew when she started in social care If you’ve had a great customer service experience with a brand on social media, please tweet us using hashtag #FOCS so we can invite that brand on a future episode. Subscribe to the Focus on Customer Service Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.

When Duke Energy, the largest utility in the U.S., decided to launch a Facebook page, it started as simply a marketing effort. “What we didn’t expect was all the customers coming back at us,” says Madeleine Aman (pronounced “ah-min”), social media strategist for Duke Energy. So began the process of developing a social care strategy. The utility, technically a “regulated monopoly,” operates in six states and supplies electricity to 25 million customers. Still in a pilot phase but already seeing incredible success, Duke’s social care program started with this question, says Aman: “How are we going to serve our customers in a really seamless way that would mirror the call center?” “We want to get it right, so when we start going public, we have it figured out and we’re not causing our customers any angst and it’s a really seamless, happy experience,” she added. The strategy is unique – the social care team is co-located with the Corporate Communications team and they “share the channels”. “Things can change really quickly,” says Aman. “A customer interaction can become a brand reputation action really quickly.” As the team figures out how to scale, they are leaning on call center people who have knowledge of the business and are “teaching them social”. Common questions include bill inquiries, “vegetation management” – a fallen tree on an electrical line, for example – insulation and construction, and small business issues. The team has to be prepared for a rapid onslaught of inquiries in the event of inclement weather. “We’re very weather based, so if there’s a storm we need to ramp up really quickly and respond,” says Aman. “But then if it’s blue sky and the weather’s good, we might not hear from a lot of people.” During service outages, customers take to Twitter first, then Facebook if it’s a prolonged issue or to provide additional details. Duke is finding that customers are appreciative of the social care team’s efforts. “We’re starting to see repeat customers because we were able to serve them in the channel of their preference,” says Aman. “If we can pick up on an issue, get it fixed, and let the customer know that we’ve heard [them and] we’re on it, it makes a big difference. We’re seeing customers notice that and thank us for that.” Aman says that the company has also found success from proactive social media communications, especially in advance of a big storm. “We’ve seen really great results from doing that,” she says. “People in those situations feel like we’re there for them, we’re prepared. I think it helps build confidence in our brand, that we are giving them the tools that they need to stay safe and be prepared.” During the recent Social Media Marketing World conference, Aman joined me to discuss Duke Energy’s social care progress for Episode 33 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some key moments in the episode and where to find them: 0:53 Some background on Duke Energy and Madeleine 3:42 How Duke Energy’s social care team fits in the rest of the organization 6:40 The types of inquiries that Duke Energy receives in social media and how they differ between Facebook and Twitter 10:16 How Duke Energy uses proactive “push” messaging to get ahead of customer service complaints 11:34 Reporting and social care KPI’s 14:15 How being a regulated monopoly creates a “shared learning environment” with other utilities 15:25 Madeleine shares a particularly memorable interaction with a customer 16:25 Madeleine’s advice for companies starting a social care program To listen to past episodes, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud.

There is perhaps no physical possession about which customers are more passionate than their cars. At my first job at The Danbury Mint, I remember customers critiquing every last detail of the products – and those were 1:24 scale replicas of the real thing. General Motors understands this dynamic, which is why they have staffed a team of social care experts to represent their suite of car and truck brands in the world’s most public customer service channel. “We are the team minding the best interests of the customer,” says Whitney Drake, manager of social strategy and care. She works closely with both the Marketing team, with whom she shares “brand love” posts, and the Public Relations team, which helps with escalated inquiries and manages influencers. The secret to cross-functional success in social media? “Communicate, communicate, communicate,” she says. Social media communication is a consistent theme throughout the General Motors organization, as all new employees take a tour of the social command center during their first week – a tour led by the social care team. Drake is also working hard to increase the internal visibility of her social care agents, who “are the forefront of our company in the public eye.” “We’re striving to elevate the profile of these folks within the entire organization and I would challenge everyone who has a social care team to do the same,” Drake says. General Motors recently combined the marketing and customer care Twitter handles of Buick and GMC, much like Delta recently did when they stopped directing customers to a separate service account. The Chevrolet and Cadillac are maintaining separate handles – for now. “We don’t believe that customers actually identify, ‘I want marketing or I want customer assistance,’” Drake says. “They really just want to talk to the brand.” Drake sat down with me during Social Media Marketing World, where she spoke on a panel titled “Case Studies from Brands Excelling at Social Customer Service” (Not coincidentally, each of the four brands – General Motors, Hewlett Packard, OtterBox and JetBlue – have appeared on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast). The interview became Episode 32 of the FOCS Podcast, with highlights (and where to find them) below: 0:38 Whitney’s role and how social care is organized at General Motors 1:36 How Whitney’s corporate team interacts with local dealers and the car brand handles 3:10 The separation between marketing and customer service 4:34 How General Motors hires social care agents 6:48 Planning for a crisis 8:30 How Whitney is working to increase the visibility of social care in General Motors 11:44 What kinds of inquiries General Motors sees in social media 13:09 When to take a conversation offline 15:55 Attending the Social Media Marketing World conference 16:48 Whitney shares a memorable interaction with a customer 18:37 Whitney’s advice to someone starting out in social care Drake’s advice to companies just starting out in social care was poignant and relatable to every brand that’s been there for a while: “Sometimes you are building the plane while you’re flying it so you just do the best you can,” she says.

It’s rare that a company can so seamlessly integrate its product into social media, but Spotify's approach is music to its customers' ears. The popular music streaming company prides itself on what it calls “Random Acts of Kindness” – surprising the customer by sharing a song or a playlist based on their individual music tastes. The people behind the @SpotifyCares Twitter handle, where the bulk of customer service inquiries occur in social media, sometimes get so creative that the answer to the inquiry is actually spelled out in the playlist by reading the song titles in order. “We try to look for ways to put that special smile on customers’ faces,” says Chug Abramowitz, Vice President of Global Customer Service and Social Media. “We try to do things from within our product that accomplish that.” Service agents are based in Cambridge, England, and can handle inquiries in English, Spanish, Portuguese and German. Spotify trains its agents first on e-mail because the inquiries are more payment- and account-related with a 24-hour response time expectation, versus the more urgent requests (like a song not playing) that are seen in social media. “We don’t really let them get into social media until they no longer really have to be thinking about how to solve the cases,” Abramowitz says. Instead, agents can focus on executing quick responses and maintaining the brand’s tone of voice. “We’re really protective over tone of voice,” says Sam Thomas, Global Manager of Social Media Support. “That’s something we really try to monitor very, very closely.” Potential agents must submit to multiple writing tests and have high quality scores from their e-mail work before being considered for social media customer service. Good taste in music helps, too. Spotify has participated in early pilots with Twitter, presumably with some of the recent enhancements such as a prompt to direct message and a feedback mechanism to calculate Net Promoter Score or Customer Satisfaction. In addition, Spotify is looking at adding Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to its stable of customer service channels, with Abramowitz even predicting that messenging apps will become the standard channels of choice for service in a few years. Abramowitz and Thomas met with me and Dan Moriarty live on Blab to record Episode 31 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some of the key moments and where to find them: 1:25 Chug’s and Sam’s roles at Spotify 2:55 How the Spotify customer care team is organized 3:59 The social media channels where Spotify is active 5:27 The Spotify agent role and the difference between employee and outsourced agents 8:07 how Spotify integrates its product into its social media responses 12:40 The key traits of an ideal social customer service agent at Spotify 14:00 The onboarding/training process at Spotify 16:30 How the Marketing/Customer Service teams intersect 18:06 The technology behind Spotify’s social care program 19:00 What’s changed in social customer service and the role of messaging in the future 24:14 Memorable interactions with customers 27:32 What Chug and Sam have learned that would serve as advice for someone just starting out 29:25 Audience questions from Blab If you have experienced amazing customer service in social media, please let us know by tweeting with the hashtag #FOCS and we will try to get that brand on a future podcast episode.

It’s not only possible to provide B2B customer service in social media, it’s possible to do it creatively with a “wow” experience. That’s the goal of Nextiva, a cloud communications company that provides more than 100,000 small and large businesses with cloud-based telephone systems. “We felt there was an opportunity to disrupt that market,” says Vice President of Marketing Yaniv Masjedi, citing the telecommunications market’s reputation for “bad customer experience”. Masjedi attempts to respond to all customer inquiries with personalized videos featuring any one of the company’s 500 employees. “If you tweet at Nextiva, or post a Facebook post on our Facebook page, you’ll more than likely get a response via video rather than text,” he says. “The main idea behind that is: video builds bonds.” The Social Care team started by shooting video with smartphones, but has advanced to having two full-time video producers on staff and much better equipment. What hasn’t changed is the genuine human connection that is established between customers and real Nextiva employees. “We don't have people at Nextiva who went to film school and are great in front of the camera, but the more you do it, you get comfortable with it,” Masjedi says. Video responses are shared publicly and posted on the company’s YouTube page, Nextiva Cares. Despite that, every question receives a personalized answer, even if it’s a repeat. “We'll make a new one, even if it's something repetitive, just because it's the first time YOU are asking,” Masjedi says. “We try to get a video out as soon as possible, build a bond, and bring a smile to someone's face.” In one case, for a recording studio client, Nextiva answered with a personalized freestyle rap. How do customers respond? “The response is always awesome,” he says. “The loyalty, the impact that you are creating with your brand and that individual, that potential or existing customer, is tremendous.” Some customers even reply back with their own videos. Don’t forget, this is a B2B company. It’s not the end user that is asking questions, it’s a representative from the corporate client. “At the end of the day, while it is B2B, they're still people,” says Masjedi. “However customers want customer service or want to speak to you, you have to be there.” Masjedi was kind enough to join us for a live Blab interview, which was turned into Episode 29 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some of the notable moments in the episode and where to find them: 0:55 What is Nextiva? 1:22 Yaniv’s background and how he ended up working at Nextiva 2:40 The Social Care philosophy at Nextiva, which includes video responses vs. text 7:05 The approach to B2B customer service 11:13 what's the process for social listening and responding via video? 12:27 Which social media channels does Nextiva operate in? 14:07 The economics of responding to everyone with video 17:49 The game plan for scaling social care 19:40 Yaniv shares some memorable customer interactions 21:45 What has Yaniv learned during his time managing social care at Nextiva? Nextiva was nominated for the podcast by Micah Solomon, a customer service expert and frequent contributor to Forbes.com. If you have had a great customer service experience on social media, please let us know which brand provided it by using our hashtag, #FOCS, on Twitter. Listen to previous episodes and subscribe to the Focus on Customer Service podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.

When you’re in the telecom industry, are known as the “Un-carrier”, and your CEO has 2.2 million followers on Twitter, you need to be ready for just about anything in social media. It also helps to be just a little “feisty”, says Director of Social Media Services, Michelle Mattson. The T-Mobile social care team – known as “T-Force” – certainly is, with Mattson leading 145 agents in six different call centers, operating 24/7 and handling brand engagement, customer service inquiries, and many interactions with CEO John Legere. T-Mobile is the third-largest wireless provider in the United States with more than 60 million subscribers, and recently ranked highest among wireless full-service carriers in the 2016 J.D. Power U.S. Wireless Customer Care Full-Service Performance Study. “We’re there, we’re responding, and we’re really good at the experience part of it as well, so we have a lot of repeat customers,” says Mattson. “We’re really focused on effort… it should be fairly effortless in what we’re asking you to do.” It all starts with training. “We’re really hardcore in how we hire and train folks,” Mattson says, adding that applicants must submit writing samples and the #1 requirement for employment is that “you better have good grammar”. A “passion for customer experience” and the ability to respond in just the right way are also paramount. “How do you respond to someone who’s being a smartass and match that without really stepping out of bounds?” Mattson asks. “I think that’s an interesting craft to have.” Response time is also critical to the experience. “I love to see when our customer surveys come back and they’re like, ‘Whoa, I did not expect you to respond so quickly,’” says Mattson. She adds that it’s a goal to “hit every issue every time [so] no one gets left behind”. Mattson brought her own brand of feistiness to the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, which was recorded live on Blab.im and then converted to an audio file. Here are some key moments in Episode 28 and where to find them: 0:50 Michelle’s role and team structure 2:57 T-Mobile’s social staffing plan 4:58 How T-Mobile prioritizes customer service inquiries vs. brand engagement 6:30 What are the most important skill sets to look for when hiring? 9:36 Is T-Mobile competing on customer service? 10:26 How the customer service team interacts with Marketing and a socially active CEO 12:09 How T-Mobile’s platform footprint has grown in the past few years 16:15 How does T-Mobile determine when to take conversations to direct message? 18:06 What T-mobile’s onboarding and ongoing training looks like 20:52 What are the key KPI’s the T-Mobile measures? 21:55 Michelle shares a particularly memorable interaction with a customer 24:03 Is the entire customer service staff located in a call center? (Audience Question) 24:45 How long will T-Mobile keep a conversation going with a customer, positive or negative? (Audience Question) 26:20 What does Michelle know now that she wishes she knew when she started? 28:10 What is the ideal role for a CEO on social media? (Audience Question) 32:00 How T-Mobile’s corporate culture contributes to the customer and employee experience 33:23 How does T-Mobile handle questions from disabled individuals? (Audience Question) If you’ve experienced great customer service on a social media channel, please let us know in the comments below or by tweeting us using the hashtag #FOCS.

“This is the greatest journey in sports history,” says Kevin Saghy, Manager of Communications for the Chicago Cubs, “and we want to see it through to completion.” He is referring, of course, to the Cubs being the odds-on favorites to win the World Series in 2016, something they haven’t done since Henry Ford produced the first Model T in 1908. Describing his role as part public relations and part social media, Kevin is in charge of “protecting the Cubs’ reputation” and defining the team’s public “voice”. Under his leadership, the Cubs’ social media accounts – which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and Snapchat – have become “a little edgier, a little wittier” – and the fans love it. In fact, a 2015 FanGraphs study named the Cubs the most engaging team on Twitter among all Major League Baseball teams. “That’s a stat we’re really, really proud of,” Kevin says. Kevin joined Dan Gingiss and Dan Moriarty for Episode 26 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some key moments in the episode and where to find them: 1:05 Kevin’s role and how the Cubs’ social media team is organized 4:08 Kevin explains the line between fan engagement and true customer service inquiries 6:21 How the Cubs staff the social media team during games 8:07 How the team engages with fan questions about free agent signings, trades, etc. when they can’t share details 11:20 What the conversation with Cubs management is like when the social media team proposes something new 14:04 What kinds of customer service questions the team gets in social media 17:00 How the marketing content and customer service inquiries change during the offseason 20:03 Kevin shares some memorable interactions with fans 25:43 What Kevin wishes he knew when he first started in social care 28:02 Kevin’s outlook for the 2016 Cubs season If you’ve like to nominate a brand to appear on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, please tweet us directly at @dgingiss and @iamdanmoriarty, or use the hashtag #FOCS. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Quick quiz: What country has the 3rd largest Twitter population in the world, and the 4th largest Facebook population? If you guessed Indonesia, then you’ve been paying close attention to the exploding popularity of social media there. Its capital, Jakarta has more people tweeting daily than Tokyo, London, or New York. In fact, Indonesia has even been called the “social media capital of the world”. The leading online fashion website in Indonesia is called Berrybenka, and it sells a variety of clothing shoes, bags, and beauty products to a mostly-female audience. With only single-digit percentage credit card penetration in the country, most merchandise is sold C.O.D., or cash on delivery, even if it’s ordered online. Danu Wicaksana (pronounced “Dah-noo Wih-chak-san-ah”) is a managing director at Berrybenka, overseeing a customer service team that manages nearly 5,000 daily inquiries from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Line (a Japanese social media platform), plus SMS, email and live chat. His team takes a unique approach to servicing customers on Twitter, where many responses begin with a traditional greeting and then the customer’s handle – meaning every customer service response is tweeted out to all of Berrybenka’s 15,000 Twitter followers. “If there is a similar problem, then hopefully other people can see what has been answered before,” Danu says. A separate team of agents manages Hijabenka.com, Berrybenka’s sister site which sells Muslim fashion items. Though separate, the sites take the same approach to customer service. Agents should be “making emotional connections with the customers” and feeling “like they own the company,” Danu says, and the strategy is to understand the customer’s preferences in social media and be willing to open up new channels if there is demand. Danu was kind enough to take some time out of his morning (evening in the U.S.) to talk to us about his organization’s philosophy and tactics in the “social media capital of the world”. Below are some key moments in Episode 23 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, and where to find them: 1:00 What is Berrybenka.com? 1:53 A primer on the state of social media in Indonesia 3:45 How Berrybenka is set up to handle thousands of daily inquiries, and what the shopping experience looks like in Indonesia 7:25 The kinds of questions that Berrybenka handles in social media 8:34 How Berrybenka’s agents are cross-trained on multiple platforms 10:00 A multi-lingual approach to customer service 11:21 How Berrybenka and Hijabenka operate together under one corporate entity 13:27 Berrybenka’s unique approach to answering inquiries in Twitter 15:47 How Berrybenka uses Instagram for both marketing and service 17:30 Danu shares some particularly memorable customer interactions 20:15 Danu’s advice to companies getting started in social customer care Thanks to Nick Ogle for recommending Berrybenka as a unique international example of excellent social care. If you’ve like to nominate a brand to appear on the podcast, please tweet us directly at @dgingiss and @iamdanmoriarty, or use the hashtag #FOCS.

Video gamers are serious about their craft, and when something isn’t working like it’s supposed to, they want answers – quickly. Thankfully, Xbox (part of Microsoft) offers a host of support options, including live chat, an instant callback from a live agent, a robust community forum, and the most responsive Twitter account in the world. Yes, you read that right. Xbox’s video game-like stats on Twitter – more than 7 million followers on its main handle, more than 5 million tweets from its 13 separate support handles, more than 5,000 responses every day – have earned it the Most Responsive Brand on Twitter designation from the Guinness Book of World Records. The brand’s loyal following and sheer volume of support answers is both unparalleled and staggering; a single broadcast tweet seeking qualified candidates for the customer support team can yield hundreds of applicants. James Degnan was Xbox’s Community Support Manager overseeing the company’s “Tweet Fleet” for several years before recently transitioning to lead the Xbox Ambassador program, a peer-to-peer support service. James was kind enough to share some cheats, codes and hints (gamer-speak for best practices) with Dan Gingiss and Dan Moriarty on episode 19 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some favorite quotes include: • “Those are all hand-typed tweets by agents that care about a customer and want to give them a personalized response.” • “We have all sorts of mechanisms to draw [customer service] volume to our social channels.” • “Passion is just huge” when evaluating potential service agent hires – plus a technology background, strong ability to multitask, passion for the brand and Twitter, empathy, critical thinking skills, and a customer service background. • “It’s an entirely different animal on Twitter, where sometimes you have to read between the lines on what a customer is saying and arrive at your own inference on how to best handle it.” • “It is so important to us to prove to our community on Twitter that we’re actually a part of that community.” Here are the highlights of the episode and where to find them: 0:45 How James got to lead a record-breaking social care team 3:08 James talks about the Guinness World Record 6:55 Xbox’s “overflow” accounts on Twitter and the tools used to manage them 13:33 The size of the Xbox social care team and how they are trained 20:57 How Xbox uses post-servicing surveys to rate agents and identify issues 22:06 Xbox’s philosophy and approach to social care 23:32 The Xbox Ambassador program 26:29 James shares a memorable interaction with a customer 29:40 The advice James would share with himself six years ago when he started Thanks to Matt Hannaford for nominating Xbox for the podcast, tweeting: “I think some of the best customer service comes from @XboxSupport. They respond so fast.” If you’d like to suggest a brand for a future episode, please tweet us directly or use the hashtag #FOCS. The Focus on Customer Service podcast is also available on iTunes and Stitcher.

It’s no surprise that people are emotional about their smart phones, so a proper protective case can make or break – pun intended – the entire experience. In either case (yikes, another pun!), OtterBox and its sister company, LifeProof, are there to respond to customers on social media. Jessica Mack is the Senior Social Media Manager at both OtterBox and LifeProof, and she leads a team that is responsible both for marketing initiatives and for handling customer service issues. She spent some time with Dan Moriarty and me on Episode 9 of the Focus on Customer Service podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “We try to think of our customers as family and treat them accordingly.” • “Our customers mean everything to us, and we try to involve them in our brand as much as possible, have fun, and really treat them as we would treat a good friend and not just as a customer on the other side of the computer.” • “We try to be really patient with people… we try to listen to them and understand how they’re feeling and do whatever we can to support that.” • “Keep [customer care] internal and recruit people who live and breathe your brand, who have a customer care background, and who genuinely care about helping people.” • “You have to reward the customers that are engaging with you positively as well.” Here are the highlights of Episode 9 and where to find them: 1:35 Jessica’s background and how she ended up in her current role 2:25 How the fact that OtterBox’s product protects other companies’ products affects its social care strategy 4:03 How the social customer service team is organized and how they balance both the marketing and the customer service aspects of the job. 6:35 What technology Otterbox and LifeProof use for social media marketing and customer service 7:20 OtterBox’s culture and how it leads to a focus on customer service 8:25 Why OtterBox decided to use multiple Twitter handles 9:45 How OtterBox handles situations when a customer’s phone breaks 13:20 An example of using social media feedback to develop new products 15:26 Some of Jessica’s most memorable social media interactions 16:40 Jessica’s advice to people starting off in social customer service As a reminder, YOU can choose which brands are featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. If you have experienced awesome customer service on social media, please tweet us using the hashtag #FOCS and we will try to get that brand on a future episode.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, chances are that someone in your social media feeds has been talking about Ultimate Fighting Championship – better known as UFC. With more than 17 million Facebook fans and 2.6 million followers on both Twitter and Instagram, the mixed martial arts event company has become a global social media powerhouse. On fight nights, social media explodes with commentary from celebrities and regular fans alike, especially when UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey fights. Shanda Maloney was also a fan of UFC before she joined the organization. She is responsible for global marketing strategy; social media content, growth and engagement; paid media strategy; sponsorship integration; and customer service. She oversees 60+ official UFC social media channels – including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine – and also keeps an eye on more than 600 UFC athlete accounts. Shanda somehow found the time to speak with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 8 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: “We love to show the personality behind our brand, and the fans really enjoy that.” “[Negative feedback can be] a big learning point for us, and I think that’s going to create a much better customer service experience.” “Don’t be afraid to jump into the conversation – look for people who are talking about you and not at you.” “This is the best place to get word-of-mouth understanding of what the fans or the customers are saying, how they feel about your product or brand.” “Find a way to make it right because that moment is going to be incredibly memorable for that fan or that customer.” Here are the highlights of Episode 8 and where to find them: 1:19 How Shanda ended up working at UFC 2:28 How does UFC manage its huge social media presence while still making time to engage with fans? 3:47 How does UFC differentiate between fan engagement and true customer service inquiries? 5:42 How does Shanda help manage the athletes’ social media accounts? 6:40 Shanda talks about one of Twitter’s favorite trending topics, fighter Ronda Rousey 8:25 UFC’s strategy of focusing on influencers 9:45 How Shanda and her team prepare for fight nights 11:20 How UFC learns from negative feedback 13:59 Shanda shares one of her most memorable social media interactions with fans 16:00 The advice Shanda has for companies trying to have amazing customer service on social media. We are always looking for great brands to be featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. If you have experienced awesome customer service on social media, please tweet us using the hashtag #FOCS and we will try to get that brand on the podcast.

Striving to provide a “personalized service experience” with every interaction, Telstra – Australia’s leading telecommunications company – offers its customers the ability to connect with the same agent each time they contact the company. “A lot of frustration stems from customers having to re-tell their story,” says Monty Hamilton, Head of Digital Operations at Telstra. “It’s a real game-changer for us and our customers are loving it.” With more than 16 million mobile, internet and TV customers across the world, Telstra needs to be available 24/7 across multiple service channels, including social media. Monty talked with me for Episode 7 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast about the company that replies to more than 400,000 annual posts. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “We want all customer interactions to acknowledge the customer’s first name but most importantly, offer our individual names in those interactions, and that enables us – whatever channel that dialogue takes place in – to help customers connect with the same person for any particular problem or enquiry.” • “We look at social media as purely an extension of the digitalization of all aspects of our lives.” • Our lives have changed and therefore when we choose to interact with other organizations has also changed with that… We need to simply be ready for our customers’ change in appetite to deal with us in other channels.” • “It’s really important that we start with empathy and understanding.” We are looking for more great brands to be featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast! To nominate a brand that has awesome customer service on social media, just tweet using the hashtag #FOCS. Here are the highlights of Episode 7 and where to find them: 0:30 Dan talks briefly about United Airlines’ recent service shutdown and its excellent social customer service during the crisis 4:20 Monty’s background and how he ended up at Telstra 5:30 Monty explains Telstra’s goal of being “famous for caring about our customers” and how that tagline plays into its customer service philosophy 8:55 How Telstra expanded its focus on customer service to include social media 11:20 Why Telstra decided on 24/7 service in social media 13:50 How to deal with a difficult customer 17:50 Is social media a channel of last resort or first resort for customer service? 19:48 Monty’s advice for other companies looking to build a great social customer experience team Telstra was nominated by @CXpert from Melbourne, Australia. Please nominate other brands by tweeting us using the hashtag #FOCS.

Conceived by an Iron Man athlete looking for a plant-based, whole food alternative to nutritional supplements, Vega describes its products as “the future of optimal health”. Enjoyed by vegans and non-vegans alike, Vega’s products attract athletes of almost every sport looking for a more natural diet to help with training and ongoing health. Vega’s approach to customer service on social media is to listen first, both to those who @mention the brand and those talking about it without a direct @mention. The team responds with humor (food puns are a favorite), imagery, and a friendly tone that leaves a smile on the face of even the most ardent critic. Lindsay Jesseau is the Director of Customer Experience at Vega, and she – like several other of our guests – was a customer before becoming an employee. Lindsay talked with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 6 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “It’s not just about having a competitive advantage over your direct competitors; the consumers expect a response through social now, so it’s looking at ‘are we as good as the best companies out there?’ and that’s really how we set our standards.” • “Empower your front line. Don’t punish mistakes.” • “Consumers are reaching out through Twitter, and they want to be responded to and resolved in that channel.” • “Respond to both positive and negative comments. The negative ones are really your biggest learning opportunity.” Don’t forget that we are always looking for great brands to be featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. To nominate a brand that has awesome customer service on social media, just tweet using the hashtag #FOCS. Here are the highlights of Episode 6 and where to find them: 0:30 Dan and Dan talk about why more companies aren’t embracing social customer service 3:35 What is Vega and what kinds of products does it sell? 5:14 Lindsay talks about her career and how she ended up at Vega 6:20 Does having a niche audience change Vega’s servicing strategy? 7:31 Lindsay talks about Vega’s #bestlife campaign 9:52 How Vega empowers its customer advocates to “surprise and delight” its customers 11:13 Vega’s use of humor and imagery in their customer service responses 13:30 How Vega handles comments about the taste of their products, both positive and negative 15:44 Lindsay’s social customer service team and where it sits in the company 18:44 How Vega approaches customer service across different social media channels 20:35 Memorable social interactions 22:20 Lindsay’s advice to other companies looking to build an awesome social customer service 25:10 What Lindsay tweets about from her personal handle Vega was nominated by Taylre Duarte (@taylreduarte). You too can nominate a brand to appear on the Focus on Customer Service podcast simply by tweeting us using the hashtag #FOCS.

ModCloth is “not just another retailer,” according to its founder, “but a social-shopping community with our customer at the center of everything we do.” Nowhere is that more apparent than in its approach to customer service, both on and off social media. Its agents, called “advocates,” often refer to themselves as “day makers” because their goal is to make every customer’s day. Their focus is on empathy and solving the customer’s problem at (almost) any cost. Ashley Boone is the Care Social Lead at ModCloth, managing and training the advocates on the team that the company uniquely calls “Care Social” instead of “Social Care”. Ashley was a ModCloth customer before working for the company, giving her great insight into the mindset of the woman “that finds inspiration and confidence through fashion.” Ashley met with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 5 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast to talk about a variety of topics, including a certain famous Jurassic Park actor whose face appears on a ModCloth T-shirt but who remained a mystery to one of the Dans. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “Think of a mission statement for your social care team.” • “We are accountable for mistakes and we empathize with [the customer’s] situation.” • “Imagine yourself on the other end of that call and act accordingly.” • “Go above and beyond the call of duty to make the customer’s day.” • “We want her [the customer] to feel like she’s valued and her feedback is heard.” As a reminder, we are always looking for great brands to be featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. To nominate a brand that has amazing customer service on social media, just tweet using the hashtag #FOCS. Here are the highlights of Episode 5 and where to find them: 1:15 What is ModCloth and what is Ashley’s background? 3:03 ModCloth says they know what it’s like to shop online; how does that affect the way they offer customer service? 5:14 What exactly is a “social shopping community”? 6:56 How does ModCloth empower its advocates to “make the customer’s day”? 11:57 How ModCloth differentiates itself from other retailers by knowing its customers 14:52 Where social care sits in the organization 17:37 Response rate and response time goals 19:30 Memorable interactions with customers 24:19 Ashley’s advice for other companies ModCloth was nominated by Laura Watkins Baker (@snackmantis), who tweeted that the retailer is “amazing at social care”. Have you experienced awesome customer service on social media? If so, please nominate the brand by sending a tweet using the hashtag #FOCS and we will reach out to feature them in a future podcast.

Buffer, the app that helps individuals and companies schedule social media posts and curate content, has had customer service at the heart of its offering since its inception. In fact, The Buffer Vision, as described on the website (https://buffer.com/about), begins with this statement: “Our vision at Buffer is to build the simplest and most powerful social media tool, and to set the bar for great customer support.” The company has a loyal following of more than two million daily users, and one of those customers – a former rodeo queen, hobby novelist and animal lover – is now bestowed the title of Community Champion. Nicole Miller spent some time with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 4 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “We view every interaction that comes our way – every single tweet, email, question, mention – as a real privilege to know that someone has taken the time out of their day to think about us or get in touch with us.” • “We really want to make sure that each interaction is special and unique and as happy as possible.” • “We really look at customer service as happiness, and that frames all of what we do.” • “Value each one-on-one interaction with your customers.” • “If you just take that extra minute, it can really turn things around even in potentially negative situations.” As a reminder, brands featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast must be nominated by one of their customers. To nominate a brand that has amazing customer service on social media, just tweet using the hashtag #FOCS. Here are the highlights of Episode 4 and where to find them: (1:55) Nicole’s background and how she landed at Buffer (3:59) Buffer’s philosophy toward customer service (5:00) The types of questions Buffer receives and how they track customer input (7:35) The Buffer social care team structure (9:35) Buffer’s 10 Key Values and how they play a role in hiring (10:57) The key metrics that Buffer looks at to gauge success (13:15) How Buffer trains its employees on social customer service (14:54) The popular #bufferchat and how it helps scale customer interactions (17:17) Nicole’s advice to companies trying to do social customer service well Buffer was nominated by Jason Keath (@jasonkeath). Have you experienced awesome customer service on social media? If so, please nominate the brand by sending a tweet using the hashtag #FOCS and we will reach out to feature them in a future podcast.

When Chipotle Mexican Grill tapped Joe Stupp to be Head of Social Media, the company chose the person with the most relevant experience possible. In fact, Joe was the restaurant manager of the very first Chipotle. Now nearly 1,800 restaurants strong, Chipotle still approaches social media in an unconventional style that is perhaps befitting a much smaller brand – with just a handful of people who know every facet of the business intimately, and who love talking with customers. They answer all sorts of questions, from the basic – “Where does your chicken come from?” – to the absurd – “What kind of toilet paper do you use in the bathroom?” – and all with a virtual smile. Or perhaps it’s a wink? Joe spent some time with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 3 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “We don’t really view it as customer service, but more like we’re just conversing with people.” • “Being response to our customers… just comes naturally to us.” • On social media response time: “We have zero goals around that...We do not track it. We do not keep an eye on it. It’s just something that we do. ” • Advice to others: “People really have to be careful that they know their business inside and out.” As a reminder, brands featured on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast appear because of YOU the listener. To nominate a brand that has amazing customer service on social media, just use the hashtag #FOCS. Here are the highlights of Episode 3 and where to find them: (2:45) Joe’s history at Chipotle, starting with the very first restaurant (4:35) Chipotle’s philosophy on customer service (6:19) What kinds of questions does Chipotle receive on social media? (7:10) The weirdest question Chipotle has received (7:48) Where Joe’s team sits in the organization (9:32) How Chipotle achieves its “amazing” response time (11:11) Questions about specific restaurants vs. brand questions (13:53) One Twitter handle or two? (15:53) Joe’s advice to other companies starting a social customer service practice (17:25) What’s next for Chipotle’s customer service (20:05) What Joe likes to tweet about personally Chipotle was nominated by Chad Mitchell (@cmmitchell4) during a recent #SMTLive webinar. Have you experienced awesome customer service on social media? If so, please nominate the brand by sending a tweet using the hashtag #FOCS!

Laurie Meacham, Manager of Customer Commitment and Social Media at JetBlue Airways, has to live up to a tough standard which is immortalized in JetBlue’s mission statement: To Inspire Humanity. But she and her social care team – called crewmembers – are doing just that, working 24/7 to respond to passengers with a goal of just a 10-minute response time. Their work goes beyond customer service, answering all sorts of questions about planes, airports, and other aeronautical trivia. “It’s all part of delivering an amazing customer experience,” she says. Laurie took time out of her busy schedule to speak with me and Dan Moriarty for Episode 2 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Some of the most quotable moments of this episode include: • “If we’re doing it right, any interaction you have with a JetBlue crewmember will be very similar… our goal is to deliver a consistent experience.” • “Our goal is to always know the answer or be able to find the answer.” • “We’ve really infused our brand’s personality through social and that’s what differentiates us.” • “We want you to be able to see who JetBlue is from looking through the @JetBlue Twitter feed.” • “Listen to your customers… and be true to YOUR brand.” Here are the highlights of Episode 2 and where to find them: (2:05) JetBlue’s approach to customer service, and the role it plays within the company (3:13) How JetBlue’s culture of service translates to social media (4:16) Laurie’s role and the team structure, plus what makes a good social care “crewmember” (7:10) How Laurie trains the team and educates them about JetBlue (8:33) Why the airline industry just might be social media’s “sweet spot” and what JetBlue does to differentiate itself in a crowded space (12:28) Response time expectations (14:28) Connecting social media to a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system (16:22) Laurie’s advice for those starting out in social care (17:26) A memorable social media encounter with a passenger, which you won’t want to miss! (22:02) What Laurie likes to tweet about when she’s not at work To nominate other brands to be featured on the Focus on Customer Service podcast, please use the hashtag #FOCS.