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When Social Media Collides With Plumbers’ Customer Service

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From Media Vine Marketing

There are still so many companies that allowed the social media revolution to pass them by. I am having regular conversations with a variety of business owners from solo lawyers and insurance brokers to start-ups, mid-sized companies and larger corporations.

For all intents and purposes, we are in the post social media era. Social media marketing is now part of the larger marketing mix, and it’s here to stay.  What that means is that companies must engage all customer-facing services and orient employees to what social media is all about. I’m talking about impression here; what first impression is your company sending to prospects who engage your company verbally?

  • How is your company projecting its brand via good old website marketing, search engine marketing and social media marketing?
  • Does your company website have good navigation and information about the products you’re offering for sale?
  • Is your site optimized so search engines can crawl your information and inform potential customers about your products?
  • Do you have the necessary social media icons on your site so people can connect with you on social media channels (or the interwebz, as they’re now known)?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes? Awesome.

Here’s the kicker…think about your frontline customer service team and those who answer phones. Are you extremely satisfied with your representatives tasked with selling to social media savvy consumers? If you’re still confused about what I’m getting at, let me tell you a story about what happens when customer service collides with, in this case, plumbers’ customer service.

My hot water heater is 10-years-old, and rather than wait for an emergency, I decided to be smart and buy one before a crisis. Knowing nothing, I began web research for local plumbers from which I could buy and install.

I learned a little and selected a plumbing company that had a decent website with Facebook icons, testimonials and simple navigation. Armed with my information gleaned from a Google search on “how to buy a hot water heater,” I dialed.

To my chagrin, the man who answered the phone was chewing cud, he had a sleepy drawl that was anything but professional. He said, “huh? huh?” every time I spoke. After repeating myself a number of times, I asked my final question, “Do you carry XX brand of water heater because your website says you do?” And, the coup de grace…”nope, but we can order it.”

I went to Lowe’s.

This is the absolute missing link. Companies are doing a great job impressing upon consumers that they are social media savvy. What’s wrong? The disconnect arises when consumers engage with companies and the customer service teams fail to live up to basic marketing standards. When the website and social media channels indicate a company is savvy, there is an expectation that customer service should meet or exceed that standard.

Here are a few pointers to consider if your company is falling into a collision trap:

  • Encourage (read require) all employees to read, learn, and recall the company’s website when a customer is on the phone.
  •  Messaging is critical for anyone on the frontlines, and this platform needs to be shared with those in social media as well as in customer service.
  •  Train company employees, especially those responsible for customer service, to be knowledgeable about social media and what happens. Teach them how new leads come in!
  •  Get back to the basics with phone etiquette and customer service. That plumbing company lost my business forever (the man on the phone told me $1000 to buy and install a hot water heater; that price wasn’t even close to what I paid.)
  •  Consumers now have an expectation; they want high-end customer service to MATCH the impression a company gives on its website, SEO and social media channels. When that fails, prepare your customer service teams to know more than a customer about your company’s products.

I know there are many companies doing this well; got any stories to share?

 

 

Producing My First Video With Animoto

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I just got a tip about Animoto from Scott Quillin (am I giving away your trade secrets, Scott?) of New England Multimedia. As part of our package to redo my site and integrate the blog inside, he was going to take all my cool world-travel snapshots from the website and package them into a slide show/video.

I had no expectation what that would look like; in fact, it made me nervous. Late two nights ago, Scott turned me loose on Animoto. I first attempted the free unlimited :30 clips; then I upgraded to Plus and finally took the nosedive to the Pro version (all in 30 minutes) to create this video below — Hire Soulati Media.

I used my own photography to create each screen shot — I’d like Sean McGinnis to watch for some pickle action in this movie!  I added text to tell the story and transition to each image. Where there were too few images, I combed my collection for something else handy, but went off to Fotolia to purchase three extra images. (I also love Fotolia for blog images, website photography and now my first professional video.)

I also owe a huge thanks to eCairn for the image of my cloud tag shared in a blog comment recently by Arthur Huynh. If you haven’t checked these guys out; they’re worth a few visits. eCairn is doing some amazing work in the sector.

With no tutorials or hours spent trying to figure out what to do, I built my minute-long movie in about five hours total (tweaks, embedding code, waiting for software kinks, buying images, writing text, etc.) The initial phase of the project was the most fun – selecting a background template and music to coincide with the images. The Pro version provided the most versatility with these important elements – more templates in high definition and certainly hundreds more songs to choose from.

I had no idea what I was doing; had never done anything remotely similar. It was like making a scrapbook – you look at a blank canvas and start. I’m going to try my hand with a few more of these, and then take a closer look at client needs. Animoto is a wonderful find; I hope you’ll check it out, too.

And, Scott? I think you unleashed a monster.

Thank You, New England Multimedia

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This is a shout out to my business partner, New England Multimedia owned by Scott Quillin and Michelle Quillin.

To prove the power of social media to enhance your business, here’s a story about how business can be done and gets done via Twitter. I met Michelle on Twitter several years ago. She began blogging with me at The SMB Collective in a group blogging experience that is just shy of getting relaunched. I spoke with her husband, Scott, perhaps once.

Because I’ve known Michelle more than two years via social media channels (or the interwebz as they now say), I know more about her business, their combined values, and most of all their integrity. Each of us comments on the other’s blogs, Facebook pages, tweets, LinkedIn, and we’re now following one another on Pinterest, too.

With all that interaction and earned knowledge of one another’s habits, they required no further vetting when I wanted to integrate my blog into my website (finally).  And, so, with an email saying I needed to launch a project, we made it happen.

Together Scott and I worked to identify my needs, and within two weeks (as he promised) I now have a fully integrated website and blog. I’m thrilled with the process, with Scott’s knowledge, the fact he made me a priority, and the fact he kept to deadline. He listened to me, and adjusted design elements to make me happier, and we plodded through blog plug ins with both of us learning more about plug ins than we expected.

If you’re a small business or a large one, I absolutely, positively recommend New England Multimedia to be part of your team. If you’re not sure, ask me to tell you more. There’s nothing better than a client testimonial turned into a blog post.

I’m excited for the potential this new site offers my business.  Thanks to New England Multimedia, I’ve found a fabulous new trusted business partner to grow with.

(Image from their Facebook page.)

How To Migrate Blackberry Email to iPhone 4S

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Everyone has varied experiences when they get a new device. For me, the only device I’ve never had issues ramping up is Blackberry smartphones. I got a Motorola Droid from Verizon, and my client’s email never worked; I stopped trying (Verizon couldn’t help me).

A year ago, I tried the Samsung smartphone and email was intermittent and battery life horrible. I reverted to Blackberry and was happy until recently. I decided to turn in the Blackberry (due to RIM’s recent global outages for email service) and try the iPhone 4S.

Synching two POP3 email accounts and one Gmail account to the iPhone has been an experience of ultimate frustration. As of this writing, I am still waiting for help on how to configure my client’s email account (which I absolutely must have) on the iPhone 4S; I was finally successful after five hours Saturday installing my primary business account (in addition to six more hours on this).

As said in the first line, everyone has varying experiences of success, so this story may not hold true for you; however, because this has been so challenging, it’s my duty to share and hopefully head you off at the pass with a solution rather than go down the ravine as I did.

Backstory: Migrating to iPhone from Blackberry

I’m going to recount each step I took to get to a solution, and you may wish to skip ahead to the juicy answer –whichever is best for you. I’m hoping I can help; here goes:

1. Gmail is easily installed in iPhone within two minutes; no problems. I believe Yahoo goes easy, too.

2. When installing a POP3 email account that works with Outlook, choose “other” on the iPhone under settings, mail, set up account.

3. When I installed my two accounts, I was able to get a few emails for a day. Luckily, I was near my PC all day and could compare what I was missing. I only received 10 percent of my emails on the iPhone after my first installation.

4. I returned to AT&T where I got the phone, but the salesman couldn’t help me.

5. Saturday morning, I began my quest for help via Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to Michael Schechter, Gregg Morris, Jenn Whinnem, Erin Feldman, Ray Andrews, and a gentleman from Malaysia for offering major support, tips, and interest in this problem.

6. It was suggested that I do a hard reboot, delete the accounts and reinstall them and look at push technology (which I had no idea about).

7. I did the first things first and at the same time issued two trouble tickets to the web hosts for the POP3 accounts; I had no idea they would be working weekends. I use ChiHost for my business and Successful Hosting for my client’s account.

8. The push thing was something I didn’t know, so I went to a Mobile Mail website and talked to live chat support. I thought this was my solution because the site stated all my emails could be combined, blah, blah. Turns out, it wasn’t, because my email was not hosted with this company. Wrong turn.

9. I went to Apple support community chat and saw tons and tons of people with the exact same problems I was having – migrating from Blackberry to iPhone. The push technology doesn’t exist on iPhone; it’s more like a pull. When I sit with my Blackberry near my PC, Blackberry ALWAYS gets emails first, and then my Outlook brings them off the server. With the iPhone, that does not work; emails are not automatically pushed; and there are only settings for checking for mail every 15 minutes, no more frequently.

10. Meanwhile, the ChiHost support team sent me a response and said that Outlook settings on my PC had to match those of the smartphone. Ah-hah! So, I went through the motions of deleting the account and reinstalling it with the exact settings. Still didn’t work; felt like mail was getting bogged down.

11. ChiHost was great; they said the following:

>>Turn off SSL or anything encrypted.

>>Use advanced settings and ensure ports match what’s being used in Outlook. To know what ports you have for incoming and outgoing mail, go to your Outlook email accounts and click on your existing email. Go to “more settings” and “advanced.” Check ports; often a default is 110 and 25, but another email account I use requires 465 and 995 so each host is different.

>>For the outgoing server, where it says optional user name and password on the iPhone; it’s NOT optional! Add this information in there.

>>Where it says “authenticate” check “password.”

11. I did get a response from Successful Hosting yesterday, but I missed it because I was mobile Saturday and emails were not flowing to client’s email. I just sent them a response back to ask for the proper port settings for the client POP3 account on the iPhone (because the settings I added still aren’t working). This has not been resolved yet.

12. I was told I get to upgrade my smartphone for my client, and guess what? I’m returning to the tried and true workhorse – Blackberry. I have to trust that RIM is going to get its kinks worked out because after this experience and everyone else’s who took time to go to Apple for help (and didn’t get it in the community chat), I have to think there will be a lot of peeps returning to Blackberry.

As for the browser experience? Hands down, it’s iPhone. I have been simply amazed this weekend (not to mention the awesome Siri technology – astonishing, astonishing) with the speed, clarity, mobile readiness of this smartphone.

And, so, the moral to the story is this – ask yourself what goals you have for your smartphone – I’d suggest Blackberry if you want workhorse email dependability for multiple accounts, and I’d suggest iPhone if you want awesome browsing experience and you’re fine with a Gmail or Yahoo email account.  Droid was not my favorite phone and Samsung a year ago – no way.

I hope this piece helps someone; goodness knows I didn’t have the time to waste on this, but perhaps I’m smarter for the next time than I was two days ago. I bet you can add your smartphone war stories and other solutions to add to this list. I can’t thank my colleagues enough who weathered this experience alongside and offered suggestions. Knowing I had that support was so helpful.

Entrepreneurship

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I have always wanted to have a one-word title; here it is. I spoke yesterday on entrepreneurship to DeVry University in Dayton. The class was small, and I think I nearly gave one woman a conniption when I began to throw my energy into the classroom, but I had fun. No slides, just extemporaneous yak.

I helped one woman better brand her cake business; when she gave me its name, it sounded like kaka…so, I suggested something else, and she agreed. Another woman had a dream to be in the shoe business; I cringed and plowed ahead with these thoughts:

>>Research and understand your potential customer

>>Look at what’s trending in shoes today and how your product can be different (she wanted to be unique with shoes)

>>Conduct market analysis about the type of attire worn in the market (Dayton is a casual city)

>>Look at what people are buying that is different — textiles, artisan, African art and fair trade products

>>With all that on-the-spot thinking, I suggested she go into the flip flop business with all the matching accessories.

 

Here’s a bit of a debrief about my thoughts on being in business for yourself.