Everybody talks about social media these days – about how to use it, how to promote yourself, how to make money off of it, blah, blah, blah… We are excited about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp.com, city-search, etc. for another reason entirely. It keeps service companies like ours honest and on our toes.
We say funny and quirky things on Twitter and Facebook to entertain ourselves and our friends, but also to share with others that we are happy, fun and real. That is very, very important to us. We want to engage with the Austin community. But we are also there so that we can hear people who have complaints (and compliments). To the lady who tweeted us that one of our trucks demonstrated an illegal U-Turn, we are very sorry and we hope you forgive us. We @ replied you and are awaiting to hear more details about that encounter, so we can hold those responsible accountable for their actions.
What we are doing here in the moving industry is not unique necessarily to other service industries, but it is to ours. We want to engage with our community. We want to be a part of people’s lives and we want them to trust us with their stuff. And this is the Circle of Trust.
We are listening and watching. We respond to every complaint and bad review that we find. Of course, the system is not perfect, we miss some things and there are some people who just want to be angry (they need hugs). Our mission is to be the best. We make mistakes, but we always try to fix it. Of course, there are plenty of folks who compliment us, and we lick that up like a salt lick on a cool Texas day in spring.
We truly believe that social media is the revolution the service industry has been waiting for. Companies can no longer hide behind their marketing budgets. Real voices are being heard. Communities are speaking out and becoming the watchdogs for industries, and doing it much, much better than any regulation group ever could. People have got the power back! Mooooooooooo.