Practical Conversations

When you’re engaging with anyone online, rule #3 is “Be The Gatekeeper”

You should never be a roadblock. Give customers a clear path. Just being there isn’t enough. Communication has to go both ways. You now have access to incredible feedback you used to have to pay a lot of money for. Lead customers to where they need to be, and listen to what they have to say.

(if you missed it, see Rule #2: Address The Need)

When you’re engaging with anyone online, rule #2 is “Address The Need”.

Everyone needs something.  We listen, we may even understand what we’re being asked — but it that what they really need?  If you’re engaging online, make sure you’re actually addressing the need.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently after a discussion with a support rep.  A customer on Twitter asked if the upload timeout could be increased.  The rep very diligently found the answer to her question — “Unfortunately, no.”  I asked the rep why the customer was asking for this.  A little investigation showed that the customer was trying to upload a file and it was failing.  Was file size the issue?  No, it wasn’t.  So she really didn’t need someone to increase the timeout, she needed someone to figure out why the upload was failing for her.  Armed with that, the rep was able to work on addressing what the customer needed, not just what she asked for.

(if you missed it, see Rule #1: Be Real)

When you’re engaging with anyone online, rule #1 is “Be Real”.

The world is full of bots (both human and digital.)  Your customers are people, it’s ok to be a person t00.

• Be a face, not a name (or logo)
• Don’t just broadcast, have a conversation
• Be open and honest
• Be Yourself!

So you’ve listened and maybe engaged in social media, now what?

It’s important to be there since the conversations are already happening, but have you integrated that work into your overall strategy?  I was on a call Friday with a PR firm talking about social media strategy.  When I think about what many of us often do (and yes, I’m including myself in this), I can’t help but think of a children’s soccer game.

We may have passion and focus, but we’re usually just chasing the ball.

Many of us get so caught up in the tactical execution, we forget to look at the overall strategy.  Two great posts to get you thinking about this more are Leslie Poston on Social Media Curves and Shannon Paul on The Missing Ingredient in Most Social Media Strategies.   Leslie discuses working from front end goals to setting “appropriate expectations” on the back end.  Shannon gets to the heart of the biggest problem, that most social media strategies are missing “actual strategy.”

We’re often substituting tactics for strategy.  One of the questions I discussed with the PR team on my call is “what are we trying to get out of this social media engagement?”  Shannon offers five “Steps to Defining the Strategy in Your Social Media Strategy” in The Missing Ingredient in Most Social Media Strategies:

I had an experience with Comcast‘s chat support a few evenings ago that I still keep mulling over. I’m not certain how much of it was scripted vs. improvised, but it felt somewhat awkward. As someone who spends time writing scripts for others to use when interacting with customers on the phone and via chat, I wanted to share my experience and suggestions.  (I have change the rep’s name as I’m not complaining about the level of service, just the awkwardness of the conversation.  And before you get concerned, the email address and password have already been changed.)  Here’s the full exchange…

Kevin > I just found out my Comcast email address is KMICALIZZI_658@comcast.net. I was originally an adelphia subscriber, how do I get a password assigned?

Beth > Hello Kevin_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Beth. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Beth > I am glad to have you on chat. I hope you are having a wonderful day, Kevin.

Kevin_ > thanks Beth!

Beth > You are welcome, Kevin.

Beth > I understand how frustrating this is for you not to be able to have your password. No worries, you have reached the right person to help you out. Your concern is my topmost priority for today.

Beth > I will be more than happy to assist you. Rest assured that at the end of this conversation, I will be able to provide you with your password, Kevin.

Beth > Are you still there, Kevin?

Kevin_ > I am

Kevin_ > I’m waiting for you

Beth > Before anything else, as a valuable customer of Comcast, we give importance to your privacy by ensuring the integrity of your account information. In order to do so, can you please provide me the following:

a. Full name of the Account Holder

b. Complete address

c. Comcast account number

Kevin_ > Kevin Micalizzi

Kevin_ > ******************

Kevin_ > ***************

Kevin_ > let me go grab a bill to get you the account number

Beth > Okay, Kevin. I can wait for you. Thank you.

Kevin_ > 8*** ** *** *****40

Beth > Thank you for the information.

Beth > While pulling up your account, how’s your day so far?

Kevin_ > it’s ok

Beth > That is good to hear, Kevin.

Beth > By the way, Kevin, are you a big movie and TV fan? Comcast now has the best free online streaming and extensive video collection of television shows, movies, trailers and clips online. For you to experience this great entertainment site please visit http://www.fancast.com/. Please check it out sometimes.

Kevin_ > That’s what I was checking out when I realized I needed my comcast email and password.

Kevin_ > I didn’t know I had this email address, I originally had Adelphia cable, which was bought by Comcast.

Kevin_ >

Beth > I see. That is great, kevin! I hope you will enjoy the site.

Beth > Going back to your concern, do you have a pen and paper handy with you? I will be providing you with your password. Please let me know if you are ready, Kevin.

Kevin_ > I’m ready

Beth > Thank you, Kevin.

Beth > password……………..wildlost

Kevin_ > ok, thanks!

Beth > Please take time answering the survey after our interaction. We greatly value your feedback for us to improve more on our service. You can do this by clicking on the “END SESSION” button and please don’t forget to click on submit.

Beth > Thank you for bringing Comcast to your home! Again, this is Beth. We appreciate your business and value you as a customer. Our goal is to provide you with excellent service. If you need further assistance, you can always reach us through chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Beth > Analyst has closed chat and left the room

I understand how frustrating this is for you not to be able to have your password. No worries, you have reached the right person to help you out.  Your concern is my topmost priority for today

This part was awkward.  I would have opted for, “I understand how frustrating it can be to not have your password.  No worries, I can help you.”   Ditch the “Your concern is my topmost priority for today.”  We both know it’s not true.  I’m on the chat, I feel like I have someone who can help me, it’s not the time to make promises you don’t mean.  There were several pauses during the chat, which left me with the feeling this rep was helping others at the same time.  That’s fine, but it undermines the rep’s credibility to say my issue is their “topmost priority for today.”

I will be more than happy to assist you. Rest assured that at the end of this conversation, I will be able to provide you with your password, Kevin.

This part was probably not necessary at all.  The rep had just said they can help, it would have been better to move on to the account information needed to get the password reset done.  This part was also followed by a long pause, then “Are you still there, Kevin?”   I wasn’t really asked a question, so I assumed the rep was doing something on their end.  I was just waiting for the rep to tell me what comes next.  From calling into support organizations in the past, I was expecting to be asked for my account information.

While pulling up your account, how’s your day so far?

I was surprised by the question.  It seemed very personal.  Maybe it was just because communicating via chat removes all nonverbal cues, but I really wasn’t about to tell the rep about my day, good or bad.  It might have been better to say “Let me pull up your account information.  I hope your day is going well.”

By the way, Kevin, are you a big movie and TV fan? Comcast now has the best free online streaming and extensive video collection of television shows, movies, trailers and clips online. For you to experience this great entertainment site please visit http://www.fancast.com/. Please check it out sometimes.

It’s great Comcast is taking the opportunity to let people know about additional services. Personally if I had written this, I would have broken each sentences onto a separate line and ask the rep to send each with a brief pause in between.  Suddenly getting this much text interrupts the flow of the conversation and makes me feel like an ad just popped up.  Also, I would have ended with “Please check it out sometime.”

Going back to your concern, do you have a pen and paper handy with you? I will be providing you with your password. Please let me know if you are ready, Kevin.

This part actually made me laugh.  I don’t think I’m some super-tech-genius, but if I’m already at the keyboard chatting, I’m guessing I don’t need to run for pen and  paper.  We probably could have skipped this part too and gone directly to the new password.

Please take time answering the survey after our interaction. We greatly value your feedback for us to improve more on our service. You can do this by clicking on the “END SESSION” button and please don’t forget to click on submit.

The last few chat messages, starting with this one surprised me.  They appeared in my transcript, but must have been sent after I clicked END SESSION.  I would have said “Please take a minute to answer the survey you’ll see after our chat.” and “We greatly value your feedback to help us continue improving our service.” After the rep gave the password, I said “thanks” and expected some kind of closing message or something like “have I answered all your questions?”  I was excited to get going with my new password so when I didn’t hear anything for about a minute, I ended just the session.

Again, my goal here is not to criticize the level of support Comcast provided.  While experience could have been smoother, the rep handled my issue is less time than it probably would have taken to call in, get through the phone system, explain the problem to someone, and get it resolved.

From the tone of the rep’s language in the parts I’m guessing were spontaneous, I would assume there was some level of cultural difference.  The language sounded more formal than I’d expected.  There didn’t seem to be any difficulty communicating about the issue, just that the responses didn’t read as well as they probably could have.

The only  thing that actually annoyed me was that the rep used my name 11 times in our very brief exchange.  It was way too much.  If someone had done that in conversation, I would have assumed they were afraid they wouldn’t remember my name and were repeating it at every opportunity to memorize it.  In this case, there is a written transcript, so the chances of forgetting are very slim.  Yes, the sweetest thing is hearing the sound of your name, just not too much.

I have a few takeaways from the exchange:

1. Always read your scripts/message text out loud.  Does it sound natural?  If doesn’t, rewrite it.
2. No matter how well you script the exchange, some level of actual conversation is required.  It’s not possible to script every word someone would say in a conversation.  Train your reps well, periodically check for language, and continue coaching the reps to help them get even beter.

This has been a good reminder for me that I need to add my team’s demos to my calendar and join them more often to ensure the scripted parts are still relevant and to look for more coaching opportunities in the spontaneous conversations.  (If you’re interested, the team conducts Dimdim web conferencing demos every weekday.  If you jump into one, please take a minute to let me know what you think!)

-k

There’s a ton of advice out there that you ignore social media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) at your own peril.  I’m having a difficult time finding best practices on when you may need to use ignoring as an approach — or is it something you should never do?

I’d love to know how you feel on this.  Is it ok?  If yes, when? Feel free to comment below, send me a tweet (@kevinmic), or email me directly.

Thanks!

-k

Communicating your organization’s message, whether that message pertains to a sales, marketing or support function should always take your audiences needs into consideration. The problem tends to be that professionals write professionally. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a place for technical jargon, buzzwords and catch phrases – but unless your message is specific to a technical or niche market, your audience may be more inclined to walk away and choose other options. This has the potential to damage your brand image and bottom line.

Clearly defining your goals and understanding that your audience’s goals and your organization’s goals need to be in tune with one another is very important, yet the needs of your audience are more than just ‘widget A’ or ‘concept B’, they are driven by issues of belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization.

Creating a sense of belonging makes your audience feel valued.

Enabling deeper and more personal relationships with your audience has the potential to make them active participants in the defining and creative processes of products, services and solutions. Setting clear standards for your ‘Brand Personality’ and simple directions for your employees and co-workers, if done with your audience’s perspective in mind, allows your organization to develop brand trust and customers to develop brand affinity.

When your audience is looking for assistance with finding a solution or resolving an issue, the last thing that they need is someone communicating in language that is technical or using language that implies a lack of knowledge or experience. Though this tends to go both ways, using language your customers don’t understand may turn them off to your brand, but simplifying the language too much may wind up insulting them. Conversational language beats jargon any day!

Creating avenues for your audience to respond and communicate in a perceived real-time way develops a sense of ownership and true brand trust. This empowers your audience to:

• understand and embrace the realities of your products, services and brand
• spontaneously contribute to conversations with the organization and other potential audience members
• proactively find answers to problems and openly share their stories and experiences about your brand

In the end, your audience is depending on you. They are looking to you for solutions, support and recognition – yet they are also looking to find a home for their personal fulfillment, even if only on a professional level.

When I was studying interpersonal communication at Ithaca College in the early 90s, one of the concepts we looked at was whether your environment encouraged or discouraged communication.  The terms I learned were: sociopetal (environment encourages communication) and sociofugal (environment discourages communication.)

Sociofugal Environment

Sociopedal Environment

Determining if a physical environment encourages or discourages communication is a pretty straightforward process.  You may look at how the chairs are arranged in a room or where the food stations are placed at a party.  Evaluating how we’re encouraging/discouraging communication online can be more challenging.  It’s obvious that a blog post with comments closed discourages communication.  But what if your goal is for blog commenters to interact with each other?  Does it make more sense to have threaded comments so it’s clear which comment someone is replying to?

When designing your blog/community/site/app, you need to know your goals to determine if you’re getting what you need.  Are you looking to encourage discussion among your customers?  To encourage conversation directly with you?

A form to rate content and submit comments that doesn’t show previous ratings or comments like in Microsoft support articles (at bottom of article) will encourage communication with you directly, but not among customers.  While an approach like Amazon customer reviews, encourages some interaction among customers.

It’s worth stepping back (or getting someone with fresh eyes) to look at how you’ve designed your blog/community/site/app.  Are you encouraging or discouraging communication?

Last Wednesday, just before Thanksgiving, I took the time to give thanks to my Dimdim customers (Dimdim web conferencing, giving thanks to you.)  I left the office later in the day to enjoy the long weekend.

Everything was good and relaxing until Friday, early afternoon, when I got a call from the office.  I had just bundled up and was getting my dog ready to go for a walk around our block (about 4 miles.)  While in the process of setting up a new workflow to help test our outgoing emails, the wrong list of people was selected.  Luckily the team caught the problem and turned off the new workflow, but not until after 1,000+ people had been emailed (some receiving up to 25 emails in under 10 minutes.)  There were a few customers on Twitter expressing concern and a few emails received, but that was about it.  Once we had identified what went wrong, I put in a request for help in getting the full list of people and went back to my weekend. (which was otherwise good, by the way.)

Monday morning I had my list of affected customers.  Deciding what to do wasn’t difficult, it was clearly our mistake.  If I had suddenly received anywhere from 1 to 25 email messages in under 10 minutes, most unrelated to the product/trial I was in, I’d expect an apology.  So this is what I sent to all these customers:

Subject: Conflicting Dimdim messages are not our way of thanking you

Early in the day Friday (Nov 27), we were excited to be working on some improvements to our process, but unforunately we accidentally added you to a new program that wasn’t ready yet. I’m very sorry for the extra emails – it’s definitely not a good way for us to say thank you.

As soon as we realized what was happening, we stopped the new workflow so you should not be receiving any more incorrect emails. We’re changing how we manage workflow updates to make sure this never happens again.

Thank you!

-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim

I know sometimes it’s hard to swallow our pride, but the fact of the matter is that we’re human and mistakes happen.  When I scheduled the email to go out I started worrying a little about what type of response I’d get.  I’m still surprised at the responses I’ve received.

• 3 people asked me to never email them again
• 13 people sent me thank you messages

The thank you notes were such a wonderful reminder of how much people value an honest direct approach.  Here are some of the responses:

“How refreshing!  Admitting, apologizing and fixing an error. I appreciate this very much.” [Email]

“I was wondering about the massive number of emails. Thanks for the clarity.” [Email]

“Thanks for the clarification, I assumed I requested the wrong information.  I realized it did not affect my account and I simply deleted the duplicate messages – no worries at all.  These things happen and we move on.  Hope your Thanksgiving Holiday was enjoyable!” [Email]

“‘No worries man!  I love your site and I’ll provide any feedback or help you out in any way. ” [Email]

“Kevin – Thanks for your email.  I was thinking it was unusual to receive so many emails in such a short space of time.” [Email]

“Thank you so much for your message.  As a matter of fact, at first I was surprised by the messages, but it was pretty obvious there was a glitch somewhere.  It speaks very highly of the organization when you take the time to explain to the users what happened; it is not as common as it should be.  I just started testing DimDim, and if this is the support I can expect in the future, I’m sure I’ll be a very happy customer.  Thank you again and a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you.” [Email]

“Bravo ! Je viens de recevoir un courriel de DimDim qui s’excuse pour les nombreux courriels envoyés la semaine dernière. C’était une erreur” (Via Google Translate: “Bravo! I just received an email DimDim who apologizes for the many emails sent last week. It was a mistake”) [Twitter]

Next time you encounter a problem where an apology is needed, remember it’s not about you.  It’s about the customers who deserve your apology.

Thanks!

-k

For the September, 2009 Social Media Breakfast NH (#smbnh) at the Manchester, NH Public Library I gave this talk about my rules for community.  I call it ‘Kev’s Rules for Community’.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TUzBQ5TYeA

I try to live these rules every day–whether I’m engaging online via twitter, blogs, or any other tools.  The rules are simple:

1. Be Real (don’t be a bot)
2. Address the Need (not just the explicit ones)
3. Be the Gatekeeper (never be the roadblock)

These rules are part of a project I’m working on to get the Dimdim support team on Twitter, directly engaging with customers.  My goal was to go beyond just teaching the tools.  Anyone can create a Twitter account and jump into the conversation.  I wanted to make sure we are consistent in our approach.

I personally have a hard time following rules if there are too many to remember.  What are your rules?  Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter (@kevinmic)

-k

[Special thanks to Matt Turner (@onmatt, www.onmatt.com) for helping to pull all the examples together for this talk, and Leslie Poston (@geechee_girl, www.uptownuncorked.com) for the opportunity to speak.  I do so love to talk.]