Do You Listen to Your Customers?

Buffer does...

Buffer is an app that allows you to schedule your social posts via a pre-determined time-schedule. It works, it's beautiful and their customer service is astounding, no really the best I have EVER experienced of any software company that I've ever dealt with. The founders started the company with Customer Service at it’s core and certainly, for me, they have always delivered. Not only in the way they create their app but at every stage in their communication with me. I'm a MASSIVE fan, can you tell?

So, whilst being active on the buffer web app, I noticed something new, ’Feeds’, a new and very innovative feed engine built inside the app, allowing users to pull in feeds from blogs and thereby sharing articles into their buffer. A brilliant innovation and even before I heard the announcement I started testing it.

The only issue was that they announced that users (me) on the ’awesome’ plan would have the ability for 1 feed and users on the ’business plan’ would get 20 feeds. By the way both sets of users pay for their plans.

Here is the blog that announced the release of 'Feeds'; http://blog.bufferapp.com/introducing-rss-feeds-buffer-social-media-sharing

I was deeply disappointed and because I know that Buffer cares about their customers I decided to say something on their blog, which announced this new release and the limitation for 'awesome' users. And noticed that I wasn't the only ’awesome’ user who was unhappy. I also emailed buffer via their standard email, as they are ALWAYS telling us to reach out to them for any reason at all. I've never seen anyone do this as well as they do. And they ALWAYS respond quickly to any of my emails.

How pleasing then to see how Buffer responded to their disappointed customers. Their response was fantastic and to be honest, they far exceeded my expectations in this. It was also impressive how quickly they responded to me and their customer base.

Below you can read the correspondence for yourself and see how Buffer yet again sets the standard for how companies should deal with their customers and how they listen to what they have to say.

Announcement Email

My response Email

Their initial response

Follow up response

Joel's Tweet

Confirmation Email

A great example of how, when you place customers in the centre of your business, you will get their feedback fast, know that it's genuine and you can respond quickly and with integrity. I'm sure this has been a massive learning opportunity for Buffer and I'm pretty sure they will have a different strategy going forward when deciding to differentiate between plans for their paying customers. It's never an easy problem to solve.

Well done Buffer and I look forward to more of your developments in the future!

If you're reading this and haven't experienced Buffer and their awesome service, go ahead and test it out. http://bufferapp.com

Wishing you success always!

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stayingaliveuk

@stayingaliveuk

How Do You Share Content?

As part of your journey into ’Social Selling’ and becoming your own ’Personal Brand’, you will inevitably need to share content. You don't always need to write your own content, although it’s obviously better if you did. Not everyone likes writing, certainly it took me a few years before I started blogging.

So curating and sharing other’s content is OK, providing it adds value to your own authority on your subject matter.

So how do you do it? Or rather how do I do it?

First we have to answer a few questions. Why share content in the first place?

Well, it shows that you are interested in your subject matter and more importantly that you wish to share it with your network and maybe, just maybe they will get something from it. Don't be concerned about not receiving any comments, likes or shares, that should definitely NOT be the reason for sharing your content.

However they might and it's that possibility that should encourage you to keep sharing. You just don't know where it could lead to.

I use just 3 apps for doing all my curating and sharing.

Firstly the best sharing app that I use is ’Buffer’.

I have written a separate blog on buffer, so go ahead and read more about it there.

The second app is Flipboard, where I follow different streams that are closely connected to my subject matter, plus all the posts from people I follow.

The third app is ’Pulse’, a LinkedIn app, which allows me to find more content, by LinkedIn Influencers and many other news streams.

Buffer allows me to email all content I find on the web, either via these apps or generally on the web.

I have set my buffer to share the content 3 times per day, meaning my content is posted automatically in the morning, lunchtime and evening. Times of the day that people are most likely to browse their mobile devices.

I will add additional content now and again on a more spontaneous basis. And I also add some personal comments now and again about any subject I wish. This will hopefully show people that it's not all about business and they will see my personality come through too.

So it's time to start writing, get searching, reading and finally sharing. Have fun and ensure that you have your audience in mind when sharing content.

Wishing you success always!

Have you used Buffer app yet?

You may not have used Buffer as yet, but I'm here to tell you that if you haven't then you MUST. Of course only if you are involved in posting on different social media platforms for your own business or you are doing it on behalf of the business you work for.

So let me summarise what in my opinion are the MAJOR benefits of Buffer.

It's a very simple app, that is focused on doing one thing really very well

It works elegantly on all mobile devices as well as your desktop or laptop browser

You can post direct from any browser by installing the plugin, which allows you to buffer anything that you come across on the web

You can install a sharing button on your own website for other buffers to use When you send your posts to buffer it does exactly what it says, it puts them in a buffer and releases the post based on your preferred time schedule, which you set-up in advance for each account

You can set up many different channels and after a recent update the following channels can be activated; Facebook (personal), Facebook (company page), LinkedIn (personal profile), LinkedIn (company page), LinkedIn (group), Twitter, Google+ (company page), Google+ (personal profile not yet available).

The ability to send an email to all your active accounts in one go and the post will be scheduled according to your time schedule

The app also provides analytics on the posts, which you are able to collate and monitor If you don't want to auto schedule your post based on your pre-determined time schedule, you can customise a specific date and time for specific posts

You are not distracted by other streams from your connections as with other scheduling apps

If you just want to share something instantly, you can do it in the moment and of course it will go to all your active channels

You can switch certain channels off to be included in the auto schedule and instead included as and when you wish

If you have your own URL shortener it will automatically convert it to your own URL. Needs a bit of organising but it works very well!

Buffer’s team are awesome and give fantastic customer service

They write brilliant blogs and not just about their service

Here's a blogpost sharing great tips for using buffer tog tether with a cheat sheet with shortcuts.

http://blog.bufferapp.com/top-hidden-buffer-hacks-features-social-sharing

Enjoy it and if you need any help, let me know or just contact @bufferapp.

Success!