TheOpenForce.com

A few months back, I wrote a guest editorial over at VentureBeat called "How to Protect Yourself from a Twitter-Fueled PR Disaster".  Somehow, I forgot to do a cross-post.  Here's an excerpt:

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yammer, Flickr have changed the world. What started out as a way to hunt down old high school pals has revolutionized how we communicate with friends, family, and businesses. On the business side, a few retweets, and a single offhand comment can spark a PR disaster. Papa John’s realized this when a photo of a racist comment on a receipt blew up on Twitter within minutes. Both Verizon and Bank of America had to scrap newly proposed user fees after customers waged a full-blown protest via social media. And we all know how Netflix got an earful when it sprung a new pricing structure on its customers.

The point is, in the customer service realm, where customers’ interactions with a company are now incredibly public and visible, social media has created a newly empowered “collective” customer. Customers, not companies, are controlling how customer service policies are created and implemented...

Perhaps the best way for corporations to leverage social media is to regularly solicit customer feedback through online surveys and customer satisfaction ratings. These and related inexpensive tools give you invaluable information about customer perceptions and needs. Armed with this, you can create the best solutions and staff customer service teams at times when they’re needed the most.

You can read the full article at VentureBeat.