Customer Service

Successful community managers know cultivating a community is more than just creating a Facebook group or spamming Twitter with some links. It’s about building relationships and touching on users’ wants and needs. The community manager truly is the voice of the community. This means she needs to be knowledgeable about all aspects of the business. Leaving a community manager in the dark, is leaving a community in the dark.

Here’s how to set up a community manager for failure. For your CM to be a success, do not do any of these things:

Don’t train your community manager or let her in on the workings of the various departments

Your community manager likes nothing more than to be clueless. Her favorite thing in the world is for her community to get frustrated with her for not knowing the answers.  Nothing gives a community manager more pleasure than to always have to ask other people for answers, rather than saving time by responding to questions on her own. Give yourself bonuses points if, when your CM looks to others for answers, they don’t answer for days - or not at all.

Don’t invite your community manager to departmental meetings or conference calls

To further ensure your community manager’s lack of success, make sure she’s never privy to any of the discussions pertaining to her community, especially customer service. The less she knows about anything having to do with the community the better.

Don’t keep your community manager apprised of new product and service launches

You know the best way to have your community manager look like a fool? Don’t tell her about any product or service launches. Don’t get her opinion on new applications or web designs. Don’t tell her anything until after the launch. She’ll love that, I promise.

Don’t let your community manager answer for herself

Canned, approved  by management responses only. Who needs a personal touch?

Have a community manager for appearances only

Just because it’s all about community nowadays, doesn’t mean it has to be about community. Go ahead and hire a community manager but don’t actually allow her to do anything resembling community management. Instead have her act as a glorified assistant handling paperwork, spreadsheets or web research.

Don’t ask your community manger for her opinion

What the heck does she know anyway?

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I’ve been a part of this social media thing for several years now. I’ve been blogging and working online for about a decade. I’ve been building up online communities in some form or another for at least ten years. While I won’t claim to be an expert, I think it’s safe to say I know a little of what I’m talking about.  I’ve come to two conclusions about community management. The first is that everyone has a different idea about what a community manager’s job entails. The second is that most people think a community manager is nothing more than a glorified forum moderator who only needs to worry about the social networks.

That’s not it at all.

Community management  is more than just Twitter. It’s more than FaceBook or Ning or MySpace. I’m even going to go as far as to say it doesn’t have much to do with those things at all, and anyone who thinks it’s about how many friends you have on Facebook or followers on Twitter, is clearly missing the mark. Community management is about creating a positive user experience. Yes, that does mean one should monitor the social networks to see what one’s community is saying about them, but that’s not what it’s about at all.

What I like to do is pretend there’s no Twitter or Facebook. How would I reach out to my community then? How can I find out what they think of our service? When I think about it, why would I want to create separate “groups” on the different social networks when the ultimate goal is to get them to socialize at their community’s home base. That just makes cliques, not communities.

Community management isn’t just Twitter. It’s being a voice for the people. It’s being a hands on customer service person. It’s finding out  what the people in your community are talking about and taking that information and putting it to good use. Community management is about creating a positive user experience. It’s about building up relationships with people and gaining their trust. When you think about it, that has nothing to do with Twitter at all.

Tagged as: Community Management, social networking, Twitter

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It’s terrific so many businesses are starting to realize there are real people out there using their products and services. And while “community” and “social media” are this year’s buzzwords, some folks still aren’t quite getting it. Even though it’s all about “community” nowadays, doesn’t mean a business should treat folks as a collective or demograhic.

Most customer service or marketing teams treat users or consumers as a whole and solve problems based on averages and groups. It’s frustrating to know the people who we’re trusting for support are reading from a script or have a canned response. Though we’re building communities, each member of that community is an individual and should be treated as such. Toss the the script out and go with your gut, people will trust you more.

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I have a confession to make. I’m technically challenged. When it comes to blogging I can handle the writing end and maybe even a little widget and plugin installation, but when it comes to the nitty gritty, I haven’t a clue. I generally hire people to design my blogs and to handle the issues I can’t.

In November,  I was thrilled to be able to announce I was revamping my popular Freelance Writing Jobs blog from a single blog into a network of six blogs. Imagine how it feels watching a small blog grow into the number one online community for freelance writers? This was a thrilling and scary time for me. At the recommendation of my trusted tech guys, I moved over to a more reliable hosting company. It was a company that came highly recommended, received good reviews and they patiently answered all my questions when I called.

A tale of two servers

A couple of weeks after the move and upgrade, I received a notice from the host. My site is too busy, processes are running and it’s affecting the other websites on the server. Could we look into it? Indeed we could. My tech guys looked into it and fixed the problem. Or so we thought.  In mid- December the host sent another notice.  My blog network is too busy for the chosen plan, I had to move to a dedicated server. This must be done within 24 hours or my service would be yanked. Feeling I had no choice, I paid hundreds of dollars (that I couldn’t spare during the holidays) to get this done. Some of that money, by the way, had been earmarked so I could give my bloggers an end of the year bonus. Sorry, guys. [click to continue…]

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Every day I do a Twitter search to see who is talking about the business I work for. It allows me to say what folks are saying about us, and also if there are any users or potential users having trouble with the service. If I see someone using our service for the first time or asking questions about how it works, I reach out to them to see if there’s any way I can help. I also find the users who are having a bad experience and see what I can do to difuse the situation. Most folks seem to appreciate the Twitter presence, but I heard from someone today who thought it was a little too “Big Brother” for him.

Now,  regulars to Kommein know I believe businesses should have a heavy web presence. However, the gentleman who was put off by my Twitter trollage had a good point. It is a bit off-putting to know businesses are reading and digesting our comments. Comments we don’t expect them to see.

Here’s the thing, though. The guy threw out the information on Twitter. He has several thousand followers. So if he wanted the information to be kept private, he wouldn’t have told the world, right? And really, wouldn’t you rather know a business had a person on staff monitoring the social network to fix potential issues - it’s better than not getting a response at all, right?

So I’ll ask you. Is it crossing a line for a business to have someone on staff who monitors the social networks…or is it just good customer service?

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So I was having a conversation on Twitter today with @iFroggy (don’t you love using @’s instead of names?) about perhaps planning a Community Manger meetup in Austin during SXSWi, which is going on from March 13 - 17th. I’m trying to gauge interest, and if we have some takers I’ll see what I can do about finding a venue. I don’t know Austin at all, so I’ll have to enlist the aid of others there.

Will you be at SXSWI in March? If so, are you interested in meeting and talking with other community managers?

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I have a friend who’s a big muckety muck at a major phone/Internet provider. I haven’t seen him in a few months, but I keep remembering a conversation we had over the summer. I won’t bore you with all the minor details, but the bottom line is he (and many of his counterparts) don’t care for bloggers or social networking outlets because it’s harder for complaints to be swept under the rug  or handled quietly. They’d rather not have their flaws made public. I get it. Who wants that kind of negativity? I don’t agree though.  I feel having an online presence is good for business instead of the other way around.

Our conversation began when I mentioned how another blogger complained on her blog about a defective product and poor customer service. The day she posted, a representative from that same company commented saying he would take care of her problem, and he did - immediately.

Soon after that I learned my cable company was being switched to a well-known brand. I asked on Twitter of others’ experiences with this company and lo and behold….a representative of that company reached out to answer my questions. I dug the vibe.

So my friend, the big muckety muck at the phone network ,hates the idea of bloggers talking about their services or folks complaining to The Consumerist or other blogs. Again, I get it. Who wants to look bad?

But…

Consumers are frustrated by a lack of customer service, what other choice to they have?  What happens when you navigate a phone menu to nowhere, or get put through to fake supervisors who don’t help at all? Shouldn’t the folks paying for a service get the best service possible? That’s why I have more confidence in a company with a heavy online presence than with one that chooses to sweep all the bad stuff under the rug.

Should businesses monitor social networks?

Absolutely! It’s important to not only understand what folks are saying and why, but to reach out and offer assurance. In fact, I’d much rather pay extra for a company that rocked the customer care than support anyone who doesn’t put their clientele first and foremost at the top of the priority list. Moreover, if I see someone else having issues with a certain company and see said company reaching out to make amends, it will give me more confidence and maybe even encourage me to do business with them.

Just because a business doesn’t have an online presence doesn’t mean folks aren’t going to talk. Isn’t it better to monitor what they’re saying and reach out to fix the issue than to pretend it doesn’t exist?

Tagged as: Customer Service, social networking, Twitter

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One of my biggest frustrations is when I want to communicate with a blogger or web site owner and his or her contact details are no where to be found. If anyone should be easy to reach, it’s the Community Manager.

Make sure the members of your community know your email address as well as hours you’re available to chat via Skype or other means.  Post these details on the company blog, website and community forum if you have one. Feel free to establish guidelines, for instance, if you’re only available during certain hours make sure everyone knows. Having a Community Manager who is easy to reach and talk to is one of the most important things a business can do.

Tagged as: Community, community manager, online community, online community manager

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Do you really need a community? The short answer to that is, “no”. You don’t need community centered around your blog. You don’t need to build a community around your product. You don’t even need to build a community around your service. Certainly plenty of businesses have gotten by without a community throughout the years, and most of them did just dandy. So no. You don’t need a community.

Now let’s explore what happens when you don’t build a community for your business.

• There’s no effective word of mouth campaign - Certaily you can advertise, but the best way to create a buzz around your product is to have others, who are not employed by you, using, discussing and recommending your product or service.
• Your product or service has no voice.  It’s generic and antiseptic without a human touch. Folks like to be able to speak with humans.
• Your customers are frustrated. They want to chat with live folks or call and have a response instead of a menu. They want to be able to look online and see what others are saying about you.
• Your competition, the one with a large online community, is doing very well while your sales are down. All because their community and community managers have built up a level of trust.
• You don’t have a lively, congenial, helpful group of people gathering together and enjoying each others company to talk about one of their favorite things - your product or service.

So I will ask you - do you really need a community?

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