Hello again, loyal FOCS listeners! I wanted to share the news of my brand-new book, The Experience Maker: How To Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can't Wait To Share. If you loved this podcast, then this book is for you! Listen to this special 3-minute episode for more details and the opportunity to get 3 free bonuses with your book purchase.

After two years and more than 50 episodes, the first known podcast dedicated solely to customer service in social media is saying goodbye. The Focus on Customer Service Podcast officially ends its run today as a new podcast about customer experience is also launched. Sponsored from its inception by Social Media Today after its late founder, Robin Carey, took a chance on two guys named Dan with no podcasting experience, FOCS featured interviews with top brands making waves in social media by engaging with customers – answering complaints, questions, and compliments. What made the podcast unique was that its hosts were also social care practitioners at large brands, and many of the brands featured were recommended by listeners for their great service. The podcast spawned a book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media (available on Amazon), which details learnings and best practices from more than four dozen interviews with brand leaders. INTRODUCING: THE EXPERIENCE THIS! SHOW As one podcast ends, another one begins. A new show, called Experience This!, has hosts Joey Coleman and Dan Gingiss trying to create a remarkable customer experience out of… listening to a customer experience podcast. There are no guest interviews, no singular topics, and no boring commercials. Instead, Experience This! features a rotating set of fast-paced segments that touch on real customer experiences with real takeaways that can make any company better. Segments include “CX Press,” where the hosts read and explain the latest customer experience articles “so you don’t have to”; “This Just Happened,” which details real-life experiences that leave a lasting impression; “Required Remarkable,” which features required parts of the experience that could be boring (think legal disclaimers and flight safety videos) but are instead fun and memorable, and “I Love It!/I Can’t Stand It!” where the hosts look at all of the positive and negative aspects of a particular industry’s experience, gaining input from listeners’ own experiences along the way. Even the sponsor message is the unskippable “Check Out This Number,” sharing a critical customer experience statistic that every practitioner should know. Experience This! can be found on iTunes and other favorite podcast apps, and show notes are at www.experiencethisshow.com.

Imagine you make a large purchase after working with a salesperson. Maybe it’s a new car or windows for the house. The salesperson makes lots of promises that the “account manager” or customer service representative can’t keep. Sound familiar? It did to Joey Coleman, a customer experience expert and keynote speaker who learned that in virtually every industry, between 20% and 70% of new customers will leave a business in the first 100 days. That’s a lot of unkept promises. “Basically, companies are hemorrhaging,” he says. “They’re spending all this time, effort, and money acquiring new customers, but not spending a fraction of that time, effort, or money keeping those customers.” “Getting customers is important, but keeping customers is even more important,” he adds. Coleman took time out of his busy schedule to talk with me for Episode 51 of the Focus on Customer Service podcast. His passion and enthusiasm for the customer is contagious, which resulted in a lively discussion.

The Focus on Customer Service podcast celebrates its 50th episode with co-host Dan Moriarty returning to talk about his new role at the Chicago Bulls, and interviewing co-host Dan Gingiss about his new book, Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media (available on Amazon).

Although “marketing” is its name, the annual Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego had much to say about social customer care. In addition to the official Customer Service track consisting of six sessions, many marketing speakers spoke about the importance of customer experience and customer service. Episode 49 of the Focus on Customer Service podcast offers up a first-hand account of the customer taking center stage at #SMMW17, including highlights from a dozen speakers.

Take a moment and think about the two or three very best companies in the world at customer service – the ones that are cited over and over again by speakers and authors as being truly unique. These are the companies where customer service is so engrained in the culture, that when social media burst onto the scene they immediately seized the opportunity to show the world their competitive advantage rather than fearing what could happen if customer service were practiced in public. Chances are that your list includes this week's guest!

eBay, the online marketplace, is in a unique position: It sells billions of dollars of merchandise each year, but none of it is their own. So when customers reach out on social media, they are either buyers or sellers on the platform, and eBay stands in the middle. “We can't be too biased on the buyer side and we can't be too heavy on the seller side,” says Dallen McKee, Global Social Media Customer Care Team Leader at eBay. “We have to create a good experience for both.” Here are the key moments in the episode and where to find them: 1:36 Dallen shares eBay’s core philosophy toward social customer care 4:40 How eBay gains product insights from social media listening 8:36 How customer feedback has become ingrained into eBay’s culture 12:56 Balancing the need of eBay’s buyers and sellers in social media 17:26 Dallen describes the new eBay ShopBot on Facebook Messenger 18:25 How eBay decides which platforms to be on from a social care perspective 22:13 The sales pitch to executives about increasing customer service volume in social media 27:21 Dallen’s top learnings from working in social customer care

At Dell, social media has been around much longer than Facebook or Twitter. The popular Dell Community Forum was borne out of the original Dell.com website, so its community is well established. It’s a user-to-user forum where anyone – including Dell employees and other customers – can answer a user’s question. “Facebook and Twitter are typically folks that are having issues at the moment that just want to be heard,” says Amy Bivin, manager of community outreach for Dell. In contrast, the Forum often features more complex or esoteric questions, sometimes from owners of older legacy systems. Bivin took some time out recently to discuss Dell’s integrated social support model on the Focus on Customer Service Podcast.

To understand how some people just have an innate sense for great customer service, you need only look back at Shep Hyken’s job during college. Before Shep became a world-renown customer service expert and best-selling author, he worked at a gas station... Today, Hyken consults with many companies and teaches them how to employ this same mindset to what is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage... Hyken graciously talked with me for Episode 45 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast. Here are some of the key moments of the interview and where to find them: 1:17 How Shep’s childhood shaped his customer service expertise today 6:38 The cost of doing business and the cost of not doing customer service well 7:45 Managing customer expectations 12:06 Are all companies in the customer service and customer experience business? 14:57 Examples of great experiences that don’t cost a lot of money 18:30 How has social media impacted customer service overall? 20:41 Customer surveys and what it means to deliver “10” service 24:46 Why companies should respond to every single comment on social media 29:05 How companies can build relationships with customers in digital channels and raise expectations for everyone else 37:35 Where is social media customer service going next?

Fitbit, a global leader in wearable fitness technology, has made it easier and more fun for millions of people to live a healthier life. And they’ve done it by focusing on the experience. “Customer experience is really paramount to everything we do here,” says Allison Leahy, the director of community at Fitbit, adding that in the online space, “Fitbit is trying to be everywhere you are and more”. The company employs a bilateral approach to online customer care, focusing separately on social media and communities, though both groups report up through the same department. Leahy joined me for Episode 44 of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast, sharing Fitbit’s best practices for being successful in both social care and online community management. Here are some of the key highlights of the episode and where to find them: 0:38 Allison talks about her background and Fitbit’s social media philosophy 3:45 How social care and community care operate together 6:50 How Fitbit uses customer listening to improve its products and services 12:07 How the Fitbit social media and community service teams are organized 16:09 How digital customer service integrates into traditional customer service 18:13 Allison shares some memorable customer experiences 22:50 What Allison has learned along the way and her advice to others

Intuit, long known for its community help forums for TurboTax, noticed that its small business clients were seeking help in a new place. “There was a lot of conversation happening on non-owned channels,” says Mark Obee, Group Manager of Social and Community Care for Intuit on the QuickBooks brand. “The accountants were out there having those conversations without us.” Non-owned channels included private Facebook and LinkedIn groups, which caused a dilemma for a big company like Intuit. Obee knew that these sorts of groups were private for a reason – they didn’t want big brands infiltrating with unwanted marketing messages. Here are some key points of the episode and where to find them: 0:52 A quick look at Intuit’s products and Mark’s background 2:53 Mark discusses the QuickBooks “Social Evangelism” Program 5:04 How the brand gains the trust of a private group 7:18 Intuit’s culture of community-based solutions and how it’s evolved 9:48 How communities affect customer service staffing needs 11:11 Comparing owned communities, private groups, and social media channels 15:07 Dan talks about re-using help content 16:25 How direct messaging is playing into the QuickBooks customer service strategy 19:35 Mark shares a memorable interaction with a customer 21:44 Mark’s key learnings from his time working in social care Intuit and QuickBooks were chosen for the podcast because of readers and listeners like you suggesting great brands who are changing the game in social media customer service. Please send a tweet to @dgingiss using hashtag #FOCS and we will try to get your favorite brand on a future episode! Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Soundcloud.