There were a number of sessions during last month’s Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) event in Las Vegas which transcended the takeaway from a typical marketing conference.  In this post, I wanted to highlight one of those, because it pertains to a stratum within social media and ‘word of mouth’ which is often overlooked.

In the session, Customer Service: The Hidden Engine that Drives Word of Mouth we learned about serving the customer from Tom Asher, Director of Consumer Relations at Levi Strauss.   Tom alleges that Levi Strauss’ job (and I quote): “is to make your butt look great.”  How’s that for a customer experience?  The feedback, or user-generated contribution to the site is viewed as just that: “contributions” to bettering the company.   Levi’s realized that customers in turn serve Levi’s by being heard, being listened to, and by making the site authentic!

There’s “loyalty you can tap into” within the community itself that no customer service or marketing expert could ever dream up.  

Another company which is doing this extremely well is Comcast, and the team of somewhat-of-a-celebrity in customer service, Frank Eliason, Senior Director in National Customer Operations, Comcast.  Frank shared his much-grounded remarks with the synopsis: “This space is about passion.”  He was indulged when his executive sponsors came to him overflowing with support for his social media channels and community because they saw the power of “listening”.  Frank has been known to sidle up to his executive sponsors and reveal a gem from the brand and service experience trenches: He’ll say, “Let me share this conversation with you.” 

His Comcast social media channels are used as a listening post; and can assist Comcast’s managers in doing their job better.   You can read more from Frank through his blogs on various sites, including Social Media Today’s newest: The Social Customer.   As Eliason puts it “we’ve become better listeners through crowdsourcing”.

Thirdly, John Bernier, Best Buy’s lead for the Twelpforce initiative presented to the WOMMA audience social media’s role in Best Buy’s success: “We’ve been inspired to fail.”  Prior to social media, one might imagine it being corporate suicide to embody failure in such a visible way!    John went on not only to say that twitter has been successful in “humanizing the Best Buy brand”, but also that twitter has made Best Buy’s world a smaller place.  For brands to begin to leverage this highly visible form of word of mouth in a positive way; “service should definitely lead the way”.  His team’s goal is to create the best customer service, and in order to achieve that, they had to “change the culture from within” to break down silos, form new policies.  Through social media, they’ve been able to elevate their customer experience to a real-time and humanistic level. And it shows!