I see some companies who standout. They not only respond when directly contacted (@ed on Twitter). They monitor Twitter for mentions of their company, and they respond anytime someone mentions them by name. Beyond all of that, and read this carefully because this is the crucial element, they make things happen and address or fix the issue quickly.

One example was @shoebuy. I had a gift certificate to Shoebuy.com and it was about a week before a conference when I remembered that. I went there to get some shoes, and I saw no option to get them overnighted. I tweeted about it and didn’t even realize they were on Twitter, so I didn’t say with their @ in the tweet. Within seconds, yes seconds, two different Shoebuy employees on Twitter responded that they could overnight certain brands. It wasn’t easy to determine which brands, so they sent me a link to a full list.

Within an hour, I had ordered my shoes and they arrived the next day. Without that Twitter intervention, I would have been annoyed with Shoebuy and I would not have placed the order at all. I also would have likely told people about this bad experience. Now I can rave about the company. (Like now.)

Many times, however, I see companies doing it wrong. This not only means the resources they are putting into Twitter are wasted, but they are probably causing more damage than good.

Here are what I will describe as the five bad customer service types.

The Retro Customer Service Tweeter

I sent @wachovia a DM this morning asking about an issue with my account. Their response was to call their 800 number. Ummm, why are you on Twitter exactly? I get there are privacy issues, but there are ways to share information via DM that would not be a problem.

If we wanted to endure an 800 number, wait on hold, argue and cajole to get a straight answer, get accidentally knocked off the line, call back and start over… well, we aren’t idiots. Anyone who is on Twitter is surely capable of looking up your toll-free number. We are contacting you on Twitter specifically because we want to avoid all of that. Phone customer service sucks 99.99999 percent of the time (yeah, that’s a real statistic). We despise it.

You can get a monkey to DM people 800 numbers, but I would prefer you hire a savvy human who can contact the right people and fix the issue.

The Multiple Personality Customer Service Tweeter

It is perfectly fine (in fact, wonderful) to have several people within the company and/or on behalf of the company on Twitter. In fact, as my example above shows with @shoebuy, it wasn’t even the official account that contacted me. What is not OK is not clearly specifying which Twitter account is the official one, or the one designated to handle customer service complaints.

We get that you can’t have one human monitoring your account 24/7. But there are ways to handle that. Say in your bio or your background who the various people are. If you want to be personal, have them sign their tweets with -firstname or -initials. But just look at @umatter2charter! This is one. hot. mess!

Twice, I have contacted Charter. Twice I’ve gone at least a day or two because I didn’t properly decipher which of their five (yes FIVE) Twitter customer service accounts was on at that moment. Kudos to them for responding when they get it or make sense of it. But having one account with multiple users would be so much clearer.

As it is now, this is reducing their effectiveness and confusing/irritating their customers on Twitter. It’s also clearly slowing their response time. Beyond that, this will be hard for them to reverse if customers are following or accustomed to tweeting one of the five accounts.

The Oblivious Customer Service Tweeter

First, let me say not being on Twitter is a major fail these days. A year ago, it was no big deal. Today, especially for a major corporation, it is glaring. But it’s possible to be on Twitter and be just as distant to the community as one who is missing. Where is Apple? Seriously. And @itunesmusic is the epitome of the blind Twitter account.

Here are some warning signs of an oblivious tweeter:

• They don’t follow anyone. (Here’s a hint: when you do that, no one can DM you. So they can only complain @ you publicly. You know, where everyone sees it. Mmm-hmmm.)
• They don’t reply to anyone.
• They do nothing but self-promote and sell.

The Two-Faced Customer Service Tweeter

Twice, I complained about AT&T on Twitter. OK, way more than twice, but they acknowledged it twice. They replied publicly and in DM. They asked for my email address, and said the matter would be addressed and someone would be in touch. Twice, I never heard a word.

Whether intentional or just a case of it falling through the cracks, this is shady. Publicly, it saves face. The company looks responsive. But believe me, I have since tweeted that this happened. And now I am blogging about it.

If you say you will help, do it. At least try. Believe me, we don’t forget.

The Good News Customer Service Tweeter

This is a variation of the Oblivious Tweeter above, but an equally annoying one. They are more than happy to chit chat, and to retweet when someone raves about their company. They think contests asking people to follow them to enter is engagement. They think churning out coupons is enough.

But if someone complains on Twitter, they disappear. Or DM and want it taken offline. If you are a company on Twitter, you have to take the good and the bad. You have to address the good and the bad. There are positives to even the most negative tweets. Twitter is a great big free focus group. You should listen. The feedback could be valuable.

Plus, back to @shoebuy, they quickly turned a negative into a positive. That is what people tend to remember. If you respond, that is.

What do you think? Do you have an experience with a company on Twitter that did it just right… or just wrong? I’d love to hear about it.

_{Customer service illustration based on photo © Ray Smithers.}

Many mom bloggers I know are brilliant. They know the ins and outs of social media, Twitter, Facebook and blogging far better than many other so-called gurus do. They are connected, and they are influential. They have a following of loyal and devoted readers, subscribers and social network friends.

Yet they get asked to work for free. They are free spokesbloggers. They get asked to promote companies without pay, or for products or for coupons or for trips.

It’s insulting.

Look, here’s the deal. Mom bloggers do not need companies to not make money. We can do that all on our own. Really. If you are approaching a blogger, asking her to promote your company for free is wrong. It’s as simple as that. If you can say with a straight face that your paycheck is paid in your company’s or client’s products, then please. Call me on this.

We get asked constantly if people can “pick our brains.” No! Our brains are our commodity. They ARE our service. That is called consulting. And moms, if you find you are on the end of this, figure out your hourly rate. Figure out what it is worth to take time away from your work, your blogging, your children and your husband.

When you get asked to have your brain picked, quote your hourly rate for that service.

Now I do understand that many times it is tempting. You see an opportunity to work with a major brand. You think working for free will lead to more work. I do understand that. But it is a slippery slope. Why should someone pay you (or anyone for that matter) for work you are doing for free?

Accepting an item to do a review (if you really want to do that review and it serves your readers) is fine. I would just recommend having a policy of including both pros and cons in all reviews. A review should serve readers first and foremost. Any company that doesn’t understand that? Well, I wouldn’t work with that company. Believe me. They are not insisting traditional journalists do positive reviews. Mom bloggers can and should write reviews that show both the negative and positive about products.

And ladies, I am here to say something else. We have to behave like professionals. If we want to be treated as small business women, which is what we are, we should act like entrepreneurs. No more attacks and back-stabbing. We are adults here.

That includes not judging and condemning fellow mom bloggers. Yes, even those who accept products and trips. They are not bad people. Let’s stop jumping down their throats about it. Because the bottom line is surely every mom blogger would work for pay if there were ethical ways to do it, it did not compromise their readers and they actually wanted to do the work involved. But first, companies have to offer it as a standard mode of doing business with mom bloggers.

How can companies ethically pay mom bloggers? Here are some simple options:

• Pay them for content on your site, not theirs. In response to this issue, I recently launched Momtent. It is geared at connecting companies with mom bloggers. I am not a fan of paid posts (although with full disclosure, it is a personal choice and I don’t like people telling moms the right way to blog). Momtent’s model is for companies to pay bloggers to write on the company blog. But with or without Momtent, why not hire a mom to write for your blog? Or build it for you? Or tell you how you’re blogging wrong?
• Advertise. Quit looking at blog advertising the same way you look at traditional advertising. It isn’t the 1990s. They aren’t the same, and never will be. Besides, all those metrics that make you feel all warm and fuzzy about traditional media? They are a smoke screen. Traditional advertising metrics like viewers and circulation mean nothing. Who is seeing your ad? Who cares about it when they see it? Who ACTS on it? And treat blogs with some degree of respect. For traditional media, companies pursue two prongs: they hope to get PR coverage but know it’s a toss-up, and they do media buys. On blogs, they just want free coverage. Watch for a future post about the less tangible benefits of advertising on blogs.
• Hire her as a spokesblogger. This certainly isn’t a new concept. Celebrities have been doing this for years. Hire a mom blogger to promote your company with transparency, and to clearly state she is a spokesblogger. Pay her as you would any spokesperson. The same rules apply for moms here as celebrities: don’t endorse something (even for pay) that you don’t already love.
• Hire her as a social media consultant. Mom bloggers know so much more than the average person (or company) about the social web. Hire a mom to walk you through the ins and outs, to have conference calls with your staff, to do training, to run your social media campaigns, to develop your social media strategy. Believe me, doing it wrong can have dreadful repercussions.

I have become increasingly concerned about all of these issues. So many mom bloggers are influence-rich but cash-poor. That is a disturbing disparity. It’s also one destined to blow up as moms get increasingly frustrated while getting increasingly influential.

Let’s all do the right thing here. Companies (and the agencies that represent them), if you want to show your support of the mom blogosphere and engage those of us who control the purse strings, put your money where your mouth is. Bloggers, if you want to be taken seriously act like a business person. And the next time you get a pitch and you are agonizing over whether it even interests your readers, send them your ad rates.

_{Image of Rosie the Blogger, © Michael Licht}

I really would welcome your thoughts on this topic. What do you think? If you have worked for a company without pay, why? Was it because you thought it would lead to paid work down the road?  Did it? Have you had any luck responding to companies with an invitation to advertise when they pitch you? Companies and agencies, have you been paying bloggers and have some good examples of projects?

• There is the need for influential mom bloggers to, like, make money or something
• Companies want to work with mom bloggers because they have authenticity and their followers/readers listen to them

I came up with something that some companies and bloggers are doing already, but this would be a way to simplify the process.

Here is the description of Momtent:

Companies want to connect with mom bloggers to have authentic voices in an ethical manner. Mom bloggers are struggling for a way to earn the money they deserve for their hard work. Momtent is designed to overcome the hurdles facing both sides, creating a fair way for both sides to win. Companies get quality content, and mom bloggers get paid for their writing.

Momtent works like this:

• A company seeks a mom blogger to write content for the company’s site. They set their budget,  and the topics to be covered. They state their desired Twitter followers, experience level, and whether they require that the blogger include a badge or widget in their sidebar, tweet about their posts, and so on. This allows a company to get high quality, search-engine optimized content for their own blog or site, and to leverage the reach and readership of the blogger.
• Momtent turns to our pool of quality writers to find the best match (or matches for companies seeking a team of bloggers). The writers get paid to create quality content for the company.
• Momtent will also edit the content so it arrives clean and error-free, and we deliver it in the format requested (Word, coded html, etc.).

It’s as simple as that. Companies get real mom voices, and moms get paid for their work.

I’d love to hear what you think…. also, if you are a company or a mom blogger, be sure to submit the forms for either to get more information (as a company) or to get into the mom blogger database to get assignments.

If you can get past the offensiveness of the ad (I know, it’s hard), there is a larger issue here. Companies are marketing to moms without any clue what moms think. This, to me, is just further evidence that all companies and marketers who want to reach moms need to hire a Chief Mom Officer like Jessica Smith.

I recommend you (and Motrin!) watch Katja’s video:

And keep an eye on the PR nightmare via this feed of posts tagged #motrinmoms on Twitter:

If you have posted about Motrin moms (I already see loads of mom bloggers tearing into them. Don’t mess with the moms, companies!), please post a comment here. If you leave CommentLuv checked, it will pull your latest post’s link in automatically.