Social Media for Customer Services
Should Some Companies Not Use Social Media?
Ted Hunt, Comms Manager at Innocent (the smoothie company) raised an interesting question yesterday at Media140. He was pointing out that, even before social media marketing had emerged, Innocent was already actively engaging with customers in a quirky, fun kind of way. He put this down to the character of the founder, Richard Reed, who has a naturally humorous and laid-back way with people and, as a result, is exactly the kind of person who thrives engaging in cheeky banter and chat on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like. With a brand built in that image, Innocent were always going to have a popular blog and Twitter account.
How to Use Social Media for Customer Services
Most of the buzz around employees using social media has been negative. News stories have focused on bored desk-workers wasting hours on Facebook, Domino’s pizza employees posting revolting videos on YouTube, or idiots bad-mouthing their bosses on Twitter, thus earning their P45 form. Now that we are seeing the officially sanctioned use of social media by employees – largely in the form of company Twitter accounts – these are being siloed into “Customer Services”, giving them the aura of that overly-transactional, inhuman user experience we all know and loathe.
