Magical customer service

A colleague tells the following story:

“I was looking into getting photos of my daughter from a company that does birth announcements, photos, etc. So I tweeted about them. Later this week, I decided to order from them, and did so. Then I noticed that the company had reached out to me on Twitter to ask if there was anything they could do. I told them I’d ordered from them already, but thanks. He tweeted back that he’d put a rush on her order and discounted it 25%”.

Image via CrunchBase

As you can imagine, she was thrilled with this customer service. She had used this company for her daughter’s birth announcement, and now used them again, unprompted, for a birthday card.

This little bit of customer service, for a good customer, most-likely ensures two things.

1. She’ll use them again.

2. She’ll become an evangelist for the company. She told me about it, and talked about them in glowing terms.She’ll most likely do a tweet about it — she might even do a Facebook post about it. Regardless, she’ll tell more people than me. And since she knows new moms, she’ll tell them.

So lets look at what’s going on here. Nothing new.

This is called customer service to your best customers. There’s nothing new about that. People have been using loyalty cards (buy 9 get the 10th for free) for years. That’s offering something to a best customer.

What is new is the opportunity to listen in new places. A tweet. A post on a blog. These are places outside of the normal scope where your best customers are talking about your brand.

So listen. And act accordingly.

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