Should Your Influence Online Matter to Customer Service?

This is the second of two posts as follow-up to “The Social Media Debate: Live and Ungloved,” presented by Social Media Charlotte. Five of Charlotte’s social media leaders duked it out on two topics:

Are we headed toward a social media bubble?

and

Should brands factor a person’s online influence into their customer service approach?

In the second debate, Brandon Uttley and Jim Mitchem argued brands SHOULD factor a customer’s “influence” online into their customer service resource allocation. Lisa Hoffmann and Adam Holden-Bache argued brands SHOULD NOT consider “influence” when providing customer service.

As moderator, I was too busy to take notes on the arguments, so I’ve compiled articles about “influence” and its role in customer service via Delicious:

• Could your Klout get you better customer service? from Quora
• The Hype over Influencers. It’s Not Really New….It’s Just Harder To Do from Gary Lee at mBlast
• Need a Reservation? That Could Depend On How Big You Are on Twitter (Really) from Ad Age
• Don’t Irk The Influencers: The Power of Klout from Compete.com
• Matrix: Companies Should Factor ‘Social Influence’ Into Total Customer Value from Jeremiah Owyang
• Klout: Brands use influence to “prioritize,” not discriminate from Klout
• Assistly Taps Klout to Scale Social Support from the Klout blog
• Amplified Customer Service: A Differentiator and Value Proposition from the Assistly blog
• Why Influence Mining is the Next Gold Rush from Jay Baer
• Why Customer Service in Social is not Fair from Valeria Maltoni

Check out this post for resources about our other debate: Are we headed toward a social media bubble?

Your Take: Influence as a Customer Care Priority?

Do you think “online influence” should influence a brand’s approach to customer service? Should customers with large Twitter followings get priority attention? Is your Klout score the new “squeaky wheel?” Weigh in via the comments.