thederekjohnson.com

Here is a highlight reel of my talk at Washington Business Week. I will have the full version up within the next week, stay tuned!

As most of you know, I started another company this month called Derek Media which helps other companies manage their “social media” presence. To help businesses out there use social media tools, we have started to make quick tutorials. I have attached the first one below, let me know your feedback.

Click here to listen to the interview

Tony, the CEO of Zappos said it best, “The first dollar spent towards marketing should be spent on customer service.” We all know it, the greatest form of advertisement is word-of-mouth. But, how do we achieve it? How do we build evangelists for our brand? The answer is simple, amazing customer service. That’s it.

The game has changed, customer service has morphed far beyond a simple interaction via email during the period of 3-5 business days. True customer service is building a relationships, that’s why we like to call it, “customer love”. With strong customer service comes compassionate users, which in turn equates to increased traction and sales.

Below are a few tips to help transform your everyday customer service to “customer love”.

Factor it in - Too many businesses view customer service as icing on the cake. Let’s put it this way, it is the cake, a big fat slice of Oreo Cheesecake. Factor it in to your budget, staffing, etc. We hired our Community Manager, Alex for one reason, customer love. It was one of the best investments we’ve made.

Take it outside – Customer service has grown past a simple email exchange, you’ve got to put a face behind the exchange for it to truly be effective. People want to talk to a person, not an automated machine. It all relates back to transparency, connect with everyone you chat with on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else you can think of. Facebook has a great tool that allows you to easily import email addresses and add those contacts as friends, check it out here. Not only does this help to better the relationship with your users, it also helps to keep your users up to date with any new features or information about your company. Read More →

Give me your best customer support story in the comment section below, and I will pick the best to win a free year subscription to http://www.freshbooks.com

“The buck stops here” is a phrase that was popularized by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. The phrase refers to “passing the buck,” i.e., handing responsibility to someone else, and the fact that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions.