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Social Customer Service comes of age

8/8/2014

Fortunately or unfortunately I have just had the opportunity to ride out Hurricane Iselle on Maui. Now don't feel too sorry for me. The last few days have been incredible and honestly we dodged a major bullet as it looks like the storm has veered west southwest of the islands.

That all said the most impressive aspect of this whole experience has been how well we have been able communicate with our chosen airlines and hotels via Social Media.

From Airlines flight updates and personal responses to our enquiries via Facebook and Twitter to the five minute response time from our hotel on the big island regarding potential changes to out reservations. All I can say is I am impressed. There is no doubt that Social Customer Service has come of age.

So what's the take away.

Simply put if you do not have social built into your Customer Service systems you are missing the boat big time. The days of toll free numbers are so last century. Customers want to use Social to interact with your brand and if you are not setup to respond back in a timely fashion you are not serving your customers. Worst of all your failures are broadcast for the world and your competitors to see.

Salesforce.com has been pushing this for years and there were lots of people that chuckled and called it all marketing hype.

Well I can tell you we have we just been on the receiving end of Social Customer Service done right and I can tell you that they were spot on. Social customer service is here, here to stay and Salesforce.com gets that.

The question is do you?

How to establish your Insurance Agency as a thought leader

8/7/2013

The great thing about running an agency today, is that all the tools now exist to enable you to position your agency as a thought leader in the minds of your prospects and customers.

So what are these tools?

Website
blog
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

Once you have assembled your toolbox, you have all the resources in place to begin establishing your agency as a thought leader.

Although, there is still one thing missing and that is great content.

The days of creating sales brochure style content are over. Today great content must be useful and informative. It needs to be content that makes your customers go, "wow, that is really good information". Independent studies shows consumers are 60% through the buying decision before reaching out to an agent for help. No content no policy.

Now I know some may question, " Well isn't that the magic sauce? Are you not giving away all of your secrets?". To this my answer is always the same - if it was that easy then what value are you really bringing to the table? Your prospects would not need you as they would just do it themselves.

The reality is what you do is much more complex. You have invested blood and sweat in putting in place the procedures, the staff, the relationships with carriers that make your agency tick. Your objective is to have your customer or prospect choose you over another agent that has that same infrastructure in place.

Your toolbox for effective thought leadership are the tools listed toward the beginning of this post. The information you share on your blog, which you then distribute via social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are your weapons in your battle against your competitors to be that #1 choice. Make sure you have good content in place to win it.

Social Customer Service comes of age

How to establish your Insurance Agency as a thought leader

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