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The social media customer Social media success for brands that give it a go

#SMCustomer

“Social networking will overtake e-commerce activity at a global level in 2012, highlighting the importance that social holds for brands in 2012” Global Web Index

Fishburn Hedges and Echo Research were keen to understand how brands and customers feel about social media and how this affects their relationship with one another.

It’s an issue that affects every single one of our clients. Some are diving in. Some are dipping their toes in the water. Others are naturally more cautious. Yet what links them is the unknown.

A lot is said about social media and much of it can either create panic, or mystify those trying to build it into their businesses.

We wanted to provide something more practical, so what follows is a guide which includes six simple pearls of wisdom that are borne from leading brands, and from their crucial audience: the public.

We conducted a detailed investigation analysing:

• 2,000 UK consumers’ views of social media and brand engagement*

•In-depthinterviewswithexecutivesfromleadingbrands–amixtureofcommunications, social media and customer service heads

•Datafromsocialmediamonitoring

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Despite 18 million customers flooding social networks to speak to brands, companies have yet to experience the tipping point in social media. In only eight months, the number of British consumers who have dealt with companies through social media has almost doubled – from 19% in August 2011, to 36% in April 2012. Most of them (68%) believe that social media has given them greater customer voice.

Interaction between brands and consumers through social media is soaring. This seems to be fuelled by the widespread belief amongst 40% of the public – whether they embrace it or not – that social media improves customer service.

If over a third of us have already interacted with brands online, the tipping point will come when the remaining 64% of the public starts to follow suit.

So how are brands and customers interacting?

•Afifthofrespondents(19%) said they had dealt with big companies through social media in August 2011, rising to 36% in April 2012

• Two-fifths(40%) of them believe that communicating through this medium leads to improvements in customer service. This is some six times more than the 7% of naysayers who fear social media will harm service

•Mostofthose(68%) that have used social media channels to communicate with brands believe it gives them greater customer “voice”

•Mostofthem(65%) believe social media is a better way to communicate with companies than call centres, some nine times more than the 7% who felt they had a worse experience on social media

Executive Summary

August 2011

April 2012

More than a third of Brits have already

interacted with companies through social media

This number has almost doubled in just eight months

(19% to 36%)

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Of course, all brands are being talked about online, but the question they are asking themselves is whether or not they wish to join the conversation. Brand leaders are no longer blindly searching for ever more fans or followers. Instead they are seeking to win genuine consumer trust and brand advocates. This race is seen as the top priority.

Hash Ladha, deputy MD of high street brand Oasis, said:

“For me, in terms of numbers, it’s always about quality rather than quantity. I would rather have five highly engaged followers than 5,000 followers that are not engaged.”

Gwyn Burr, head of customer services at Sainsbury’s said:

“I wouldn’t say we’re wary of social media, as I believe that the word ‘wary’ has negative connotations. We certainly respect it – as we would with all direct customer contact in store.”

Executive Summary

68%of those who have used social media believe that it has allowed them to find their voice

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In spite of its startling success, social media – and our understanding of it – is roughly where radio was in 1912 or television in 1950 according to Sree Sreenivasan, digital media professor at Columbia University. How can you be expected to keep pace with these changes?

The good news is that there are no hard and fast rules – companies are varying approaches depending on a number of factors. Some businesses ensure that customer service conversations are maintained on one channel, wherever possible:

Warren Buckley, managing director of customer service at BT, said:

“I do see companies that do it in a half-hearted fashion. One of the things that I personally hate is to look at a customer trying to engage a company by Twitter, and they respond back with a number to call. If I wanted to call you, I would have looked up your telephone number and called you.”

That isn’t an option for everyone though. Financial services companies, for example, have to read carefully around security and privacy rules set by the FSA (Financial Services Authority) when dealing with customers. Sometimes they are forced to move confidentialconversationsoffTwitterorFacebook, onto closed channels like phone or email.

Kerryn Dinsdale, a senior PR manager at Barclaycard describes the issue:

“We have a web relations email address. If someone posts a message to us on the Facebook wall, we will send them the team’s email address. The reason we do this is because of regulation and data protection issues. We need to be careful not to hold these discussions in open public spaces.”

Based on our conversations with leading social mediapioneers,andtheirpublic,we’veidentifiedsixkey insights to help companies to use social media to engage with customers and manage corporate reputation:

1. Don’t be paralysed by uncertainty

2. Don’tletsocialmediadefineyou–brandsmustdefineit

3. Make more of the emotional insight you have

4. Pick your battles – but enter them fast

5. Address structural barriers in the business, not headcount

6. Fear not the #fail

We will elaborate on each of these points overleaf.

How can brands deal with social media change?

40%

It’s not just the young who are engaging on social media

% of people from different age groups who have dealt with a brand through social media

18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+49.5% 44.6% 37.5% 31.75% 27.4%

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Warren Buckley, managing director of customer service at BT said:

“One person with no ‘followers’ can very quickly become 10,000 people”

Common logic dictates that when things are going well this is wonderful news but what if things suddenly go awry?

Asanewfieldofcommunication,thisuncertaintyhasbecome a psychological straitjacket for many brands. Yet within this there is an opportunity: where call centres have arguably put barriers between customers and brands, social media can remove those barriers and bring proximity.

Managers are increasingly aware of the power of social media to generate both positive and negative feedback. The one thing you should not do is ignore it.

A global brand development manager at a leading FMCG brand said:

“You need to make sure you’re open, honest and transparent as a company, that you build relationships with your consumers where relevant and that you ensure that they actually want to build a relationship with you.”

Alex Pearmain, head of social media at O2, said:

“We have set out to have a clear two-way communication strategy at O2.”

So it’s clear you can’t ignore it, but how do you jump in?

No single model has yet emerged as a clear winner ascircumstancesandthenatureofinteractionsdifferbetween businesses, brands and models – and many are still experimenting.

It is important to think clearly about what it is you want to achieve, which channels are appropriate for your brand, and where your customers are seeking to engage withyouonline.Aclearlydefinedstrategyiscrucial,eventhough that may recognise that it may change.

1.Don’tbeparalysed by uncertainty

How can brands deal with social media change?

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Four common communications modelsFrom our experience and conversations, the four models below reflect four prevalent stages of social media adoption.

1. Decentralised enthusiasm

Keen employees take on social media roles without anyco-ordinatedleadershiporcentralisedguidance,leading to a plethora of social media accounts. The sum of the activity is often less than that of its parts – particularly when much of this initial activity is started excitedly, but then left dormant.

2. Centralised command and control

Theapproachisrarelyeffective:enthusiastshave control taken away from them and the resource implicationscanbesignificant.

3. Hub and spoke: decentralised and a centre of excellence

The majority of organisations (over 80% according to US-basedAltimeterresearch),tendtoorganiseintoacross-functional“HubandSpoke”team.

This builds around a social media centre of excellence acting as a central resource, typically managed within corporate communications.

This team which typically manages the corporate social media channels:

• createsanddeliversaneditorialcalendaracrossthosechannels

• actsasasupportresourceforotherswithinthebusi-ness, and are empowered to use social media in their ownchannels(usuallywell-establishedbloggersandLinkedIn Group moderators).

4. Dandelion: multiple hubs

Individuals and teams who are increasingly comfortable with social media are given the freedom to establish (or insomecasesre-establish)theirownchannels.Thusenabling them to amplify their business unit’s objectives, alongside content led by and distributed centrally.

1.Don’tbeparalysed by uncertainty

How can brands deal with social media change?

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Too often brands feel the need to jump onto the social media bandwagon and simply sign up to all the current popular channels. Social media should not just be a collection of tools, but a way of being – an attitude or continuation of the brand.

Such is the explosion of social media that needs become moreemotionalanddecisionscanbemadeinaknee-jerk way. Just because “Brand X” uses Facebook or Pinterest, “Brand Y” wants to follow suit, even if it’s more appropriate that LinkedIn or a bespoke collaboration is used.

Content is just as important as appropriate channels todefiningyoursocialmediaapproach–orlettingitdefineyou.Whilstsomewelllovedbrandscaneasilyfindafollowingonsocialmediachannels,few,ifany,canmaintain an active group of brand advocates without keeping them interested with carefully tailored content.

According to one senior communications manager,

“it’s an extremely important medium if you are relying on recommendations and word of mouth. The challenge is to use it effectively and to have a regular stream of content that is interesting enough for people to engage with you. I think you’ve got to work extremely hard to be relevant, absorbing and timely.”

To do this you have to understand more about the lives, aspirations and needs of the individuals you are targeting.Thebenefitisyoucandevelopastronglink with some customers using social media, who increasingly see this as a very personal service.

Hash Ladha, deputy MD of Oasis recalls an experience from its sister brand, Warehouse:

“We did a campaign called ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ where if someone was having a bad day we’d send them some flowers, or if they were having IT issues we would send them an iPad. For me it’s about quality rather than quantity.”

2. Don’tletsocialmediadefineyou–brandsmustdefineit

How can brands deal with social media change?

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Social media may be the biggest change in customer relations since the rise of call centres in the 1990s, suggests BT’s Warren Buckley. However, the big differenceisthatthisnewmediumgivesmuchmoresay to the customer, says Buckley. “What I love about social media is that it opens up completely differently, so the customer is very much in charge.” This can give rise to concerns about consumers or activists posting complaints or launching a negative online campaign against a brand. This will always be a risk that companies will need to prepare for. But the big upside is that they can engage in quite powerful conversations with customers on a more equal level if they can establish the right tone and level of trust.

A brand manager at a global consumer goods company stresses that you need to be very aware of this enhanced customer voice gained through social media.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m ‘wary’ of the customer voice. But I do think it presents you with ever-increasing challenges as a company. You need to make sure you’re open, honest and transparent as a company, that you build relationships with your consumers where relevant and that you ensure that they actually want to build a relationship with you.”

believe social media improves customer service

7%of naysayers who fear social media will harm service

This is some six times more than the

40%

2. Don’tletsocialmediadefineyou–brandsmustdefineit

How can brands deal with social media change?

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Customer data has given brands huge insights into behaviour from the point of sale and from market research. Now social media takes that to a new level: understanding emotions of consumers.

It creates an unprecedented opportunity for brands which the early pioneers are leaping on. The challenge is how to effectively tap into this information, sort the fluff from fact and usefully feed it back into the business.

John Hartley, Communications Planning Manager at the banking group, HSBC, said:

“These huge communities that are building up across the globe, offer vast sources of knowledge, insight and emotion. One of the benefits of social media is that you get very immediate and visible feedback. There is a missed opportunity if you don’t do anything with it”.

Hash Ladha, deputy MD of Oasis, said:

“You can learn things about your customers that you wouldn’t otherwise have known.”

Alex Pearmain, head of social media in the UK for O2, said:

“We make sure we feed back any information we get to other teams. At O2 we have witnessed an explosion of people using social networks and as an organisation we need to make sure that the opportunity is capitalised on and all the customers’ needs are met.”

The head of marketing of one multinational brand, said:

“Being able to hear customer responses, understand how they feel and engage in fast paced dialogue are clear benefits of using social media. However, social media shouldn’t be mistaken as the silver bullet for every kind of marketing challenge, and should, like other disciplines, be used in the context of an overall strategy.”

There are many effective monitoring tools available today which can help you decipher customer trends and other useful insights.

The sheer volume and scale of the customer data available to brands is clear to see when you take a peek at some quick insights for a selection of the 2012 top Consumer Superbrands. This data was current as of 30 April 2012 and was analysed over a six month period.

3. Make more of the emotional insight you have

How can brands deal with social media change?

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“In the ‘old days’ of traditional media it was about pushing [information] to people [influencing and informing] what they might think, whereas today it’s all about dialogue – about them telling you what they think. In that sense the consumer is king. When people post a message on a social media site, they expect a response in real time. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on us as a business to be responsive.”

Thesewordsfromaleadingdirectorinexternalaffairsata multinational consumer goods company, encapsulates the broad conclusion of the pioneers. People expect fast communications be that on Twitter, Facebook or any other social networking site. If you fail to respond quickly they will lose the opportunity to connect with a customer at best and at worst might create a negative reaction that could escalate into something worse.

But you should not always feel you have to respond.

Kerryn Dinsdale, senior PR manager at Barclaycard said:

“We don’t respond to all comments, though we reply to those where we feel we could provide answers and advice,”

Sarah Schofield, head of corporate communications at PepsiCo agrees:

“Some people have knee-jerk reactions when they see something online and think they must react immediately. 10 people discussing online isn’t really an issue, and if 10 people were in a pub discussing something similar, you wouldn’t take any notice. Obviously it needs to be monitored but kept in perspective.”

Hash Ladha, deputy MD at Oasis said:.

“If a consumer puts something on a social media site criticising us, generally we wouldn’t respond straight away. We monitor such comments and any subsequent debate with other customers, but would only interject if we felt it was appropriate and there was value in doing so. We’d never remove negative comments – it’s important we let customers air their views,”

think social media is better

than call centres

65%

7%

think call centres are better than social media

nine times more than those who felt worse off using social media

4.Pickyourbattles–but enter them fast

How can brands deal with social media change?

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BT’s Warren Buckley points out that sometimes people won’t be expecting any further responses.

“Sometimes a customer might complain about their broadband, and we might say, ‘We’re sorry to hear about that. Can we help?’. If they don’t respond, we respect that because they may just be ‘blowing off’ a bit of steam.”

Itgoeswithoutsayingthattoenablequickandeffectiveresolution of online customer issues, it is essential that the team doing the online monitoring is closely aligned with the customer service team who would ultimately resolve the issue.

At Fishburn Hedges we have helped clients set up fast customer service channels for online queries – reducing response times down from a traditional three days to a number of hours. This need not be difficult and can often simply be an new email address which is regularly monitoredbythecallcentrestaff.

Jo Causon, CEO at the Institute for Customer Service said:

“How organisations integrate their channels to market is really important. As a consumer, if I purchase an item online and need to take it back, I might want to take it back to a shop rather than sending it back.

Understanding my behaviour and shopping habits and how these change is really important – critically you need to make it easy for me.’’

4.Pickyourbattles– but enter them fast

How can brands deal with social media change?

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The brands we have spoken to have all resourced social indifferentways.Somehaveappointeddedicatedsocialmedia teams. Others have divided responsibilities across corporate communications and customer service and some outsource a lot of the work to PR/digital agencies.

There is no right answer. Headcount may work for some, butthrowingstaffataproblemisfutileifstructuralbarriers are in place.

By sharing expertise amongst the business and removing structural barriers, you may surprise yourself at the level of expertise already existing within your company.

Sainsbury’s digital media manager, Thomas Knorpp told usthatsocialmediaisabusiness-wideresponsibility:

“There is a huge amount of interaction between different areas of the business, with respect to social media.”

Sarah Schofield, PepsiCo head of corporate communications, said:

“We resource social media with a mixture of in-house individuals and digital agencies”.

At O2 an analytics expert has been appointed to get the most out of the information that pours in.

At BT, the new focus is on creating the need for a dedicated team.

“My customer service team co-ordinates all of our social media responsibility, but it is fair to say that there is a virtual team,”

says Warren Buckley, managing director of customer service at BT.

“We look to respond to tweets within an hour. This means we need our teams to be able to do this within an hour. We’ve had to work with all teams across the business to try and make these new types of relationships work.”

279 heads of social media

134,974 have social media in their job title or job description

1,062 social media consultants

511 ‘social media’ related jobs advertised

A snapshot look at UK job titles and advertised jobs on LinkedIn. Data collected in April 2012.

5. Address structural barriers in the business, not headcount

How can brands deal with social media change?

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There have been numerous public brand mishaps played out on social media in recent years, and this has been a concern to most businesses out there worrying if they might be next. Nobody is perfect on social media and suchisthevolumeofdissatisfiedvoices,thesocialmedialeadersknowfromexperiencethatthereisadifferencebetween a genuine crisis and flash of negative chatter that quickly dies down.

It’s important to remember that conversations are already happening about your brand online and if you do not have a presence then your half of the story cannotbeeffectivelytold.

Transparenttrouble-shooting

In fact, being able to quickly identify and resolve negative issues that bubble up on social media channels canbeasignificantreputationalopportunityforbrands.

Increasingly, companies are learning how to manage crises that come through this medium. BT’s Buckley recalls one incident.

“Several months ago we had a series of network outages in Scotland, and we actually resolved the issue by inviting everyone who had participated in that particular thread to a web chat session which I hosted. We had a very open and honest conversation about that. As long as you are willing to be transparent and respond to the feedback to those groups, then, generally speaking, people accept what you are trying to do.”

In one global consumer goods company, they have integrated social media into all discussions relating to crisis management, according to a senior brand manager there.

“I work with a number of people across the communications department, and we have a monthly editorial board meeting to discuss issues circulating around social media.”

6. Fear not the #fail

How can brands deal with social media change?

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Please do visit www.fishburn-hedges.co.uk/social-media-customertofindoutfurtherinformationand hear more opinions on this subject.

Fishburn Hedges helps leading organisations promote and defend corporate reputations, in an uncertain world

www.fishburn-hedges.co.uk/social-media-customer

For more information about Fishburn Hedges, do call Clare Anderson on +44(0)20 7839 4321 oremailnewbusiness@fishburn-hedges.co.uk

Echo Research is the premier global specialist in reputation analysis and stakeholder research. For 23 years, we have enabled clients to measure how they are viewed and to protect the integrity of their brands and reputation. Echo’s digital platform, Echo Sonar, helps clients to understand in real-time what’s being said about their organisation in the news, broadcast and socialmedia.www.echoresearch.com/en

For more information about Echo Research, contact Matt Painter on +44(0) 1483 413 652 or MattP@echoresearch.com

* OnePoll Research is a division of the SWNS Group and conducted both customer polls. There were two bursts of nationally representative online

research (August 2011 and April 2012), each one polling 2,000 UK adults.