“Lenovo has seen a 20% reduction in call-center activity in the U.S. over six months because nearly 50,000 customers go to its community website for information about laptops.”
Congratulations to Mark Hopkins, the moderators of forums.lenovo.com, and Lithium for a great success story. One of the best payoff stories for social media and community marketing.
via More marketers use social networking to reach customers – USATODAY.com.
Thanks – speaking for the mod team, it’s been rewarding to watch the forum grow up and to be part of its success.
Major kudos to Mark and the moderators who donate their time to the community. That was truly an uphill battle.
Perhaps that is because the customers have become so discouraged by the call center representatives. I am currently having a horrible experience with the representatives in trying to get my order through (initiated at the web site). When I suggested to them that if they didn’t get my issue resolved soon, I would cancel the order, the representative I was speaking to did not seem the least bit concerned! She could not have cared less had I canceled my order. Apparently they don’t actually WANT to sell me a laptop.
Well, I decided to try to “social networking” route, after my inability to get the call center reps to help me. I emailed somebody at the top of the food chain with my issue. The next day, he contacted David, who contacted someone else, who put one of her people on it. The next morning (today), I received a phone call from someone else to tell me that my order was being marked “critical”, was handled, and would be shipping early next week.
It used to be that talking directly to humans worked better than anything else, but now that the call centers have all moved overseas & been outsourced, I guess email works best!
Thanks, David!