“I am collecting tips and tricks for turning upset customers into happy ones”

I responded with:

“When I find out that a customer is unhappy or unsatisfied with a service my company has performed, I will usually send them a gift certificate to a nice restaurant in town. People have a hard time staying mad at you if you are willing to feed them, and it gives you the opportunity to engage them on a more personal level and find out exactly how you can remedy the issue.”

This may seem a bit simple, but people with full bellies don’t stay mad long.

Don’t get me wrong.  No meal, no matter how good it tastes, will solve your problems or correct a mistake.  But a free meal to a NICE restaurant will show your customers that you are not afraid to engage them on a very personal level to ensure they are happy.

This tip was based on my experience as a designer and General Contractor specializing in high-end kitchens, baths, and renovation projects.  This line of work is a VERY PERSONAL business.  These projects involve a huge inconvenience to the home owner.  At any given time during the project the customer may be without water, electricity, heating or cooling, not to mention the dust, debris, and noise.  Often the customer is not able to use their kitchen for some length of time, so a gift certificate to a NICE restaurant provides some peace and solace during an otherwise hectic and stressful time.

I use free food not only to engage my customers when something goes wrong, whether it is my fault or somehting unforeseen, but also to obtain free advice and networking.

Need legal, accounting, or business advice and you don’t want to pay full price for a consulting fee?  I have yet to ever be turned down when I have offered to take one of these professionals out to lunch “to pick their brains.”  This is a “retainer-free” way to not only get good advice, but also a way to get your business in front of other professionals that may recommend your services to their client base.

Thanks again to Mike for including my recommendation.  You can read the other 54 tips here.

Want to do lunch sometime? Connect with me by cliking on one of the icons below or shoot me an email.

Social Media experts, professionals, marketers, managers, gurus, clubs and networks are emerging as fast as the status updates they publish.  But since this “form” connectivity is still so new and still growing, I am a little bit hesitant when I see, hear, or read that someone is a “Social Media Professional.”  I am not saying that there are no Social Media experts or professionals that make a living with these new tools and networking capabilities, but having a Twitter account and a Facebook page and calling yourself a Social Media Professional is comparable to calling a guy with a truck and a few tools a General Contractor.

So my question is…

What makes a Social Media Professional a professional?

Let me clarify one thing.  I am not asking this question of those of us engaged in Social Media in one form or another to connect or promote a small business.  I am also not asking those of you that may may be “in the know” about all things Social that may teach others the “How-To’s” of Social Media.  (That’s a completely different discussion.)

My question is directed at those people that are gainfully employed by an organization or business and tasked with achieving some sort of metrics regarding the use of Social Media.  My question is directed at those of you that direct a team of people or work with others within an organization to promote said organization, team, or business through the use of Social Media.

By what metrics do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of your Social Media campaign?

What tools in the Social Media toolbox do you use to reach these pre-defined metrics, and why do you use the tools you have chosen?

Is your Social Media strategy based on public relations, marketing efforts, business development, or some combination of these?

When contemplating business strategies, I often default to my background…Construction and Project Management.  In this line of work I find it of utmost importance to provide an answer to the following question:

What are the clear and definable goals of this project or task?

If I cannot answer this question for my clients and if I cannot develop a system to achieve those goals, then I am stealing my clients’ money.

So as an employed Social Media Professional, does your team operate with clear and definable goals?

The idea for this post came from a tweet I read from a friend of mine:

@gavinbaker (Socia Media Manager for a large restaurant chain) tweeted “…wonders why social media is always synonymous with twitter, when there is a lot more out there”

This got me thinking.  Is Social Media PR, marketing, business development, networking, SEO or something else?  It seems to me that Social Media is some combination of all these and more, but many  so-called “Social Media Professionals” I follow seem to rest on the altar of Twitter and Facebook with little or no deeper strategy of engagement or business development in mind.

The question…”What makes a Social Media Professional a Professional is like asking the question:

“What makes something ART?”

I don’t know, but if I can do it, it ain’t art.

And to quote a recent acquaintance of mine, Zane Hagy – CEO and company Mascot for z11 Communications (@zane_z11comm), “I am no Social Media expert, and neither are people that say they are.  It keeps changing too fast.”

What say you Mr. and Mrs. Social Media Professional?  What makes you a Social Media Professional?