I love hearing how social media is changing the way businesses relate and interact with their customers. Personally, I remember a time, when I worked for an internet provider company, where I would cringe when people approached me with customer service issues. Friends and family would want to tell me their technical issues or complain about how slow the service was. My standard response became, “call customer service!”
However, social media has provided a completely new approach to customer service… where employees who are enthusiastic about their company’s products / solutions and also passionate about social media are being employed to not only be brand evangelists, but to provide expertise and advice on product information all the way through to the actual purchasing decision.
If you’ve been noticing the Best Buy commercials lately, you probably learned about their newly launched CRM model: Twelpforce, a Twitter service that enables Best Buy employees to talk with customers instead of to them. Best Buy, recognizing that their employees are their best resource, “opened its customer service Twitter feed, Twelpforce, to any of its hourly store employees and salaried corporate employees who want to join. Employees are free to engage customers with questions or even angry customers in their own voice and in any way they see fit. The rules? DON’T talk about private company or customer information; DO be friendly and helpful.
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