社交媒体经理必须围绕糟糕的商业模式工作

如果您曾经被航空公司搞砸了，请举手。是的，我也多次。

最近，曼联航空公司在我和同事离开前一个小时取消了我从克利夫兰出发的航班。当我们问该怎么办10 hours, the airline said it couldn't help. When we requested a hotel, we got the same response.

在这场混乱之中,我把Twitter和began venting my frustrations to @United. During the conversation, this magical little tweet came in from @AmericanAir:

@anum让我们知道我们今天是否可以为您提供帮助，Anum。

- 美国航空公司（@AmericanAir）September 12, 2013

My initial reaction? "Wow -- what a great social media team. They instantly jumped in to help!"

After the airline's tweet, a series of folks responded, complimenting American for listening to a customer (and one who wasn't even theirs), responding quickly, and wanting to help.

Yes, my friends, this is an example ofcustomer delight. But it also lends itself to a tale of a great social media team that, despite its heroic efforts, cannot save a poor business.

A History of Poor Customer Service

Earlier this year, I was flying American on a trip to California. I needed to change my reservation so that I could fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco before returning to Boston. I was providing American with更多的在几天内改变我飞往波士顿的返程航班的情况下，生意。一个简单的请求，对吗？

Not entirely. American asked me to pay $200 just to change my flight.This was more than the ticket price I was paying to get from L.A. to San Fran. "对不起，你希望我付的钱超过额外的flight ticket I'm buying from you just to give you更多的business?"

I talked to four customer service agents, including two supervisors -- all who tried their best to help me -- but ultimately it seemed their hands were tied. No one was willing or able to override the $200 charge for the sake of retaining me as a customer (and actually getting more money out of me!).

So, I took to Twitter then, too. Within minutes, American responded. The company requested my ticketing information and went to work trying to help me. With every angry tweet I sent, they replied kindly and with an intention of helping. Unfortunately, though, despite the airline's desire to assist me, it couldn't get far without needing to have its own customer service team to step in. Nothing came of this move, either.

When American tweeted at me when I was stranded in Cleveland, I was hopeful. I requested a seat to Boston, and the airline responded with a chance to help:

@anumAnum, we have some limited seats available. Please call Reservations at 800-433-7300 for help in booking a new reservation.

- 美国航空公司（@AmericanAir）September 12, 2013

兴奋不已，我打电话给这个号码。我等了15分钟。我和一个代表交谈了15分钟。然后，就像以前一样，该代表无法提供帮助。对美国人带领我的愤怒，我开始发推文。

再一次，该公司发推文，要求我继raybet电子竞技续检查，以防万一开放。最终，我对其社交媒体的努力表示钦佩，但不赞成其无助的商业模式。

Meanwhile, by the way, United had only tweeted at me once -- asking for flight info. And after I sent it over? Pure crickets. No response. No apology. No desire to help.

Kudos to the airline's social media team for doing its best to respond and interact with customers. At the end of the day, though, no matter how important social media becomes for a business strategy, no matter how many brands begin to utilize it efficiently, if you're not backed up by a solid business strategy,your social can only take you so far.

Use Social Media to Help, Not Hype

我实际上是在克利夫兰Content Marketing World. On the first day of the conference,Jay Baer谈到有帮助的营销，而不是炒作。

As the social media manager or a member of the social media team at your business, you can't change a business's model or its core beliefs. You can't make a company care about its customers. But what you can do is make the most of your social media efforts by helping as best you can. Here's a few top ways you can assist customers.

1) Maintain Transparent Communication

When customers are upset, it's likely your team attempted to help. But unless you can 100% confidently provide a service, don't provide that service. American explicitly told me it had seats available when it didn't. The airline should've made that point transparent so I wasn't wasting time on the phone with a customer rep when I could be searching for other solutions.

It's worth having a discussion with your social media team about potential solutions for when you can't assist customers. In American's case, the social media team could speak with decision-makers about having some free or discounted tickets available -- or perhaps vouchers for a future flight -- for when they run into frustrated customers.

2) Build a Relationship With Customer Support

Work to build a direct line of communication with the customer support team. In our ebook onTwitter如何解决营销，支持和销售的挑战，我们的客户服务代表之一，尼克Salvatoriello，说：“理想情况下，作为客户服务代表，我们想在客户感到沮丧之前就知道他们的问题。通过监视Twitter上的客户互动，您可以发现人们试图弄清楚如何使用您的产品或服务。”

And that's the way it should be. Perhaps your social media team can star or flag tweets from customers in your marketing database. That way, when that customer calls into the support line, the support rep knows this individual has already been communicating with the brand on Twitter. In my example, when I called American and said that the company tweeted this number to me to help, the airline knew nothing about the exchange.

(HubSpot用户的提示：使用HubSpot的社交收件箱，您的社交媒体团队可以轻松地通过电子邮件发送需要客户支持客户支持代表的推文。在此博客文章中了解更多信息）

3）为特定问题创建标签

Start a program in which customers can use a hashtag on Twitter to relay their issues to the company. By having one consistent hashtag, customers know that a brand’s entire community of customers has a place to communicate. The result is a hashtag that the customer service team can monitor on Twitter in order to respond to important tweets.

At HubSpot, we use#hubspottingfor this purpose. We make that hashtag loud and clear to our customers in our phone consulting, in our messaging on webinars, and so on. That helps Nick stay in touch with his customers.

想象一下，如果曼联有一个特定的标签，我可以使用。即使该公司没有立即做出回raybet电子竞技应，也许另一个客户正面临与我相同的问题，并且可以帮助您。但是我无法利用曼联的社区或适当地引起人们的注意。

并非所有航空公司都弄错了

After reading my story, you may be wondering, "Well, maybe it's just the airline industry as a whole that's terrible."

不对。

My domestic airline of choice is typically JetBlue. Last year, I had an early flight to Chicago and accidentally slept through my flight departure. Crap, I thought. If airlines are typically unwilling to help, there's不hope when this is 100% my fault.

To my pleasant surprise, JetBlue customer service reps were charming and cheerful and told me I could either pay $50 for a new flight (which is reasonable -- especially compared to $200), or I could go to the airport and wait on standby to get on a flight for free. Arriving early, I easily got a seat for free on the next flight. This customer-focused business modeldelightedme. The airline truly cared about me reaching my destination, and made it easy for me to do so.

This business model transcends into the airline's social media efforts. Earlier in September, one Twitter user complained about his flight being canceled. Unlike my flight cancellation from United that resulted in no response, JetBlue let the passenger know he was entitled to a refund. That little dose of delight sure would have eased my stress in Cleveland!

@pzerbo很抱歉，您的航班被取消了。安全是我们的重中之重。http://t.co/f7bJBZa4XV如果星期四没有选择，您有权退款。

- JetBlue Airways（@JetBlue）2013年9月2日

So, to sum up the lesson for today: A great business model + a great social media team = customer happiness. If the model is something you can't control, though, then just work your butt off to resolve issues for -- and ultimately satisfy -- customers who have legitimate issues that they share on social media.

图片来源：Gamerboy