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Buffer – A Perfect Example of Great Customer Communication

July 31, 2012 By 2 Comments

I’ve been using Buffer for months now and it’s value to me as a content curation and scheduling tool is huge. This post is however not about the product itself, but about the superb standard of customer communication the Buffer team show on a daily basis.

Rapid Response

The Twitter account for Buffer (@bufferapp) is run by many of the founders of the service, giving it a real sense of authenticity while displaying a will for the life-blood of the start-up to interact with its community. If a question from a user is posed via the account, the response is slick and indeed quick. No problem seems to be too much for the team to look in to. They don’t just respond to direct interactions either, they are clearly actively listening and seeking opportunities to communicate with their customer base. I recently bigged them up in a tweet and within minutes received a thank you from co-founder Leo Widrich. They are really unleashing the power of Twitter as a customer service channel.

Aside from communicating directly, the Buffer guys make good use of content by regularly tweeting links to interesting articles and news stories. They also produce their own content over on their pretty nifty blog. All in all, a best practice use of Twitter.

Not Just about Twitter

When Buffer releases a new update or adds a new feature, its users receive an email explaining the change. That’s nothing staggering, however it is a nice touch (Facebook take note!). The real wow factor comes at the end of the email. The founders make it clear that they are available for the next three hours to answer any questions via email. I tested this recently, suggesting that they try to integrate Buffer with Flipboard (who, incidentally are also awesome at customer comms). Within 5 minutes I had a response from Leo, thanking me for the suggestion and telling me that he would get on the case immediately. Impressive stuff.

They are also active on Facebook and appear to be growing a nice little community over there, the Page hosts a variety of content that attract strong interactions.

Benchmark

Your business should be striving for this level of quality. Especially in the case of start-ups like Buffer – if you serve and respect your customers from day one, you will quickly build trust and lay down the foundations of success and of course, learn a lot about your product and customer base at the same time.

I’m in the process of setting up my digital marketing and communications consultancy and can help you to communicate effectively using the abundance of digital tools available today. See here for more info.

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Filed Under: Social Media Customer Service Tagged With: ,

Friday Freak Out – Facebook’s Freaking ‘Top Friends’ Updates

July 13, 2012 By 4 Comments

After my freak out last week about the flaming awful Facebook mobile app experience, I thought my ire towards Facebook may have been buried for a while. How I was wrong…

Pain in the Ass ‘Top Friends’ Notifications

Last Monday my iPhone started receiving push notifications via Facebook along the lines of:

  • John Smith added a new photo
  • Dave McDave made a new comment
  • Joe Bloggs liked a post

These notifications had a stupid little star icon beside them. They were new and about as welcome as a vindaloo powered fart in a space suit. I only have notifications firing through to my phone if one of my Facebook pals does something that is directly related to me. Other than that, I don’t need to stalk their every move.

The Typical Facebook Lack of Choice

Perhaps I’m being over-sensitive, but it really annoyed me that Facebook had decided that these notifications would just randomly start to be sent, with no opt-in or prior warning. I decided to try and turn them off. Within iOS, the setting for many apps are accessed via the ‘general settings’ menu on the phone itself, not within the actual app. This is indeed the case with Facebook, however, there is no option for turning this particular type of push notification off within this swathe of settings. No, you need to go into the app, to a second set of settings (main menu>settings>Facebook notifications>Push notifications) and untick ‘Top Friend Activity’

That will stop them coming through to your phone. It all just pangs (again) of Facebook’s disregard for the wishes of users. It really wouldn’t be that difficult for Facebook to improve its user communications and make grumpy folks like me a little bit happier. Google are doing this very well with Plus. Shame none of my friends are on it…

You may wish to tell me I am being a little over-sensitive, let off some Facebook related steam, or even just say hello and tell me to calm down and reduce my amount of grey hairs. Whatever you wish to do, the comments section below is yours to play with…

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Filed Under: Friday Freak Outs Tagged With:

The Best Practice Guide to Blogger Outreach

July 11, 2012 By 2 Comments

Blogger outreach. Those two words often send a shudder down the spine of PR and comms people worldwide. The fact is, that many people in the industry really struggle to understand how to forge and maintain effective relationships with bloggers. I’ve ranted before about terrible blogger outreach pitches and as a blogger there is nothing worse than being contacted by a brand or agency with a misguided, poorly researched pitch. Of course, there are many people at agencies and brands that really know what they are doing, and they are the reason why many productive blogger/business relationships do exist.

If you are struggling to see any success from your blogger outreach efforts, you may well wish to download the new ebook from Inkybee – ‘The Best Practice Guide for Effective Blogger Outreach’. The chaps at Inkybee asked me to run my eye over the guide and I can honestly say it makes a lot of sense from a blogger’s point of view. It also looks pretty which is always a help! There will never be a guide that is a silver bullet for blogger outreach, but the advice and processes in this ebook will help. Honest! Download it here.


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Filed Under: Blogger Outreach Tagged With: , ,

Would You Pay For Twitter? [OPINION]

July 10, 2012 By 8 Comments

Twitter is a really important part of my life. That may sound a little overblown or even a bit sad, however it’s true. It has helped my career massively and The Social Penguin Blog would struggle to exist without the traffic and interaction it creates. I’ve been thinking recently if I would pay to use Twitter and I am pretty sure that I would, especially if the future of the platform depended on it. It got me thinking, can services like Twitter stay free forever?

The Simplest Form of Monetisation

Twitter has, and is struggling to make money. Its ad model is far from perfect and isn’t even obtainable to the majority of businesses due to the expensive nature of the ads (options for smaller businesses are coming). Aside from the cost of products such as promoted trends, there is little evidence of any real ROI. So what if the ad model never really takes off  and Twitter decide to start asking users to pay? Not a huge amount of money, but a few pounds/dollars etc a month? After all, paying for products and services is hardly an alien concept to us humans, right? It’s the most obvious way for  a service like Twitter to make money and survive.

If they did take that step, what would they need to do justify that?

  • Really clamp down on the huge amounts of spam
  • Offer an ad-free option for those who pay
  • Ensure that it is so robust that it never goes down (although the ‘fail whale‘ is rare these days)
  • Be 110% committed to a truly excellent user experience

If the future of Twitter depended on paid subscriptions, would people pay? I asked Twitter:

@Tambourinos - ‘negative, however I do think most of the internet will cease to be free in the near future’

@ginandting - ‘Yes, but I’d want some added value for that (no ads, more features, etc)’

@_NatStar  - ‘I wouldn’t want to on principle. But could I live without it? Probably not. So I’d be likely to give in’

@Calzo - ‘Nope. It would turn into a bunch of companies trying to sell their products to each other. There would be no customers’

@UKHaiku – ‘Yes, if it was instead of any advertising or non-anonymised use of my data. I also reserve the right to my choice of client’

@btocher – ‘We’re already subjected to adverts on some Twitter clients, so I’d be very reluctant indeed’

@jackiecameron1 – ‘so far I have not paid for any social networking so I can’t imagine why that would change’

@craigmcgill – ‘Yes. But wouldn’t pay for Facebook’

@theFullSouter – ‘Absolutely! Twitter is my jam. I only use Facebook because friends and family do. I tried to hold out but caved’

A real mix of opinion there, interesting that people would pay for Twitter use over Facebook. This post has had real value added to it by those quotes, thanks to those who submitted feedback.

So, over to you folks, does Twitter offer you enough value to validate paying for the service? If it was a live or die situation for Twitter would you pay to help it survive? If Twitter allowed donations, ala Wikipedia, would you throw them a payment from time to time? Please do tell us your thoughts in the comments section below…

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Filed Under: Consumer Opinion Tagged With: ,

Friday Freak Out – Facebook’s Murderous Mobile Experience

July 6, 2012 By 13 Comments

By the time this loads, I’ll be wearing only beige and brown colours.

Do you recognise the above?!?

That’s what I see every time I launch the Facebook iPhone (and often iPad) application. Not for a split second, oh no, I’m talking about 30-40 seconds. In this age of super fast apps and (most of the time) connections, that is just far from acceptable. It doesn’t stop at load times either, I reckon that 7/10 times I try to upload a photo via the app, it also fails.  I can’t speak for Android versions as obviously I wouldn’t lower myself to using such a device. I jest, I jest!

The biggest social network in the world, with the worst mobile experience of the lot. Poor show ‘Zuck’.

The Arrogance of Facebook

We all know that the Facebook IPO sucked. The reasons for this appear to be many, however I can’t help but feel a lack of real commitment to mobile must have played a part. While the web version of the network works pretty well, the mobile experience has been left to dissolve. Yes, they introduced Timeline to the mobile gambit, however I see no signs of improvement of the speed of the app in general. This is despite the fact that the tech community and Facebook user-base have been vocally grumbling about these issues for a long, long time.

One of my Twitter pals – @TourDeFarce sums it up nicely (and rather amusingly)

“I avoid using the iPhone app where possible and only really use the desktop site now. This is especially annoying when it comes to keeping tabs on Birthdays and other Events, as they load up so slowly the time has often passed”

It all pangs of the typical arrogance that Facebook display with the sweeping changes they regularly force upon their users with zero regard for the life-blood of the social behemoth. There  is no way that they aren’t aware of the dissatisfaction of their users, yet they choose to let the dissatisfaction continue for far too long.

When will Facebook Fix it?

When Facebook decide to start rolling out their advertising model to mobile apps, I have a funny feeling things will get a lot faster. Until then, I’m sticking to the web version. Its the best way to find out how much people hate their jobs, the rain, their partners and what was consumed for that night’s dinner. Disclaimer – my friends do say interesting stuff, honest.

Are you sick of the Facebook mobile experience? Vent in the comment below. We are using the new Disqus, give it a go!

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Filed Under: Facebook

The Physical Social Network That’s Keeping it Real

July 4, 2012 By 13 Comments

It started with a mysterious tweet asking me if I’d be interested in getting involved in a new social network. ‘Sure’ I said, tell me more. It turns out the social network involves sending actual bits of mail to a real-life address. My intrigue was huge, my interest large and indeed my curiosity colossal. Tick followed tock, emails between myself and this network they call ‘Real‘ flew back and forth and before I knew it, the rather wonderful package below arrived on my desk…

So you physically send stuff in?!?

Yes. You use the freepost envelopes to send items of your choice to the network. These items are then displayed within a ‘plot’ in a gallery in London. I am one of the 50 ‘founder members’ (I’m plot #67) and there are 100 plots in total. The plot owners can communicate with each other via mail – the people at Real collect and distribute the little cards with hand-written messages. The plots can be viewed online here or visited in real life. It’s all about the joy of mail and I must admit, when the weighty pack arrived, I was blooming well excited. I’ve now sent my first items to Real (Real supply plenty of postage paid envelopes) and there was indeed something special about sealing up the crisp white envelope and sending it on its merry way.

This is cool, very very cool and I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.I’ll update you on the state of my plot #67 over the coming weeks. Visit the official site here or follow on Twitter here.

I happen to have an invite, if you want it, please leave a comment below telling me why you still love the Real and tangible aspects of life and I will pick my favourite. Of course, the invite will be sent via post!

What do you think about this project? Great idea? Not so much? Let me know in the comments below!

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Filed Under: Social Networks

Has Social Media Changed the Meaning of Customer?

July 2, 2012 By 13 Comments

The definition of customer is:

‘a person who purchases goods or services from another;buyer’

I think that social media has blurred that definition. Before the social web gave the masses a voice, a business would really only have to answer to its customers in the very basic sense of the word – those who had bought their service or product. Fast forward to now and many businesses have opened themselves up to the attention that the social web can bring.

Are your followers/fans/readers your customers?

Bear with me here, but I think that when a person decides to follow (etc etc) a brand on social media, they become a customer. They may never actually buy one of your purple widgets, however by taking the time to want to hear from or even interact with that business online, they expect a certain standard of service and even product. When I say product, I mean product. The approach a business takes to its use of the social media channel and the output of that is a product, and the people that give a little bit of their valuable time to consume that product are now customers. Customers that may never physically buy from you – yet in this day and age you have a responsibility to treat that person with as much respect as you would someone who just bought your latest widget. They are paying you with their time. If you don’t, they have the power to make a relatively big noise about your lack of respect or service. That noise may well alter the purchase process of a person who is on the very precipice of buying your product. Boom! Sale gone due to a lacklustre approach to your now extended, non-transactory customer base.

Aspirational Customers

I want a Ferrari. I cannot afford a Ferrari, and if I keep spending my time writing this blog, I may never be able to (sob). However, I love the brand and consume a lot of their content online. I’m a new age customer of Ferrari. If someone asks me what the coolest car ever is, I will tell them that it is the Ferrari Testarossa. I had actual posters of it on my wall as a teen. Right beside Pammy, but that’s a different story. If I was to have a rotten experience with Ferrari via social media, it would absolutely taint my view of the brand. If I felt that Ferrari were churning out awful content just for the sake of creating content, a little bit of my love for Ferrari would die. Fast forward again and I’ve sold The Social Penguin Blog for billions – I finally have the money to buy my Ferrari. Except my yearning Ferrari passion has dwindled due to poor customer service. I buy a Lamborghini instead. If only Ferrari had answered my tweet…

Come on Mike, Isn’t That a Little Over the Top?

Okay, so the Ferrari example is perhaps a little overblown, however I firmly believe that all brands/businesses/organisations or whatever need to seriously consider that people that invest their time with them via social media should be treated with the same respect and attention that those who ‘pony up’ for their products or services receive. It’s the new way of the world.

Now where’s that poster…

What do you think folks? Is my view a little utopic? Am I right? Has social media created a new type of customer? Tell me your thought in the comments below!

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Filed Under: Social Media Customer Service Tagged With: