When you work in customer service and you’re dealing with an angry customer—it’s likely the last thing you feel like doing is giving them a hug. However this is exactly what author Jay Baer encourages you to do to improve your customer relationships. Baer’s newest book is Hug Your Haters: How To Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers. In the book Baer gives many examples of the various ways customer service has changed in today’s digital environment. Some of the challenges companies face include when "mom says yes and dad says no." When many companies do not have a good grasp of basic customer service is it a surprise that many of them are struggling with social customer service? Baer says, “We’re creating social media problems for ourselves because we’re not good at legacy customer service. Someone calls and it’s a 30 minute hold, or an email is sent and there’s no response for two days. Then they take it public—taking something that should have been easy to solve.” According to Baer 71% of all social media complaints started on another channel. Brands have enjoyed the privilege of control for 1000 years. In the past it was only phone or email or in-person interactions—since the caveman days. Baer says—because of social media—customer service is a spectator sport now. What You Will Learn From This Podcast: Why companies don’t hug their haters Where customer service has gone wrong and what you can do to fix yours How to hire and train for social customer service Examples of ways to hug your haters, and the benefits Jay Baer is the founder of Convince and Convert and the author of Hug Your Haters: How To Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers. For more please subscribe to Blake Morgan's newsletter here.