Why 200,000 customers thanked Clarks Shoes for its superior service

A heart-warming post on Facebook has highlighted the effectiveness of customer service success stories for businesses operating on social media.

The post was made to the Clarks Shoes Facebook page by mum Gem Salter, praising one of the company’s UK employees for his service and patience.

Salter says her son, River, is autistic and struggles with crowds and noisy places, making shopping for school shoes a difficulty. On entering the “heaving” Clarks Village outlet store in Street, England, Salter was worried about her son, saying there was “no way he would cope with that environment”.

Upon explaining her situation, Salter and her son were helped by sales assistant Aaran Daniels.

“Without hesitation, Aaran led us away from the noise and crowds to a staff room and placed a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. He was very patient with River, who was anxious, and went and got lots of different shoes for him to try on,” Salter said.

“We left with a great pair of shoes, a very happy boy- and Aaran also gave us the store number and said they’d happily book us an appointment before the store opens so that it’s quiet. Autism acceptance at it’s [sic] best!!”

The post has received upwards of 200,000 likes, and has been shared over 25,000 times. Amongst the 4,500 comments, many other customers took the opportunity to praise the company’s customer service and Daniels himself.

A different customer with autistic children revealed another Clarks store in England offered to open the store early to fit the children, and praised a different worker for making her visit “very calm and less stressful”.

Both Daniels and his store manager also commented on the post, with the manager saying Daniels was “a credit to our team”. Daniels himself stayed humble, simply saying “Thank you for your kind words. Was a pleasure to serve you all”.

Catriona Pollard, social media expert and founder of CP Communications told SmartCompany “you just can’t buy” this sort of brand recognition.

“These customer success stories are a great way of being able to share stories about your business through eyes of customers,” Pollard says.

“People are more likely to trust a story from real customers about the business rather than the business telling its own story.”

Pollard believes authentic customer experiences are one of the “most powerful things you can share on social media”, and believes businesses should encourage customers to share them.

“Don’t just expect customers to share them naturally, encourage them to do it,” Pollard says.

Newsletters and in-store recommendations are the best way to achieve this, Pollard says, but calls for stories on social media channels can also be effective.

“It’s important that you encourage them authentically, customers sharing their own stories is a lot more powerful than a business sharing customer’s testimonials,” she says.

However, Pollard warns of the dangers of calling for stories on social media, noting customers will “always have positive and negative experiences” with a brand.

On Clarks’ post, some customers did take the opportunity to complain about their experiences, with one saying she experienced “two bad experiences in two separate Clarke stores”. However, Pollard believes the positive experiences will generally outweigh the negative.

“In the end, none of this would have happened if they didn’t have great customer service, so that needs to be in place to begin with,” Pollard says.

“Customer success stories are the most powerful brand advocacy you can get.”

SmartCompany contacted Clarks but did not receive a response prior to publication.