Way back on May 27th of this year we did a posting on all the different social media options that have become available in recent years such as Twitter and Facebook (you can revisit the posting here). Now comes a good article on some ideas on the best way to contact a customer, is it a phone call, e-mail, or one of the new methods now available? The recommendation in the article is to try to determine the option that might be most appropriate for the situation or simply ask the customer.
If you're not currently using one of the new social media options, how do you decide between a phone call or e-mail? We recently had an issue with a thermal printer that prints directly on a CD and we found that a combination of phone calls and e-mail worked the best.
We used e-mail initially to provided serial numbers, invoice numbers, and other warranty information. That way we established some documentation of the situation and we were also in different time zones so that was another consideration. E-mail is probably not the best option if the situation is very complicated or if it would take a two page e-mail.
We then used phone calls to actually speak to a person to explain some of the more complicated parts of the issue and to troubleshoot the problem with a technician. In this instance we used both options to more efficiently resolve a very complicated issue.
Social media is I think the best way in contacting a customer. It gives access to share information easier, faster, and in real time.