When Even Social Customer Service Isn’t Enough

There’s a new consideration for businesses that social brings to bear.

We laud social’s potential to revolutionize customer service. It gives the voice of the customer a platform. It makes big companies feel small again, gives them higher touch with the customers that matter to them. It shortens the distance between problem and resolution, hopefully, when all goes well.

But you have to plan for the moment when even the most social of customer service just isn’t enough.

Let’s presume for a minute that you think you’ve got your customer service house pretty well in order. Your bricks and mortar service folks are well prepared. Your web and phone support is well staffed, and customer resolution through those channels seems strong. You’ve got smart people working for you, your customers are in and on social media, and you’re ready and willing to put humans on those sites to interact with customers, field questions and concerns, and do their best to serve customers in these new and emerging channels.

These public channels.

Walk on The Dark Side…

Social customer service is indeed powerful, and it can be absolutely the best thing to happen to you as a business or a customer. But let’s be real and look at the dark side of this for a minute.

Even with the best of intentions, even when you’re willing and able to do something to try and fix a problem, even when there’s an issue where you’re sympathetic, but there’s nothing you can do to actually change the situation, there are angry customers. There are unreasonable, irrational ones that will stop at nothing in order to make sure you’re punished and publicly flogged in social media. A click, three retweets, a hundred wall posts and both the Jerks for Sport and the well-meaning-but-ill-informed can jump on the bashing bandwagon. Left unattended, that unruly mob can do some serious damage to your reputation – publicly – in very short order.

Which is exactly what absolutely petrifies most companies about social media and customer service, and what prevents so many of them from starting in the first place.

But you don’t have to sit and wait for this to happen to you. The best offense is a great defense, and you can get your plan in order.

Know The Drill

Even if it’s not a full-on, brand-in-jeopardy crisis, asking yourself a few key questions while you’re planning your social media strategies and outreach can at the very least help you feel prepared and calm if a customer service issue goes sideways on the web. There are no “right” answers here, because everyone’s business is different, and so are their customers. In general, the rule of thumb is that ignoring the problem is not a strategy, even if you believe you’re in the right or have done all you can.

So ask yourself – and your team – a few key questions.

1. What’s your worst case?

Think through the “worst” thing that might happen as a result of a customer service misfire. Play it through, including all the decisions you’ll have to make along the way. This is a great exercise to help wary executives get a handle on what’s actually and truly scaring them (it’s usually not what they think), and see that there are ways to mitigate those problems, or have a plan for handling them should they happen.

The thing that terrifies people the most is the unexpected.

2. Who needs to know?

If it’s just a minor misunderstanding, can your front line social media support handle it directly? How much authority do they have to resolve a situation (in terms of decisions, money spent, protocol bypassed, etc.)? When does the next level need to get involved? Also, when something’s in progress via social media, are there other people that touch the customer that should be notified, like an account manager or service rep?

Knowing how and when to escalate something internally can help everyone stay in the loop and work to resolve things as smoothly as possible.

3. At what point do you try to move something into a more private medium, like email or phone?

Remember, if all of this is happening on a social media channel, it can be a very positive thing to let your resolution be seen in the same forum as the original issue, at least initially. If personal or account details need to be discussed, then simply inviting someone to contact you through a more private means can be a good gesture of positive intent (provided you do actually intend to address the issue once offline. Don’t drop THAT ball) while keeping the particulars in a more appropriate medium.

Most issues will eventually need to be addressed directly and more privately, so have some ideas of how best to do that for your customers.

4. What’s your “All In”?

What are you willing or able to do in order to get a situation resolved? Say you’re sorry even if it’s not your fault? Offer discounts, free stuff, or replacement products, even if they’re out of warranty? Extend a membership or a program to someone who doesn’t fit your criteria? Refer them to a competitor? End a program? Make a public apology?

Some companies live by “whatever it takes, no matter what” in customer service scenarios, which can be tricky if you’re dealing with someone who is deliberately taking advantage of the situation. Some have rules they can bend, rules they can all out break, and rules they can invent on the fly to make something creative happen when necessary.

Know what “all in” looks like for you, and who can make that call.

5. How will you deal with any “ripple effects” ?

Let’s say you think you’ve got an issue resolved via Twitter and email, but a day later a blog post sprouts up to recap the situation. Will someone comment, and who will that be? What will they say, depending on how the post reads (think through more than one scenario). How about if the conversation carries over elsewhere, like onto a different site or community? Are you set up to know that’s occurring, and under what circumstances will you engage or let it rest?

It sounds a bit paranoid to prepare for the spillover, and if you never need it, great. But the one time you do, you’ll be glad you thought it through.

6. When do you walk away?

Sometimes, you’ve got someone who is simply angry, wants to rant, and isn’t really seeking a resolution. They may ignore your attempts to resolve things. They may get vulgar, profane, abusive, or defamatory. Draw the picture of the worst possible individual and behavior, and try to have a guideline for when you’ll gracefully walk away from the discussion. Will you ever delete a comment or a post, and under what circumstances? Remove a user’s profile from your community? Will you leave the door open for that person to contact you at a later time, and how is that best achieved? Do you have your policies posted anywhere visible so that people can see them in advance?

There is always a breaking point, or a point at which going round and round has no further purpose. Have an idea of where yours is, and know how you plan to enforce it.

7. What do you communicate in the aftermath?

Sometimes it’s beneficial to follow up visibly and let the community know an issue has been resolved or that you’re working on it, like on a blog post with a comment. Sometimes, if the issue has been carried offline and is getting handled in other ways, letting the storm pass is your best course of action. Sometimes, even standing your ground and respectfully but firmly stating your position can be what your other customers or the community need to see from you.

Knowing what you’re willing to share, in what detail, with whom and where can help give you some preparedness peace of mind.

Nobody’s Perfect

There’s no bulletproof plan, unfortunately. And no one can foretell every crazy circumstance that we might encounter out here (just ask some of the businesses that have been thrown for a loop). Personally, I’ve encountered them all in my community work: the annoying, the abusive, the stubborn, the petty, the grandstander, the desperate, the vengeful (and yep, even one or two that might have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic). The lucky thing is that they really are few and far between. But it’s true you can’t account for them all.

When it comes to customer service, most people want two things: to be heard, and to have their issue resolved as best as possible. Most people are reasonable, and engaging with them might sting at first when they’re angry, but there are many, many examples of the ranting customer turning into the raving fan thanks to a great customer service moment.

But it can’t possibly hurt to think through (and maybe even have a little fun with) those baffling scenarios where even your best intentions don’t seem to be getting the job done, or when you’ve got a particularly difficult situation on the other end of a dialogue, complete with an audience. It happens to the best and brightest businesses, and fortune favors the prepared (and the calm).

How have you dealt with the seemingly unreasonable individual, or doused the flames of a social media lynch mob? Have you seen it done well, and what made it work? Have you seen it done poorly, and how would you have handled it differently? What other questions would you ask yourself to better prepare?

Let’s fight the fear and the paralysis with a little bit of planning, yes? The comments are yours.