Customer Service is the New Marketing

I threatened on Twitter last week that I'd start blogging again, and so I have! I did, however, refrain from adding posts to my 2008 blog, which was an amusing blast from the past (PowerSet? Mahalo?), but didn't quite feel relevant. So we're starting fresh!

I was thinking today about brand equity and how companies can better build it. 

Now when most people think of brand equity, they think it's the purview of the marketing department.

But when you think of brands like Zappos, Kimpton Hotels, or United Airlines, what comes to mind? Their advertising?

For most people the answer is no. 

They think of customer service.

Whether for good or ill, one interaction can make or break a customer's relationship with that company. I know many people who will "never fly United again" or, conversely, who are rabid fans of Kimpton. 

I'm pretty sure the people who will never fly United don't feel that way because they don't particularly like Gershwin's music. 

It's because they had a bad experience, or they had a friend who had a bad experience. 

And now that social media makes so many interactions public, it's even more important for companies to respond well to their customers' issues.

Dimensional Research reports:

• 42% of consumers purchased more frequently from a business after a good customer service experience.
• 52% stopped dealing with a business after a bad experience.
• 95% of the people surveyed admit that they have told someone about a negative customer service experience. 
• 54% of those people who have shared their negative experience have, at least on one occasion, told a minimum of five people.

In short, customer service is the new marketing. 
 
And a good experience isn't just about responding well... it's also about responding quickly.

In a study by The Social Habit (cited by Sprout Social), 32% of people contacting a company via social channels expect a response within 30 minutes. And only slightly less -- 24% -- expect a reply within 30 minutes regardless of when the contact was made — meaning the same response time is expected at night and on the weekends as during normal business hours.
 
The average response time for a company? It's a bit longer -- 4.2 hours, according to a recent study by Simply Measured.

Clearly there is some room for improvement here.

In my next blog post, we'll discuss various techniques and tools that marketing and customer service groups can use to respond more quickly and team together to deliver a quality customer experience.