Social Mapping to Improve Customer Service

Posted by Larry Wallace on November 8, 2008 under Mobile, Social | Be the First to Comment

This afternoon, I sat on a bench at the neighborhood playground. While my kids played, I was thinking about a recent conversation I had about location services and social-mapping. Companies such as Whrrl, Loopt and others provide the ability to write reviews for businesses and restaurants that you frequent in addition to keeping track of where your friends are located.

While I love the idea of being able to read reviews to help persuade me as I look to find a particular product or a good restaurant to visit in my city, the benefits are so much greater than even a personal benefit.

Imagine how social mapping can aid in the goal of improving customer service. For example: If I have a bad experience at a store or restaurant, I may go home and tell my wife and probably a few friends. Those people, however, will probably not tell anyone else. However, if I write a review about my experience with a social-mapping service, I have then told hundreds, if not thousands of people, that the service at that establishment needs improvement. And chances are, they will tell a few people as well, without ever experiencing the bad service first hand.

The goal, of course is not to shut businesses down, although without reform, they may need to do so. Instead, the objective is to create a checks and balances service of what we as consumers expect from the companies that earn our dollars.

Conversely, those who have excellent service will benefit greatly from the reviews. Think about it. If you experience good service somewhere, do you go tell 10 friends? No. You may tell one or two, but we all know that word of mouth is the best form of publicity for small businesses.

Up until now, we have rewarded good service by returning to the establishment in the future. Now, however, with social-mapping, we can support local businesses by telling the world they exist and they have great service. That type of social marketing is free publicity that most small business could never afford to pay for on their own.

Or could they?!?! This led me to another thought. What if an entrepreneurial minded person, created a company that provided a service for these businesses that monitored these reviews written by patrons? That entrepreneur could charge these businesses to provide weekly reports about what their customers are saying. That type of information and reports would be priceless. What business gets that kind of feedback every week from its customers? The entrepreneur could even charge extra from cleaning up some of the negative feedback from the establishment’s customers through follow-up, incentives, and customer relations.

So business and restaurant owners, you better get on the ball. No longer will patrons be willing to take second rate customer service as an acceptable behavior. Your patrons will expect excellence and quality from the moment they walk in the door. Make sure your business is thriving on a spirit of excellence. Your future may depend on it!