Have you been so fed up with a company you've said, "That's it, I'm tweeting?" Contrast that with the times you've been so impressed with a company you've said, "That was so awesome, I'm going to tweet about it." Customers do use social to ask brands for help. In a recent New York Times article, Jonathan Pierce, director of social media for American Airlines, shares, “You now see folks with Wi-Fi on board — if they need assistance on board, they’ll tweet us,” he said. “Perhaps if their bag isn’t there within five minutes, they’ll tweet us. There’s an expectation from the customers that we’re there to listen to that and act on it.”  
 
I embarked on a research journey focused on social proactive care. Proactive care includes responding to brand mentions and beyond with the goal of identifying opportunities to surprise and delight customers within social media. Reactive care (traditional customer service) encompasses any response to a customer-initiated transaction or service inquiry within social media. Social media does many things, including impacting brand perception. That impact is telling, especially when there isn't anyone on the brand's side responding. As customers, our expectations are high. There are a plethora of options when it comes to how and when we wish to communicate with a brand. Speaking of options, last week Hyatt became one of the first brands to take advantage of Facebook Messenger as a customer service channel. Now as marketers, we have to remember what it means to be a customer and ensure that we're making an effort to be there for our customers, wherever they happen to be. After all, customer conversations are the gateway to social relationships.
 
Read my "Build Customer Relationships With Social Customer Care" report to learn why proactive and reactive care are important to your brand. The follow-up report, "Q&A: The Marketer’s Guide To Launching Social Proactive Care" shares how marketers can play a role in proactive care and considerations to get started.  
 
Feel free to share if your organization is working on proactive care, considering it, or just becoming aware of it. Also, if you have specific questions, I would like to help answer them as well.