Tricia Morris

As the average human attention span and level of patience grows shorter, video has become an attractive alternative to wading through the written word. Spend a day or two reading 100+ pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s luxurious writing in The Great Gatsby? Most people today would say no way. Watch the whole story in a little over two hours? A $51 million opening weekend doesn’t lie….

In long or short form, video presents a viable alternative to reading, writing and searching through manuals, instructions and lengthy online content. There’s a magic to the medium that makes even the most mundane subjects bearable – and sometimes, even interesting, helpful and entertaining. ...

What stands between businesses deciding that social customer service is just another can of worms they’d prefer not to open and the flourish of an enterprise social butterfly? Often, it’s the lack of available metrics for this emerging channel, or simply, the proper means to measure it.

Many organizations either aren’t measuring social customer service yet, are manually recording interactions and outcomes in spreadsheets, or are siloing social customer service and data because they haven’t yet incorporated social support with the same workflow and analytics used for other channels.

The organizations that have begun using and measuring social media...

Mobile isn’t just another customer service channel; for the majority of consumers, the use of mobile devices is a part of everyday life. According to Morgan Stanley, 91% of smartphone users continuously keep their mobile phone within arm’s reach.

Because of its pervasive use and convenience, customer service on mobile devices including smartphones and tablets has quickly come of age. Customers expect both personalized and self-service options when seeking real-time support, communication or information from businesses and organizations, and doing this via a smaller screen, or across social media on smartphones and tables, is proving to be a new challenge that organizations large and small must quickly adapt to. The infographic below offers a brief profile of the mobile consumer and the increasing use of the convenient small screen at hand to search, make purchases, do research and seek service and support:

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While the Twittersphere is filled with questions and complaints directed at big brands, one of the hardest things for organizations to do is effectively respond in 140 characters or less. While many have offered the opinion that corporate customer service simply doesn’t belong on Twitter, don’t tell the likes of Zappos, Ask.com, Travelodge, Microsoft and Warby Parker that, because they’re actually experiencing tweet success when it comes to customer service. Here are five character-thrifty tips to get your organization’s customer service message across on Twitter:

1. Think Inside the Box (specifically, a YouTube screen). When Warby Parker launched in 2010 with a policy that it would respond to every customer question and comment no matter what channel it came from, they made it work, even with Twitter’s limited word count.

For  answers that just won’t fit within the 140 character limit, Warby Parker’s customer service team...