Social Media – A waste of time?

For a long time I thought that social media and business didn’t go, like oil and water, they were completely separate entities.

However let me tell you about two recent experiences with social media (“SM”) which made me change my mind.

The first was with Xero. I’m a power Xero user and have made a lot of money for Xero by sending my clients onto their platform.

A few weeks ago we had a client who we logged a support job for, and a week or so went by with no response.

A quick tweet to OG the @xero mod and a couple of hours later and the ticket was resolved.

After that I had a bad experience at the Broadway branch of ASB. I’m an ASB customer and I’m in the process of getting one of my larger Australian clients to signup with ASB’s merchant team through my mate Grant (who works in CBA corporate).

I pop into the branch to setup a new business account for Pushpay a new business I’m working on, and the lady there is running around like a headless chicken. She tells me to take a seat, and someone will be with me within 10 minutes. I can then only assume she forgot about me, and when I hit her up, she said that no one was available until a couple of hours.

That sucks as I’ve just been waiting for 20 minutes in the branch.

She couldn’t care that I walk out the door with the intention of signing up with another bank, probably one less thing for her to worry about.

So I vent my frustration with a tweet:

http://twitter.com/#!/ChrisHeaslip/status/95311562344120320

@ASBBank branch service is shocking, wait 20m to be told they are too busy to see you, come back later. Think I’ll try @kiwibank instead.

to which I get a prompt tweet back:

@ChrisHeaslip Hi Chris, very sorry to hear about that experience – which branch were you visiting? And can we help at all? ^SM

To cut a long story short, I ended up opening the bank account with ASB as they managed to turn a bad experience into a good one.

Social media and business don’t mix? Yeah Right!

Twitter has changed the game in terms of customer service.

Gary Vaynerchuck says – Just give a damn!

But most businesses don’t. Twitter has lessened the distance between businesses and customers, and it allow customers to contact businesses directly. Those businesses which don’t use twitter (and other SM platforms) are missing out on opportunities to gain customers, and to put things right when things don’t go well for customers.

But it’s not easy. Obviously ASB has empowered their staff who manage their social media to make decisions and to communicate those decisions to customers. There’s a risk to your brand by doing this, which stops other large businesses from embracing this kind of approach. Also, you can’t do SM half hearted, if you have a twitter account no one checks, you’ll be doing more harm to your brand than by not having an account at all.

In the end, ASB has gained a satisfied customer from the experience, and I’ll also tell others about my good experience (by writing blogs like this one).

Good return on investment in social media – you bet!