Customer service is all about capturing and listening to your customers, and the phone and certainly social media can’t replace the human touch.  People are not particularly adept at listening on social media – really listening.  We tend to talk at each other when we chat, text, tweet, and post.  Even when you have the human touch, you need to to want to listen to those customers.  Simply put, there is just no substitute for listening to your customers and then keep listening, because as Kent Huffman, CMO at BearCom Wireless Worldwide says, “If you do, they’ll tell you exactly what they want and need, which in turn will enable you to make the changes necessary to turn those customers into rabid proponents for your company.”

Customers don’t and won’t care about you until you deliver and keep your brand promise to them, and that requires you to do one thing first:  care about them.  That’s why I spend so much time creating programs that directly connect to my customers.  Great change agents know they need to do this, and to do it the way our customers want it, not just the way we want to do it.  My friend Ray Tom echoes this when he “strives to give excellent customer service, which incorporates the focus of making your customer’s job easier.”  So does Ronald M. Turner, CME, president of We Care/HydroMaid, who knows, “The best decisions are made after you look at the problem or program from the customer’s point of view.”