As many of you know, I am very passionate about customer service. I applaud those who do it well, and I question those who don't. My reasoning is simple—my customers pay my bills. Therefore, they are my bosses. If I can't satisfy my boss, I'm going to get fired. It's only happened once in my working life (Outback Steakhouse, 1989), but I don't like being fired because it feels a lot like rejection. So I will bend over backwards to make sure my customers/clients are very, very happy.

I only wish everyone else thought that way.

Rosemary O'Neill had a great post this week on a trend in retail called “showrooming.” She makes the point that big-box retailers such as Target and WalMart don't want you to use your smartphone in their stores—going as far as blocking signals so that you CAN'T scan a barcode and price-compare from their locations. Think about it; when was the last time that you were able to get a signal in either store? I don't shop at these stores very often, but it's like the world's biggest dead zone when I'm in there.

I don't care how big these companies are, they cannot control the inevitable fact that people have the power now, and it's packed into a handheld machine that measures 2 x 4 inches. These big-box stores can try to block your signal, but in the end, consumers are going to get the information they want—either in the store, or they'll leave and get the information in the parking lot. The only reason that I go into these stores at all is because I need something quicker than I can get from Amazon.There is no customer service—at all. At least if I have a question while shopping with Amazon, I can either get immediate on-line help or a voice at the end of the 800 number. Have you ever tried to find someone to help you in these big-box stores?

The other spot where retailers are lacking is in their “embracement” of social media. They have definitely done a great job at pushing their messages out, but offer zero engagement or personality with their messages. I have sent a couple of tweets out while in Target (I was at the front so had 1 bar.) questioning something—return policy, defective merchandise, bait and switch advertising, etc., and every single time I received a “canned” response.

“Thank you for your message. You can find our policies by clicking this link.”

That's not customer service and certainly not an effective use of social media. Your customer has so many different ways to reach out to you—the contact form on your website, your 800 number, your facebook page, email, Twitter, and so on. If you have put the social media channels out there as a way for your customers to reach you, you need to be there to listen, answer, and comment, and not to send a canned response like I mentioned. If your customer is taking the time to reach out to you, the least you can do is have the ability and the staff to respond to them. You're not going to build any brand loyalty by treating customers like a number. And it's not just bad comments—even positive posts fall on deaf ears and get no response.

If you have set up your company on social media sites and don't have an effective approach on how to handle customer communications, you need to gather your group together and create one quickly. You need to determine who's monitoring these sites and how you will handle posts that are negative or positive. What is your maximum response time?

We work with our clients on all aspects of their social media strategy—not just building the pages and calling it a day. There are so many moving parts to social media and making it work with the other parts of your company. Making sure that all the pieces are in place is critical to your success.