Disney’s reputation for legendary guest service is driven by seven simple guidelines. Cast Members (that’s Disney-speak for employees) internalize the guidelines by associating each with one of the seven dwarfs. It might be an interesting exercise to make similar associations for services on the social web.
Be Happy… Show some personality in your online interactions. Be careful not to come off like an adbot for your marketing department or output from a re-tweeting script.
Be like Sneezy… Get viral to make your posts contagious. People need to be sharing your message across channels and off-line.
Don’t be Bashful… Seek out your customers and jump into conversations about your brand, especially if you’ve create space to do so like a Facebook Fan page.
Be like Doc… Use all of the tools at your disposal for immediate service recovery, from major crisis communication all the way down to individual consumer complaints.
Don’t be Grumpy… Don’t get quickly discouraged if you’re having trouble translating your efforts into ROI. If your strategy (you do have one, right?) aligns with your company’s overall communication goals, you’ll come out ahead.
Be like Sleepy… Carrying out the tactics that support your strategy is going to require non-trivial effort. Be prepared to put in the long hours and dedicate appropriate resources. Grab some coffee and get to it.
Don’t be Dopey… Become the smart guy in your niche. You want to be the one people look to for expertise.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Disney and they do not endorse this post. The contents of this post are based on the idea of linking basic guidelines to the seven dwarfs. The guidelines I’ve written are far less magical than Disney’s real ones.
