What role can a customer service orientation play in a business’s brand and web strategy, and how best to tie it all together? Let me count the ways…

 

1. First off, emphasizing a company’s customer service orientation and their online support centers can be a great strategy for a brand!

 

2. For corporate website home pages, it’s a model that companies like UPS, FedEx, Delta and other airlines and transportation companies have heavily adopted (e.g., “track your package status here,” “get flight ticket info here”). They did this because they surveyed customers, and reviewed web analysis tools, and found that this was the best thing to immediately make visible and accessible to customers/prospects on their home page. And upon executing this they saw great success!

 

3. And yes, social media today is huge for customer support. In fact, while many companies and biz people question the results and approaches of social media, customer service has been a clearer, easily visible home run. Here’s why:

 

a). When people have a problem with something – just about anything these days – they go online and search it, pure and simple. All kind of data shows this and the growth of this activity. And many of the links that come up in search can be blogs, social media, etc.

 

b). So whether companies think so or not, customers are discussing them and/or their industry online. And these conversations are seen and spread by many others. There is huge potential there for companies to visibly be there and answer/solve problems, or not be there and appear uninterested or unwilling to defend themselves.

 

c). Generating online answers to common customer questions and problems allows an immediacy and visibility, for answering more than one customer’s questions (back to that search engine approach above again). So separate customers can either separately call in to a call center and get the same answers to the same questions (tieing up company time, phone lines and expenses, etc.), or customers can see the answers online. Even if one answer only benefits two customers, imagine the multiplicity factor over time for this and different questions/answers. This is where the ROI really starts to multiply – in company customer support savings.

 

d). Companies can also establish online customer Q&A forums, or be there to support/answer existing ones for their industry. Either way, one of the phenomena of social media and forums is that consumers help each other and answer each other’s questions. Empowering the marketplace community to answer each other’s problems again frees up time from the customer support team.

 

e). And yes, Twitter can be used for all of this, but the best channel approach here is to do preliminary research for that industry online to see where customers are going or discussing these issues. Maybe its Twitter, maybe it’s something else – either way these are things I uncover in my digital audits.

 

4. So a digital audit can reveal info and paths for the above, but can also give you something great in your brand strategic planning. Namely, keyword analysis can reveal what industry terms customers are using most to search for, and in doing so it becomes an illustration of demand – and so wouldn’t the brand want to be affiliated with that terminology and demand for content? Revelations like this can alter how a company phrases and promotes itself to customers.

 

5. So from the approach ideas, everything could rather neatly tie itself (high-level) in a pretty package of “branding and online strategy surrounding customer service.” One of the biggest mistakes in social media is trying to do everything and not focusing on one primary goal. So customer service could really be a great unifying and successful primary goal for ECS! (But again, a good digital audit can help reveal if customers are seeking something more specific than “support” in industry).

 

6. Of course another big advantage of social media in B2B is promoting a brand attribute of thought leadership. I myself did this for a former employer; basically, thought leadership brand projection has long been a great goal in B2B marketing and lead generation. Traditionally, companies have sent their sales people and executives to speak in seminars and write articles and letters of introduction. Social media becomes the 21st century vehicle for B2B thought leadership, via blogs, webinars/video and shared content white papers and press releases. Take it to the next level and a company’s experts and customer support team are openly answering industry questions online. All of this is a great way for a brand to become perceived as the “industry expert.”

 

Have thoughts on what you read or want discussion? Comment & connect!

 

Jake Aull | Zen Fires | Websites, SEO, SocialMedia & Design 
email | 404.259.5550 | @jakeaull | Facebook.com/ZenFires