What’s your opinion on reinventing customer service? How about making it more social?  I see a major customer service conflict taking place between traditional and social customer service. And if we don’t get social, the conflict will only get more intense.

Perhaps you’ve seen signs of it: David Carroll serenading us with United Breaks Guitars.  Jeff Jarvis creating Hell for Dell.  A Comcast customer posting Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch.  John Winsor’s blogpost asking Is Your Customer Service Ready for the New World of Openness? about Boeing’s legalese form letter to a child passionate enough about airplanes to mail in a drawing …

All this happened because traditional customer service channels aren't equipped to deal with social feedback, prepared to respond and interact with people as individuals worthy of consideration and respect, or able to consider that complainers might be voicing legitimate concerns.

The traditional approach tolerates customer service as a necessary evil, a cost center to be minimized, perhaps even marginalized.  Forget social: It's too emotional.  Emotion opens an organization up to financial exposure and distracts from prudent focus on statistically significant trends.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  When you’re running a business, particularly on thin margins, the last thing you can afford to do is to write blank checks to everyone.  That’s not what I’m proposing with a social approach to customer service.

However, the tough traditional stance invites customers with valid complaints to seek out alternative solutions for being heard---increasingly in ways that can be heard not just within an intimate circle, but around the world.  Statistically insignificant is no longer relevant when customers can be as vocal as a head of state, thanks to the democratization of storytelling options.

Meaning that it behooves every organization to learn about humility and respect for customers and to inject that spirit into every silo.  All organizations exist, not in a avoid, but in a marketplace.  Business transactions take place between individuals--–not brands or companies---as a result of conversation based on careful listening, respect and trust. It's our humanity that leads to loyalty, brand fervor and word-of-mouth endorsements.

That’s making customer service more social.

The companies I refer to above have for the most part adopted a more social approach to customer service. A viral and public outcry forced them to reevaluate processes and interactions with customers, critics, advocates and supporters, and hire full-time customer advocates trained and empowered to listen, respond, and resolve issues (e.g, Frank Eliason @ComcastCares).   They have worked to welcome social feedback into their processes and are better for it, having discovered that customer feedback paves the way to invaluable business insights, worth far more than the original customer service costs.

Making customer service more social requires a radical rethinking of cost centers and hiring practices. Many traditional customer service departments are the domain of least-appreciated employees whose perspectives are rarely integrated into the overall business; they are expected to adhere to rigid scripts.

The crazy thing about rigidity, particularly corporate rigidity, is that it generates a David and Goliath reaction. As customers, we feel wronged.  We want to escalate the complaint, find a backdoor and express our frustration. We want to be acknowledged and listened to. We want to deal with people and not the system.

Be social in your customer service dealings. Defuse the frustration. Find resolution.

Look at how Zappos has differentiated themselves via their commitment to customer service, or rather customer care.  It is available 24/7, live via the phone as well as through social channels, such as Twitter. You may even interact directly with CEO Tony Hsieh.  That's making customer service social. Zappos has succeeded by being very social with talented, trained, passionate employees.

Boeing has graciously issued a social mea culpa, acknowledging mistakes. I'm hopeful they will embrace openness and newfound humanity in their interactions with customers.

Staples considers interaction with customers an opportunity for insights as well as delight, training customer-care representatives to interact on social channels while preserving the 'voice' and maintaining consistency.

Humility, respect for customers, a willingness to appreciate individuals within corporate walls as well as outside, a desire to improve and truly delight, proper training, openness to a variety of perspectives, a willingness to empower and be human and a strong desire to listen.  All characteristics of a social customer-service company.

What would you add?