First, the integration: Late last year, Skype announced that it would add Facebook’s news feed into Skype as well as include all of your Facebook friends’ into your Skype phonebook. Recently, however, Skype announced that you do not have to log in to Facebook separately to use certain features. You can interact with your Facebook friends through instant messaging with Skype, Like their comments, and comment on status updates – all through Skype.

If you can do all of that through Skype, then you can interact with customers, perform customer service functions, and even sell to your Facebook friends through Skype. It won’t be long before you’ll be able to make phone calls and hold video conferences on Facebook through Skype.

Here’s a tip: Add a Skype call button feature to your website. When you get questions for customer service, or questions about your product, from your Facebook friends, invite them to your website to call you through Skype where you’ll answer their questions directly in real time using voice and video. From there, it’s one small step to closing a sale.

I recently received an article that reported on how an Australian telco had discovered that an employee from a rival telco had left unkind remarks about the Australian telco’s service. The Australian telco has a customer service department that follows up on such complaints in an effort to placate the customer and improve their own service. It came as a real surprise to find that the person in question was not a customer, but was an employee of a competitor as well.

The rival telco has naturally denied any association with the remarks left. Given the rather amateur way these comments were left, it’s hard to see them being involved. However,  what is important is that these comments were not just left sitting there. The affected company didn’t try to get into any slanging match, or war of words – they simply investigated the complaint to try and rectify the issue.

This is not the first case of one company (or one of their employees) being involved in an attack on another. It does, however, reinforce how valuable a customer service department can be if they are diligent. Companies spend a lot of money managing online reputations – sometimes, its starts at home.

In terms of Internet marketing, if you find a full service Internet marketing company then that implies several things.

1. First and foremost, it implies that the company cares about you as a customer. You are more than just a number. You are someone to be served.
2. The company provides more than one type of service within the domain of its niche. By “full service”, we mean we run the gamut from PPC, SEO, and social media marketing to video production and web design. We offer a full range of services.
3. Another thing that “full service” implies is a robust customer service initiative. You don’t just get told what will be done for you. You are shown powerful ways which the best Internet marketing strategies can make your company stand out. And then it is proven.

A full service Internet marketing company is one that puts you first, will do anything (as long as it is legal and ethical) to help you reach your online marketing goals, and has a wide array of services to offer with qualified technical personnel ready and able to carry them out. In essence, you can trust the service.

While good customer service can’t ensure that no one will ever accuse you falsely or take a legitimate claim public unnecessarily, it will reduce the chances drastically. After all, happy customers have no reason to complain.

You can perform all the SEO tricks in the world, be diligent in how you present your web pages to social media sites, and consistently pound away at search engine listings until you get them all. But none of it is a good substitute for great service. Provide great service and people will talk about you. Provide a lousy service and they’ll talk but no amount of SEO will undo the damage. Good reputation management means never having to clean up a mess in the first place.