Remember Meatloaf? Not mom’s meatloaf—the singer. I was recently reminded of his hit “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” after reading about MarketingProfs’ Barbara Bix, who recently made a purchase only to find that when she had a post-purchase problem, customer service was poor. So poor she spent several hours on hold as the brand played “pass the phone” to a variety of customer service managers.

Barbara writes, “The company clearly understood the market…The name was short, crisp, and evocative. The logo was memorable. The promotion was compelling, frequent, and consistent.” What’s more the product had all the right features and earned great reviews.

It’s clear: this was a brand that was all revved up. But, with customer service like that, where were they going? You got it: no place.

Don’t sink product development and marketing investments with bad customer care. Check out the full MarketingProfs article for Barbara’s three tips for avoiding customer service flubs.

Here are two more tips for making the customer service experience complete using social media:

• Guide. Internal social media policies provide the framework front-line employees need to solve customers’ problems efficiently and in real time. Build customer loyalty by empowering social media reps to resolve issues—instead of forcing them to play “pass the angry customer” from supervisor to supervisor to manager.
• Listen. Social media monitoring can often be the first line of defense in discovering there are problems with a product or service. By measuring online sentiment and monitoring social networks and other channels, brands gain insight into what customers do and don’t love about products, allowing you to build a better customer service experience.

If you’re going to rev up your brand, do it right by making the investment in customer care match the investment in development and marketing. To learn how social media intelligence and corporate governance will increase your profit potential, contact the online analysts at Social Strategy1.

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