The Real Bruce

I spend all day working on a computer. Saving files, sending email; the usual. As I went about my daily routine today, I realized how much we have become dependent upon the “cloud”. Whether it is email, our personal finances, or even saving files, more and more we are relying on the cloud for our computing needs.

It has almost snuck up on us. Slowly but surely we have become more dependent on this magical cloud out there. It supplies our storage, our applications and soon all of our computing needs. I can envision a day where all we have are Internet appliances. No desktops will be needed. All of our computing needs will reside in the cloud.

Does this scare you at all? It does me. We are putting a tremendous amount of trust in the companies out there. There is Dropbox, Google, Mozy, not to mention the millions of applications now available online. All of our data floating out there, somewhere.

What happens if our connection to the Internet is lost? What happens if one of these companies goes out of business overnight? We have seen this happen in the Internet age. Web sites here one day gone tomorrow. How do we know who to trust? Who will be around? Who will securely house all of our precious 1’s and 0’s?

I love the convenience of these services. It is great to be on my laptop, at any coffee shop, and being able to access all my important files and info. I can conduct business from anywhere. How great is that?

As we move forward, more and more relying on this magical cloud, how comfortable will you be? I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter.

While I may use these services each and every day, at least for now, I will always have a terabyte hard drive, stored at my house, backing up each and every file.

Last week, I wrote a post about the great customer service I received from General Motors. I was so impressed with the service that I forwarded the blog post on to my new friend at GM who had helped me with everything, and I thought that was the end of the experience. Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Over the course of the next 24 hours, over 80 GM employees viewed my blog post (gotta love Google analytics), I gained 20 new followers on Twitter and had an interaction with GM’s Director of Social Media and Digital Communications. I suddenly felt like I had a whole company that valued my business all from a simple Twitter post.

The next morning, I took my vehicle in for my appointment at the Chevy dealership. After a somewhat long wait, the service tech informed me that all my troubles were a result of severely worn tires. Could have been worse, I guess, but still a costly repair. After thinking about my options for a few minutes, I decided I would get a second quote before shelling out the money.

I went to my local tire store. I knew they wouldn’t put the same quality of tires on my vehicle that the dealership was offering, but quite frankly, I was just trying to save some money. The quote was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, so I went ahead and had them make the tire change. I was off and running with a smooth driving car, and once again, I believed GM had done their job, and I probably wouldn’t hear any more from them.

But, I was wrong again! That evening, I got a call from Thomas from the Executive Customer Service Staff at GM. To be honest, I didn’t return his call right way. I just assumed it was a follow up to my appointment that morning. Little did I know GM was trying to go above and beyond yet again.

Early today, I finally had time to call Thomas back. He had been trying to get in touch with me before I bought new tires. Not because he wanted to tell me how great GM tires were, but because GM wanted to pay for two of them. He said even though tires really fell outside the warranty because of my miles (65k), I had been a loyal GM customer, and they wanted to help me out with some of the cost of the repair.

I started to kick myself at this point for not waiting. I thanked Thomas for the generous offer, but informed him I already purchased some tires that were cheaper at another store. Again, I figured that was it, after all, at this point, the customer service experience had far exceeded my expectations.

Without missing a beat, Thomas said he still wanted to help me out. He then proceed to offer me a GM Maintenance plan for free. Right now, I can’t remember the name of this, but essentially they will cover all my maintenance costs (oil changes, tire rotations, etc.) for the next 30,000 miles.  I quickly accepted this offer and thanked Thomas once again.

From the moment I sent that tweet, GM has been looking out for me as a customer. This group of social media specialists has been empowered to make this kind of effort to make sure customers have great experiences.With all the talk about social media and the pros and the cons, this is a wonderful example of a huge, enormous company, interacting with one individual and making a difference to their business.

Did their effort work? Well, you are reading a blog post about it now, aren’t you? I also will forward this link to my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Plus, I told ten people personally since this all happened this morning. Now, this story is reaching over 1,000 people or more. This is why I believe social media works.

I know this probably isn’t your typical story, and I definitely don’t think everyone should post things on Twitter hoping to get something for free. But in this case, GM went above and beyond–all from a simple Twitter post.  Now they have a customer for life.

Last night I experienced the power of social media first hand, and it came from a very unlikely source, General Motors. Yes, that’s right. The company that just months ago was working through a bankruptcy is now using social media to improve their customer service.

Here is what happened. Yesterday my service stabilitrak light came on in my Trailblazer. Since I am not a car expert, I had no idea what this meant. I called my local Chevy dealership and made an appointment to get it looked at, but from that point, a huge knot began to grow in my stomach.

What kind of cost would I be looking at? Would this be under warranty? Is this a big deal?

With all these questions in mind, I headed to the fountain of information, Twitter. I posted a simple message asking my followers if they had ever had this problem and would it be expensive. I used the # tag when mentioning Chevy, hoping to get multiple opinions.

Within 5 minutes of my tweet, I received a Direct message from @GMCustomerSvc asking me to direct message him with more info, so he could help me. I was amazed, not only with the speed of this reply, but also that he offered to help me.

Over the next few minutes we exchanged tweets, but we soon found it cumbersome to limit our messages to Twitter’s 140 character limit. That is when my new GM buddy asked me to switch our conversation toFacebook. He sent me a friend request, and within seconds, we were chatting away about my situation.

At the end of the evening, Jared the GM Twitter Specialist had confirmed my appointment, assigned me a follow up case number and verified that the Stabilitrak was not under warranty. As much as that news disappointed me, I was happy at the service I had received.

This whole episode really illustrates the power of Twitter and the way social media can be used to improve your customer service. Instead of me going to my appointment today already worried and dreading the wait, I was armed with information, comforted that someone cared and confident that I would get good service.

How can you use social media to improve your business? Can you interact with customers through social media?

Most of us love to talk. We want to be stars or the center of attention. That is why we love Social Media. We love to tell people what we are doing and what is important to us. We also all believe that people actually care.

With that in mind as businesses, it gives us a fantastic opportunity, TO LISTEN. With all of these followers, friends and fans, we have access to a huge database of information, thoughts and ideas. Best of all, these thoughts come from people who are interested enough to have made the initial connection.

We now have, at our fingertips, information that has never been available before. Instant updates as to when someone might be hungry or when someone is out shopping. We can know if someone is looking for a new car, or just ate at the restaurant we own. If we just take the time to listen, we can learn a lot.

After listening, we need to act, of course. Thank the customers for their business, send them a link to a car you sell, or invite them to your next function to get to know them better.

There are many tools out there that make the listening easier and can help you interact better, but the main point is to listen. Social media is a very powerful tool, but sometimes we use it incorrectly. Try changing your approach–Talk less and listen more. It will pay you dividends.

I have one simple thought for today. If you are going to venture into the world of social media, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, or your flavor of choice, make sure you have a plan.

These days, almost everyone expects you to have a presence on these networks, but if you don’t have a plan, it is worse than not being there at all.

I recently had dinner at a local restaurant. When the service didn’t go as well as I would have liked, I decided to fill out the new “comment card” and post something on the restaurant’s Facebook page. I was going to use Twitter, but unfortunately, they didn’t have a Twitter account.

I made a simple post about my dissatisfaction and waited to get a response. I did eventually get one three days later. I am very happy with the end result, and the Manager did a wonderful job in making things up to me. He won a fan back by his phone call and email.

In talking with him, he did reveal to me that he was struggling with social media and wasn’t sure of the etiquette or how to respond to comments. This is my point. If you are not sure what to do or how to do it, hold off on getting started. Get some advice, make a plan, and then make the leap.

If I would not have been able to find this company on Facebook, I would have asked to speak with the Manager right then. He would have been able to solve the problem, and that would have been the end of it.

By opening his restaurant up to the social world, he is taking on the responsibility of managing that part of his business as well. He must react in a timely fashion and make sure he doesn’t miss anything that is posted about his business.