I was reading Chris Brogan’s blog recently and he complained about a bad customer service experience with Timberland shoes. What interested me most was that a representative of the company got on and apologized to Chris Brogan. It showed me how influential someone who is well known can be. He blogged about it, and got the company to apologize. Would the same treatment have happened with a lesser known person? Probably not.
While it’s true that companies are recognizing the value of customer service and monitoring what happens on social media, it’s also true that many times what will get a response is someone who has a position of influence or power critiquing the issue. Does this sound cynical? Perhaps, but it’s also realistic. It’s not so much how often you say something, as it is who says it, that determines if a company will respond.
Social media customer service is influenced by either numbers, enough people complain, so someone does something, or by the influence of one person to effect those same numbers. Chris Brogan is pretty influential in social media. People trust what he has to say. Even when they might disagree with them, there will still be the simple matter that they responded to him. That response gives him influence and that influence consequently is what will attract the interest of a company. People who want companies to provide better customer service via social media need to recognize that so that they either get the numbers or find someone with enough influence to attract those numbers and a response from the company.
Companies will respond when there’s enough attention brought to the issue that needs to be resolved…and the reason they will respond is because it matters to them to make sure that they handle the issue and have the support of the people. In that sense, customer service is ultimately dealing with a kind of mob mentality. If enough people are unhappy, some kind of response must occur in order to rectify the situation, and as much as possible, regain the favor of the people who were made unhappy by the situation.
Chris Brogan also acknowledges this issue of being an influencer. As an authority his words have weight with a lot of people. And this applies to anyone who does a lot to become visible to people. As you become more visible to people and as you what you write resonates with them, your influence spreads and what you say can have an impact on a company for better or worse, as well as with the people who are influenced by you.
