Source: Mashable
One of the most useful ways that startups are employing social media is for customer service. “On the customer service side, beamME gets tremendous value out of social media. These days, people expect to be able to post issues with companies directly to Twitter and obtain a real-time response. This instantaneous access to our customers is invaluable,” said Gabe Zichermann, CEO of beamME, a maker of mobile networking tools.
Twitter for Customer Service
According to Zichermann, one of the most useful tools they’ve used to manage their customer-focused social media efforts is Hootsuite (), which has cut the amount of time necessary to look after their Twitter () and Facebook () accounts tremendously by allowing them to be used at the same time. “HootSuite is particularly effective and cuts down our time/cost requirements,” said Zichermann, who still advises getting someone, at least part-time, to help manage the flow of social media use and plan things out as far into the future as possible. “[That] will reduce the repetitive workload and make campaigns run faster.”
Phonebooth.com, which sells PBX services to small businesses, has had a similar experience using Twitter for customer relations. Said Todd Barr, Vice President of Marketing at Phonebooth:
“Twitter has become the launching point for many of our internal processes. We have multiple examples of responding to an issue on Twitter within a couple of minutes and being on the phone with them within ten minutes. A tweet actually starts an internal process where we pull in the appropriate parties, get our information together, and reach out to the customer.
All of our other social media usages are extremely important, but Twitter is actually helping to create a culture change. We’re able to quickly assemble the correct folks to improve life for the customer. Internally, this begins to shed light on the power of social media and the team of folks who want to be involved is gradually expanding.”
Barr told us that Phonebooth has solved over 20 customer support issues using Twitter and has also created a “vibrant product feedback loop, with good user participation.”
Continue reading about how start-ups are using social media
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