In today’s world of instant gratification — where customers can tweet, email and call you within the same five-minute timeframe — you can never turn off your customer service. Plus, potential customers and current ones are not exclusively active during the traditional nine-to-five work hours. Being able to respond with a timely reply is more important than ever.

Service that stands out

Let me share an example. I’m at the point in my life where I’m looking to get in better shape and live a healthier lifestyle. Recently, I was curious about running so I did what I always do when I have a question: I asked it on Twitter.

I was flooded with responses. People on Twitter are extremely helpful, and with a topic as popular as running, there were lots of opinions. I’m still getting responses this morning.

I thanked everyone and went about my day.

Later, as I looked more closely at my replies, I noticed this tweet from @naturalrunstore:

Less than two hours after I asked my question, a company had chimed in. It wasn’t Puma, New Balance or Reebok (who all have local offices near me), but rather Richmond, Virginia-based Natural Running Store.

As I write this post roughly 24 hours after asking my question, they are still the only running company that was listening enough to chime in and answer.

But, they didn’t just reply to a tweet and leave it at that. They followed one of our Content Rules: “Share or Solve, Don’t Shill.” They realized that answering my question might be hard to do in the 140-character limit of Twitter and instead recorded a quick, custom video.

Yes, this running shoe company took time out of their day to film a video for me. The video is personalized by my name and, at the end, it references my book and a couple of other things I had talked about online earlier in the day.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that it’s obviously filmed in their store. You’ll hear people working in the background — it’s not overly-produced or scripted. It is simply a heartfelt conversation that they probably have multiple times every day in the store with customers who walk in.

The only difference? They realized their store is more than the brick-and-mortar structure they are based in.

So, how does this apply to you?

You might not be able to record custom videos for every question you get. But, couldn’t you take the top 10 most-frequently-asked questions and film video answers to them? Then, when you receive those questions via social media or email, send along the video link.

The personalization in this particular video was awesome, but honestly, if they had sent me a note saying, “Hey C.C., we’ve got this great video on how to start running that might help. Let us know if you need more details,” it would have been just as helpful.

The key fact here is the timely nature of your content. You’re no longer allowed to be asleep at the wheel or coasting through support queries. We live in a 24-hour world these days, and you never know where your next customer is going to come from. If you’re not spending at least one hour every day listening and reacting, you are missing out on business.

+++++

C.C. Chapman is the co-author (with Ann Handley) of Content Rules, a book that explains how companies can create remarkable blogs, podcasts, webinars, ebooks and more. C.C. is a leader in the online and social media marketing space; he speaks about building passionate consumer communities, and the strategic values of content-based marketing. C.C. can be reached by email at cc.chapman@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter (@cc_chapman).

• Brand & marketing
• Content tips & strategy
• Agencies
• Online Marketing