What Social Media Can Do for Your Company

The Power of Social Media

This is an abridged story from an actual blog (used with permission).  We’re posting it here because it shows how you can really unleash the power of social media.

This story comes off the tail of a terrible experience with a cable company.  A person who does freelance web design and his wife, who freelanced for a major computer company, were given the runaround on getting internet service for 2 weeks.  This meant weeks of lost business and potential clients.  Blame was continually passed along, no one seemed to be able to take action or know what was going on.  Several people of varying levels of customer service could not provide a solution.  The bad experience was blogged about and tweeted.  Here’s the story of what happened next:

“That night, I think around 8:00, I got a tweet from someone who said he worked at Cablevision.  Turns out, he’s the VP of Media Relations for the company.  He wanted to make things right.  I sent him an email, and he said he was going to make things happen first thing in the morning.  He seemed sincerely sorry for what had happened.

By 11:30am, I received a phone call from someone else who apparently had the power to act.  He also seemed sincerely sorry and tried to work with me.  First, he gave me more than the promised 2/3 month credit on my bill.  Second, he said he’d send out a senior tech to see what he could do, even if it was temporary, so that I wouldn’t have to have waited a total of 3-4 weeks.

Within an hour, I had three techs at my house, all at a fairly high level from what I gathered.  These guys were a class act, and every one of them was friendly, professional, informative, and worked hard to make things happen.  I did pass on their names with a positive report to both high level executives I talked to.  They spent an hour here, and found a problem.  Oddly enough, it was a problem that could have been fixed on the very first visit two weeks ago.  They took care of that, and my internet has been working flawlessly ever since.  The second executive also gave me his direct line, so I can access him if there is any further  problem.

It’s funny, you’d think I’d be pretty mad that the whole situation could have been avoided right away if the first tech didn’t miss something.  I’m not though.  People make mistakes, and that happens.  I’m honestly more frustrated with how things were handled and the lack of internal communication early on.  That was just people being ill equipped at their level, and people dropping the ball along the way.  All that is done now.  Here’s the bottom line: Eventually people that “shouldn’t” have been involved did, took initiative, and made things right.  That’s what a good company does, and here Cablevision did it.”

Not only was a customer saved, but the customer overlooked future difficulties, and gave them positive PR afterwards.  Effective use of social media netted big gains.  Here’s what they did right:

• They had people looking for problems and monitoring social media. And it wasn’t someone without any power, it was a VP.  They know how important this stuff is.
• Someone at a high level cared enough to take action.  I’m sure this guy has more important things to do.  He didn’t think so.  He made contact personally and made sure this was taken care of.
• Someone who had power tried to make things right.  You can let people deal with phone calls all day.  If they don’t have the power to do something about it, it means nothing.  Someone who had the power to do it, did.
• They made sure I had continual contact. Scott, the second executive who made contact, gave his personal direct line so he could be contacted for anything, now and future, and Cablevision’s system could be avoided.  That is trust, and that is helpful.  Having it made a huge difference.
• They made it right.  Scott understood the situation, got people involved, and fixed it.  He also helped with the bill.  He apologized, claimed fault, and backed it up.

If you are a business person, you need to be involved in social media.  This is now too important to avoid.   If your’e interested in talking more about how to improve your social media presence, contact us at Delia Associates today!

About The Author

We specialize in b2b, supporting the clients who are the "The Brands Behind the Brands." These are the supply chain partners of brands, either in Tier 1 or Tier 2 positions, who drive value through the delivery of goods, services and technologies. We enjoy blogging about all things related to Branding, Marketing, Inbound, Tradeshows, etc... And we're always happy to talk about any ideas you may have that might Get You To Your NEXT!