Jeff Jarvis started a blog storm towards Dell in 2005, about poor service and technical issues. He vented steam on his blog (Buzz Machine) under the headline: “Dell sucks.” This became a viral firestorm, where other consumers agreed with Jeff. Dell was compelled to get involved in Social Media. Dell started reading blogs and responding to customer complaints in various social media channels. “It dispatched technicians to reach out to complaining bloggers and solve their problems, earning pleasantly surprised buzz in return. That July, Dell started its Direct2Dell blog, where it quickly had to deal with a burning-battery issue and where chief blogger Lionel Menchaca gave the company a frank and credible human voice.” Sourced from Business Week.
Another company that takes technical support serious is Microsoft, for its XBOX product.
“Less than a year after starting Twitter support, the Xbox Support Elite Tweet Fleet has become a major leg of the Xbox support foundation, pulling in the highest customer satisfaction rates across various support channels.” Mckenzie Eakin (Microsoft-XBOX Tweet Support) Sourced from XBOX Support.
They were awarded the Gunnies Record for Best Brand on Twitter.
Twitter has worked both ways for Microsoft, It has allowed technical staff to find issues fast, and it also serves to have the fasted way to alert users of services issues, fixes etc, before the calls, emails, and letters start coming one after the other.
Microsoft has 10 dedicated tweet support reps. “We keep almost all tweets public. We want our dirty laundry out there because we don’t want to have dirty laundry” says Eakin.
Mckenzie Eakin from Xbox says that “the type of engagement happening onTwiiter would rarely reach a call centre.”
By of using the social media/blog as a new channel for technical support Microsoft has managed to find and trouble shoot issues before they become live calls, which is the most expensive mode of service. Overall they technical support cost has decreased.
- Decreased administration cost,
- Fewer staff,
- Minimized repetition of faults, by mass communication
- And collaboration between uses online, to assist each other
Leads to an enormous overhead cost reduction that Microsoft is enjoying because of Social Media!!
There is a risk with supporting a product in public domain, primarily because in the new channels the discussions are totally controlled by customers and hence very difficult for product companies to make sure their technical support through the new media channels is consistent with other channels. This will be the challenge for product and even service entities.
How best a company can leverage Social Media for technical support? To successfully implement technical support via Social Media, What do companies need to think about?
The required number of resources?
Do you address all issues; if not how do you prioritize?
Will it be aim to be proactive support, or more of damage control?, Dell has started to listen to it follow bloggers “Dell is following their advice, selling Linux computers and reducing the promotional “bloatware” that clogs machines. Today, Dell even enables customers to rate its products on its site.” Microsoft aswell has decided to follow the proactive approach, engaging and getting users feedback. Here are the Stats for Microsoft Xbox:-
The Microsoft cases reveals that the new media channels needs to be more than marketing initiative; it needs to be another official channel for providing support, besides phone, email and chat, which at the end of the day results in exceeded customer satisfaction. Yes there are concerns which need to be thought off and planned for but overall one cannot ignore the benefits.
So will we see more product companies supporting their customers using the new media channels? I believe yes .Personally I hope never again to call a call centre AND be greeted with a pre –recorded message, waiting for service. I want to get technical support online!, and Social Media intergration with products (eg. Xbox) just aids the cause and makes it make more sense!
