Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

Toyota has suffered several black eyes in the news, a massive recall in the US and subsequently in Canada of Toyota and Lexus cars and light trucks to fix an accelerator pedal problem, a recall of Tundrea Pickup trucks in the US because of excessive rust on the frames and 6 Highlanders with ‘immobilizer technology’ stolen in a single night in one neighborhood in Toronto.

Seth Godin’s 2007 post called Starting Over with Customer Service still rings true on the reasons for customer dissatisfaction with service but his proposal of how to start over is oversimplified.

David Carroll, a Canadian singer was flying from Halifax to Nebraska with a stop over in Chicago where he and other passengers watched in horror as United Airlines damaged his guitar. United was unresponsive after many attempts so he wrote a song, put it on Youtube. After 150,000 views, it was picked up by CNN and his song has been viewed by over 6 Million viewers on Youtube. United responded! In the meantime, United Airlines lost $120 Million of market capitalization.

On Nov 18, 2009, USA Today published an interesting article called Social Media like Twitter Change Customer Service. Customer Service is evolving due to increased expectations of customers. Customer service is being augmented using Twitter and other communication vehicles such as Youtube and Facebook. Over 50% of the Fortune 100 are using Twitter for customer service, recruiting and marketing.

Getting proper social media education is very important for your business career and your business. Without knowing how to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, you are cutting yourself off from multiple business opportunities.

This post contains two videos that review why your organization or business needs to be watching over social media, what its impact is, 3 major shifts in customer feedback and what you should do about it.

The Social Media Business Council, announced in April 2009 as the Blog Council, helps large organizations build successful social media programs, which include customer satisfaction programs.. The Brands only community includes Dell, Walmart, Coca Cola, Wells Fargo, GE, and Procter and Gamble. This site includes a Best Practices document you can download, Case Studies you can read on their blog and Videos of regular conferences they hold that discuss their best practices.

QWest recently started using Twitter for Customer Service as part of a Social Media Strategy using dedicated employees from various parts of the organization. Since April, 2009, just over 6 months, they have written 6100 Tweets, mostly taking Customer Service issues off line.

There were several comments on LinkedIn about two recent Articles on my blog: “Customer Service using Twitter” and “Factors to Consider when using Twitter for Customer Service”. This article documents the comments and observations made.