Customer Service Goes Social!

The host of The Social Network show, experimental psychologist “Dr. J,” Jane Karwoski, welcomes her guest Erik Qualman to the show. Erik is often called a Digital Dale Carnegie. He is a #1 best-selling author and motivational keynote speaker, having spoken in 42 different countries. His book Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business made Amazon's #1 best-selling list for the US, Japan, the UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany. His work has been featured on almost every media outlet including 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and ABC News.

His 2014 book What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube is already being adopted by universities and companies for training purposes and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. It’s been followed by What Happens on Campus Stays on YouTube.

We’ve seen more and more big brands turning to social media networks to as a way to augment customer service. Erik’s response to the question, “Does that tactic seem to be working?” is that done right, it definitely does work. It provides another access point to the company for the customer. It isn’t about technology; it’s a relationship play. As in cultivating any relationship, hard work goes into it.

Erik compares the turn to social media to the transition from strictly telephone customer service to E-mail. It was seldom a whole-sale turnover, rather a shifting of emphasis. Then and now, there are times when “talking to a real human” is perceived as essential by the customer.

Making the most of those needs, Zappos redirected $40 million earmarked for traditional marketing and put it into customer service. One change was to empower the rep to resolve any issue under $100 without going to their manager. That saved time and reduced customer frustration, but on the other hand, Zappos stopped considering call time as the metric of success and looked at the net promoter score. Thinking of the company as being in the business, not of selling shoes, but of customer service, reps can stay on the phone chatting with customers or finding answers to any question that comes up, whether or not it has to do with the transaction.

One theme Erik brought out was the desire to “surprise and delight” the customer. By scanning social media, companies can capitalize on opportunities. A prime example was when Wheat Thins picked up on a Tweet reading, “Ah! I’m out of Wheat Thins! My life’s officially over!” The company spotted that, found her, and showed up with a pallet of Wheat Thins. The video of the event went viral.

Mr. Qualman has himself surprised and delighted classes he found with hashtag searches that were discussing any of his books. He joins the conversation and offers to ‘Skype into’ the class to discuss the book personally. As a result of such meetings, he realized the need for a campus edition with more emphasis on cyberbullying and sexual harassment to curb both practices. In What Happens on Campus Stays on YouTube!, he also focuses on what to post, rather than on what not to do, helping students build a solid, positive digital reputation.

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Erik Qualman is often called a Digital Dale Carnegie. He is a #1 Best Selling Author and Motivational Keynote Speaker that has spoken in 42 countries. His book Socialnomics was a finalist for Book of the Year from the American Marketing Association and is about how social media transforms the way we live and do business. Socialnomics made Amazon's #1 Best Selling List for the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Portugal, Italy, China, Korea and Germany.

His work has been featured on 60 Minutes,  and ABC News,  and featured in Forbes and The Wall Street Journal as well as used by the National Guard and NASA.  Qualman is a sitting professor at the Harvard & MIT edX lab and was named a Top 50 Professor in the world.

His latest book What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube is already being adopted by Universities and Companies for training purposes. As such, he was named to Forbes Top 50 Digital Power Influencers List.

He recently gave the commencement address to 4,000 people at the University of Texas and has given keynotes for Coach, Sony PlayStation, IBM, Facebook, Starbucks, M&M/Mars, Cartier, Montblanc, TEDx, Polo, UGG, Nokia, Google, and more.

His work has been featured on almost every major media platform in addition to the aforementioned.

Qualman wrote and produced the world's most watched social media video "Social Media Revolution." He also holds a Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous podcast.

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn and his website.

A little more about Your Host, Dr. J Jane is an author, entrepreneur, and Chief Science Officer of Social Network Intermedia LLC. She’s an adjunct professor at UNLV, regularly teaching History of Psychology and Sensation & Perception online.

Connect with Jane by following @socialnetshow2 on Twitter, LinkedIn.com/in/janekarwoski, emailing her via questions@thesocialnetworkstation.com, or posting a comment to any blog post at thesocialnetworkshow.com/blog/