Blackmailing Santa (a social media story)

Tom Fishburne's cartoons are always on the mark.

Social media is about sharing and feedback. And sharing feedback. It gives "power" to those who previously felt powerless.

We see this all the time in customer service, both in the real world and online. When someone has a less than desirable experience, they threaten to tell the world. And with social media, now they can — very easily.

When you're dealing with someone in person or over the phone, your advantage is that you are already having a one-to-one conversation. You have a good chance of resolving it and making your customer happy. That's within your power; whether you choose to do so is your decision.

But when the "feedback" is online, it's no longer a one-to-one conversation, it's a one-to-one-in-the-presence-of-many conversation. In essence, it's often an attempt to shame an organization into meeting one's expectations.

The good news is organizations can use these moments to show they listen, are responsive and want to make "it" [as in whatever set off the comment] right. This usually works. The commenter wants resolution more than attention — and you just gave both to them.

Of course there are times when the commenter really just wants attention — where they thrive on the "in-the-presence-of-many" part of the equation. 

That's when you need a social media escalation policy to clearly outline how to deal with comments that have an agenda of their own. The escalation policy is a ladder of response mechanisms that are aimed at satisfying a customer, resolving the issue or neutralizing the comment.

There is no single response escalation policy one can point to — the specifics must be discrete to each organization and its culture, brand and public persona. But it is essential to have that conversation within your organization so that you are ready the next time a social media bully pays a visit.

Try before you buy

What if you could let people truly experience your great service before they buy?

Virgin Atlantic brought its legendary "Upper Class" service to a park bench in New York City — complete with fine dining and "live" entertainment. 

In health care, customer service begins with active listening, communication and compassion. You can let people sample that experience out in the community through free events open to the public. 

Making a great connection with potential patients is important, but you must be able to replicate that same level of active listening, communication and compassion in every patient encounter, every day. 

Remember, that experience is your brand.

At Virgin Atlantic we fly in the face of ordinary with all that we do, and we wanted to bring a taste of that to the streets of NYC. So we took over an ordinary bench and gave unsuspecting park-goers a taste of the Virgin Atlantic experience.

Setting tasty expectations

Is it scripting — or coincidence?

I was at two Whole Foods Markets in the past week — in Hingham, Mass., and Cranston, R.I. — and had two similar, friendly exchanges with the check out clerks.

As the clerk scanned a particular item, he (men in both cases) asked me a casual question. It went something like this:

Clerk: "Have you tried that before?"

Me: "No, first time."

Clerk (enthusiastically, but very genuine): "It's amazing. You're going to love it. And it's so tasty, especially for being something so quick and easy to make."

Me (now eagerly awaiting to try it): "Sounds great!"

That was it. Some seemingly benign banter. But it was all about setting my expectations.

Health care struggles with setting expectations and it is reflected in patient satisfaction scores. An easy fix — and one that every patient and their family would welcome — is a little more frequent communication from caregivers, especially setting expectations for what is about to occur.

And when you don't set expectations, you don't have an opportunity to exceed them! 

So whether by scripting or coincidence — or better yet, culture — these two Whole Foods employees exceeded my shopping expectations.