A number of years ago I bought a product online from a company and was told it would take up to 2 weeks to be delivered.

I was a little annoyed, because I hadn’t been told this before I completed my purchase, but I needed the product and this was the only distributor in the area.

As the 2 week point arrived, I called the company and asked where my product was. They assured me it would be arriving shortly.

The 2 week mark came and went, and after a few more phone calls they admitted that they didn’t have the product in their warehouse and that it had not shipped yet.

To say that I was livid would be an understatement.

What added fuel to the fire was that they’d already charged my credit card for the product – a product they didn’t even have and wouldn’t be able to tell me when I would receive it!

I made a number of failed attempts to contact their customer service, and then, after reaching dead ends everywhere, I decided to take matters in my own hands.

This company had a Twitter and Facebook page. I went to those pages and told the story of what happened to me to warn other potential victims.

In addition to that, I looked up the investors of the business and found their email addresses. I then emailed them directly and told them that I was extremely displeased with the service I received, would not be doing business with them again and would warn everyone I knew to avoid doing any business with the company.

During this time I continued posting warnings on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

The following day, I (finally) received a phone call from one of the customer service reps pleading me to stop my onslaught on social media and to the company investors. He told me they were going into one of their retail stores, pulling the product from the shelf and sending the product to me that day in a cab. Oh, and they would be take 30% off the price.

I thanked the person and then posted an update on social media with the outcome and that I was satisfied with it.

How Social Media is Changing Customer Service

Social media is changing the way customers are interacting with companies, and this is actually a very good thing. It allows more open communication between the business and the customer, and lets the customer feel like they can reach an actual person.

In the old days, companies could ignore customer complaints. If a customer was dissatisfied with a product they could call the “customer service department”, which consisted of endless phone menus, frustration of not reaching a live person and then being patched through to someone in India who barely spoke English. The irate customer would eventually slam down the phone, swear never to do business with this company again and tell 10 of his friends. For a company with worldwide distribution, this wasn’t a big deal.

Nowadays, it’s a little different.

If a customer calls and is met with the above scenario, they’ll eventually give up and go to the company’s social media pages and complain about this company’s lack of customer service. This will cause all of the other customers who have been burned by the company’s customer service to come out and share their stories.

It won’t be long before someone else comes along and says “I was also burned by this company but found that product XYZ is better, cheaper, and I can actually reach a person on the phone to have a question answered.”

What you have here is a clear illustration of how companies go under – just like the Dilbert nightmare stories.

So what can you do about it?

Lifetime Customer Value

When a customer buys a product or uses your service, this is the beginning of the relationship, not the end. Your sigh of relief can’t come after the sale – it needs to be when the customer is satisfied with the product.

By understanding the true lifetime value of this customer you can open your business up to possibilities you never before imagined.

Dale Carnegie writes:

Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say “You’re Wrong.”

By making sure your customer is happy, you create a psychological need in them that makes them feel that they owe you. Help them with the problem their experiencing and you’ve significantly increased the chance that they’ll continue buying from you in the future – as well as refer your products to other people.

Social media is a tool for customer interaction, but it’s also a tool for customer feedback.

Fix your problems and make your customers happy, and you’ll have a wildly successful business.