Two years ago customer support startup Get Satisfaction turned its ear to Twitter to help its clients monitor Twitter for mentions of brands. Get Satisfaction makes a network of customer support forums where customers can post their own questions, ideas, problems, or conversations about a product. Companies can also claim their board and put their own employees on to moderate the boards. Tapping into the conversations taking place Twitter and other social media sites is now integral to brands and customer support, as we’ve recently seen with Southwest Airlines. Get Satisfaction is extending its social media coverage today by rolling out the ability to add a support tab to Facebook Fan pages.
As companies turn to Facebook Fan Pages to connect with customers, consumers are increasingly voicing their issues with a particular product or brand on the brand’s Facebook page. But often these complaints or opinions can get lost in the stream. That’s where Get Satisfaction comes in. The startup now allows brands to create a tab on their fan pages, which can be a portal for consumers to express their opinions, complaints or issues with the brand or product.
With the Facebook Social Engagement Hub, Get Satisfaction creates a tab (that can be labeled with any brand-specific name) on the brand’s Fan Page. Here customers can begin wall discussions in the form of four topic types: Ask a Question, Share an Idea, Report a Problem, or Give Praise. When customers begin to post a question, Get Satisfaction searches for and suggests similar threads to give consumers instant answers to commonly asked questions. All questions, comments, and answers are discoverable via Google and other search engine. People can respond to any thread — i.e. voice a similar problem, suggest a remedy, emerge as an advocate in response to another’s complaint, or offer a new twist to a product suggestion. Community members can also make their experience heard by simply clicking ‘me too’.
In turn, any question, idea or problem posted on a brand’s hub on Facebook will be automatically imported into the brand’s Get Satisfaction web interface, allowing marketers and customer support reps to access the conversation from their Get Satisfaction site.
Get Satisfaction’s co-founder Lane Becker says that the new offering is a part of helping brands distribute the conversations where the conversations are actually happening. And with 400 million users worldwide, Facebook is definitely a place where the conversations are taking place. Becker says that the startup is particularly focused on the idea of the “social CRM” and helping clients connect the conversations taking place regarding customers support on social media sites with CRM applications like Salesforce and Zendesk. Get Satisfaction currently has free app on Salesforce’s app exchange.
The Facebook offering is a paid feature and Get Satisfaction will have a number of pricing options. Today’s rollout is more targeted towards bigger brands, but a more scaled down offering will be introduced soon and will cost SMBs $99 per month.
Get Satisfaction recently raised $2.3 million in funding, which Becker says is being used to scale out its team. With only 20 employees, Get Satisfaction currently has 20,000 customers (10,000 of which are paid customers). Zappos, Mint.com, Procter & Gamble, and Nike have all created customer support communities on the site. Currently there are over 25,000 communities that have been created on the platform.