Acme Widget Company--A Customer Service Example

The Acme Widget Company has just released its new high tech widget called the T-widget.  A touch screen widget counting device that has been long awaited by by the public.

A few days after its release, they receive this comment on their customer service microblog site:

Just bought one of your new T-widget machines and it SUCKS!  In the first 4 days, had to reboot it 20 times and now it won't even turn on!  It's going in the trash, I'm buying something else!

John H.  Portland, Washington


The customer service department would reply in the comments section giving instructions to the customer.

Customer Service Blogs

Customer service blogs are one of the most powerful types of business blogs, for keeping open the lines of communication, between company and customer. As a means of starting and maintaining conversations between all interested parties, blogs are almost without equal. Business, public relations, and customer service blogs are even more valuable when problems arise.

When something goes wrong, as it always does in the real world, there is a natural tendency for many business people to keep quiet. By clamping down on suspected media leaks, dissidents, or those employees simply acknowledging an everyday problem, the company is taking exactly the wrong approach.

Instead of tightening down the lines of discussion, customer service blogs enable the flow of conversation to travel in both directions. As a result, small problems and misunderstandings can be fixed to everyone's satisfaction, with little fuss. The danger of the customer related problem exploding to major crisis stage is reduced dramatically, or even eliminated entirely. The lowered stress level on employees, resulting from fewer confrontations, boosts morale and productivity. It is also crucial to lowering staff turnover and replacement hiring and training costs.

Every business experiences customer and client related complaints at one time or another. The customer's concern may be very legitimate, and in fact, the problem could become very serious and expensive if left unresolved. The first course of action is to discuss the concern with the customer directly. Often, the issue can be settled at that point, and everyone leaves with smiles on their faces. The customer is relieved the problem is over. The business has an opportunity to learn a weak point in their customer experience, product quality, or a glitch in the overall delivery system.

Many studies of word of mouth advertising have discovered that previously disgruntled customers, finding their problem resolved to their satisfaction, often become the firm's best customer evangelists. They let the world know that your business keeps its clientele happy. Satisfied customers are any business's best and least cost advertising and client recruitment resource. --Wayne Hurlbert


http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2006/03/08/customer-service-blogs-communication-is-key

External Blogs

An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases, though a corporate blog often tries to accomplish similar goals as press releases do. In some corporate blogs, all posts go through a review before they're posted. Some corporate blogs, but not all, allow comments to be made to the posts.

External corporate blogs, by their very nature, are biased, though they can also offer a more honest and direct view than traditional communication channels. Nevertheless, they remain public relations tools.

Certain corporate blogs have a very high number of subscribers. The official Google Blog is currently in the Technorati top 50 listing among all blogs worldwide.

Marketers might expect to have product evangelists or influencers among the audience of an external blog. Once they find them, they may treat them like VIPs, asking them for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services audits, etc.

The business blog can provide additional value by adding a level of credibility that is often unobtainable from a standard corporate site. The informality and increased timeliness of information posted to blogs assists with increasing transparency and accessibility in the corporate image. Business blogs can interact with a target market on a more personal level while building link credibility that can ultimately be tied back to the corporate site.

Internal Blogs

Internal Blogs

An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. Many blogs are also communal, allowing anyone to post to them. The informal nature of blogs may encourage:

• employee participation
• free discussion of issues
• collective intelligence
• direct communication between various layers of an organization
• a sense of community

Internal blogs may be used in lieu of meetings and e-mail discussions, and can be especially useful when the people involved are in different locations, or have conflicting schedules. Blogs may also allow individuals who otherwise would not have been aware of or invited to participate in a discussion to contribute their expertise.