The Social Media Sucks Show - Jay Baer on his new book Hug Your Haters

SPEAKER_03 0:01

What is happening, everybody? Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Matthew Ross. As always, welcome to the show. My C deciding co-host this week. And author of Hashtag Hug Your Hater. Jay Bears and that's what I'm saying. What's up, Jay Bear?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

What is up, my friend C Bass? Great to see you as always. I guess you don't interview me enough. I've only written five and you are lazy.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

No, I love I love the cover and uh I love the um yeah, I love the whole the whole concept of it because it's so um it's so um I haven't got my hands on a copy yet. Maybe we can make it.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I know I gotta I I gotta send you uh I can send you a paper copy. This is not the real book, this is the advanced galley copy. So there's still typos and stuff in here, but um uh I can send you a paper one or I can send it to you in PDF for special people.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

I like I like the I like the the pre like the pre-playbook, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

The pre-playbook, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Exactly. Um so last time I in fact we were talking books and we were we talked about how um utility uh came about and utility came about. Um by the way, quick station identification. If you're tuning in here, you have absolutely no idea who I am. I'm a guy that normally wears bow ties. Today I'm you know station identification.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I know I'm a little thrown off. I'm a little thrown off.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Um with a little uh Suey Zimmerman social media sucks sign in the back. Um I'm a social media strategist, I wrote a book called Social Media Sucks if you don't know what you're doing. And uh it just so happens that Jay Bear wrote the forward for that book. I'm very gracious of him for doing so. Um we do the show a couple times a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1 p.m. Eastern time, and uh we got really cool guests on, like Jay chatted about cool things like his brand new book. We're gonna dig into social media. We I added a subject onto the uh roster as of late morning, I guess Jay did, and that is uh people not responding back to emails. Definitely want to chat about that. So we're gonna talk about um Jay's upcoming New York Times bestseller. Um haters. Uh so you obviously conceptualize this from a very um uh very much a reality in today's world, especially with social media, especially how we're able to watch our um um our peers every single move. And you know, the nature of the beast is you know that haters are extracted out of that process. So walk us through that.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, so it what happened was um, as you know, my company does a lot of social media strategy work and content marketing strategy and that kind of thing um for big companies. And we were finding that organizations were getting better with marketing in social media and digital, et cetera, but they were still really really struggling with the customer service side. And so I thought, you know, there's a that's weird, right? Because it's not like customer service is brand new. We're just changing the channels, but but it's gotten really, really hard for people. So I did a ton of research for this book. I actually uh partnered with Tom Webster and the guys at Edison Research, and we did a massive, comprehensive, very expensive research project uh on the science of complaint. We looked at who complains and where they complain and why would they complain and how. Uh, and what we found was that like a third of all complaints by customers are never answered. And in almost every case, those complaints are online. It's in social media, it's review sites, it's discussion boards and forums, which is crazy because online customer service is a spectator sport. And so uh I based on the research, in fact, each copy of Hug Your Haters uh comes with it uh a poster, which is called The Hatrix, um, which uh details all the different all the different research and stuff, and and um and so I wrote the book to sort of help people figure out uh customer service today. What what I what I tell people is that Hug Your Haters is the first ever book about modern customer service. There's lots of customer service books out there, many of them are great, but they're not totally realistic or relevant today because customer service has changed so much. Uh, in fact, there's stuff in the book now about people doing customer service with Facebook Messenger, people doing customer service with Blab, people doing customer service with WhatsApp and WeChat. It's not just about phone and email anymore. And most companies, large and small, are totally unprepared for it. So the the advice in the book, the sort of thesis of Hug Your Haters, is that you need to answer every customer in every channel every time. Every customer, every channel every time. But what actually happens today, Sebastian, is that companies answer some customers in the channels that they prefer when they get around to it. And that's not good enough.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Not even a little bit. It blows my mind that that brands don't respond as as quickly as they do. I mean, it's it's very few and far between. So do you lay out a game plan in the book on what brands should be doing?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Absolutely. Uh, in fact, there's there's uh uh two entire sections of the book that are sort of step by step what you should do. There's one, let me just say there's there's two types of haters. Uh there are onstage haters, which are people who complain in public, so social media, Yelp, uh discussion boards, et cetera. And then there's offstage haters, which are people that complain in private, so phone, email, et cetera. And so I've got full playbooks for each side. So how do you handle people who complain online versus how do you handle people who complain offline? Uh, and and it sort of gives a whole step-by-step um kind of workbook approach to doing that.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

What's the one sentence definition of a hater?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Uh in in the parlance of the book, it's any customer uh that delivers negative feedback to the business. Got it.

unknown 5:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

So so not necessarily, not necessarily trolls or people who are super, although we do talk about that in the book, we call them the crazies, but um, you know, in the in the in the nomenclature of the book, a hater is anybody who's got negative feedback.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Anyone that needs to take a sip of the hater aid.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Absolutely. But you know, here's the thing haters are your most important customers, your most important fans, your most important everything. And here's why. Sebastian, the most overrated thing in life, the most overrated thing in business is praise. Because praise teaches you nothing. When somebody says, oh, Sebastian, you're so great at this, Sebastian, you're so great at that, Sebastian, you're so awesome at this, that feels great. Like psychically, it feels great, but it teaches you nothing. Right. Because anybody, anytime somebody says you're good at this, you already knew that. Like you already, you may not want to like brag about it, but you already knew that you're good at that. Where you learn and where you get better is when people say, you know what you're not good at is this, this, this, and this. Haters are the canary in the coal mine. 95%, 95% of unhappy customers never complain in a form or a fashion that the business can find it. They just, they just talk about you behind your back or they don't say anything, they just poof, disappear. So the haters, you gotta realize a hater, somebody who complains in public in particular, is going out of their way to use their time, their time to help you get better. It's a gift. Right. It's a gift, man. It's free market research, if nothing else.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

So if a small business, um, which is an easy example to to utilize, um, there may be some small business owners um in here, um, you know, what's a what's a simple way to implement um a strategy to make sure that you know that the haters are are are being addressed?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Sure. So uh one of the examples I have in the book is a company called Fresh Brothers Pizza. And they have a chain of pizza restaurants in Southern California. And their owner, uh, her name is Debbie Goldberg, she answers every customer review on Yelp, uh, also TripAdvisor and Urban Spoon. And so when somebody leaves a positive review, she says, Wow, thanks very much. We're so excited that you like Fresh Brothers. Hey, I'd like to send you a gift card so that next time you can bring a friend who maybe hasn't tried us before. And if somebody leaves a negative review, if she answered, Doug, we're really sorry, we're, you know, we're gonna make changes, we're gonna talk to the store manager, we're, you know, it's we're sorry that you had a bad experience. Hey, could we send you a gift card so that you would give us another chance? And this has a huge impact on her business. Now, I said to her when I interviewed her, said, Hey, Debbie, here's the thing. Seems like smart people would just like leave negative reviews on purpose and scam you out of gift cards. And she said, Well, we keep track of it. We've got a CMS system and we, you know, write it down and all that. So we're not giving them out multiple times to one person. But she said, Yeah, I suspect every once in a while somebody's kind of you know playing around and trying to get a free gift card. But she said, you know what? Who cares? It's the best and least expensive marketing we could possibly do. Because again, online customer service is a spectator sport. Yes, of course, you want to make that person happy and give them a gift card, but it's all the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people who see that interaction that say, wow, these guys really care. They really go the extra mile. That's the impact, right? So I think she handles it really well. She answers every time, positive and negative.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

That reminds me of the case study that Gary put in uh Thank You Economy for um what's the joint in Milwaukee? Uh the uh the burger.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Oh, AJ's AJ's bombers, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yeah. So and I tell that story. I I I use that story in all my talks, as well as your story about Columbia. I use that more than I do.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Oh, yeah, those guys are great.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

I mean, that because that just gives people I use it to be able to put in contrast, you know, being able to provide a uh uh uh value without actually selling your product and something that complements it. I mean we'll we'll talk about that. Actually, let's just talk about that right now. Um how relevant is I mean, utility is still relevant because that message I believe is still really untold. Uh outside of your book, it's really untold. People aren't saying, what can I do to align something to provide value that has nothing to do with me selling my product? Right, right, right. It definitely is. That's what I'm saying. Your your I mean that that that um um people are curious. They're like utility on here. And every time I think they're more interested in your content, than mine, but that's what it's all about, right? Um so being a utility as a brand and having a hater strategy all in one. I mean, these are all components that I'm sure you're you're actively are you getting these from based on what you what you're experiencing with your with the clients the project you've worked on?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Like CM. Sometimes, yeah. I mean, sometimes we we pull examples for the books from clients. Columbia is a good example. Uh there's a couple others in Hug Your Haters, but but a lot of times it's just things that I things that I I just see, I discover, um, or I ask around, or, or somebody tells me, or what have you. So it comes from all different, all different sources. And I'm really lucky that I've got um uh a good editorial assistant. Her name's Christina Pater. She's a screenwriter uh in in Hollywood, and and so she really helps me um with some of the research and and uh and some of the interviews to kind of find because in this book, so not only we have this huge research project that that forms the spine of the book and the recommendations, but I did 50 to 70 interviews for this book of different companies. So uh there's a lot of of content in here and a lot of great um stories, big company stories, small company stories, B2B stories, B2C stories, US stories, international stories, are very much, even more so than utility, very much wrote this book so that it it appeals to everybody, that everybody has something they can take out of here. So it's not like, well, I'm a small company, this book isn't for me. Bullshit, this book is totally for you. I'm an enterprise company, this book isn't for me. Nope, it's totally for you as well. So I was really careful about about writing it that way.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Wow. I mean, you this wasn't like, well, let's just take out a sheet of paper and see if we start jutting down some ideas for the next book here. I mean, you went, I mean, you dove in um on the research side and then the interview side, which is amazing. But I mean, of course, it's all about having um you know the right content, the focus content on what you want to do for the book. But um let's let's rewind real quick to the utility story, which I think is brilliant. That book came out of what a keynote presentation that you gave, correct?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, so so not even a keynote. Actually, the very first time that I ever kind of summoned the utility story was the second year of uh content marketing world um in Cleveland. And and that would have been big shout out to Joe and his orange. Big shout out to Joe. 2010, if I have my dates right. So he said to me, hey Jay, we're gonna do this like kind of TED Talk thing where we want uh you and some other folks to do like a quick, like, you know, 12-minute, like get people fired up kind of main stage thing. Uh, can you come up with something? I said, Yeah, sure, whatever. Um, I can do that. So I was like, what am I gonna what am I gonna talk about in this event? And uh that summer, so a few months ahead of time, I I was I was working with a lot of our clients um at Convince and Convert, and you know, we were working a lot of content strategy and and we kept kind of coming back to this like how do you make your content more useful, right? So it's not a pitch, it's actually generally useful. And when you do that, you sort of win hearts and minds, you know, indirectly. And so uh I'm like, well, maybe this whole like idea of useful content kind of makes maybe there's a theme there. And so I started looking and looking and started to see more and more evidence of it. Some of it I experienced personally, some of it I just found. And and then uh I I kind of started cobbling together the notes uh for this presentation. I was in the shower about three, four weeks out from uh from the content marketing world, and the the title utility just kind of like popped into my head like out of nowhere, like in between suds and rinse. And I was like, oh, that's a that's a good title. And so then I like immediately towel off, you know, checking for domain names, you know, that kind of thing. That kind of deal. Um and so I uh I gave the presentation in Cleveland and people really liked it, and the um the you know, the the reaction was so strong, I said, well, geez, I should expand this to a full keynote, not just 12 minutes. And so then I stretched it into a keynote, and people like that. And I said, Well, maybe I should write a book, and then took the keynote and turned it into a book. And I did the same thing with Hug Your Haters. So so I wrote the presentation, the original presentation for Hug Your Haters, and the first time I ever gave it was at social media marketing world uh in April. So April 2015. And so that was the first ever discussion of this topic. Uh and it got a lot of buzz. I remember I remember seeing it online. It did. And so then I took I took the presentation and then used that as kind of the outline for the book. Obviously, the book has way more stuff than the presentation because it's so research-based. I mean, there's so much, you know, this isn't just like, hey, you know, be good at customer service. Like there's real data in this thing.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Right. Well, hey, facts sell, stories tell, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Um, so uh so the book's not out yet.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Uh four weeks from today, uh, March 1st. And so I have already sold more copies of Hug Your Haters than I did uh of utility in the first week. Uh, and I still have a month to go. So people can go to hugyourhaters.com uh and I'll ship it to you for free in the US and Canada. There's all kinds of special bonus offers, including uh the I Love Hater socks, which is amazing. Uh, you can get uh signed copies of the hatrix. Um, you can get free webinars with me. If you buy a few copies of the book, you get to be in a very special invite-only Facebook group that we're creating for people who uh are interested in social media customer service and that kind of thing. So uh we are selling books like crazy uh at hugyourhaters.com. So thank you. Yeah. And so when we get a little closer, we'll say, hey, go to Amazon or whatever. But for now, it's actually better for me for bestseller list purposes and all that, for people to buy it at hugyourhaters.com. And thankfully, many people have done so, and God bless you all.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

How long did it take to get to uh to to best seller status? Usually, is it right out of the gates?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Usually what happens, what you're what you try to do, and what we're trying to do with this, what we did with utility, is you're trying to take as many orders as you can and and have all those orders get processed the first week the book comes out. That that's usually how you do it. So one of the reasons why it's better for me to have people buy the book from me at hugyourhaters.com, is that I can then determine where to fulfill that order. So if you buy five books, I can figure out okay, should I run those books through Barnes and Noble? Should I run them through some other kind of company? How do I get you five books? Um, if you buy them from Amazon, um, which is great, and please, whatever, buy them wherever you want. But if you buy them from Amazon, what happens is Amazon will ship the books out as soon as they get the books in their warehouse. So because the publisher doesn't want to miss the release date, publishers always send the books to Amazon early. So if the book comes out March 1st, Amazon will probably have the books, you know, February 15th, February 20th. So as soon as Amazon gets them, they send them out. Well, that's cool because you might get the book a little early. But what happens is if you've got, say, a thousand pre-orders on Amazon, they ship them out early. You don't get a thousand orders in your release week. It gets spread out in all the weeks before the book comes out, right? And so it actually takes what is this many books you sold and becomes this many books because Amazon lets the cat out of the bag early. Um, and so that can be uh kind of a problem when you're trying to sell this many, but you actually only counted this many because Amazon moved the timeline up. So that's why most authors who kind of do this sort of bestseller, like, let's be strategic about this. It is better if you sell the books yourselves in that first couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

For sure. And um, by the way, if anybody's got any questions or anything, we can open the you know, the seats open.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Shoot them over. I'm gonna tell you a story um that you'll appreciate about Hug Your Haters. So one of my favorite examples in the book is um is from uh Lapon Quatidienne. Do you know that chain? Do they have those down there in Florida? LPQ. Uh I know they're in Boston and New York and stuff. They're based in Belgium, actually, in Brussels, Lapon Quatidienne. There's about 225 of them, uh, bakeries and cafes, uh, mostly in Europe, some in the Northeast. And so they have a relatively new director of customer experience, Erin Pepper is her name. And when she started at the brand, she said, here's my goal. My goal is to triple, triple the number of complaints. Think about that. She wants to triple the number of complaints, which is exactly opposite what most people would do. Usually you're trying to have fewer complaints. She's like, No, I want, I want more complaints, because again, complaints tell you things you don't already know. So she very much lives by the hug your haters formula where she answers every complaint and every channel every time. So when somebody complains about LPQ, gives them a negative review on Yelp or TripAdvice or whatever, she answers back in public as you should. We're terribly sorry, we're gonna fix it, you know, whatever. But then what she does, Sebastian, is in many cases, she will um uh answer that hater again in private using like a private messaging system, and all those sites have kind of DM, PM functions. So she'll she'll hit them on the private messaging side of Yelp a couple hours later. She says, Hey, Sebastian, I've been thinking, and you are a particularly perceptive customer. You see things that other customers just don't see. You have a gift for this. So what I'd like to do with your permission, I'd like to send you two gift cards a month. And with each of those gift cards, I'd like you to go to a different Lapon-Quotidian location. And upon the conclusion of your visit, I'd like you to click this link and fill out this very detailed survey of your experiences. And it totally works. She's got 150 secret shoppers now working for her, leaving completely massively detailed feedback every time they visit. And the total cost of that program is a few gift cards. She turned hate into help, which I think is super amazing and is an idea that everybody should steal.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

100%. Mitch Jackson's in the house.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Mitch Jackson, the man, is in the house.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Absolutely, I'm in the house because I have to say hi to you. Have to say hi to Sebastian, but Jay, I have to say hi to you. We've never met, and I've been. I know it's weird.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

We we we internet know each other, but I've never we've never met face to face, which is bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Well, it's so cool, and you know, from one wildcat to another, you know, bear down, go cats. Oh man, bear down is right. We need is uh it's been a depressing couple of weeks. We need to send one of your books or a couple of your books to some of the fans who are falling off the uh the, you know, they're not backing us up like they used to. Here's my question, Chu Love what you're doing. Uh, Red Utility, our last family trip to Amsterdam, and it was kind of a catch-to-cause I'm trying to absorb all this material, but at the same time, that's a city that lends itself to not absorbing anything other than the beautiful right. So but um as a lawyer, as a lawyer, uh there are a few haters out there. And what I what I've learned over the years is oftentimes the people that um are hating us for whatever reason, they've got major issues in their lives, they've got major life-changing problems and concerns, and I get that, and oftentimes they take it out on us. And so my challenge, Jay, has always been to step up, try to take the high road, soak it in, soak it in, and solve that problem. The way they teach us to do things at the University of Arizona. Um, it's not always easy, but it is, but it is always necessary. Now, having said all that, um, you know, once I appreciated the fact that the issue wasn't always me, it was usually the other person having some serious stuff going on. All right, it was easier for me to manage. In your book and or today on Blab, is there ever a point where you do want to just cut bait and fish? Is there ever a time where 100% you don't want to hug your haters anymore because they're not worth spending the time dealing with anymore? And what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Well, they're always worth spending the time, at least a little bit, because again, it's not about that customer, it's about the spectators, right? You got to realize that that, yeah, you want to make that hater happy, but ultimately it's everybody else who's looking on. So I actually have a whole rule in the book, which is called J Bear's rule of reply only twice. And J Bear's rule of reply only twice says that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, Mitch, answer a customer more than twice in public under any circumstances positive, negative, or neutral. Because it's either a waste of time andor you can get sucked into a vortex of negativity. So if somebody says, I hate you, you say, Hey, I'm terribly sorry, um, we would love to fix it. They come back and say, No, I really hate you, you answer back, okay, apparently there's kind of more going on here. We should probably talk about this in a more nuanced uh capacity. So why don't you email me or call me? And then if they say, No, I don't want to call you or email you because I really, really. Hate you, you just walk away. You just walk away. You never answer a third time, ever, because you've done what you set out to do. You have said it we're sorry. We've given you not just one, but two chances at remediation. Uh, beyond that, you've you've proven what your values are to everybody else looking on, uh, and and you do not need to get into a tit for tat. It will never succeed. Remember Jay's rule of reply only twice. And the same is true for positive, too. If somebody says we love you, hey, thanks, I love you too. No, we really love you. I really love you too. If they keep going, just walk away. Because then you're just wasting time. You're just, you're just you're just wasting, you're just wasting time at that juncture. So that has been a really helpful lesson to me in my career and and of all the things I talk about in the book, especially in uh in keynotes, is the one that people really gravitate toward because they're like, oh, yeah, I I make that mistake, I get sucked into it. And you're right, it's not personal in many cases. It's really hard for small businesses because small businesses, if somebody complains about your small business, it kind of feels like they're saying your baby's ugly, right? And that sucks. Which some babies are. And some babies are ugly, but nobody ever says that, right? So uh it's not personal, but it's really easy to take it personally. In fact, one of the things that I like in the book the best is we did some interviews with some psychiatrists, and we talked about the brain chemistry changes that occur when somebody leaves negative feedback for you. And and you actually literally go on tilt, right? It's like, you know, it's like a poker player with a bad beat. Like your your head changes, and that and that kind of fight or flight response that occurs when you get negative feedback can last as long as 28 hours. And so here we are saying, hey, you got to respond really quickly to customers, but yet you're all like giggly in the head for 28 hours. And so that's where you find businesses responding, but responding really bad in a very inflammatory fashion.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Do you do you do you comment at all in the book about the business model that some professionals have where they purposefully try to agitate and encourage hate to increase a billable business model? The more conflict, the more time spent on a stupid little issue, and everybody's spending money, especially the clients, but nothing's getting done. How do you address those issues?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Like rips. Yeah, I don't Yeah, no kidding, boy. Do I uh I don't like the site ripoff report, Sebastian said. Um there's a lot of those out there. I I didn't talk about those uh themes uh in particular, um, but and the reason I didn't is that uh Daniel Lemon, who's a senior strategist on my team at Convince and Convert, wrote his own book that just came out December 1st called Manipulated. Uh and Manipurated is all about kind of the dark underbelly of the ratings and reviews and online reputation business. It is spectacular. Great book, super tactical step by step, and it's a off-screen.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I'll pick it up.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Manipulated. It's really, really good. So he kind of covered that side of it.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

All right, I'll check it out. Hey guys, I just wanted to hop on. I wanted to say hi to Jay. Go catch.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Hey uh Mitch, I'll be in Orange County next weekend, dude. Let's hook up.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Call me.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

I will.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

All right, see you guys. Bye. See you, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

He's doing he's doing the law stuff right with social, man. That guy's uh oh man, smart.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Doing it, man. Very smart.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Uh, if you guys have any questions or anything, feel free to jump in. The seats open here. We're talking about hugging your haters. We're talking about having an effective customer service strategy within your brand, small, medium, large. Doesn't matter how big your company is. Solarpreneur, entrepreneur, people are talking about your brand. Are you involved in the conversation or not? My friend Jay Bear is uh a brilliant mind. His book, Hug Your Haters, gives you not only research but case studies in a in a and a concrete game plan. Go to hugyourhaters.com and pick up a copy.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Let me give you a um who that's what's that? Let me give you a crazy factor. Let me give you a factoid. You won't uh you won't believe this, okay? Let's do it. So if I say um if I say social media customer service, what channel do you think of first?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Twitter.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Right. We all everybody who's in this business thinks Twitter is however our research found that 71% of social media complaints are on Facebook. 17% on Twitter. 71% on Facebook. And so we always think Twitter equals customer service, but mathematically, Facebook is where real customers go to complain. Uh, and and so we're doing some resource um application incorrectly, I think, considering um the size of the Facebook audience and the size of the Twitter audience. So something to ponder.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

I wonder how many people sign up for a Twitter account just to bitch at a brand. That's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Uh that's a really great question. We did not survey that, but I would love to do that sometimes. It's a great point.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

That just popped in my head, you know, right? But I again when I think I mean, and let's let's just talk about let's just run them through the mud real quick because um everyone in the room will agree. Um, and I try to give them a second chance and a third chance, it just doesn't work out, and they have a monopoly down here. I don't have any other choice. Um, our lovely special friends at Comcast. Um I run it all the way up the flagpole every time with my Comcast sucks hat, and somebody calls me corporate, they sort all out, they adjust my bill, and then six months later my bill goes up again. I'm getting charged for this, I'm getting charged for that, I'm getting charged for tweeting them. Um they can't seem to get a handle on customer service yet. I remember an old slide that I had in a deck, and it was talking about um what's his name was the one to start Comcast Care. So they were one of the first brands to Frank Eliason, yeah, to actually attack their haters, if you will. Um in 2008. Uh I forget what his name is. Frank Eliason. Yes, exactly. That's exactly who it is. Um they can't seem to figure it out, and it's always an ongoing problem. They get back to me on Facebook a week later. I finally got a kid in Philadelphia or wherever they're located to call me back, uh, apologize profusely. Um I didn't have uh internet when I moved in my new place for like two weeks. And when you have a uh you work from home, that can uh that can be costly. So they he comped the whole bill, made a right pack. I sent him a copy of my book and uh tried to see if he can get me introduced to the customer service team up there, and that was about where the conversation stopped. But it's few and far between that it happens like that. You can never just say, wow, their customer service is impeccable. Are they just too big? Do they just not give a shit? I mean, why do you think this is happening, especially with nothing?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Um so there are all right, let me let me say this a couple different ways. Um you learn in the first day of business, right? You learn in the very first day that it is it makes more financial sense, right, to keep the customers you already have than it does to continue to have to get new customers over and over again, right? Everybody knows that. Nobody will debate that. It is it is literally business 101. But yet we don't actually run companies that way. Each year we spend $500 billion globally on marketing and $9 billion a year on customer service, right? So think about that, right? It's it's this like overwhelming difference, even though we know that customer retention is so important. That's why this book is important. That's why you think you're good at customer service, but you're probably not. 80% of companies say that they deliver superior customer service. 8% of their customers agree. However, there are, it's true. However, there are a few industries where the cost of replacing a customer may actually be less than the cost of keeping a customer. Cable television is one, mobile phone subscriptions is another, and fast food is a third. Now, there may be some others, but those are the three main ones where, because look, you're you need television, right? And there's only so many options. Um, you know, most of their leads come in inbound, they're not having to sell you those kind of things. So there are industries where mathematically, um, because their customer service costs are expensive, it's usually over the telephone, it's kind of a complex issue. It may actually be cheaper to just churn and burn, churn and burn, which is why in industries like cable and cell phone and fast food, sometimes you don't see superior customer service because they've said, look, we've run the numbers. It doesn't actually make sense financially for us to deliver good customer service, which is sad, truly sad, right? But it's a it's a business decision, right? And here's the thing like when I talk about hug your haters and I say, look, you've got to answer every complaint and every channel every time. Some of it's social media. Uh, my friend John over on the questions, John Ref talked about B2B. B2B, just as important, if not more so, for hug your haters. Just the channels are a little different. The B2B channels are a lot of times discussion boards and forums and review sites like G2 Crowd, Trust Radio, Spiceworks. There's all these different sites where customers are talking about every concept, every type of B2B, financial services, software, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

B2B absolutely hugely important.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Hugely important. Less so Facebook and Twitter, but online, hugely important customer service.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Um, but but the I mean a great example is is the is the speaking business, right? You go speak at a gig and you bomb. Yep, you're gonna be talked about somewhere along the line, that's going to invertly affect you in the future, you know? Yep. That never happens with guys like me and you because we crush it, but I try to.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Um so what happens when I talk to people about them. It is, don't have one today. When I talk to people about these themes, I say, you know, are you gonna do that? They say, well, here's the problem, Jay. Um, there's so many people now complaining in social media. There's so many customers that that need our attention way more than ever before. We just don't have the resources to answer every customer. To which I say, that's totally bullshit. You have the resources, you just choose to not deploy them in that way. You are making a value judgment and nothing else. Look, I I am deceptively youthful looking. When I was uh first in business, uh I thank you. We didn't have email. Like literally, I was in business before there was email, okay? And then email was invented, and we had to say to businesses, large, small, big, in between, like, hey, you've got to make time every day to answer emails from customers. And you know what people said because I was there. You know what they said was we don't have the resources to answer email. And guess what? We figured out a way to do it, and now we've got to figure out a way to use resources to also answer customers on Facebook, Twitter, discussion boards, websites, WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, all those places. We've got to, as business people, answer customers in the venues that the customers prefer, not the venues that the business prefers.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

I can't believe that. It's crazy how we make all these associations in our mind when you brought up when you when we hear certain um stories or subjects or topics, because when you just said they decided that it's not cost effective to have a customer service strategy, I automatically think of Spirit Airlines. Automatically.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Right. No, that's exactly right. No, that's a perfect example.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

They are horrible, and they just don't give a shit. They're like, listen, our flights are late, our planes break, but our prices are cheap. You want to bitch about it? There is no one there to feel that. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

That's right. And and as a customer, you are making that value judgment as well. You're like, look, it's not I'm willing to make that trade-off, right? Some people are, some people aren't. You know, it's just it's a differentiated, uh, just a differentiated business strategy. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Somebody just said Comcast used to be that way, Tony. They call right now. Give them a give them a jingle. Uh about two minutes in, you'll want to punch a baby. Like, like a real baby. Um this episode.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Yeah, what I say in the book is that uh is that you know, nobody likes to wait on hold. I think the the on hold business is is single-handedly keeping Kenny G in royalties because the only time I ever hear smooth jazz is when I'm on on hold. I don't hear it anywhere else.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Your call is very important to us.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Very important to us. Clearly. You're number 714th in line. That's why I'm I want to talk about email because we met we talked about that on Facebook earlier today.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

So this morning, because people's rate of not responding is that's not that's another every no one is that busy. That's my point. And these these guys agree, they totally agree.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Peeps. So here's what happens all the time, okay? So a customer is unhappy, and they don't necessarily need immediate assistance, um, which typically would lead you to the phone. So they say, I'm gonna send an email uh and and figure somebody get right back to me. Um right now, the average amount of time, average amount of time it takes a business to respond to an email is 44 hours. It's almost two days. 44 hours. So what happens all the time is that somebody complains via email, they don't hear anything back, and they're like, well, these guys are blowing me off. So then you're now double pissed, right? You're pissed already because that's why you emailed. Now you're pissed because they didn't answer your email. So now you're like, well, I'm taking it public. I'm raising the stakes, bro. And so now you go to Facebook or Twitter or Yelp or TripAdvisor or Spiceworks in a B2B scenario or any other ratings and review site, and now you put them on blast, man. You're setting phasers to kill because you're double pissed. And and then what happens is then you get the email six hours later, like, oh, sorry, man, too slow. There's research out of the Netherlands. I don't have research for the US, but out of the Netherlands that shows that in that country, 71% of all social media complaints were because they didn't get back to them fast enough on the phone or email. So you're being slow on email is not just being slow on email, it's actually creating a tsunami of social media negativity because you're too slow on email. Same thing with on hold. If you look on Twitter, there's tons of tweets like, I was on hold for X minutes. I was on hold for Y minutes, right? And if you just were faster at the old school channels, you could prevent some of this new school negativity. When we get called in at Convince a Convert, you do this kind of consulting, they say, Can you help us with our social media customer service? I say, Yes, we can. But my first question for you is this, Mr. Customer, are you great at phone and email? Because if you're not great at phone and email yet, you've got no business worrying about social media customer service. Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Let's walk first, okay? Let's walk and then we'll run. Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

You know, I think that it's it's just a situation where, you know, I like we've always, you know, you you touch the stove one time, right? And you know it's hot and you don't do it again, right? So small businesses, local businesses specifically, the ones that really think that they can't afford to be able to vamp up, or maybe they really do consider it. I think that, you know, you're gonna lose a customer or two or three, or you're gonna see somebody that you used to do business with, go do business with your, with your with your competition, and that's going to sink in, and you're gonna go, wait a second, I need to take a closer look at listening online to be able to be receptive to people.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yeah, it has a it has a material impact uh on your business. Our research found that answering just one, just one customer online can have a 25% increase in customer loyalty. One answer. So think about that at scale. You know, think about that. Mr.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

Fanzo is uh in between football festivities and jumped in uh here. Hop on there, Fanzo. Say hello real quick, buddy. I want to see the big thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, Fanzo's Fanzo's shivering.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

I want to see the 50 in the background, though. Um let's talk about brands that just like someone's comment instead of responding.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I I think when it's a positive comment um and and they like it online, right? So Twitter, Facebook, something like that, it's not optimal. I would rather have them actually respond, but but it's definitely better than nothing because the astute customer will say, oh, they saw it and they they acknowledged it, right? It was a minor acknowledgement, of course, but it's an acknowledgement. So I think that's okay. Um, especially well, let me say this. As long as you are spending, as long as you're spending the time to actually handle complaints, and you say, look, we're spending so much time handling complaints well that we don't want to actually do a full response to every positive comment, then I think for sure. But if you're like just hitting like and still not answering complaints, well, then go fix that part first.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

Right. I don't think, do you think this just popped in my mind because my um my my nifty um sticker mule uh Snapchat stickers just showed up here? It's kind of tough to read there. Um, but um, will Snapchat ever be a customer service tool because the stuff just doesn't stay on the platform long?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Um I think it can be. I think the the issue with Snapchat for customer service is more the discoverability, right? It's kind of tricky to figure out who people are on Snapchat right now with the new URLs that just rolled out last week has been a lot better. Uh so I I think it's possible. I mean, you're seeing explosive growth in WhatsApp um as a as a uh customer service channel. So I think it's possible. Wait a second.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Uh and the how is WhatsApp uh customer service platform?

SPEAKER_01 38:46

People are using it all all over. All kinds of companies are using WhatsApp for customer service now. Uh because it it kind of has that same sort of one-to-one capacity. Um, you can you can go a little deeper, you can add graphics, you can engage. It's it's going great. Companies like HP.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

But you add somebody by phone number, so you call the brand's phone number.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Or they they actually list in their customer service kind of area on their website or whatever, you know, get us on WhatsApp here, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's it's blowing up. HP, for example, is putting all kinds of resources on WhatsApp customer service and WeChat as well in Asia.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

So that well, that just gave me like an idea. It's like, got a question about social media, hit me up on WhatsApp. But who would it um totally so how is that marketed?

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Of a billion users, man. A billion users.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

But how do they how do they um so how do you market that and how do people find like if I wanted to set up a WhatsApp account to talk about social media you know follies um only on WhatsApp, how how does that how does that happen?

SPEAKER_01 39:39

That's the same way, same way we're doing on a Snapchat now, right? Come to Snapchat and you got to put your put your address or find me there um kind of uh you know link or or you know, Snapcode or whatever. So same idea, just for the phone number.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

I just got on Snapchat probably a couple of months ago just because my 14-year-old was like, Dan, get with the program, dude. Aren't you a social media dude? Uh and I'm like, uh, why don't you get with the Facebook program? She's like, I'm good. Thanks. Have fun on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

My 14-year-old refuses to subscribe to my snaps, and I'm like, bro, my snaps are fire. You're missing out. My daughter was like, You gotta follow me back.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

All my snaps say pending, dad. I was like, I can't figure out how to follow you back. Like, I promise you, I know what I know this stuff, but when it comes to Snapchat, it really I mean, daily I'm kind of like, where do I where do you go?

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Like, how do you Yeah, the the user interface it is a little complicated, I think. Um uh for for Snapchat. Once you kind of really get your handle on it, it's like, oh, okay, but there's a lot of like weird hidden stuff. Um, so it's uh it's it's a little bit interesting. Uh, but I'm still learning stuff every day on there for sure. Oh, I am too. It's nice having kids.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Do you follow D do you follow DJ Khaled?

SPEAKER_03 40:45

Uh he is absolutely some would say that um it's made him relevant again. You know, he's got uh three full-length albums and he doesn't rap or anything, he just screams his name. Anyway, um but he has some broken grammar, broken um um, you know, um uh sentences, etc. And he is just slaying the scene, and everyone in their brother um seems to be gravitating towards it. It's very, very interesting. And I I seen a couple articles I read one of the LA Times yesterday on you know what what it's doing for him, but you know, he's a cover, he starts in the morning showing his breakfast what his chef made him, and then he's out on his jet ski or he's out. I mean, he's just essentially sharing his life. But what's really cool is you know, his big thing is day, like they don't want us to eat, we're gonna eat, you know. But he he knows a lot of people. So when he's in LA, he's on a tour bus and through Vegas and then LA, he was running into a bunch of people. So he'd be with Nas and P. Diddy, like all and so, but he'll start the frame with they don't want us hanging out with moguls and then move P. Diddy in there, and then P. Diddy goes, are we hanging with moguls, right? So I did that, I did that on. So now it starts to like people say, Why do you copy it? That's funny because no one knows about him. Like, if you're on Snapchat, you know about DJ God, but if you don't, and I start telling you, like, JJ, they don't want us to eat, right? Every time you start to think of people like, well, who are they? I'm like, well, let me say, they they will hug you, they will tell you they love you. They're the haters. They're the haters. Yeah, exactly. So I I sat down with uh Damon John on Sunday night uh for his book signing here in Miami, and uh we were Yeah, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

That was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah, dude, he he he is uh talking about crushing it. Um but we were walking over to the table to sit down, and I'm like, they don't want us hanging with fashion moguls and sharks. And he's like, but I was able to I was able to take that and throw it into the recap. So at the very end of the interview, it's this Snapchat replay of me going, they don't want us hanging with moguls and sharks. We do emo, and then it's and then Kyle's other thing is major key. So there's always the key emoji and like major key to success, and like again, I love it. Captive audience are 12 to 17 years old, usually, um, for him, but I believe people are somebody wrote an article the other day how to understand um how grown-ups can understand DJ Khaled. So uh we got about two minutes left. Anybody have any qu any more questions coming in?

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Let's answer uh let's answer Tony's question. Um Tony asked about how do you handle uh trolls on Periscope, and it's a little tricky, right? Because um it it just keeps on like keeps on rolling, right? Um and it's it's it's hard to do it in real time other than in an audio capacity. There she is.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

I'm a big fan of yours. It's nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Uh very kind of you, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 43:25

Um so yeah, Periscope, I used to really love and embrace it, but recently all the trolls are just killing me. Um so I wonder if you're they've all moved from YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

They moved from YouTube to Periscope for sure.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

I wonder if you have any suggestions, because I like the platform, but it's really distracting and rude. I mean, it's just rude. It's hard to ignore.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Yeah, so I I would do two things, right? So if it's if it's if it's just like you know, just like ridiculous, way off topic, doesn't even like whatever, I wouldn't address it live. Have legitimate questions or complaints live, I would try to look at the questions popping up and address them in real time as much as you can without interfering with the nature of the show. But what I would probably do, and I don't use a lot of Periscope too much, but what I would probably do is at the end of every broadcast, I would have a URL, right? Um, gratefultony.com slash feedback, right? And I would send them to a landing page that talks that has sort of the episode number and then just has like a discussion board. It's like, look, I'll I'll answer any questions, any comments, any complaints, whatever you want, but go here to do it so that we can actually keep track of it. I can't do it live in real time. So you're giving them, you're actually giving them a feedback mechanism where you can generally have conversations, generally do hater hugging, but you sort of divert them to a place where it's organized because it's really hard. Just just technically, Periscope's really hard to do. Yeah, I like to be able to give them a URL to answer.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Usually I'm quick enough to block them.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

And I'm not looking at the camera. I hate to have you know a bunch of nonsense comments screw up my content of like a replay of like a talk that I gave, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Yeah, that that is that is tricky.

SPEAKER_04 45:03

It seems like it's getting to be more. I don't know if it's just me, but I thought it would be like less the more I block them. I guess they're just coming up with new names and new usernames.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

But yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I can't I can't do it.

SPEAKER_04 45:15

I mean, I want to focus on I have a good audience there that I care about, and I want to add value to them.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

You don't want them to have a bad experience because of all these, you know, all these weird trolls, and I totally understand that. You're like, oh, I don't want to be in here because of all these comments. I guess we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

So you're saying you can you can turn off the comments and leave the link for them so they can leave feedback. Is that how it would work?

SPEAKER_01 45:36

I don't think you can turn off the comments, but I would just say, look, um, there's a lot of feedback here, and I'm not gonna address it right now because I can't, because I'm doing a show, but at the end of every show, I'm gonna give you a link where you, if you have genuine feedback, genuine questions, genuine comments, go here and I'll answer every single one. That's useful. Um but you just sort of you just sort of give them, you just give them an avenue, right? And what happens is when you tell people, look, yeah, if you want to be a hater, you want to be a troll, great, bring it on, but we're gonna do it over here. It's amazing how much that works. Because you're essentially calling their bluff. You're like, look, if you want to talk to me, I will talk to you. I'll answer every question, doesn't matter how outrageous, how rude, how crude, I'll answer every single one of you, but it's gonna be done over here, not here in the live stream because this isn't the venue for you.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

But I don't think they get I don't think they get as excited if it's not in real time for some reason. I these are strange, you know, individuals. I mean, my my thing is that they are strange. You know, it's tough to they don't want, they don't, I don't think they want to give my feedback form any feedback. They would just rather call me an ass clown. However, um, when when um that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

Let them call you an ass clown, then you answer back. I appreciate your feedback.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Now, when they do ask me to show me, show please show me your boobs, I definitely do that every time. I I do that.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Well, I mean, I think that's just the nature of the medium, right? And the and the fact that you want to show your boots.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

I do not heard Tony. I do not recommend.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Okay, so Tony doesn't, but but C Bass does. So there's the there's the gender difference uh on your periscope hygiene.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Wow. Did you did you get your question? Yeah, there you go, Tony. There's the there's the good laugh for the day right there.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

Um Sebastian's blab, he was talking about the booze with Jay Bear.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:09

You never know where it gets gonna go with Sebastian.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Never. Oops. Look, squirrel.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Um, I want to ask, I want to answer David's question real quick before we get off. Um, David asks about um how would you advise uh CELA attorney, how do you how would you advise uh service businesses uh to answer uh reviews? Yes, you should answer all of those reviews. It doesn't matter whether the person who is a hater removes the review or not, that would be great. But again, customer service is a spectator sport. It's not about making that one-star customer happy. That would be great, but that's not your objective. Your objective is that everybody who sees those reviews afterwards sees that you listen, pay attention, that you have a response. And so what I tell people is go back through and leave a reply to the first two or three pages of reviews that are about your business everywhere. Angie's list, Yelp, Google, et cetera. Answer the first two or three pages in every place, even if it was two, three years ago, because it shows that you care. That's what's important.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

Yeah, 100%. Once, you know, once once people see that, if you look at your, you put yourself in a customer's shoes and see what it feels like when someone responds back to you and resolves your issue, it really can change.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

It blows your mind. What I say in the book is it blows your mind and it wins your heart. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

And on that note, I think uh we are we are out of time here. I don't want to keep it from any longer because this has just been such a good jam-packed little 40 session of good information. Hug Your Haters.com. Hug Your Haters.com. I need some I need some socks and a pre-copy, so I'm gonna send you my address.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Can't do. Send me your address.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Absolutely. Thanks so much. Uh follow Jay online if you're not already. Uh pick up a copy or 10 copies, hand them out to everybody you know that pertains to social media and their business. Uh Jay, I'll uh I'm I'm sure I'll see you in the city sometime soon.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

I hope so. Yeah. Uh I've got a bunch of Orlando trips. Um, I don't think any south, but uh I'll see you in San Diego if nothing else.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

Absolutely. Thanks again, Jay.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Bye guys. Thanks, everybody. See you later.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

And just like that, another episode of the social media suck show is a wrap. Big shout out to my buddy Jay Bear for joining us today. Such great content. Did you ever think that you would give that much focus to haters, especially when you had a business? But when it comes to customer service and dealing within your community, you most definitely do need to focus on them and you need to hug them. Make sure that you're following Jay at J Bear. That's B-A-E-R. If you aren't already, pick up a copy of his book at hugyourhaters.com. I'm Sebastian Roska signing off for my social media studio. We'll see you next time.