social service 155 principle 5: get happy outcomes into the public eye Once you've worked things out directly with your complainant (and I mean really worked them out), then ask in a nondemanding way if she would consider deleting the tweet. Or, in a forum where deletion is not an option, you might ask the person to post the satisfactory results of your intervention. Often, the complaining customer will be quite will- ing to do that, although this may require you to engage in some follow- up; after you've made a good attempt at reconciliation or problem reso- lution, she'll welcome the opportunity to bury the hatchet. But don't ask too soon, and don't be too demanding about it. Persistent, yes; demanding, no. Appeal to the higher nature of your now-pleased cus- tomer. principle 6: use social media and personal email to make your customers feel important As with nearly all things in customer service, making a customer feel important is key in social media. Here are some tips: > If someone follows you on Twitter, ``likes'' your company on Facebook, adds you to a circle on Google , or does the equivalent in another forum, thank her. And, depending on your company policy, follow/ like the person or entity back. So that this approach doesn't get too unwieldy, you can filter people you follow using your Twitter client (the most popular Twitter clients are TweetDeck, now owned by Twitter itself, and Hootsuite); some filtering functionality is built right into Google 's ``circles.'' If someone says something nice about you online, thank her for that publicly and privately. The public thank-you is > American Managememt Association · www.amanet.org