One Mother of a Social Media Customer Service Story (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – May 7, 2010)

Mother’s Day is here once again. And given the importance of the holiday to seasonal retailers such as florists, I was amazed when I saw this post from brand maven Jackie Huba on Twitter today:

That’s not to say bad customer service can’t occur; even the best companies make the occasional mistake. But in this age of real-time monitoring, there’s no excuse for not responding to customer complaints more quickly. I’d recieved my own customer service rescue via Twitter a few years ago, offered some help to someone else, and told the tales of others (the comments in this last one are particularly worth checking out).

Now, imagine my pleasure at finding this interview between Guy Kawasaki and Frank Eliason (he’s @ComcastCares) on how Comcast uses Twitter to meet the needs of their customers – and how Twitter changed their company.

Obviously, there’s more to social than just Twitter. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it looks like this Facebook thing just might have some legs, too. Clearly, I’ve had my issues with Facebook, but I also recognize the value Facebook brings for connecting with your customers. So I particularly enjoyed Mathew Ingram’s insightful look at Facebook and privacy over at GigaOM. Thought-provoking stuff.

If you choose to use Facebook for marketing your business, you might also want to check out TopRank’s piece outlining 10 tips for creating better fan pages. The only thing missing from the list that I could see is the need to provide solid customer service. After all, having a great fan page is only valuable if you have fans.

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