In thinking about another area of business where brands often fail due to over-automating activity, customer service comes to mind. Who hasn’t been a victim of a customer service rep mechanically reading off of a script, never pausing to genuinely ask how we’re doing?

If you train customer service representatives for your company, pay attention. And if you’re a solopreneur and running the customer service yourself, you’ll also need this advice for how not to become a customer service robot.

10 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Customer Service Robot

1. Start with a Script…Then Throw it Away

There is value in using a template of sorts to help anyone in customer service understand the key points to hit in a phone call. But relying on that script too much leads to an unfeeling and unpleasant experience for the customer. If you’re training, run through plenty of scenarios until your staff feels comfortable winging it. This should be common sense:

Hello, Ms. Smith. How are you today? How can I help you?

You can include prompts in your software to help reps deal with specific types of situations, but encourage them to extrapolate what they need to say, rather than reading it verbatim.

2. Engage in Chitchat

While starting a casual conversation with a customer might cost your business money in call-time, not doing so could cost you as well. After all, your customers are human, and they like being asked how their day is going. There’s ample opportunity to talk about the weather, kids and other generic topics and doing so can help keep a distraught customer calm, providing better results.

3. Invest in Culture Training

The biggest complaint customers have about brands that outsource their customer service is that they can’t connect emotionally with the reps. That’s usually due to different culture sets. Imagine how you’d fare if you were hired to address customer service issues for Chinese customers. Where would you begin? What would be okay to talk about and what would be crossing a cultural line?

There are consultants who specialize in training overseas teams to better understand American tastes and interests. If you’re trying to save money by outsourcing, this is an investment that will reap benefits over time.

4. Simplify the Call Process

A few years ago, I participated in Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel. One of the complaints we customers had was the number of buttons we had to push to reach a human, only to be transferred repeatedly to someone else. The company listened and a year later, reported that they’d reduced the number of transfers a person experiences on a call by 40%. That’s significant.

5. Expand Your Customer Service Connect Points

There’s nothing worse than emailing a customer service department only to never get a return email. Invest in more ways your customers can reach you and use them. Email and social are easy to implement and they don’t have to be responded to in real time. But do respond in a reasonable amount of time (same day or less).

6. Define Your Company Culture

Customer service is a high-turnover industry. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in identifying what you want your company culture to be. Just look at Zappos. Customer service is its priority and it makes plenty of resources available to its customer service team, including boot camps, coaching and forums.

7. Look at the Right Numbers

In his Inc. Magazine article, 37Signals Co-founder Jason Fried talks about paying attention to the right numbers: customer numbers. Move away from stressing the importance of your call-time numbers to save money and instead focus on the bigger, better picture: How many calls are you getting with customer issues? How can you reduce that? How many satisfied customers do you have?

8. Examine Your Efforts

Just like with marketing, it’s important to look at what’s working and what’s not in customer service. Listen in on your reps’ calls to understand how they’re interacting with customers and how customers are responding. Try new things and measure results. If customers are being turned off because your reps are trying to upsell them, nix that effort.

9. Respond Quickly

Customers want answers and they want them now. Taking too long to respond to a customer may trigger them to leave a bad review for you on Yelp or a nasty comment on Twitter. But that shouldn’t be your motivation for quick response. Simply aiming to exceed customer expectations should be.

10. Underpromise and Overdeliver

If you’ve ever received something sooner than expected, or if a company did a better job than promised, you were probably delighted. On the other hand, if a company told you it would do something and didn’t, you were probably peeved. Try to promise what you know that you can absolutely deliver, and then some. You’ll consistently impress customers and they’ll tell their friends.

We’re all human, whichever side of the customer service equation we fall on. It’s time we act like it.

Customer service Robot Photo via Shutterstock

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I know. When you’re busy and doing everything yourself, it’s easier to slap together an email as fast as you can without bothering to customize it or really consider what would provide the most value to your customers.

But if you don’t do this, you’ll quickly see your contact list shrinking and your sales dwindling.

Never fear!

Below are 10 ways to avoid this.

10 Ways to Avoid Becoming an Email Robot

Really Customize Your Email

Just a few years ago, simply putting “Dear Sally” at the top of an email was the pinnacle of customization. But now there’s no excuse for you not to go deeper with your emails.  There are plenty of tools that help you track customer behavior online, which can guide you to delivering more customized content and offers in email. While most entry-level email marketing programs don’t offer these capabilities, it may be time to graduate to one that does.

Don’t Over Send

We all have examples of companies that send emails too frequently. What do we do with those? Either ignore and delete or unsubscribe. You don’t want that to be your company’s email. Instead, test out different schedules to figure out what works best. I recommend that my clients send one email newsletter and one to two promotional or announcement emails each month. It’s not too much, but it keeps them on the minds of their contacts.

Don’t Make It Lengthy

Like with blogs and websites, consumers want to speed read their emails and get to the good stuff quickly. If they have to scroll and scroll, they’ll lose interest. Break your content up into chunks (most templates will help with this), use headers and subheaders and add in bullet points or lists to break up content. You can also cut off the copy and include a hyperlink for people to click to keep reading on your site.

Don’t Make It Look Icky

While some people do prefer a text-only email (and you can add in a text version when creating an email), most want an HTML version rich with pictures and color. You’ll get better engagement if your email is attractive.

Write Like a Human

Because, after all, you are. There are plenty of sources that provide recommendations for writing to your audience’s reading level. If you know they’re all PhDs, fine. Use highfalutin language. But assume they’re not and write in a conversational tone that makes it easy to skim and understand.

Include Contact Info

If someone wants to email you when they get your newsletter, but you have a “do not reply” email, it gets frustrating. Include an email address, phone number and web links for your company in each email.

Make It Easy to Unsubscribe

There’s nothing more frustrating than a difficult unsubscribe process. I click the spam button for them, which is, of course bad for the company. So make sure you have a simple, one-click link for contacts to unsubscribe. Forcing them to receive your emails doesn’t do anything to nurture that customer relationship.

Create Lists

All of your contacts likely don’t need to be lumped into the same group. If you’re in retail, you can separate your list into those that buy women’s clothes, those that buy men’s clothes and those that buy kids’ clothes. As well as those who haven’t yet made a purchase. Or if you have a long sales cycle, you can use key behaviors (see #1) to sort them into whatever stage they’re in in the sales cycle. Then you can target your content to each list rather than mass mailing everyone the same email.

See What They Respond To

In my MailChimp account, I can see the 5 most clicked emails. If I’m smart, I’ll go into each and see what was so appealing to my contacts, then try to create similar content in subsequent emails. By paying attention to patterns, in terms of content and open times, you can better tweak future campaigns.

Keep Your Strategy in Mind

If you’re just aimlessly sending emails out because you’re supposed to, stop and consider what your goal is. Is it simply brand recognition? To increase sales through your emails? Get more subscribers? Make sure each email addresses that strategy and your goals.

Email Robot Photo via Shutterstock

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We’ve all seen it:  tweet after tweet that look like they were cut and pasted and scheduled for every hour:

“Buy my product! Click my link!”

It’s a turnoff, and doesn’t do much to help you find new customers. Below are 10 ways to avoid being that type of social media robot:

1. Write 95% of Your Updates Manually

There is a time and a place for automated updates. It’s perfectly acceptable to set up your blog RSS feed to automatically post to Twitter, Google + and Facebook. Just don’t make that your whole strategy.

People follow brands that seem like they’re run by humans. Show that yours is by writing your tweets like — you guessed it — a person.

2. Respond to People

Autotweeting anytime someone follows you does not count as a response. Find someone who’s having an interesting conversation and weigh in. Thank someone for sharing your content. Engage directly with people on social sites individually.

Robots can’t do that. You’ll find that you start to build relationships this way.

3. Watch Redundancy

Sure, it’s easy to copy and paste your updates and schedule them multiple times. But who said marketing was supposed to be easy?

Even if you tweak your update just slightly, it shows you put in the effort to do so, and it won’t annoy your followers.

4. Aim for a Mix

Here’s a little formula I use to ensure what I’m posting online is diverse enough to provide value to my followers:

• Auto share my blog content
• Share content with a question to give people a reason to click
• Respond directly to individuals
• Ask questions to foster conversation
• Offer personal tidbits

I don’t go crazy with the personal stuff, but I don’t make much separation between me and my business. So it’s fine for my business followers to know I’m going kayaking over the weekend. It makes me — yep — human.

5. See What Other People Do

How do those other Tweeters get tens of thousands of followers? Pay attention to their tweets to find out. If you read through their updates, you’ll see some of the elements I listed in #4.

Matt Mansfield does a great job of staying on topic (content marketing) while responding to people who comment on his G+ posts. Joe Pulizzi (@juntajoe) rarely autotweets anything, and responds to everything sent his way. That’s why he’s got more than 22,000 followers.

6. Cut Back on Promotions

Yes, you want people to click your links and buy from you. But if you constantly post links to your site, you’ll scare off potential customers. The marketplace has changed; customers no longer want you to put promos in front of them (did they ever?).

They’d rather get to know you as a brand and find your promotions through other channels, like email.

7. Enough About Me – Let’s Talk About You

We hear that cocktail party example a lot, and it works. If you were at a party, would you talk constantly about yourself? Maybe, but you’d turn off everyone you talked to. Same applies online.

Talk about other people. Ask them questions. Pull them out of their shells. If they want to know about you and your brand, they’ll ask.

8. Be Regular…but Not Too Regular

I like to take certain times of day to schedule my tweets. It’s important to me to have near-constant activity on Twitter, and less so on Facebook and other channels. At most, I schedule one tweet an hour. Usually less. Any more than that, and I’m just clogging up everyone’s Twitter stream.

Aim to be present, but don’t go overboard on any one site.

9. Vary Your Updates Across Platforms

It’s too easy to paste an update from Twitter onto Facebook or LinkedIn. Or better yet, click all your social icons in Hootsuite and send the same update to all. But if someone is following you on multiple channels, consider how annoying it is to see the same thing every time.

Instead, mix it up slightly. You can share the same link; just post a different description on each site. This gives people a reason to connect with your brand on multiple channels.

10. Take a Break

Sometimes I get over tweeted. I need a break from social media. In those cases, I schedule whatever tweets and updates I want to go out for the next few days, and I close it down. Having some space from this virtual world that often sucks me in clears my head and helps me start fresh when I return.

It isn’t hard to humanize your social media updates. Put in a couple of hours a week, take advantage of scheduling updates, and you’ll see your followers number rise.

Social Robot Photo via Shutterstock

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Can you relate?

This year, I resolved to put more passion into my writing. Give readers a reason to read. Put more energy into my posts. To that end, I’ve created these tips for myself (and for you, if you like) to keep from being a content robot this year:

1. Set Aside Enough Time to Write

When you get paid a set amount for a blog post, it behooves you (me, actually) to write faster and write more. But sometimes going too fast means your post lacks soul. That means it won’t be as popular as it would if you’d taken more time to reflect on what you write before you put fingers to keyboard.

I block off time on my calendar to write. I could stand to block off bigger chunks of time, but like so many of us, I suffer from Facebook/email A.D.D., meaning I can’t write 400 words without checking one.

2. Avoid Clichés

I like being on the same page with my readers, breaking the ice and taking the bull by the horns as much as the next blogger. But for my readers, well, it’s all old hat. So I’m going to strive to avoid clichés in my writing. They’re nothing but a cop out anyway. Let’s find our own unique words to say the same thing, m’kay?

3. Find New Words

There are only so many ways to say the word “business.” Believe me. I’ve used them all. Company. Organization. Entity. Brand. I use Thesaurus.com heavily, because I keep using the same words in a single post. At one time, I prided myself on my poetic prose, which was anything but ubiquitous. But as I’ve honed my craft, I strive to use words everyone understands.

Still, a curveball like “Apollonian” now and then makes my writing better.

4. Mix Up Your Style

If you always write how-to posts, get out of your comfort zone (there’s that darn cliché again) and try a different style of post. Maybe you can interview someone at your company or in your industry. Write a book review. Share your insight on industry news.

Writing the same type of content is boring for both you and your reader, so branch out.

5. Don’t Mask  Your Passion

Within five minutes of meeting me, I will have laid out an entire marketing plan for your business. That may not always shine through in my writing, though it should. I am passionate about writing. You’re passionate about something. People like passion. So don’t be afraid to let it shine brightly in your content.

The posts that get shared the most were written by people who were happy to put the spotlight on their passions.

6. Take a Break

Aside from those Facebook breaks, taking a respite from what you’re writing can be helpful in that you step away, give your brain a break, then come back with a fresh outlook. You’ll often see that what seemed magical when you first typed it is now kind of junk. You may also spot your errors quickly.

Take a few hours or a day to get some space from your writing, then come back and read it again.

7. Read it Out Loud

When I work with new writers, and when I teach writing, I insist that they read their content out loud. This helps them see that a run-on sentence needs to be changed, or that a particular phrase is awkwardly structured and needs revision.

And sometimes Spellcheck doesn’t work, so reading it out loud can help you catch a missing “s” at the end of a word.

8. Have Someone Else Read It

If you’re like me, every single thing you write is prizewinning. In your head, anyway. Sometimes you need another person to read it and give you honest feedback. Better for them to catch your errors or point out a confusing part than for a client or the blogosphere to see it and criticize.

Be open to feedback and use it to become a better writer.

9. Try Writing About Something Else

I have moments when I’m burned out on writing about business. I recently picked up travel writing, which uses a completely different part of my brain. Surprisingly, it makes business writing fun again.

Try writing a different style, or on a different topic so that you don’t get jaded on what you write about regularly.

10. Constantly Improve

The difficult thing about blogging is that there are no intermediate or advanced blogging courses. Everything’s about getting you started. So while continuing education in the traditional sense is difficult, you can learn by reading.

Read other blogs and notice what you like about the writing. Find ways to incorporate it into your own style. It’s a great way to make sure you’re staying sharp as a writer.

Robot and Pencil Photo via Shutterstock

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In his book, High Tech, High Touch Customer Service, Micah Solomon talks about using social media to provide stellar customer experience. He also outlines the profile of a “masterful company,” those that go above and beyond in the area of customer service.

Using a few of his 12 characteristics of a masterful company, I want to show you how you can become one.

Make Customers Feel Welcome…Before They Arrive

It’s one thing for your staff to greet customers when they walk in your door, but what are they doing to welcome them before that? Your website, social media channels, blogs, telephone and email all provide you with opportunity to connect with future customers and make them feel welcome before they ever step foot in your store.

Remove Barriers that Might Mar a Customer’s Experience

If you have a physical store, this means making sure you’re in an easily accessible location, that it’s easy to find parking and that people don’t have to hunt to find you. If you’re based online, that means having a simple-to-navigate website and minimizing the steps to complete a sale.

Anything that might make a customer abandon his shopping cart (physical or virtual) should be removed.

Your Employees Should Show Genuine Interest in Customers

This can be a challenge when you’re hiring disgruntled teens at minimum wage, but having a staff that honestly loves working at your company is key to drawing in customers. People can tell when employees don’t like where they work, and it affects their experience.

Create Processes to Anticipate Your Customers’ Needs and Desires

This requires thinking like a customer and determining what they really want and need.  Then creating processes around those needs.You can do this by empowering all of your staff to observe customers and take the necessary steps to amending negative situations.

If those occur again, you have a process in place to make the customer happier faster.

Know that Each Customer has Unique Needs

While your customers may share certain characteristics (just take a look at your demographics), it’s important to keep in mind that no two are alike. While you may be tired of giving the same speech about your current sale every time a customer walks in the door, realize that this is the first time this customer has heard it.

So say it with renewed vigor every time.

Make “Something Extra” Standard

I always say that setting expectations lower gives you the opportunity to surprise and delight a customer when you over deliver. Solomon says that giving a little something extra should be a part of your customer service culture.

That little additional boost may be all that separates you from your competition – and customers know that.

Never Stop Improving Customer Service

Even if you’re known for having stellar customer service, you can never, ever rest on your laurels and decide there’s no room for improvement. A masterful company continues to innovate how it addresses customer service solutions (i.e. adding Twitter support).

If you continue to strive to be better – you’ll be a masterful company too!

Florist Greeting Photo via Shutterstock

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I’ve had a retired oceanographer/SCORE leader as a mentor. A business and life coach. A VP of marketing. Another marketing consultant. A leadership management expert. I’ve come across people who know more than me, and I’ve built relationships with them so that I can benefit from their knowledge and experience.

Mentors Make You Smarter

Any entrepreneur should want to be better at what she does. But there’s only so much knowledge you can glean on your own. And experience? Well, that takes time, and if you’re impatient, you want to get smarter faster. There’s something to be said about learning from people rather than books and blogs. A short conversation with a mentor can help you understand the mistakes he has made so that you can avoid them yourself.

Having access to a mentor, you can ask any question you want–an opportunity you likely won’t have with your competitors.

Mentors Have Been There

As I said, you can learn from your mentors’ past mistakes. It’s a huge boon to talk to someone who has worked in your industry and can help carve the straightest path to success for you. Any mentor worth their salt will be enthusiastic about helping you get there faster than they did.

Finding a Mentor

You might not have a clue about where to start in finding a mentor. I say, look around. Look at the people you interact with on a regular basis:

• your client
• the guy you always talk to at networking events
• your neighbor
• a woman from your church

Mentors can be found everywhere, and they don’t have to be in your industry. You might benefit from a mentor who has successfully run one or more businesses, or one who has spent decades in corporate America, or one who works in the industry you target.

Your focus here is in finding someone willing to impart wisdom to you, to spend time with you regularly (each week, month or quarter is good) to address areas you want to work on.

Determine Your Path

Before committing to a mentor/mentee relationship, outline what you hope to accomplish rather than go into it willy nilly. What areas do you consider your business weak in? Make a list of concerns and questions you have (this might also help you determine the best person to mentor you). And be ready to commit!

Having a mentor isn’t as simple as meeting in their office every few weeks. You need to be committed to listening and taking action based on their suggestions. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time – and theirs.

Having a mentor can be professionally rewarding, and can help you grow your business in ways you couldn’t otherwise grow it.

Mentor Photo via Shutterstock

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American Express OPEN reports each year on where business owners are in terms of gift giving, employee bonuses and holiday parties. In the 2012 Small Business Holiday Monitor, we see that small businesses want to show their appreciation of employees and clients, even if they don’t have large budgets.

Showing Appreciation to Employees

The majority of businesses surveyed plan to acknowledge their employees in some way at the end of the year. The good news for employees is that 35% of small business owners plan to give an end-of-year bonus, up from 29% in 2011. But even if you can’t afford to give each of your staff a bonus, there are plenty of other ways to show your appreciation:

• Employee gifts
• Holiday party
• Group activity
• Time off
• Gift cards

The purpose in using any of these techniques is to let your staff know that you recognize the hard work they put in for your company. Sure, they would all love to get a $5,000 bonus at year end, but if it’s not in the budget, they’ll understand.

Budgeting for Client Gifts

Another component of the holiday season is often giving client gifts. Small business owners are spending slightly more this year than in the past: last year 43% of small business owners bought their customers gifts, spending an average of $827, while this year, 51% of small business owners will spend about $958 on gifts for their clients.

Interestingly, the highest budget that the Small Business Holiday Monitor recorded for client gift spending was in 2007, when the average was $1,483. It’s clear the recession has had an effect on this budget ever since.

Celebrations and Donations

For small business owners that identified more as a “Santa” rather than a “Scrooge” when it comes to generosity this holiday season, more will be hosting holiday parties, though spending slightly less than in the past. More than half of entrepreneurs will donate to a charity this year, through monetary donations, in-kind contributions or time donations.

Whatever your budget, find ways to show your appreciation of both your staff and your clients. Even something as simple as a holiday card can be enough to show your gratitude, and hosting a staff potluck can be a cost-effective way to add a little festivity to your office.

Office Party Photo via Shutterstock

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But don’t expect that you’ll make it to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list simply because you’ve written a book. Most authors, especially in the fiercely competitive business book field, won’t make a living writing books. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider writing one.

As a matter of fact, here are 5 reasons why you should write one:

1. People Take You More Seriously

There’s something about having a book or two on your resume that makes people sit up and pay attention. Which is surprising to me, because it’s actually pretty easy to write one (granted, I write for a living, so it might be a tad easier for me).

If you’re a small business owner, having written that book might be the one thing that sways a potential customer to buy from you.

2. You Get to Share Your Knowledge

As a business owner, you know a ton about your industry. You’re likely sharing your expertise on Twitter, Facebook and your blog, so writing a book should be a natural extension of that. Getting it all out of your head and onto paper can help you help others.

3. You’ll Get More Customers

Again, writing books makes people trust you and your brand. If you’re looking for a way to get introduced to more potential customers, a book is a great way to do it. Just make sure you’ve got a solid marketing plan in place so that people know about it.

4. You’ll Get More Speaking Opportunities

Conferences and trade shows love inviting authors to speak or participate in panels. Your book is your ticket to speaking gigs. You can pitch conference organizers on a topic that relates to your book, or participate in a discussion on a subject you know well.

5. It’s the Ultimate in Content Marketing

You know that blogging and social media are part of a content marketing strategy, but everyone can do that. Not everyone makes the effort to write a book. By being one of the select few, you can go further than you can with the lower levels of content marketing and also use social media to promote your book and your expertise.

The bonus? You’ll have plenty of fodder for your blog and social channels.

You don’t even have to write the book yourself if you’re not a prolific writer. That’s where ghost writers come in. You get the credit and you get a book that is well-written.

Write A Book Photo via Shutterstock

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Brent Leary, co-founder and partner at CRM Essentials and a contributor here at Small Business Trends, contributed to the study. He says those companies who adapt to offering customer service through social channels will have the chance to grow their customer relationships and make their products and services more appealing. Doing this, he says, isn’t limited to large businesses:

“…because smaller companies are typically more agile and responsive – and providing social/mobile service is not cost prohibitive in many instances – this makes it possible for them to compete with larger companies who aren’t able to quickly change processes and corporate cultures.”

The index highlights four companies who are using social media smartly to address customer service issues:

• Best Buy
• Dell
• JetBlue
• LL Bean

Here are a couple of lessons all businesses can take from them:

1. Start by Listening

Best Buy had zero social media presence as recently as 2008. But when Gina Debogovich was brought in as the brand’s first community manager (she’s now Social Connections and Innovation Senior Manager and Global COE Lead), she started by listening:

“I began by listening … to the customers online who were reaching out for customer service and technical support, to the business teams who were hesitant to engage, and to the ever-mounting industry data that showed social networks were the next horizon.”

Listening helped her build Best Buy’s social customer support to be ranked #1 by Business Insider in 2012. Clearly, listening is a huge component of social media and customer service, so using it in all you do will help you better serve customers.

2. How You Work Behind the Scenes Doesn’t Matter (to Customers)

When Jason Duty, Director of Social Outreach Services at Dell, got involved in social customer service, one thing quickly became clear: customers who need help don’t care how you configure your platform to serve them. They didn’t care about customer care hotline protocol, or how reps were assigned to cases. They just want their problems solved.

According to the Index’s case study:

“Dell developed a uniform strategy that eliminated support boundaries. Its social media outreach services (SOS) team brought together its technical support and customer care functions to engage via the Internet, both for business and consumer customers.”

The lesson here is to keep things simple. Don’t over think the platform and infrastructure you use to connect to customers, or you might not ever actually implement it.

3. Don’t Aim to Silence Customer Complaints

When a major ice storm grounded several planes in 2007, JetBlue knew it needed to do something to talk to its customers, explain what happened, and ensure them that it wouldn’t happen again. The CEO created a video on YouTube addressing his customers – a first for any CEO at the time. The response, rather than being outrage, was surprisingly supportive.

According to the case study:

“Because JetBlue fosters an informed community rather than trying to silence customer complaints, it often sees customers stepping forward to answer questions from their friends on Twitter or in the general community on Facebook.”

None of us like it when our customers blast us on social media publicly. But rather than taking the stance of trying to squash the negative, instead try to preempt the negative comments by being one step ahead of customers.

4. Have Dedicated Staff in Place

In 2010, L.L. Bean observed the number of customers who were using Twitter and Facebook to ask questions, and decided to try out a pilot team with seven customer service reps who would use those channels to field customer inquiries. As the pilot thrived, the team grew to 12 members. The company’s system monitors mentions of the brand and assigns tasks to team members so that nothing slips through the cracks.

It’s easy to assign social media customer service to your marketing team as an afterthought, but if you really want it to succeed, put a dedicated team on the task.

Applying These Lessons

In a perfect world, you’d be able to implement all of these lessons into your own social media customer service efforts. But don’t be overwhelmed by these success stories; instead, find your own path.

Robin Carey, Founder of Social Media Today, says to start with what’s free:

“So many of the monitoring tools and platforms for social engagement are free or nearly so.  Google alerts, for example, was the second highest cited source for monitoring customers. Twitter and Facebook are the two leading platforms for engagement.”

Follow these lessons and apply them to your own business and you’ll be able to better manage customer service socially.

Social Media Customer Service Photo via Shutterstock

The post Using Social Media to Manage Customer Service appeared first on Small Business Trends.

While at the New York XPO on October 17, 2012 (I was there for the Small Business Influencer Awards Gala), I caught the session, “How I Did It: Lessons From America’s Best-Run Companies.” Three business owners shared their tips for running successful companies, moderated by Steve Strauss, senior business columnist for USAToday, and a Small Business Influencer Champion. Here’s the good stuff.

Work/Life Balance

We’re all in search of that mythical balance between our professional and personal worlds. But does a balance really exist? Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software (a Small Business Influencer Champion) says no:

“There is no work life balance. It’s about compromise. It’s about you being happy with your choices…choose [what's priority], embrace it, own it, then make the compromises to make that happen.”

Parsons, who was initiated into her father’s company as a teenager when she was punished by being forced to put labels on floppy disks, makes sure that family comes first.  She works 7:30 to 4:30, then can take her kids to soccer practice. The compromise comes when she gets back on her computer after the kids are asleep.

Building the Right Team

Steven Aldrich, CEO of Outright, advises business owners to avoid hiring people identical to you:

“…have a team that doesn’t duplicate yourself…[instead focus on] skills that are complementary to yours.”

He stresses the importance of delegating what you’re able to, and says you should focus your efforts on actions that will move the needle the most, and delegate the rest.

Parsons adds to the topic by saying it’s important to not overwork your staff, and that letting people go home and rest their brains can keep them from getting burned out, and can help them come up with fresh ideas.

Listening to Customers

Mike Muhney, CEO and Co-Founder of VIPOrbit (as well as Co-Founder of ACT!, which was purchased by Sage), says he cares too much what customers say about his brand. He personally reaches out when a customer expresses frustration through social media.

“It hurts me when someone writes something bad [about my brand] on a Tweet…we blend a culture that really goes beyond the norm in demonstrating how we care about people.”

Muhney says that the true test is when a customer is really upset with your brand, as this gives you the opportunity to stand behind your word. After all, he says, “people just want to be heard.”

The panel session was filled with more fantastic advice like:

• A business plan doesn’t have to be written in stone; it’s designed to make sure your business is going in the direction you want
• Knowing your business’ metrics and numbers can help you make better decisions
• Empowering team members to help customers makes for happier employees and customers

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