Be human in the very first exchange and set an expectation of involvement.
Case Story:
August 29. 2010 @mrnoobie posts: chachas-incorrect-answers-continue-to-disappoint
The following is the first comment:
#1 August 30, 2010 at 9:41 am Jacob Elsts — You’re right. Even a simple answer now has tons of ads and I’ve had to reword questions multiple tines to get the right answer. I even asked the same question without changing the wording at all and got what I was looking for after asking 3 times. Also their iPhone app is extremely complicated for a simple FAQ service.
I’ve also given up on ChaCha- it’s faster to just call my dad lol.
An official response was received from Cha Cha well over 24hrs after the original post which allowed the post to fester unnecessarily.
Comment #9 August 31, 2010 at 9:15 am Shawn Schwegman
My name is Shawn Schwegman, and I’m the VP of Web Products at ChaCha. I just wanted to chime in to apologize for any bad experience you might have had recently. We are very focused on improving the quality of our service, and I’ve forwarded your comments to folks inside of ChaCha so we can address the issues you’ve found. We have many planned improvements in the works for our service over the coming months that should greatly enhance our quality. We also have big plans for our website as well as our iPhone application.
So, thank you very much for giving us a try. Thank you for your comments. Know that we are listening and we greatly appreciate your feedback.
Humbly submitted,
Shawn
I personally knew nothing about the conversation until I read a tweet from Robby Slaughter:
Invitation to a debate
I’ve known Robby Slaughter well enough to know that if he invites me to a debate, it’s going to be fun and challenging. So I scanned Patric’s blog post then I posted the following comment:
#27 August 31, 2010 at 2:15 pm Amy Stark
Hello Shawn Schwegman— tap tap tap…. is this thing on?—Are You Listening? One canned response 5 hours ago is not sufficient Social Media attention to this discussion, it’s already spread to other platforms. I’m just sayin’
I then tweeted:
I received an email from Shawn later that day. I consider her email content as confidential, but my response to her email was:
Hey Shawn,
I first learned about the discussion because Robby Slaughter tweeted about it and welcomed other people to join in on the conversation <= from Mr. Noobie’s blog to twitter. I’m not sure if anything about it popped up on Facebook or Smaller Indiana, but things that touch twitter have a tendency to trickle down to several other platforms, because everyone on twitter is a member of at least ONE other social media platform.The response at 9:15 – whether it was spontaneously written or not – sounded very polished, canned and safe. Then there was nothing for several hours, which allowed it to fester. You might have added something like, “I’m jam packed all day and won’t be online to see any of your responses until much later in the day, so be patient with me as I sort through these issues and I’ll check back after 5pm.”
Social media calls for the type of response you left at 8:05 which is more in line with the mores of the online culture.
#44 August 31, 2010 at 8:06 pm Shawn Schwegman
All,
I know you are frustrated, and I really want to help. I hate to be all Jerry Maguire, but I’d be in your debt if you could help me help you… 😉 What are the exact questions that are being asked that get a wrong answer? That would arm me with data I need to replicate the problems you are experiencing so that I can help to fix the root of the problem. If you don’t want to provide that information, I understand, but it sure would help me isolate and resolve the issues at hand.
Thanks again,
Shawn
This was heartfelt and sincere. If this had been your first response, I think the situation would have been ameliorated right away and it never would have spread to twitter or any other platform.
I hope that cleared up the reasoning behind my response. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Best Regards,
Amy Stark…
@Shawn something in your initial response above stuck w/ me and I felt compelled to clarify.
There are times when I use words like ameliorate because it makes me feel snarky, but there are other times when I choose my words VERY carefully because it is the only word that captures my meaning. Ameliorate was both!
_____________
Verb
1. (transitive) To make better, to improve; to heal; to solve a problem.
They offered some compromises in an effort to ameliorate the situation.
_______________
I never implied a best practice would be to brush it under the rug as quickly as possible. Countless times over the past few years I’ve been quoted as saying – or tweeting – “People will forgive a mistake but they will NEVER forgive a cover-up. Just ask Nixon or Clinton.” Cover-ups have always been an anathema to me. (in this instance anathema was a purely snarky word choice)
You may be tired of hearing me say — or seeing me type — this, but I love Indiana. We resolve issues in such a way that by the end of a conversation we all want to go have a beer together. =) Amy
Shawn,
Thanks for participating and I’m glad you like the zappos example.
The real magic to what Zappos does, what Klout does and what you just did is that they take an off the shelf bad brand experience, repackage into a personalized interaction with the brand. You finding this blog post and adding your perspective to it humanizes you and Cha-Cha. That’s what creates fans instead of customers. Kudos to you.
Robbyslaughter, Patric and Amy it was fun talking with you all.
Good night,
Karl
Amy,
“Ahh, shucks…” he says, blushing a bit… 😉
Thanks again for the feedback. I’m off… the Colts are playing, then I have to work a bit… Chat with you soon, I hope!
cheers,
shawn
Karl,
I like your Zappos example. I’ve always loved their attention to the customer and light speed responses. I also admire their CEO, and his Tweet’s are frequently hilarious… 🙂
Also, I agree with the speed at which a response should have been provided. My schedule has been crazy, and I got to it late. That said, we should have someone always on it.
Robby, Google Alerts isn’t exactly real-time. I got notice of this blog post at precisely 7:21PM, and responded a little more than an hour later. That said, we should be focusing more on Twitter, FB, and we should absolutely have our own feedback mechanism on our site… which is coming soon… Every company should… But, knowing about every random blog post at the moment it occurs? well, I don’t know of a real-time solution for that yet…
Patrick, YOU are spot on. My first response was worded too “corporate”. It wasn’t that I was being insincere, it was that I didn’t sound human… 😉
Healthy discussion. Thank you…
Have a good night and thanks for letting me participate.
cheers,
shawn
Amy,
I do enjoy our conversations… 😉
First off, I’m a he, not a she… 😉
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shawn-schwegman/5/709/b24
Secondly…
I think you’re spot on in terms of how quickly companies need to react and how personal the relationship needs to feel. I also believe that it’s OK to publicly acknowledge that you have problems as long as you’re doing something about them. Too many companies get “corporate” and that’s not what’s required in today’s world. I get it. I’m sorry if my responses felt “canned”. In all honesty, that was not my intention. I also apologize that I’m just now responding to this post. (I received both from Google Alerts, but they’re not exactly real time )
I just started at ChaCha 3 months ago, and I came here because I fell in love with what our brand could be. Do we have problems? Absolutely. But, I do think it important to note that 2 Vice Presidents of a company chimed in multiple times on a blog about their quality to say, “yes, we do have problems, thank you for your feedback, and we’re on it…” I don’t know many other companies that would do that at a VP level… but, you are right in saying that that is not enough. We need full time resources constantly interacting with customers, gathering feedback, acknowledging problems, and working on solutions. We don’t have enough focus on that, and we should. Period. That’s something we will fix.
On another note, I’m not sure I agree with this statement:
“If this had been your first response, I think the situation would have been ameliorated right away and it never would have spread to twitter or any other platform.”
Regardless of the company, situation, etc., people would still have commented on the blog negatively. That’s not a bad thing. I’ve been involved in countless blogs, debates, etc over the last decade. A picture perfect response would not have ameliorated right away, nor should it. That shouldn’t be what this is about, in my ever so humble opinion… 😉
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you are right that companies should be connected to their customers, but not because you want to shut them up… It should be because you want them to voice their concerns so you can learn and make their experience better.
I’ve only been here for 3 months, but I am listening, and we are taking the necessary steps to interact with our customers faster. Hopefully, you will see our progress in the coming months…
That said, as always, I do appreciate your feedback and I am taking it to heart…
Humbly submitted,
Shawn Schwegman
A pox upon me for a clumsy louse. I’m sorry I assumed you were female, Shawn.
I care deeply about the future of the state of Indiana and I am on ChaCha’s side. I want you to be WILDLY success and keep lots of Indiana folk working. =)
Did you ever see The Last Lecture, Shawn? One of the powerful lessons I took away from that was to be open to people giving me suggestions because if they didn’t care on some level, they wouldn’t take the time or energy to point it out. On some level you should be flattered that so many influential social media folk took the time to participate.
I appreciate you jumping into the conversation here, too. It makes me feel special!
btw, I’m enjoying this dialog, too. =)
@robbyslaughter – You’re right –at minimum they should have google alerts set. I don’t know what time Patric posted the comment, but let’s say it was 11:59pm on August 29th, ChaCha’s response was 33 hours later? That ain’t right!
@Karl I can’t remember your twitter handle off the top of my head.. is it @ktatgenhorst ? The Zappos customer service may be cliche to you, but I’ll wager a few of us could use a refresher course.
@Patric – thanks for saying I am spot on regarding this matter, I value your opinion. I am trying to remember if it was @JasonFalls or @JayBaer who had an action plan that all started with As… something like, “Acknowledge the problem, Accept blame if necessary, Apologize if necessary, Acquire information…” I think there were five As all together, and I’m a big proponent of using mnemonics to recall things, but it seems to have failed me now.
Amy, you are spot on. These companies not only need to respond quickly but they need to be genuine as well. I don’t think a one of us felt like Shawn (or even Cat’s for that matter) first responses were genuine.
To me, it’s all in how it sounds (reads). The more corporate-like it sounds, the worse it is. I recently finished a book that summed up scenarios like this with three simple actions. Every business could learn from it:
Admit it. Fix it. And move on.
I certainly think it would have been contained or at least, other mentions of it would have a link to his response. Something like:
In addition, Cha-Cha is aware of the problem and will be responding as soon as they are able
Zappos has every employee charged with “making sure the customer has a great experience with our brand” That means you could get a response like this
@frustrated wow, I saw your post… we @zappos are very sorry I will take this to our vp of cust. service personally. Again, our apologies, @zapposjanitor
followed by
@frustrated @zapposjanitor thanks so much for bringing this issue to light we are fixing it!! In the meantime, enjoy this video we made for you
They are CRAZY good at customer service. A blog on how to handle your blog right is http://www.zappos.com 🙂
BTW, mentioning zappos in customer service convos is almost cliche now
I always like to ask people: “Who in your company is authorized to talk to customers?”
Nobody answers: “Only certain individuals using carefully written scripts offered by our PR department.”
Surely ChaCha knew about this the moment it happened. (If not, go to Google Alerts!) And the moment you know there’s a problem, *acknowledge* the problem. Start working on the problem. Bring customers to a place where you can discuss the problem with them. Don’t let the conversation go on for ages without responding.
Thanks for the press Amy, and thanks for all your hard work!
Wow… great Case Stories, Karl, thanks. Do you think if Shawn had posted the heartfelt comment with an “engagement expectation”* as her first acknowledgment, the dialog would have been contained on @mrnoobie ‘s blog? When a negative blog post jumps to other platforms, especially twitter, that’s when it gets to wild-fire status and becomes more challenging to ameliorate.
*I just now made that up
**I like to use words like “ameliorate” every once in a while to make me look like I know what I’m talking about.
Amy,
I’m always of two minds on this type of issue. On the one hand constant contact is difficult and expensive on the other hand, if you can’t manage contant contact don’t start a constant contact company. I think the company twitter and those of executives should always be monitored and the monitors should be able to reply at least with their own twitter accounts. A response like this works for me:
@frustrated wow, we feel you pain and as soon as @bigboss is out of the meeting marathon we’ll pin him down for you!
2 hours later
@frustrated @bigboss is still on the treadmill but cust service is going to contact you soon
Even from the lowliest person in the company, that conveys the company cares. I think that is known in this industry as the zappos model 🙂
The other one is to have a team / or dedicated person respond on the company twitter and empower them to DO STUFF – real life example (paraphrased)
@klout my score has been “processing” for 48 hours, seems stuck
– 20 minutes later –
@ktatgenhorst we are seeing a bit of that, I just sent your name to tech support and they reset it. Should be good in about 30 mins! Sorry 🙂
@klout thanks!!! Great response time #followfriday @klout
15 minutes later, I went to http://www.klout.com and lo and behold I was the featured user for 24 hours LOL That was above and beyond, but the twitter exchange was Spot on. That is what makes social media = better media
Karl Tatgenhorst