WebProNews

Category: CustomerExperienceNews

Articles about improving customer experience

  • Twitter Wants You To Be Better At Customer Service

    Twitter Wants You To Be Better At Customer Service

    As many opportunities as social media platforms have given businesses to connect with customers, many just aren’t doing it well to say the least. According to recent research from Socialbakers, the U.S. is near the bottom of the list for customer care on both Twitter and Facebook. For Twitter, we ranked 33 out of 37 countries.

    Twitter has released some of its own research and is giving brands four ways to “build customer service relationships”. In a blog post this week, Twitter research manager Meghann Elrhoul wrote:

    To understand how satisfied people feel with customer service interactions on Twitter, we surveyed 14,040 Twitter users who follow or interacted with brands’ customer service Twitter accounts in the past six months. We asked about their latest customer service experience in terms of: friendliness, personalization, responsiveness, resolution, satisfaction and recommendation.

    Our resulting research surfaced four key best practices for brands who want to shift from simply handling customer service to nurturing customer service relationships and experiences. Check out our infographic below for the top data points and read on for our recommendations as well as examples of brands getting customer service right on Twitter.

    Here’s the infographic looking at the findings and offering tips on building customer service relationships:

    twitter-customer

    What it boils down to, according to Twitter, is being friendly (empathizing with consumers and offering help), being personal (using real names and signing every reply), being responsive (responding in less than an hour), and being accessible (following up to ensure problems have been resolved).

    Sounds like a winning formula to me. Take a look at Twitter’s post about this for more insight into how to do all of this effectively.

    Images via Socialbakers, Twitter

  • Salesforce Brings Big Customer Service Features To Apps

    Salesforce Brings Big Customer Service Features To Apps

    Salesforce announced Service for Apps and the general availability of Salesforce SOS, which the company says will improve the in-app customer experience.

    “Service for Apps enables any company to easily embed multi-channel customer service – including live video chat with a customer service agent, live text chat, and click-to-call capabilities – directly into mobile apps, giving customers instant access to the help they need to resolve questions without ever leaving the app,” a spokesperson for Salesforce explained in an email. “Salesforce is empowering customers to easily provide the most connected, instant and customer friendly support, made specifically for the mobile world.”

    Salesforce says it’s accelerating the shift to mobile, in-app customer support with Service for Apps. It includes Chat for Apps, Tap-to-Call for Apps, Knowledge for Apps, Cases for Apps, and Salesforce SOS for Apps. The product enables companies to embed service inside their mobile apps to enable instant and personalized support.

    With Chat for Apps, customers can instant message an agent without leaving the app. The company uses the example of a mobile gamer being able to chat with a support agent in real time for personalized advice on a gaming technique while the agent has the right context.

    Tap-to-Call for Apps lets customers access live phone support with one tap. Knowledge for Apps lets them access knowledge articles and FAQs without leaving the app. Cases for Apps lets customers create and monitor cases, sue the camera and location to provide more details, and receive a notification when the case is resolved. SOS for Apps is similar to the Amazon Mayday button in that it provides live, personalized, and interactive video support with on-screen, guidance assistance and screens-sharing with an agent.

    “The mobile app revolution has created a new requirement for instant, always on service,” said Mike Milburn, SVP and GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce. “With Service Cloud’s groundbreaking innovations, companies will be able to deliver in-app mobile customer support, allowing them to deliver a whole new level of service to customers.”

    Salesforce also announced Desk.com for Apps, a new SDK powered by Desk.com for SMBs.

    Last week, Salesforce unveiled Wave Analytics, its first app for Wave, the Salesforce Analytics Cloud.

    Image via Salesforce

  • Your Customers Want More Of This From Your Business

    Personalization. Consumers want offers from businesses to be more personalized. The question is: are you doing your part? And to what degree?

    Are you making efforts to ensure your offers are highly personalized for your potential customers? What are your most effective personalization methods and/or channels? Discuss.

    Consumers want more relevant offers, but they’re also not really into being tracked, so that makes it difficult for businesses to get such offers in front of them. Meanwhile, consumers are losing confidence in business’ ability to effectively leverage their personal data. That seems to be the main takeaway from a recent retail survey by Boxever.

    According to that, 60% say they prefer offers targeted to where they are and what they’re doing, but 62% don’t want retailers tracking their location. That’s a problem. Unfortunately, it’s hard to highly personalize an offer without knowing much about the recipient.

    “Retailers are losing consumer trust for failing to effectively leverage personal data; it’s negatively affecting the customer experience and retailers’ ability to market and sell effectively,” said Boxever CEO Dave O’Flanagan. “While today’s consumers crave a personalized, value-added shopping experience, they’re unlikely to continue sharing personal data because they aren’t seeing enough value from the data that retailers already collect.”

    The survey found that for over 50% of consumers, 75% of sales offers they received were irrelevant to them. According to Boxever, this means millions are being spammed daily, which is negatively impacting future sales, conversion rates, and customer loyalty. The survey found that 40% are less likely to buy from such a company moving forward, while 50% are less likely to open the next offer they get from that company. 59% said they’d unsubscribe from the company’s content, and 31% said they’d delete the company’s app.

    “The stakes are extremely high for retailers. When brands inundate a customer or prospect with untargeted offers, they may lose the opportunity to ever market to that person again,” said O’Flanagan. “The two biggest mistakes retailers make are failing to personalize offers based on where a customer is and what he or she is doing, and failing to align communications with a customer’s unique needs and interests.”

    Email is by far the most preferred channel to get offers and communications from companies, the survey found, with in-store and direct mail following. Only 2% identified mobile as their preferred channel, and only 4% chose social. Those numbers are greater for millennials, however.

    Personalization is key to an effective offer, based on the findings. That goes for any channel. 70% said when an offer adds value to something they are already doing or plan to do they’re more likely to act on it. 42% said that’s the case for when the offer revisits a product or event they’ve expressed interest in previously. 21% said this is true for when the offer is targeted to what they’re doing at that moment in time.

    “Location-based push offers can also be valuable tools for retailers, but only when the offers are targeted at the right population,” Boxever said. “Of those survey respondents between the ages of 18-29, more than 50% said they would find location-based push offers valuable or extremely valuable, as long as they were timely, targeted, and within reason – which is true for only 32% of consumers who are 45 and older. That said, only one of the 507 respondents identified wearable technology as his or her preferred channel for receiving communications from brands.”

    “The days of personalizing offers based on high-level demographics are long gone, and continuing along this path will actually hurt, not help brands,” said O’Flanagan. “Brands need complete visibility into the preferences of every customer, and the ability to integrate contextual customer intelligence and value into each marketing offer sent.”

    So how can you convince consumers to give you their data, which you can use to provide them with offers that are highly relevant to them? The easiest way is to give them something in return. Things like email newsletters, ebooks, whitepapers, contest prizes, events, and premium content are some of your options. But you have to make this stuff worth their while, and you should educate them about why you’re collecting the data you’re collecting. Be as specific as possible. If they actually want the kinds of offers you’re willing to give them, they’ll likely be more willing to give you the data you need to deliver it to them when the time is right.

    You have to make good on what they’re signing up for though. Make it worth their while, because if you don’t, they’re not going to want to buy whatever it is that you’re selling.

    What have been your most successful tactics for getting customers to share personal data? Let us know in the comments.

  • Why You’re Probably Not Meeting Customers’ Expectations On Social Media

    Businesses are falling behind on consumer expectations when it comes to social media. This isn’t anything new, but there is a new study out about it.

    The Northridge Group is sharing survey results finding that social media is basically being used a last resort with twenty-six percent of consumers turning to these channels when they can’t reach a rep through another channel. That’s the highest of all reasons they turn to social, it finds.

    Do you find social media to be a difficult channel for customer service? What would make it better? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Forty-seven percent of people plan to use social media next year the same or more than they currently do when it comes to customer service. In other words, businesses need to get better at this.

    The Northridge Group survey found that an equal number of consumers (22 percent) use social media to share positive and negative experiences about brands. That may come as a surprise to some businesses who suspect customers are more vocal about negative encounters.

    Here’s a look from the report at how businesses are meeting expectations for customer support:

    For social media, businesses are only doing slightly better than they are with letters.

    When it comes to how may times a customers has to engage with a company before getting an issue resolved, businesses aren’t doing great with social media compared to other channels:

    Businesses are really struggling to resolve issues via social channels:

    And response times aren’t particularly good either:

    There’s plenty more where that came from if you want to download the report.

    On a related note, we recently looked at a study from Lithium Technologies, which found that business leaders are struggling to meet the rising expectations of customers on social media.

    Facebook is reportedly testing a new customer service feature that could greatly help businesses to improve their statistics in the areas discussed in this article. It would enable businesses to serve a canned response to users who send them messages, which could significantly improve response times at the very least, but also help the path toward resolution as well.

    The feature is called Saved Replies, but it’s unclear when Facebook might roll this out on a wide scale, if it even does.

    Do you think Facebook’s feature will make it easier to live up to customer expectations? What other tools should the social networks offer? Discuss.

    Images via Northridge Group, Lithium Technologies

  • Study Looks At Pressure On Business Leaders To Meet Rising Customer Expectations

    A study out from Lithium Technologies reveals that 42% of business leaders claim that consumers shame them on social media. This is based on a Harris Poll in April and Mayamong 300 corporate execs who work at companies with revenue of $1 billion or more.

    82% of these executives, who are VP level and higher, say their customers have higher expectations compared to three years ago, and 60% say it’s hard to please them. 42% indicate that customers use social media to shame them into doing what the consumer wants, the report says.

    “The consumer is forever changed,” said Lithium Technologies CEO Rob Tarkoff. “Social media and the rise of non-traditional, web-based entrants into established industries have evolved their expectations. Consumers use digital channels to find and share information, reviews, and insider tips. At the same time, they are using those channels to suggest improvements and sometimes shame brands into solving their problems. Business leaders are taking note of what this means to their image and bottom line—and rushing to find innovative ways to adapt.”

    Another interesting finding from the report is that 78% of business leaders think the Internet and consumer app companies are setting a new benchmark for customer experiences.

    “Yelp has changed dining experiences and made it possible for everyone to be a food critic,” said Tarkoff. “Uber has forever changed urban transportation. Airbnb has pressured the hotel industry. Netflix has changed the way we watch TV. And of course Amazon has changed the rules of retail for every retailer—online or otherwise. Whether a company competes directly with these companies or others like them, the Internet has created a consumer expectation that all companies now must meet.”

    65% of those polled cited innovation as one of the top pressures felt from rising consumer expectations, while 58% cited competition with other companies, and 52% cited customer turnover. 30% said slowed revenue growth, 28% said increased amount of discounts their company provides for to customers, and 17% said reduced market share.

    “All businesses need to get savvier about responding to the new consumer—and find ways to reap the benefits of digital business while minimizing the negative impacts,” said Tarkoff. “The good news our survey showed is that 93% of business leaders say their company is adapting to the digital transformation. But do their approaches have scale and staying power? That is the next big question.”

    Via AdWeek

    Image via Lithium Technologies

  • Google Gives Marketers Advice On Reaching Customers In The Moment

    Google just launched a new website called Micro-Moments aimed at providing insights (both qualitative and quantitative) for marketers to better help them understand consumer behavior and its implications as mobile usage continues to grow and change how people interact with businesses online.

    Google says it has seen a 20% increase in mobile’s share of online sessions across the web in the past year. This revelation comes after Google recently said that it sees more searches on mobile than on desktop in ten countries, including the U.S. and Japan. Also in the past year, Google says it has seen an 18% decrease in time spent per visit across the web. Sessions are getting shorter as mobile accounts for more sessions, it says. Meanwhile, mobile conversion rates have increased by a reported 29%.

    “In essence, we no longer research purchases in long dedicated sessions on a laptop or desktop,” says Matt Lawson, Director of Performance Ads Marketing at Google. “Instead, we reach for our devices in the moment, we access information faster than ever before, and as a result we make more informed decisions… more quickly. In fact, 60% of online consumers say they are making purchase decisions more quickly because of online research now compared to a few years ago.”

    “For example, have you ever stopped in the middle of a conversation to look something up about what you just heard?” he adds. “Sixty percent of smartphone users report having done the same thing. And 66% of smartphone users turn to their smartphones to learn more about something they saw in a TV commercial. Overall, 65% of online users say they are looking up information online more now compared to a few years ago.”

    A micro-moment, by Google’s definition, is an intent-rich moment when a user wants to learn, find, do, or buy something, and take and then takes immediate action. As the evidence shows, this is increasingly happening on our phones.

    So the idea behind this new Micro-Moments site of Google’s is that marketers can turn to it to get a better understanding of these types of “micro-moments”.

    The site consists of four main sections: Overview, Real Moments, Take Action, and More Insights. The overview basically explains the point and what Google has learned about user behavior, which includes taking immediate action, and demanding relevance.

    The site includes several videos to help get its points across.

    The Take Action section is the part that marketers are likely to find most helpful. It lists five steps for “what you can do.” These include making a “moments map,” understanding the customer needs in the moment, using context to deliver the right experience, optimizing across the journey, and measuring every moment that matters.

    To create the map, Google suggests identifying a set of moments you specifically want to win or “can’t afford to lose,” and examining all phases of the customer journey. The advice and recommendations continue on from there.

    According to Google there are four “new moments every marketer should know,” which they’ve included in a nice little infographic:

    Google also talks more about mobile trends and micro-moments on the Inside Adwords blog here.

    Images via Google

  • Starbucks’ Music Experience Is Now Powered by Baristas with Spotify

    Starbucks’ Music Experience Is Now Powered by Baristas with Spotify

    Coffee kingpin Starbucks and bane of Jay-Z’s existence Spotify have just announced a huge partnership to create a “first-of-its-kind music ecosystem.”

    What that means is that soon, the Starbucks music experience will be powered by Spotify – and more specifically, the musical tastes of its employees.

    From Spotify and Starbucks:

    Coming first, Starbucks 150,000 U.S.-based partners (employees) will receive a Spotify Premium subscription, followed shortly thereafter by partners in Canada and the U.K. This fall, Starbucks partners can help shape the in-store music programming using tools provided by Spotify. These partner-influenced playlists will then be accessible on Spotify via the Starbucks Mobile App so that customers can stream music anywhere, anytime from their mobile device.

    The deal links up Spotify Premium with Starbucks’ loyalty program.

    “In addition, Spotify users will enjoy opportunities to obtain “Stars as Currency” for My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program. This will represent the first time that Starbucks loyalty program stars can be accessed by a third party for the benefit of Starbucks MSR members and Spotify users,” says a press release.

    Eventually, Starbucks MSR members will have “the ability to influence in-store playlists”, although to what degree is still yet to be revealed.

    “Starbucks has a rich music heritage and customers who are passionate music fans which makes us incredibly proud to be their music partner,” said Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify. “Spotify has powered more than 25 Billion hours of listening around the world so far, and we’re looking forward to creating unique in-store music experiences while also making more than 20 years of popular Starbucks music available to both Starbucks customers and Spotify’s 60 Million global music fans.”

    And Starbucks will promote Spotify Premium.

    Sounds like a win-win for all involved – unless your barista likes Justin Bieber.

  • Comcast Says It’s Improving Its Customer Service, Offers $20 for Every Late Appointment

    Comcast Says It’s Improving Its Customer Service, Offers $20 for Every Late Appointment

    Comcast, still one of the most-hated companies in America, just announced what it calls a “multi-year plan to reinvent the customer experience and to create a culture focused on exceeding customers’ expectations.”

    Part of this initiative involves creating more than 5,500 new customer service positions. The company says it’s building three new customer support centers in Albuquerque, Spokane, and Tucson.

    “This transformation is about shifting our mindset to be completely focused on the customer. It’s about respecting their time, being more proactive, doing what’s right, and never being satisfied with good enough,” said Neil Smit, President and CEO, Comcast Cable. “We’re on a mission and everyone is committed to making this happen.”

    Comcast is also pledging to give you money if it’s late for an appointment. Comcast already operates a two-hour window guarantee, but now if its technicians fail to arrive in that timeframe the company will credit you $20.

    Last year, Comcast began testing a tool that lets customers track the location of their technician via an app. And just a few weeks ago, it announced it was hiring more social media reps to help with customer issues.

    Comcast knows it’s despised among a large swath of customers, and it knows that its customer service record is a large part of why. Not only is canceling your service a nightmare (as we’ve seen in multiple high-profile incidents), but various Comcast customers have been degraded with obscene “nicknames” appearing on their bills. Has Comcast called you a “Super Bitch” or “Asshole Brown” – because some people have.

    Earlier this year, Smit said that he expects customer service “will soon be one of our best products.”

    Hiring more customer service reps is nice, but I guess you have to make sure they know that calling customers bitches isn’t great for business.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Brands Don’t Know Their Customers As Well As They Think They Do

    IBM and Econsultancy have some new research out suggesting a “massive perception gap” between how well brands think they are marketing to their customers and how well customers actually think brands know them. Businesses think they’re doing a pretty good job. Consumers, not so much.

    Do you think you know your customers well or do you need some improvement in that area? Share your thoughts.

    The study, which surveyed businesses and customers specifically in the United States, found that about 90% of marketers do agree that personalization of marketing campaigns is critical to their success. Even still, 80% of consumers polled don’t think the average brand understands them as individuals. This is despite consumers sharing more personal details with businesses than ever before. Some how, brands are still failing to make the most of it.

    It probably comes back to the smart data versus big data concept.

    “2015 is about smart data,” James Whatley, the social media director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, London, recently wrote a blog post. “With Facebook killing its organic reach, the free ride is over – and you’ll have to start remembering to commit media money to hit your social targets. This is not news. The thing that continuously blows minds is just how niche you can get with that detail. In the autumn of 2014, one enterprising data monkey even managed to get his targeting so perfect that he set about specifically serving ads to his roommate as part of an elaborate prank. That’s mind-blowing.”

    “In 2015, it would be great if the creative industries could get familiar with the smart data available to them,” he added.

    The IBM/Econsultancy research found that 80% of marketers “strongly” believe they have a holistic view of individual customers and segments across interactions and channels. They also strongly believe in their ability to deliver “superior experiences” offline (75%), online (69%), and on mobile devices (57%). Yet just 47% of marketers say they’re able to deliver relevant communications.

    Worse yet, customers don’t think they’re getting personalized experiences. Only 37% said their preferred retailer understands them as an individual. And that’s the preferred one. Only 22% said the average retailer understands them. 21% said communications from their average retailer are “usually relevant”. 35% said communications from their preferred retailers are “usually relevant”.

    According to IBM, this all may contribute to why shoppers leave a brand’s website without completing their purchase. Shopping cart abandonment is, after all, only growing as an issue for businesses.

    “One explanation for relevancy void may be a lack of innovation for the multi-channel lives we all lead,” IBM said. “According to the study, only 34 percent of marketers said they do a good job of linking their online and offline customer experiences. With the vast majority of dollars spent offline and the majority of product research happening on the Internet, the two are already linked for consumers but this gulf must close for marketers if they are to advance. One issue is the technology of integration, with only 37 percent of marketers saying they have the tools to deliver exceptional customer experiences.”

    It’s all effecting customer loyalty as well. The survey asked consumers about changing providers in several areas “known to be inherently sticky,” only to find that 49% claimed to have changed providers in the last year with experience-related factors playing a prominent role.

    30% said they switched because of failure on the part of the provider, and 51% specifically cited customer experience as the top factor.

    “The customer is in control but this is not the threat many marketers perceive it to be. It’s an opportunity to engage and serve the customer’s needs like never before,” said Deepak Advani, GM at IBM Commerce. “By increasing investments in marketing innovations, teams can examine consumers at unimaginable depths including specific behavior patterns from one channel to the next. With this level of insight brands can become of customer’s trusted partner rather than an unwanted intrusion.”

    Getting better at customer service would probably help a great deal too. As we explored in another article, businesses are having a tough time getting it right online.

    Are you getting personalization right or is this a struggle? Let us know in the comments.

    Via Digiday

    Image via PR Newswire

  • Your Online Customer Service Needs To Get Better ASAP!

    Your Online Customer Service Needs To Get Better ASAP!

    Thanks to technology it’s now easier than ever for consumers to connect with businesses and vice versa. Still, businesses aren’t doing the best job of taking advantage of this to provide their customers with the best service possible.

    What do you use as your main channels for online customer service? Let us know in the comments.

    PricewaterhouseCoopers recently found that 41% of consumers claimed to have had a positive experience with online customer service chats. Interestingly, just 4% of them cited social media as the channel of choice. Phone support (somehow) still trumps online customer service, according to PwC’s findings, but online customer service is becoming increasingly important to consumers. Variety reports on the study:

    Despite a growing willingness to contact companies through email or their websites, 81% of consumers still prefer phone calls with live agents over any other means of connecting with customer service teams. Eighty four percent of respondents had a positive experience using the phone, compared with 55% who had a successful resolution to their issues after raising problems via email and 41% who were happy using online chat.

    People have grown more comfortable using a combination of digital and traditional avenues to reach customer service teams, with 47% of those surveyed using a hodgepodge approach. Respondents said that traditional channels are better suited to billing issues and questions about various products and services, while digital channels were most often used to checking the status of an account or to handle website issues.

    Interestingly enough, most retailers (at least in the UK) actually say their customer service is better online than it is in their actual physical stores. Over two third of them to be exact, according to research from Dyn. NetImperative shares some highlights from that:

    • Over 57% of retailers think one of the biggest things consumers want to see when shopping online is the same quality of experience, while over 76% say the experience is not consistent
    • Over two-thirds of retailers think their customers get the best service online (website, mobile or app) compared to 25% who think the best customer service is in-store

    “Retailers that perfect their customer service gain a significant competitive advantage over retailers who focus most of their efforts on delivering the latest and greatest products,” says Gallup, which actually found that shopping online often makes customers less engaged.

    Rieva Lesonsky at Small Business Trends recently analyzed the E-Tailing Group’s 17th Annual Mystery Shopping Study, looking at ecommerce customer service benchmarks businesses should be considering. These include benchmarks for self-serve information, online shopping carts, days to receive ordered products, order confirmations, quality of response times for customer service queries, and return policy.

    “Of the 100 retailers surveyed, 83 percent have FAQs on-site,” wrote Lesonsky. “However, only 26 percent offer the ability to search FAQs. Surprisingly, the percentage of sites that list customer service hours of operation dropped from 83 percent in 2013 to 77 percent in 2014. This is the type of basic information every business should include on its website.”

    Social media may not be the channel of choice for for consumers seeking customer service, but the fact that companies simply aren’t doing very well at it may have something to do with that. Last summer, we looked at a study from Amdocs, which found that social media to be an emerging channel of preference for consumer seeking customer-care assistance, but that businesses were not delivering on expectations.

    According to the study, 68% of service providers believe their customers take to social channels like Twitter and Facebook when they’re unable to reach a customer support person on the phone. 50% of consumers, however, actually prefer social media over the phone, it said.

    50% of customers had tried to communicate with service providers for customer service on social media, but three quarters never received a response or resolution. 80% of those said they had no choice but to call.

    That’s a major problem. Contributing to that, according to the study, is that 93% of service providers can’t identify customers from their social media profiles while 64% don’t store social media interactions in their CRM database.

    “Subscribers are increasingly reaching out to their service provider across social media for customer care but due to lack of customer insights service providers are only able to provide generic responses, leaving the customer feeling more frustrated.” said Shagun Bali, an analyst at Ovum, which contributed to the study. “However, if service providers link their customer’s social identity to the customer profile already stored in their CRM systems they can gain contextual knowledge of the customer, and as a result deliver a consistent response while improving customer satisfaction and cutting costs by increasing first call resolution (FCR).”

    We also looked at data from Sprout Social, which found social media response rates and times to be dipping while user engagement exploded. Average brand response rates for both Twitter and Facebook dipped below 20% year over year, and response times increased from 10.9 hours to 11.3 hours. On Facebook, response times were at an average of 15 hours, while on Twitter they were 7.9.

    This year, this is all still a problem. Forbes calls customer service the “ignored side of social media,” reporting from a panel where the subject came up a few months ago. It quotes Dennis Stoutenburgh, co-founder of Stratus Contact Solutions: “A year ago, when [consumers] got a social media response from a brand on a customer care issue, they were pleasantly surprised. We’re getting to the point now that if companies don’t respond, they will have a black mark against them.”

    In January, SocialBakers released some interesting findings about how the nature of Twitter brand mentions is changing.

    “From a sweeping sample of 860 brands we’ve monitored since New Years Day 2012 (back when planking, Nyan Cat, and Rebecca Black’s immortal Friday were all things), we found that mobile mentions of brands have grown 7.6 times – even though their number of total monthly active users only grew 2.4 times,” said Socialbakers analyst Phillkip Ross. “The implication is huge for brands. That means that Twitter users are increasingly leaning on mobile apps to both talk about brands and seek out customer service.”

    Twitter customer service specifically is poised to become more critical than ever thanks to a deal between Google and Twitter, which will more heavily inject tweets into Google search results in real time. We recently had a conversation with Conversocial CEO Joshua March about how this will impact customer service, and a brand’s reputation if that’s not handled well.

    “The biggest challenge and opportunity for businesses using Twitter for customer service is that every interaction is now amplified,” he told us. “Whether that’s a complaint from a customer or the company’s response, the agreement between Google and Twitter places a greater spotlight on each interaction.”

    “When a customer is searching on Google for a business, Tweets from customers about issues or bad service experiences could be on the front page,” March added. “If businesses have a social first approach to customer service then they can tackle these quickly and head on, creating positive engagements that will show up instead. This deal has the potential to accelerate the kind of service-related Twitter crises many brands have already experienced.”

    “For companies with a social first approach who are committed to delivering excellent, fast and authentic social customer service, the agreement between Google and Twitter has the ability to spotlight them, and make it very obvious to customers that they care. Companies that have successfully integrated various social media into their customer service DNA should be very excited by the agreement.”

    Google is actually working on some other things that might help businesses handle customer service on the search front. The company is testing a new feature that would enable a business to live chat from the search results page.

    According to a recent Oracle study, 88% of companies say they think they’re making significant progress in modern customer service, but things like poor knowledge management, customer visibility, and reliance on traditional channels/metrics are holding them back.

    What are the biggest issues you have in dealing with customer service? Discuss.

  • ‘Super Bitch’ Is Comcast’s Latest Customer Insult

    Just a week after winning hearts and minds by calling a customer “Asshole Brown” on his bill, Comcast is continuing this stellar customer service thing by slinging more insults at people.

    This time, it’s a 63-year-old Chicago area woman named Mary Bauer.

    Or, should I say “Super Bitch” Bauer.

    According to WGN, Bauer is pretty familiar with Comcast’s customer service. In a few month span, she reportedly saw 39 technicians at her home due to spotty service. As soon as she finally got that straightened out, her bill stopped coming.

    After four months, she called Comcast. Here’s what happened next, via WGN:

    “I was nice enough to call them to ask how much I owe,” she said. “I was little hot and a little angry because I never got good service.” But she says she didn’t swear or call them names.

    It was not an usual complaint, but when Mary got her bill today…

    “It says Super Bitch Bauer,” she said. “This is a disgrace to me. Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I Dd not deserve this.”

    Last week came the story of Lisa and Ricardo Brown, who were shocked to see the name “Asshole Brown” printed on their bill. Considering neither of them are named “Asshole”, the couple took it as an insult.

    Comcast issues a public apology and fired the employee responsible for the name change.

    In a blog post, Comcast SVP of Customer Experience Charlie Herrin stressed the need for respect.

    “We took this opportunity to reinforce with each employee just how important respect is to our culture. In every interaction we have with a customer, we need to show them respect, patience, and enthusiasm to provide them with an excellent experience,” he wrote.

    “The culture of a company is the collective habits of its people – we have great people at Comcast and we need to treat customers with the respect they deserve.”

    In the past week, other reports of bill name changes have surfaced, including some claiming that bills sported names like “whore” and “dummy”.

    Speaking earlier this month at a CES panel, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit said that soon, the company expects customer service “will soon be one of out best products.”

  • Comcast: Customer Service Will ‘Soon Be One of Our Best Products’

    According to Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit, dealing with customer service representatives will soon be one of the best parts about being a Comcast customer.

    “We do need to transform our customer experience, and I think we have a lot of work to do,” said Smit, speaking at a CES panel. “It will take time, but we’ll get it done.”

    “We expect that customer service will soon be one of our best products,” he added.

    I’m guessing he’s talking about stuff like this when he talked about “having a lot of work to do”:

    Or stuff like this.

    Last week, Comcast was once again in the bottom two spots (alongside Time Warner Cable) of the The American Consumer Satisfaction Index, a huge (80,000 or so) annual survey that asks Americans about their satisfaction with certain companies. That means that Comcast is one of the two most hated companies in America.

    And it’s trying to merge with the other.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Yahoo Mail Experiences Technical Difficulties

    Yahoo Mail has been experiencing some technical difficulties with service disruption for some users due to the severing of an underwater cable, which the company says was caused by a third party.

    This morning at 9:45 PST, Yahoo said, “The underwater cable cut affecting our network has now been located. Testing and repairs are currently taking place. The Yahoo engineering team continues to monitor email traffic. Thank you for your patience.”

    In another update, it said, “Some customers may have receive[d] an error when attempting to access their Yahoo mail or their Yahoo Small Business Email account webmail. Due to this impacting both Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Business Mail customers, our engineering team are working towards a resolution as quickly as possible.”

    Service has been disrupted throughout the weekend. In an update as early as Thursday afternoon, Yahoo said, “We are aware that Yahoo Mail is slow or inaccessible for some of our users. The issues were a result of an underwater fiber cable cut, caused by a third party while fixing a separate cable. The engineering team has rerouted email traffic to mitigate accessibility issues. A cable repair ship has been mobilized and will be at the site this weekend. We apologize for the inconvenience as we certainly understand email is a critical service for our customers.”

    Here’s what the Twitterverse is saying about Yahoo Mail:


    Further updates will be made here as they become available.

    Image via Yahoo

  • Sephora Doesn’t Trust Its Asian Customers? Allegedly Deactivated Accounts According To Race

    As beauty supply giant Sephora could be about to learn the hard way, what seems like a simple and logical solution is actually grounds for a MAJOR lawsuit.

    Trouble began brewing Friday morning when Sephora made the following announcement on its Facebook page:

    The reality is that in taking steps to restore website functionality, some of our loyal North American and international clients got temporarily blocked. We understand how frustrating it is and are deeply sorry for the disruption to your shopping experience.

    However, in some instances we have, indeed, de-activated accounts due to reselling — a pervasive issue throughout the industry and the world. As part of our ongoing commitment to protecting our clients and our brands, we have identified certain entities who take advantage of promotional opportunities to purchase products in large volume on our website and re-sell them through other channels.

    After careful consideration, we have deactivated these accounts in order to optimize product availability for the majority of our clients.

    Everything seems in order…until you scroll to the comments section.

    Allegedly, the entirety of accounts deactivated by the retailer belong to Asian customers. As in ANYONE with a surname that would give the impression that they from Asia; if your first name is “Westernized”, you are supposedly in the clear.

    An incriminating screencap was posted that seems to verify that the majority of people who were locked out of their account were in fact East Asian:

    There seems to be a steady flow of notably Asian customers to the Sephora Facebook to beg to have their accounts back following an alleged blatant act of discrimination.

    And that’s simply not good.

    It would be one thing if there were a number of visibly non-Asian individuals on the page complaining about the mix-up.

    However, the appearance that Sephora locked out individuals based on their ethnic identity alone practically screams racism to the heavens.

    What’s perhaps MORE puzzling is why Sephora would risk its reputation rather than simply limit the amount of items that can be purchased at any given time?

    If it’s impossible to buy in bulk, shenanigans are will likely NOT ensue.

    It’s a solution that Sephora could very well be kicking itself over in the future. Especially if the accusations are eventually validated and the company finds itself facing one heck of a class action lawsuit.

    Do you think Sephora knowingly targeted Asian customers? If so, was the move a racist one?

  • Salesforce Aims To Give Companies LinkedIn-Like Community Experience

    Salesforce Aims To Give Companies LinkedIn-Like Community Experience

    Salesforce announced the launch of the Salesforce1 Community Cloud, which it says propels the company into the fast-growing $3.5 billion enterprise collaboration market.

    According to Salesforce, the offering enables companies to create their own trusted LinkedIn-like communities, which are connected to their own business processes. These, the company says, can be used to engage customers, partners, and employees in a new way.

    “More than 2,000 active communities have gone live since we first offered a communities product just over a year ago,” said Nasi Jazayeri, executive vice president of Salesforce1 Community Cloud. “Based on the success we have seen with customers, tremendous market opportunity and support from our ecosystem, salesforce.com is doubling down on communities with our new Community Cloud.”

    Elaborating on the LinkedIn concept, Salesforce says, “LinkedIn is an example of a company, that, among other things, in the consumer world, has created a community for recruiters and job seekers. Members can personalize their job search, connect with colleagues and discover and share information about job openings—all from any device. Today, companies want to create their own communities with the same personalization and mobile access of LinkedIn, that are also completely connected to their business processes.”

    The offering costs $500 per month, and it should become generally available in October.

    You can get an overview here.

    Image via Salesforce

  • Comcast Call: Customer Records Abuse from Rep

    Ryan Block and his wife Veronica Belmont were moving. They called up Comcast Cable to tell them so and ask to have their service disconnected. The rep asked Veronica if she would like to simply have service moved to the new address. Veronica declined; they already had new service elsewhere.

    That’s when things turned ugly. The Comcast rep began to badger Veronica about staying with the company. After ten minutes of his abuse, Veronica handed the phone to Ryan.

    We should mention here that Ryan is a co-founder of Engadget, a well-known tech website. Ryan had been hearing one end of the phone conversation and knew things were not going well. Ryan recorded the rest of the conversation with the Comcast rep. The resulting recording hit the Internet, went viral, and made national news.

    Here is a bit of the conversation between Ryan and the rep.

    Rep: I’m just trying to figure out what it is about Comcast service that you don’t want to keep.

    Block: This phone call is actually a really amazing representative example of why I don’t want to stay with Comcast.

    Rep: OK, but I’m trying to help you.

    Block: The way you can help me is by disconnecting my service.

    Rep: But how is that helping you! How is that helping you! Explain to me how that is helping you!

    After all the negative press surrounding this outrageous call, Comcast finally found it necessary to make a public apology about the entire mess.

    “We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Google Gives Businesses A Hangout Button To Let Customers Video Chat From Their Sites

    Google Gives Businesses A Hangout Button To Let Customers Video Chat From Their Sites

    Google launched a new Hangout start button for businesses and developers, which can be embedded in any app or website.

    Google has already worked with a few enterprise software companies including Zendesk and Freshdesk for customer support hangouts, Zoho for recruiting hangouts, Lucidchart and Smartsheet for document and team collaboration.

    “Hangouts change the way employees connect and collaborate,” a spokesperson for Google tells WebProNews. “Both large and small companies like The Weather Channel or Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream — where the company’s COO lives in Los Angeles but is on Hangouts multiple times each day to stay connected with the Ohio-based company and its employees — are making great use of Hangouts to communicate just like in real life. Of course earlier this year we also launched Chromebox for meetings, which runs Hangouts to transform the meeting room experience.”

    Chromeboxes come in the form of hardware from companies like Asus and Dell

    “Whether you’re a sales rep working in a CRM app or an engineer in a project management tool, it only takes one click to launch a Hangout and your team will automatically be invited,” says Stephen Cho, head of Google Apps and Hangouts Technology Partnerships of the new button. “You can even improve customer service with the ability to quickly launch into a video Hangout with a client to resolve an issue.”

    “With this new Hangouts button, apps everywhere will let colleagues, partners, and customers meet face-to-face anytime, anywhere, and work more effectively together with just one click,” he adds.

    Here’s a video from Esna showing how you can start a hangout from within Salesforce.

    Barb Darrow at GigaOm suggests sites use the feature in place of live chat buttons that are often used throughout the web, though as a commenter points out, website chats don’t typically require a Google account.

    Either way, the button provides site owners with a new way to capture engagement on their sites – engagement between colleagues related to your content, or even among friends, depending on just what kind of content you actually provide.

    You can find the code for the button here. There is a variety of options, including markup, JavaScript, and HTML5.

    Back in November, Google added global address list support to Hangouts for Google Apps users to make it easier for business people to have conversations with their colleagues. They also added settings to let Google Apps admins customize which Hangouts feature were actually available to employees.

    Image via YouTube

  • Yelp To Businesses: Want More Customers? Try Our Ads.

    In a push to get more advertisers, Yelp put out a new blog post and video about why businesses should advertise on Yelp.

    Have you advertised on Yelp? Was the experience positive or negative? Are you considering giving it a try? Let us know in the comments.

    Let’s go ahead and get to the big elephant in the room right away. Yelp saves it for the very end of its post, but it seems to be one of the most discussed Yelp topics, so let’s talk about it up front.

    Yelp VP Revenue & Analytics Matt Halprin writes, “So, can a business owner pay to get a better star rating? Absolutely not. We treat advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same and you’ll find plenty of Yelp advertisers with negative reviews, and plenty of non-advertisers with stellar ratings.”

    As you may know, Yelp is often on the defensive against businesses who claim that the site holds their positive reviews hostage in the review filter. Some of these businesses say Yelp makes their negative reviews more visible when they refuse to pay for advertising.

    Yep, you know the story. Yelp denies it, and denies it, but the accusations don’t seem to ever stop. And typically when we write about the company, we get even more angry business owners slamming the site in the comments. Obviously we can’t verify the legitimacy of any random comment we get, but again, we do get a lot of them.

    Here are a few we got on our article a couple weeks ago:

    “Yelp cares about profits more than the average small business owner. That is irrefutable and evidenced by their unethical actions. It’s 2014 and with the technology we have, there is no excuse for Yelp to filter a legitimate positive review. Yet, this has happened to virtually EVERY business owner I’ve worked with. Yelp does not filter negative reviews… at all. It doesn’t serve them to do so. I’ve worked with a few thousand small business owners and less than 10% are happy with Yelp…”

    …

    “Ditto with my hotel business as well. They hold you hostage by only allowing the negative reviews to stick until you pay for advertise with them. Then they finally let the positive reviews you receive stay up. I wish the government would do an investigation on them.”

    …

    “Yelp hurts small business more than it helps. They will post a negative review from a person with a new account,1 review, no friends, zero activity. If a new review is a 5 star, with a new account- they filter it. We manage online campaigns for small business. We submitted to YELP proof that 2 of our customers reviewers (4 total) used new accounts to write the same 1 star review. One of the reviewers was a competitor and his wife. Same info written days later. All showed up bringing clients rating down to 3 stars. They did nothing. BTW- Their PPC campaigns don’t work and their search capabilities within the site makes no sense. Reality is you have to deal with them.”

    They pretty much go on and on. And as we’ve seen before, these complaints are sometimes brought to the company’s events, and even to TV shows.

    So what is Yelp saying about its ads now?

    “An average of 120 million unique visitors turn to Yelp each month to help them make a spending decision,” says Halprin. “Since these consumers are already searching for a business with which to spend money, Yelp offers local businesses a wide range of advertising options that allow them to get in front of even more of these highly engaged Yelp users. In fact, a study done by The Boston Consulting Group last year found that Yelp advertisers generate average annual revenues of more than $23,000 from Yelp. With the average Yelp advertiser spending $4,200 annually, that’s a pretty impressive potential return on investment.”

    He goes on to talk up the company’s flat-rate subscription bundles, packaged CPC bundles and self-serve CPC ads, as well as the metrics it gives businesses as part of their Business Accounts.

    Here’s the aforementioned video with business owners talking about what they get out of the experience.

    Sold?

    Last week, Yelp expanded into Mexico, its 25th country. Additionally, Yahoo has started including Yelp reviews in its local business search results.

    Do you think Yelp is good for businesses? How about Yelp ads in particular? Share your thoughts.

    Image via Yelp

  • Most Customers Ignore New Food Menu Items

    Most Customers Ignore New Food Menu Items

    With the constant variety of new foods to try in fast food restaurants across the country and the major ad campaigns touting the quality of inventive new sandwiches, it would be easy to conclude that new menu items attract customers to restaurants. Based on other data, though, it seems that most restaurant customers are scared of or simply don’t want the new stuff.

    According to a report from market research firm NPD, almost 70% of restaurant customers will not try new menu items. Only 17% of consumers surveyed by NPD said they would try a new menu item and 10% said they would try one of those limited-time-only food offerings.

    For restaurants introducing new products, then, the odds are already stacked against them. There are some things, however, that restauranteurs can do to increase the likelihood of customers trying their new menu items.

    According to the NPD report customers largely use their eyes and imagination when ordering new items, imagining how different foods will taste. Other considerations include item pricing and how healthy a new food choice is. Also, the report found that consumers tend to replace their regular orders only with something that is the same type of food.

    “Insight into the reasons why consumers try a food or beverage menu item that they have not purchased before provides restaurant operators with the knowledge required for successful product innovation, introduction, and marketing,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant analyst at NPD. “In addition, stimulating menu-item trial and delivering a satisfying experience should lead to repeat visits and sustained customer loyalty.”

    These concepts are generally more important for diners and fast food businesses, where customers are less likely to try a new menu item. For casual dining restaurants the report found that around 40% of customers are willing to try out a new food on the menu.

    Image via McDonalds

  • Free Credit Report Offered To Target Customers

    Free Credit Report Offered To Target Customers

    After the breach of Target’s security system, that left many of their customers who used debit and credit cards vulnerable to hackers, Target has decided to offer a free credit report and credit monitoring service to those who were affected.

    Approximately 70 million customers, who made credit and debit card purchases in their U.S. Target stores between November 27 and December 15, 2013, had their information accessed. Not only did the hackers get the credit/debit card information, they also acquired other personal information including names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

    To try to compensate their customers, Target has chosen to partner with Experian to offer one year of free credit monitoring, which includes a free credit report. By signing up for the Experian’s ProtectMyID service, customers will have access to a copy of their credit report, daily credit monitoring, identity-theft insurance, and assistance from fraud agents.

    Target has created a specific website where customers can go to find out more information about the program, and sign up. For more information, visit creditmonitoring.target.com

    “We truly value our relationship with you, our guests, and know this incident had a significant impact on you. We are sorry. We remain focused on addressing your questions and concerns,” Target said in a message to their valued customers. The message went on to address some of the concerns that they have seen from many of their customers:
    • You have zero liability for any charges that you didn’t make.
    • No action is required by you unless you see charges you didn’t make.
    • Because we value you as our guest and your trust is important to us, Target is offering one year of free credit monitoring to all guests who shopped U.S. stores. Visit creditmonitoring.target.com to request an activation code. View our FAQ on credit monitoring here.
    • Your social security number was not compromised.
    • Be wary of call or email scams that may appear to offer protection but are really trying to get personal information from you.

    Image via Creditmonitoring.target.com

  • Target Now Says 70 Million Customers Had Personal Info Stolen, Announces Store Closings

    Target Now Says 70 Million Customers Had Personal Info Stolen, Announces Store Closings

    It turns out that the much-publicized data breach that Target announced last month is way bigger than previously revealed. Target announced in December that 40 million credit and debit card accounts had been impacted between November 27th and December 15th. Hackers reportedly gained access to card numbers, expiration dates and security codes.

    On Friday, Target announced that up to 70 million individuals had other information stolen. This includes names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

    This was found in the company’s continuing forensic investigation of the data breach. It should be noted that this is separate from the previously announced payment card data.

    “This theft is not a new breach, but was uncovered as part of the ongoing investigation,” the company said in a statement. “Much of this data is partial in nature, but in cases where Target has an email address, the Company will attempt to contact affected guests. This communication will be informational, including tips to guard against consumer scams. Target will not ask those guests to provide any personal information as part of that communication.”

    The company is also offering said tips on its site.

    “I know that it is frustrating for our guests to learn that this information was taken and we are truly sorry they are having to endure this,” said Target president and CEO Gregg Steinhafel. “I also want our guests to know that understanding and sharing the facts related to this incident is important to me and the entire Target team.”

    The company says cusotmers will assume zero liability on any fraudulent charges, and Target is offering a year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to all guests who shopped in its U.S. stores. More on this here.

    Target also took the opportunity to reduce its outlook for the fourth quarter thanks to “meaningfully weaker-than-expected sales” since the initial data breach announcement.

    “In light of the recent data breach, our top priority is taking care of our guests and helping them feel confident in shopping at Target,” said CFO John Mulligan. “At the same time, we remain keenly focused on driving profitable top-line growth and investing our resources to deliver superior financial results over time. While we are disappointed in our 2013 performance, we continue to manage our business with great discipline and leverage our expense optimization efforts to reinvest in multichannel initiatives that generate long-term value for our shareholders.”

    With that, Target announced the closing of eight U.S. stores on May 3rd. These are located in West Dundee, Ill.; Las Vegas, Nev.; North Las Vegas, Nev.; Duluth, GA; Memphis, Tenn.; Orange Park, Fla.; Middletown, Ohio; and Trotwood, Ohio.

    Image via Target Facebook Page