Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

Facebook appears to be rolling out a new feature that will help companies handle complaints posted on their Facebook Fan Page. Rather than dealing with customer service situations or complaints in public, this feature allows for private messaging that no one else sees.htat may required personal information or account information that individuals or organizations would rather not be public knowledge, this feature allows for private messaging that no one else sees.

Best Buy’s on line store ran out of stock on ‘hot items’ during the Christmas season and four days before Christmas, cancelled customer orders, leaving their customers with little recourse to buy elsewhere. Some of those orders were taken after Thanksgiving, weeks earlier. Customers were furious. What is worse is the way this issue was handled.

On Dec 19, 2011, a Youtube video was uploaded showing a FedEx Employee delivering a monitor by throwing it over the fence. It went viral. As I write this post it has been seen more than 5.7 Million times. Imagine the embarrassment of FedEx! FedEx responded with a video of their own with 11 elements worth noting. Alas the video has only been seen by about 5% of those who saw the first video.

Five of the 15 ‘most read posts’ in 2011.are: How to Handle Complaints: The IBM Way, Facts on How Social Media Complaints impact Customer Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction technique – Empowerment of Front Line Employees, Customer Satisfaction: What role should a business partner play?,Customer Satisfaction Techniques for Internal Customers, Biggest Challenge to Exceed Customer Expectations? Read all 15.

It is a well know fact that customer satisfaction can have significant impact on the business bottom line. So when we hear that a company goes bankrupt, we, as customer satisfaction professionals, should check how the company was perceived in the marketplace. According to a report, published in October, 2011, by Amplicate on US airlines, American Airlines was Americas most hated airline on social media for the previous 12 months.

Customer satisfaction is the balance between customer expectations and how a business performs. It’s a simple formula. Or is it? Customers who buy from you or join your cause, have certain expectations as they work with you. Some of those expectations are set by your business, as part of your sales presentation, and / or packaging, advertising, and other publicity. Other expectations are set by the industry, the government and what competitors are doing. Technology is the wild card here.

IBM has published a study of over 1700 Chief Marketing Officers titled From Stretched to Strengthened, Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officer Study which highlights the changes the marketplace is going through and the need for businesses to adapt.

Every organization goes through cycles, from year beginning, monthly and quarterly results and year end. As a new year approaches, one of the exercises every department goes through is planning for the year ahead. Customer Satisfaction strategies and processes need to be reviewed as well.The most important things to review are Management Strategies, Customer Expectations, Customer Feedback, Measurements and Targets and Management Reporting.

Conversocial has released two studies this year, one for the UK and another for the US, showing how well retailers are responding to customers on Social Media: Facebook in particular. According to the US study, Retailers did not respond to 65 percent of complaints and questions on their Facebook pages during a five-day period in September 2011.

A new study has been released by Market Tools, a company specializing in Enterprise Feedback Management met with over 330 companies with revenues over $10 Million. 23 % of companies did customer service and support on Facebook but only 12% on Twitter. 5% didn’t think customer satisfaction was either extremely or very important. Read the full article to learn more.