People don't want to use Social Media for Customer Service.
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Bottom line (and feel free to show me this answer if I am proven wrong, which I doubt): customers don't use Facebook to seek help en masse, nor to purchase through it.
Facebook is to enjoy strong relationships with friends and familly - at least for those people that are not in the social echo chamber.
Close your eyes. Imagine your favorite sports team. They're at the finals of their respective sports greatest cup/bowl/tournament. They're about to be winners. Remembered forever.
They lose.
How did that feel?
When I read this comment (see above) on the Forrester blog I felt that pang in my heart. Hard to explain why, but I did. And this is what I responded.
"Customers dont use Facebook today for sales or service"
I'm going to focus just on the service part (not the sales) and split that up into two separate issues:
-- Customers don't want customer service. --
Forget about Facebook. Customers don't want customer service all together. They want simple, easy to understand, easy to use products that don't crash, that don't fail. Customers want products that don't require customer service.
-- Customers want customer service - wherever they communicate. --
A lot of this will echo what has been said before. The idea that customer don't want to use a specific channel for customer service is unthinkable. Customer want to choose where they communicate and the emergence of different media had made communication lines around us ubiquitous and even more integrated. When consumers start a conversation on Twitter, they want to pick it up on linked in, continue it on Facebook and finish it with a Youtube Video. It's not about the medium, it's about the message.
When consumers purchase a product or service they want it to function. And if they need to talk to someone about it, they'll do it on their terms. As agencies and brands we need to realize that the piramid is upside down, the funnel is a circle, and earned PR is the only PR out there.
Now let's go build great brand communities and have them spread our brand message!
