Tag Archives: social media

Will We Witness a Customer Service Revolution Thanks to Twitter?

Content & Social, Marketing, , , , ,

Does your business offer customer service via Twitter? 

Have you ever had cause to complain to or compliment a company on Twitter?

Personally I’ve often found it works better than phone or email. Take British Airways for example. I’ll get fed up hanging on phone. If it’s an urgent flight query email is too slow.

When tweeted British Airways are quick to reply. Other companies don’t embrace the instantaneous nature of Twitter though. Days can go by before ScotRail or TransPennine Express put fingers to keyboard.

There’s a flaw though.

Customer Service Revolution

The 140 character limit on tweets and twitter direct messages limits interactions. The company you’re tweeting with has to suggest an alternative method of communication to continue the conversation. And that usually means defaulting back to either phone or email.

Twitter are about to revolutionise customer service communications by removing the 140 limit from direct messages.

It’s genius.

They keep the micro-blogging advantage of the main social media platform but allow full conversations to take place in private.

For those companies that choose to embrace this innovation it’ll introduce a whole new opportunity to WOW their customers. Will you be doing this?

On the other side of the coin it also means those who choose to use automatic scheduling  software to send direct messages will be able to fill our in boxes with more clutter. But I’ll gladly put up with the latter’s inconvennience to take advantage of the former.

A question for you: How do you use Twitter to give great service to your customers? Please share your thoughts on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.

Peter Timberlake on How to Build a Successful Media Profile – MPAF47

MPAF Podcast, , , , , , ,

Journalists require a constant stream of stories and content to satisfy 24 online demand for news.

Only a handful of financial advisers activity engage with the media to provide comment and material. So a huge opportunity exists for other advisers to build their own media profiles.

My guest has been doing communications and PR for over 30 years and you can benefit from his experience here. Peter’s interview is a masterclass in how to give journalists what they need and supercharge your media profile at the same time.

Listen to Peter talk about media commentating, being accessible to journalists, and how to deliver the Holy Grail – The Case Study.

You can also hear his valuable advice about blogging, LinkedIn Publishing and Social Media right here in Episode 47 of the Marketing Protection and Finance Podcast.

Peter Timberlake on How to Build a Successful Media Profile

Who is Peter Timberlake?

Peter’s communications specialist with over 30 years’ experience across multiple audiences and media including financial services trade press, consumer personal finance press, city/business media, specialist lifestyle publications, broadcast and digital media, political and policymakers, IFAs, lobby groups and worthy causes.

He’s an external communications leader with experience of managing combined press office, public affairs and corporate responsibility team and building the function from scratch.

He helps leading organisations manage and enhance their brand and reputation and achieve strategic communications objectives.

He’s held senior positions at Standard Life and Friends Life and currently works as Head of Communications for the Financial Reporting Council.

Peter’s links:

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No Excuse After FG15/4 – Time to Nail Your Social Media Strategy

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Have compliance concerns stopped you using Social Media?

Back in 2010 the FCA raised concerns about using Facebook and Twitter to promote products. Many interpreted this as a wider concern about using Social Media in general.

The result. Some companies don’t use social media. Others set up such draconian approval processes that they may as well not use social media.

SMCompliance

The FCA’s just published guidance paper, FG15/4:Social media and customer communications: The FCA’s supervisory approach to financial promotions in social media, means there are no excuses now for not developing a social media strategy.

Yes a social media post could be a financial promotion if it plugs the features of a specific product and its performance and needs balance and the usual warnings (quite difficult on channels with character limits). But this was true before the guidance so nothing has changed.

Social media posts could also point to compliant content elsewhere or offer comments on current issues. They are mainly about engagement.

At a high level I’ve always believed the way to stay compliant on social media is to adopt the following approach.

Don’t Push Product – Point to Great Content.

The FCA’s guidance says the same in a well written 20 page PDF with plenty of examples and illustrations.

So that’s it.

If compliance concerns held you back before, it’s now time to look at your social media strategy.

It’s time to ditch the 48 hour SLA’s for Tweet approvals. It’s time to start creating great content and using social media to find potential customers, engage them, and point to your great content.

Now it’s your turn:

What do you think of the FCA’s guidance on social media and customer communications? Please leave a comment.

If you are looking to put together a social media strategy I can help you. Please get in touch.