THE BACKGROUND.
my mail lady – monica – did something exceptional last week. i was anticipating a very important package that was being delivered via USPS and it was very late. not to the fault of USPS, but the company shipping it. it was something i needed very badly – medicine – if you must know. i saw last week that while the parcel had been delivered to our local post office, morgan typically didn’t get to our neighborhood until after 6pm. i was thinking that i would drive and pick it up myself. the thought of orchestrating this was daunting to me. but i called the post office and here are all the extraordinary things they did right:
- a real person answered the phone (and the office wasn’t even open yet.)
- they listened to my request and thought about it.
- they told me that i should talk to my mail lady – and – oh, here she is!
- they put monica on the phone and she too listened to me and said she’d call me back once the mail was sorted, in an hour.
- she called me back in an hour.
- i could come by and pick it up, she’d set it aside for me.
- but wait, she could drive by now before she starts her route and drop it off for me.
ummm. wow. really?
SOCIAL MEDIA THANK YOU.
so that isn’t even the point to my blog. riveting story to this point, i know. but here it is. i was blown away. wouldn’t you be? i mean, it’s not like monica and i knew each other – we didn’t. but what a nice, kind gesture. so i did what any good social media user did and i tweeted about it to @USPS. and that’s my point! while many of you may think social media is just a tool those young kids use – this is actually a very pay-it-forward sort of deal. via twitter, i can get straight to who counts at USPS because this is what happened. i tweeted:
then i got back this:
granted, it could have been responded to MUCH QUICKER, but maybe they’re learning. And that day, i got a frantic doorbell ring and knocking combo at my door. it was monica. she was beaming from ear to ear.
“thank you so much for the nice complement via twitter! i’ve been recognized at work, they took my picture and i’m going to be written up in the company newsletter!”
then she handed me a card, which was unnecessary but super nice.
THE LESSON.
tweet good stuff. as more and more companies work with social media folks like myself, they are getting smarter by keeping their ear to the ground of their customers. they can turn monica’s good nature and willingness to go out of her way for me into a “raving fan” story for USPS. now they know about monica and a new fan!
