I have a customer at work — a small business of five employees and while we don’t do much business with him, they have placed two orders with me since January.

The first order was placed Januray 21st, the second mid-February. The latter order came in within the week and was installed. About that time, I found out that the first order had slipped to back order status and would be delayed (for the second time) to March 5th.

Keep in mind that the customer needs the product to deploy a new accounting software that will change the way that they do business. The server had been ordered and installed; the software was sitting there unused because they are waiting on the last piece of the puzzle.

On March 4th, I emailed the customer to let him know that the following day, I would be tracking down that order. I sent word on the 5th to find out where it was and received no response.

On Monday, May 8th, I still hadn’t heard back on the status, but I heard from my customer. By the end of the day, I got word that the product was delayed again until June 6th. A cancellation was eminent.

I emailed my boss, sent the SOS if you will, that we needed to get creative to make this right for the customer. Together, we ran it up the flagpole to the owner of the company and pulled in all the resources that we could and when I called the customer back, I had to relay the bad news about the delay, but I presented him with a solution.

Was it what he wanted? No.

Would it work just as good if not better than the original product?

Yes.

Had he cancelled after the solution was offered, I would’ve understood. But I can’t, in good conscious, tell someone that it can’t be done. There’s always a solution.

I don’t post this to toot my own horn.

I post this because I think it’s important to always put the customer’s needs first. There might be times that you can’t do exactly what they want. Things happen.

But you can always get creative, making you look like the rock star in the end.

How do you feel about customer service? Do you think that it has to be a dying art? How can we revive it?

*not my quote… I saw it online… credit, anonymous

Webster defines “social” in this manner:

Main Entry: ¹so·cial

1 : involving allies or confederates <the SocialWar between the Athenians and their allies>
2 a : marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with one’s friends or associates<leads a very full social life> b : sociable c : of, relating to, or designed for sociability <a social club>
3 : of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society <social institutions>
4 a : tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others of one’s kind : gregarious b : living and breeding in more or less organized communities <social insects> c of a plant : tending to grow in groups or masses so as to form a pure stand
5 a : of, relating to, or based on rank or status in a particular society <a member of our social set> b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the upper classes c :formal
6 : being such in social situations <a social drinker>

In every single definition of the word, more than one person is involved.  So when it comes to your social networking, is there more than one person involved?

Yes, you may have more than one person in your network, but are you interacting with them?

Are you engaging them in conversation?

Are you reaching out to them to get to know them?

Moreover, do you even know who the majority of your followers are or do you follow every one you can with the hopes that they will follow you back?  And do you follow every one who follows you?

I ask these questions of you, because you should be asking them of yourself.  Social networking should not be a billboard for you to simply talk about yourself, your product, or your business.

Can you do these things? Absolutely!  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t.  But it’s not the only thing that you should be talking about.

I get slightly hot under the collar when I see someone who has 52,000 followers, yet only follows 121 people.

It annoys me to look at their stream and see links to their business and products, but no interaction with other people.

The reality of it is, engaging people, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social media outlet is about getting involved.

I know that social media takes time to manage.  Even with just 300+ followers, I have to find ways to make it all work.  But, my goal is to respond to everyone who reaches out to me.  I attempt to learn more about each of my new followers.  I also retweet and share comments from others to help them spread the word.

If you’re not interacting with your followers, please consider doing so.  You’ll find that your true network will grow, true relationships will form, and your business will flourish much faster.

With the increase of communication via the internet, more and more people are putting it all out there on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, personal blogs, etc.  Some take advantage of the privacy options offered, either protecting all of their Facebook page, protecting their Twitter updates, or password protecting their blog, but what about the people you HAVE invited into your space?

I am saddened many times with the Tweets that I see during the day, ones complaining about a client, a boss, a husband.

Often times, I don’t think we realize how far a tweet can go…or how long a comment can be indexed.  It’s something that I remind the teens in my youth group on regularly.

These bright, young people will soon be faced with the task of applying to colleges and eventually jobs.  Their internet history will follow them if they aren’t careful.

That same advice should be given to adults as well.

But take it off line.

The person you hung up on because you sensed it was another telemarketer…could they be a potential client?

Yes.

The parent sitting next to you at your child’s tee-ball game that you made an inappropriate comment to… could they be a potential customer?

Yes.

The world is smaller than we think.

A few weeks ago, I called a company to set up an appointment.  Before I could even get out my name, the lady hung up on me.  I won’t be referring that company to anyone.  I only refer people to companies where I know they will get treated like a person.

Later on in the week, I showed up at an appointment only to realize that the man I was meeting with coached my son in football a few years ago.  Do you think I did a quick rewind of the history to make sure that I might never offended him?

I did and fortunately, I was pretty sure that there wasn’t anything I needed to be worried about.

Word travels fast.

Make sure the message you’re sending is a positive one; one that reflects who you are, the type of business you conduct, and a reason for someone to tell the world about you.

You knew this.

We all “know” this.. in theory.

I say in theory because I hear people talk all the time about how important relationships are, but I don’t see the actions to back the words.

In essence, we’re talking the talk, but are we walking the walk?

We’re busy, things are going on, and sometimes, maintaining those relationships can, reaching out to our clients or customers gets pushed down a little further down on our to do list.

We think about sending that card to congratulate our client on their award and some how, some way, it moves right off our never ending to-do list.

But there are people that are walking that walk every day.

And people are noticing.

I urge you to head over to Josh Perrington’s blog and read his latest post about “our” place.  Only it’s not just “our” place.  (He business cheats on me with the likes of some other guys.  Clearly, he has a few issues.  But don’t hold that against him.  And I’m pretty sure he’s never referred to it as “our” place.  But when Josh and I have ideas to pour over?  That’s where we go.  Short of the families getting together, I’ve never met him anywhere else!)

It’s a post that, while I wanted to expound upon, I can’t seem to find the words to say it any better than he did.

It shows the value of excellent customer service while tugging on the heart strings.

And makes me very excited about #MargaritaMondays.

(Read the post and you’ll understand.)

When walking that walk?

Just remember…

Investing involves more than just money.

The return is greater than you will ever expect.