The year when Customer Service Meets Marketing

The desire to see it as a fad, or as something not relevant to their business must be very strong for some. Many will say, and I have heard it said “oh, that is something my kids waste time doing, I am a busy person, I don’t have time for that stuff”.

The danger is that they are, of course, right.  There is a lot of hype, noise and time wasting; I can credit them with that insight, but it is not a fad, it is not just for kids, it is not going away. It is working for an increasing amount of organizations who have taken time and invested resources to learn and experience this new mode of communication. Executives can just about, get away without embracing social media now but for how long? The world is becoming connected and the conversations taking place are strategic, tactical, consumer led, channel led and they help people find solutions and understand the threats, fears and needs for the future.

In 2010 I see many opportunities for businesses to have an impact on the relationship they have with their customers and one area I am fascinated by is the relationship that will have to be formed between the Customer Service and Marketing Departments.

In a recent study by CPP Group, they saw a growing trend toward utilizing social media to share frustrations rather than telephoning or writing to the ‘offending’ company directly. 

To download the CPP research  <http://www.ecademy.com/downloads/cpp_white_paper_customer_service.pdf>  

In 2010 we will see the use of mobile interaction with social networks. Through this avenue consumers will create a much larger demand for high levels of customer service. The ability to spontaneously vent frustration at the exact moment of disappointment will capture irrational, gut-felt emotions in real-time. This will require a rush to get to the ‘disrupted’ customer before their conversations becomes viral and damaging. Speed of feedback and use of sophisticated search mechanisms to find these conversations will be critical. Microsoft have launched their latest search engine Bing, now indexing Twitter conversations, Google will follow, an indication of the desire to seek conversations and be part of them fast. 

Customer Service and Customer Interaction will become a game of ‘hunting out the customer’s emotions’ not just waiting for them to contact and complain. At this point the Customer Service team will need to become pro-active rather than reactive. I predict that the Customer Service Team will have as much influence on the marketing and belief in a brand as the marketing teams do.

It is now 2010, 30 years since I first saw the phrase on poster of a lion and the words ‘Customer is King’; finally this will become true, brought about by this fad? I think not, brought about by desire, I think so. 

Penny Power is the Founder of Ecademy. Recently Penny published her book ‘Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me’ to assist in the understanding of the online world of social networking for business, available at UK retailers and online through Amazon.

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