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Other thoughts from Blog Potomac: blog with your customers in mind

by Michael Hackmer / Saturday, 21 June 2008 / Published in Conferences, Events And Contests, Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Upcoming Events

After making my initial post about Blog Potomac, I’ve decided to write something shorter along the lines of customer interaction.

Lionel Menchaca, Digital Media Manager and Chief Blogger at Direct2Dell, had some excellent points during Blog Potomac that deserve some mention in this space.

For one thing, Menchaca started in tech support providing information and support to customers. This experience gave him crucial insight into both the issues from Dell products that were negatively impacting customers, as well as how Dell customer support was causing anguish and frustration.

One of the important themes in Menchaca’s presentation was the need to “listen” to what people were saying. For Dell, learning about what customers were talking about – the core listening stage- helped them to understand the fundamental issues at stake, which in turn helped to drive solutions.

Another important factor for Menchaca was to establish his voice as a blogger, and learn how to connect with other people. Customer support is not only about listening and responding with technical answers, its communicating those answers in a clear, friendly and understandable manner. When its done correctly, the results are going to be worth it.

Of course, managing the dialog you have with your customers not only depends on listening and communicating, but also managing expectations. You have to know the limits that exist within your company, and not risk over-promising and under-delivering for your customers on support issues.

Playing the expectation game also is not something reserved for the customers. Internal managers are interested in the results from customer support oriented blogs. The key here is to make sure that executives and managers understanding that a learning curve exists for everyone. What’s more, people need to recognize that positive as well as negative conversations are going to take place in this environment. As Geoff Livingston would say, “You cannot control the conversation”. However, convincing your CEO or direct supervisor that having “negative” conversations is just as valuable is not an easy task.

When its all said and done, Menchaca mentioned some other challenges that are important for many businesses that seek to establish a blog for customer support:

  • You need to recognize the challenge for your support staff in balancing blogging and other customer support responsibilities. Time management is a crucial issue.
  • You need to understand who you customers are. Do they ALL speak English as a first language, for example? Menchaca mentioned how Dell has a real challenge blogging in the European market, because there are so many languages.
  • Issues take time to develop, but so do answers. This means you need to help your customers understand that a response is coming, but it may take time. Larger technical issues can take weeks to resolve. Patience is an important component of customer service.
  • Personal interaction can go great lengths to change perception of your company. If you company improves is level of personal connectivity and interaction, the results will show. Dell used to have very high negatives when it came to its customer support.  However, hard work and dedication to positive engagement helped turn many of those challenges around.
  • Lastly, I think it is important to note that if you blog with your customers in mind, and work towards establishing relationships – you can drive improvements in your company’s brand, reputation, product development, and in some cases, customer satisfaction, which is ultimately measured in repeat business and referral business. Dell has proven to be a good industry case study of this approach.

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    Tagged under: blog for your customers, Blog Potomac, customer support, Direct2Dell, Lionel Menchaca

    About Michael Hackmer

    Michael Hackmer is the founder of Social Web Tactics (www.socialwebtactics.com), a digital marketing and sales agency focused on providing businesses and organizations the ability to connect with their audience using the latest and most effective digital technologies and tools. He has been a speaker, consultant and marketing strategist for over 15 years. He also has worked in federal and state government relations, and managed industry affairs and association membership. He has developed digital and strategic marketing campaigns for companies including: Adobe, Deltek, HP, K12, Red Hat, Strayer University and more. He has helped non-profits and corporations with marketing automation solutions. He is originally born in Boston, MA. Graduated Phillips Academy, Andover in 1994. Received his B.A. in Politics from The Catholic University of America in 1998. Michael lives in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife and daughter. He loves to run, swim and travel throughout South America.

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