I think my wife and I are a solid analogous example. She doesn’t do the “internet social thing” so she makes phone calls circa 1948. I hate the phone so I often use social media to resolve customer service issues circa 2012.

If a company only offers the phone *which many still do I find myself having to engage over a medium I hate. Unless companies start shutting down their 800 numbers I don’t think we are creating “customer chasms” we are just expanding our engagement.

Thanks for all the great comments, folks!

IMHO, I think many companies are using social media as a tool and not necessarily a strategy. It’s another marketing tool that enables them to reach and engage a broader audience. In some ways, I don’t see social media as a far cry from what most companies do to capture new customers or retain their loyal customers, via incentive (sign-up/enroll online & get a $5 credit, or use coupon code ONLINE and get $10 off, etc).

In Response to Jason: As to ‘unfair’, wiktionary.org defines unfair as: “In a manner that is unfair, which is not just.” I don’t think companies are being unfair by embracing the social media revolution. In general, each customer has the opportunity to also embrace these social media streams (Twitter, Facebook, etc) and potentially use them as leverage. Unfair, from my perspective, is limiting your customers reach or punishing them for what they are not able to readily access; which I don’t believe is true in most instances.

It’s a competitive business environment, if companies don’t start embracing the Web 2.0 revolution, they’ll surely fall behind or not meet their full potential. I don’t believe social media has created a customer chasm. It’s another tool that’s used to engage customer’s that have chosen social media as their ‘convenient’ method of interaction. Would we have had this same conversation when the internet first became so main-stream?

Thanks for getting those wheels turnin’ in my head this afternoon =)

I was there for a 3 hour stop before heading to a final destination. I sat down beside someone working on their computer and I noticed she was in our software, Business Plan Pro. That actually happens a lot, I’m happy to say. It makes me smile to randomly come across someone who is in the middle of writing a business plan. Business Plan Geek!

Anyway, she was working away but then I heard her muttering about not being able to figure something out, so I introduced myself and offered some help. I showed her how to find the function she was looking for, showed her how to access the help files that would help her in the future, and showed her a couple other things that might help her along the way. It made her happy and got her working again and made me feel like I’d been helpful.

So, I analogize our own small business and how we are embracing the new social media channels, however, to your other point, Social Media happens to be where our demographic, at least for the most part is hanging out. For example, we get a significant number of inquires, service requests etc through our facebook page. That is not exactly convenient or efficient for us as an operator, but we are adapting, because that appears to be the tool of the day that our customer wants to utilize to communicate. But when you are a small shop, it is challenging to be able to service and monitor the various venues.

Life used to be simple, there was a phone book and a phone and an in box. It is much different today.

Thanks so much for the kind words. For me to inspire you is an absolute thrill, as I have giant respect for you and your work. (and, you’re just super fun to be around).

Meanwhile, I completely agree with you premise of determining a customer service strategy. To me, there’s not enough attention being paid to integrated customer experience. How do we want to treat customers across ALL channels (phone, Web, social media, mail, email, at POS, etc.). My good friend Maggie Young at Red Flag Consulting is the queen of this program. She consults with companies to unify their customer experience so that the packing slip in the box has the same approach as the on-hold message, etc.

You’re so right that the usual thinking around this is “how can we reduce our average cost per customer contact” which certainly doesn’t always breed the ideal customer relations scenario. Interestingly, however, that’s why I think there’s so much promise for Twitter-based customer support. It’s both less expensive for the company, and (seemingly for now) more desirable for the customer.

Thanks for bringing me back into the loop on this topic. I hope more is written about it in the coming months.

Hope to see you in sunny CA soon.

j