Instructed by Jeannie Walters.

1. Averting Social Customer
Service Disaster
Community Management Strategies
From The Ground Up
Jeannie Walters
CEO/Founder
360Connext

2. Today You Will Learn
• How to build and maintain a rich and rewarding
online community from the ground up
• The tools and skills necessary to maintain a healthy
online community
• How to engage community members in a manner
that builds loyalty and trust in your brand
• How to prevent, detect and address potential social
customer service disasters

3. About Jeannie Walters
(@jeanniecw)
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CEO and Founder of 360Connext
Using Customer Experience Investigation™ for more
than 15 years
Worked with Citrix, Allstate, Motorola, others
CXPA Chicago Ambassador
Editorial team member of SocialMediaClub
Huffington Post's "Top 100 Most Social Customer
Service Pros on Twitter"
Connect with me after the event!

4. Agenda
• D’oh! Common community building and
management mistakes
• Construction and maintenance: Building upon a
customer-centric foundation
• Help! When do you need it? How do you find it?
Community management at its best.
• Early warning signals: Utilize and equip your
social customer service watchtower
• Rules of engagement: proactive vs. reactive

5. D’oh! How did that happen?

6. When tools and technology take over
• Using technology
chiefs instead of
real people
• The person on
the job has the
wrong tone or
poor judgment

7. Scripted responses: Everyone can tell.
• Missed
opportunity to
connect
• Failure to
acknowledge
the specific
situation

8. Relying solely on brand mentions
• Brand Mentions (Acme)
• Misspelled Brand
Mentions (Ackme)
• Generic categories
(Computers)
• Common Questions (How
do I print?)
• Purchase Decisions (I’m
looking for a computer
that…)
• Competitors

9. Being too slow to respond, or not responding
at all
• 81%-90% of
Twitter users
expect same-day
responses to
questions &
complaints
• 31% of social
customers want
direct access to
product experts

10. Losing your cool in a hot situation
• Being too
defensive of the
brand
• Fueling the fire
with hostile
members

11. Losing your cool
Think before you react. Losing
your cool doesn’t necessarily
mean blowing your top like the
folks at Amy’s Baking Company.

12. Construction and Maintenance

13. Building a solid foundation
• Brand promise as
your footprint
• Know your audience
• It’s all about your
customers, not your
brand

14. Customer centric engagement at its
best

15. Choosing the right channels
• Know what
type of
content to
share and
where
• It’s OK not to
be
everywhere!

16. Be where your customers are
Pinterest followers spend
more than 15X more on
Sephora products than
Facebook followers. – Head
of Digital, Julie Bornstein
February, 2013

17. Google+
Pinterest
Twitter

18. Tools for keeping track
• Choosing the right
tracking tools that work
for you
• Differences between
HootSuite, Sprout Social
and other competitors
• Your preference matters!
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Brandwatch
comScore
SproutSocial
Social Radar
Bottlenose
Wildfire
Etc.

19. Tools for keeping track
Monitoring
Basic
Alerts

20. Tools for keeping track

21. Tools for keeping track

22. Connecting the dots
• Bridging your
communities
together
• Avoiding
content
redundancy
across
channels

23. Help! I need a manager.

24. How do I know when I need help?
• Start early with
honest evaluation.
• Is your own voice
the right voice?
• Time management:
Are you sure you
can keep up?

25. Finding qualified help
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Where and how
to seek the right
community
manager
How to know if
you have found
the right person:
what qualities to
look for

26. Early warning signals from your social watchtower

27. Track mentions of usage, not just your brand
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Key words and
phrases
customers use
while researching
or complaining
Using customer
language, not
marketing speak

28. Follow your competition
• Find out what
customers are missing
from you and why they
defect
• What makes their
customers happy or
unhappy lends insight
into what you should be
offering or doing better

29. Know your customers: Do the research!
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Who is buying from
you and what
attracts them?
Follow them into
different
communities to
listen in on the real
conversations

30. Rules of Engagement

31. Personalization
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Know the
limitations of the
different
channels, and
what is
appropriate for
each
Understand why
it pays to take
the extra minute
to get more
personal

32. Personalization
Engage your customers
as people, not just as
customers

33. Responding to fans
Fans love you. Make sure
you love them back!

34. The fine line between involvement and intrusion
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When should
you stay out of a
conversation?
• When should
you jump in?

35. Handling criticism and hostility
• Defending your
brand without
being defensive
• Dealing with trolls
and other
unsavory
characters

36. Handling criticism and hostility

37. Move The Needle

38. Set Up Your Social Media Watchtower
• Set up alerts for brand names, product
names, VIP’s and competitors
• Brainstorm with your team on other things
to track: common
questions, complaints, or how-to’s
• Be proactive in addressing the common
questions and complaints
Move The Needle

39. Key Takeaways
-Your brand promise should be the foundation and the mortar that holds
a community together as it grows.
- It's important to set up key alerts for brand names, misspellings, key
questions, acronyms, etc.
- Customers want to engage throughout the process. Encourage and
reward or showcase their involvement.
- Treating complaints and compliments as conversations among friends
helps maintain relationships.
-Use customer language when looking for mentions of your brand and
products, not marketing speak.
-Use only as many channels as you can handle appropriately and bring
in extra help when necessary.
-Select tools that make sense for your own preferences as well as
where and how your customers interact.
-Honest evaluation is essential to creating lasting relationships online.
Know your own limits and temperament.
-Always remember that it is all about your customers, not you or your
brand.

40. Thank You! Keep in touch.
Jeannie Walters
@jeanniecw
@360Connext
Google+ CXI™ Club
360Connext
jeanniecw
360Connext
360Connext

41. Thank You!
Learn more at
www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org