Social Media & the Art of Listening

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I had an experience the last week that served as an excellent reminder for me on the power of social media as a listening tool.

We are getting our house ready to sell. This involves emptying our house of about half of our possessions, cleaning every nook and cranny and making sure any minor repairs are done. One of the things we wanted to do was something that has been on our to-do list for about 2 months. Get Shaw in to fix a cable outlet. I won’t bore you with all the history and details of said outlet, but suffice it to say that my husband’s hero is Tim The Toolman Taylor – the end product being some cables hanging out of the wall that are taped together to ensure we get to watch HBO in our bedroom. Effective, but not visually appealing.

My sweetie is a smart man and decided we had best call in the experts to fix things. He sat on hold for 30 minutes during his lunch break before hanging up. I took up the charge the next day and was lucky to talk to someone after 25 minutes. During the time I was on hold, I filled in a customer survey that I found on their website. I let them know that I wasn’t overly impressed with their hold times. Once I did get to talk to someone, we set up an appointment for between 2 and 4 the next day.

The next day, I received a very nice email from Shaw responding to my survey. They said all the right things in their email. They acknowledged my concerns, took responsibility and explained how they were working to correct the problems. I was impressed. But not for long.

The appointment time came and went. When it was a half hour past the time the technician was supposed show up, I went online and started up their online chat program. After 25 minutes online, I was informed that there was no record of my phone call and there was no service call scheduled. But don’t worry, we will re-book it for you. Gee, thanks.

I had now spent 3.83 hours with the potential of adding 2 hours more as I waited for a technician to arrive for another appointment.

Throughout all of this, I was tweeting on twitter about my experience, using the hashtag (a tool for tracking topics) #Shaw. A helpful gentleman named Jay Baron (@action_Jay) noticed my tweets. I presume he monitors twitter for mentions of #shaw. As his twitter profile states, Jay is a “Frontline Tech Support at Shaw Cable. Huge on customer service and social media. Not an official liasion, but happy to help all the same” – I translate that to mean his monitoring of #shaw is something he does on his own time, because he is huge on customer service and because he believes in the company that gives him his paycheque.

Jay contacted me and expressed concern regarding the service experience I was having with Shaw. He asked questions and then tried to see what he could do to help reimburse me for some of my time. I don’t know if his efforts will yield results, but I appreciate his diligence and his passion.

Now here is the kicker for me. Jay works for Shaw. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He doesn’t work out of the same branch I was dealing with at Shaw (Edmonton). He works one province away.

Here is an employee who went out of his way to help a customer. He listened. He responded. He went above and beyond his job description. He believes in the company he works for enough to look out for its brand and reputation.

But my question is this. Where is the official liaison for Shaw? I checked out their website and they have all kinds of ways for me to approach them. I can email, phone, online chat, check out their 24/7 virtual helpdesk or even visit their office. All of these methods are great, but it assumes that the customer will take the initiative and time to go to their website and initiate communication. At one time, this would be been enough. In fact, they would have been seen as cutting edge. That time has come and gone.

The time when a company or organization can sit back and wait for people to come to them has long come and gone. Now, the organizations that are listening are considered cutting edge. They use the various social media tools that are available. They keep their ear to the ground and listen. They listen for talk about their company, their product, their sector. Then, they proactively respond and show they are concerned about their customers.

As I have heard said so many times – the conversation about your company or organization is happening through social media – the question is, will you be there to participate in the discussion?