“Can I help?” It doesn’t event take up 140 characters but if you’re a brand, those three simple words can be the difference between success and failure.

In front of a packed crowd on the rooftop of the HL2 offices, customer service was the focus of an amazing discussion among panelists Frank Eliason of Comcast, Elliott Pesut of Alaska Airlines, Brad Nelson of Starbucks, and Maria Emmer-Annes of Nature’s Path. Throughout the evening, the panel shared many aspects of their customer service best practices that have made their brands’ social media program among the most successful in the world.

Although the panelists represent different industries, there was one common theme throughout the conversation: your social media program has to be about relationships. “I’ve never sought to be the Comcast Cares guy or the logo or anything like that,” stated Frank Eliason. “I’ve simply related to people. I think that’s where the success is.”

For Starbucks, one way they relate to their community is by making their social media program an extension of their stores. “I came as a barista and I kind of view what we’re trying to do on Starbucks Twitter account as the same as what I was trying to do in the stores,” said Brad Nelson. “(We) connect to customers one-on-one over coffee and try to find ways to make their day better, perhaps give them a special offer or let them know about what’s going at Starbucks.”

But we all know that customer service isn’t always dealing with people when things are going great. It can be about dealing with your customers’ bad experiences or complaints. How do these big brands deal with it?

“We can’t serve another cup of coffee over Twitter,” said Brad, “but we can certainly try to find ways to make their experience better.”

For Alaska Airlines, it’s about perspective.

“(At Alaska Airlines), we look at every complaint as a gift,” said Elliott. “We really have to say that this is an opportunity.” He also believes that when a complaint does come in, that it’s important to “listen to what people are saying and make that information actionable.”

From time to time, brands do experience a crisis. One example mentioned during the discussion was the infamous Motrin Moms case (see here ). In a situation like that, how should a brand’s social media program respond?

“It’s all about speed,” says Elliott. “It’s being able to say ‘something is going on’ and we’re going to be able to get all the information we can out as quickly as possible.

Frank believes being in the social media space in the first place in extremely important. “Imagine if Motrin was on Twitter and was following their (own) brand,” he said. “They could have easily addressed (the concern) well before it blew up and then they had to put a letter on their website for four weeks? Five weeks? The key is being there and being responsive.”

But for some companies, the hardest part about being involved with social media isn’t the customer service; it’s just getting started.

One of those companies which has recently jumped into social media is Nature’s Path. Starting just six months ago, Maria Emmer-Annes is impressed with it and has seen the many benefits of it especially as it relates to customer service. “Social media will make you run faster to serve internal people, external people, your customers, and people who don’t know about you,” she said.

Regardless of whether your brand has been there for six months or many more, what’s important is being present, listening, and engaged. In fact, if you ask Frank Eliason, he doesn’t even consider himself a social media person. “I’m not a social media guy. I’m a simple service guy. Anything we’ve ever done has really been very basic, simply responding to people saying “hey, can I help?”

Photo by Beth Hughes

The Seattle Mariners are progressive. While some teams in sports are punishing their players for tweeting (and even have gone so far as to ban media from doing it), the Mariners are not just allowing their players to to use social media, they’re embracing it. In fact, so much so that they hosted their very own Seattle Mariners Social Media Happy Hour event on Tuesday which included a panel discussion featuring many local social media thought leaders which consist of SMC Seattle board members Shauna Causey of Comcast and Elliott Pesut of Alaska Air, Jenni Hogan of KIRO TV, Lily Jang of Q13, Mike Salk of 710 ESPN, and M’s Director of Marketing Greg Greene and pitcher, Ryan Rowland-Smith.

With a room packed to the brim full of enthusiastic Mariners fans and social media enthusiasts alike, the event was streamed on Mariners.com and garnered quite the buzz, even being featured in USA Today.

As an organization, one can only be impressed with the Mariners and their willingness and enthusiasm for social media. In speaking with Kevin Martinez, Mariners Vice President of Marketing, he said they hope to do more events like the Mariners Social Media Happy Hour in the future.