Social media: The worst thing is to ignore your customers

Social media: The worst thing is to ignore your customers
By Jane Bird

Published: March 15 2011 16:22 | Last updated: March 15 2011 16:22

Comment on a product or service using Twitter or Facebook and within minutes your words could have been read by thousands.

This benefits business when the comment is favourable, but customer complaints can rapidly acquire huge momentum.

Many companies are using social networks, blogs and other online forums both to keep in touch with customers and as a vehicle for sales and marketing.

The challenge is to handle the vast volume of messages that can result.

When you start to participate in social networks, you open the floodgates to what your customers want to say, says Graham Murphy, senior community developer at Grooveshark, an online music service. “It can be a blessing or a curse.”

Grooveshark has benefited from networks, which have helped build registered users to almost 8m with negligible advertising.

It is certainly a disadvantage that people can so loudly voice a negative opinion, says Mr Murphy.

“But there’s the opportunity to flip it in our favour. If we solve a billing issue in 20 minutes, they’ll post something great about us. Suddenly we look better than we did before.”

When Grooveshark has server problems, it is alerted in minutes by its followers – 200,000 on Facebook and 50,000 on Twitter.

“Their voice gives valuable insight into our website.”

The company uses software from California-based Assistly to aggregate all messages it receives into one inbox, where they can be prioritised and acted on swiftly, generating a “virtuous circle” of positive comments.

Alex Bard, Assistly’s chief executive, says the aim is to help companies turn customer service into sales and marketing. “If customers are going to gang up on you, they’ll do it anyway,” he says.

“Customers are a core asset that you can learn from, creating a better relationship. The worst thing you can do is ignore them, and the best is to respond.”

Mr Bard encourages companies using Assistly software to let a broad range of employees participate in customer dialogues, rather than just the service team. “This gives engineers or product developers insights that help them make better decisions.”

The real prize is to get customers to recommend you to their friends, says Gail Goodman, chief executive of Massachusetts-based Constant Contact.

It provides polling, monitoring and tracking tools that help companies set up surveys on social networks and understand which postings generate most discussions and traffic.

Dingo, a pet food distributor, used the software to extend its fan base from 350 to a target 5,000 in three days last August, by asking fans to get their friends to sign up. It offered a $20 coupon for everyone if the target could be reached. A further promotion brought fan numbers to 25,000 by the end of February.

“Forty per cent of US households have dogs, so we knew we had a big opportunity, and dog-owners often know other dog-owners,” says Mike Halloran, online marketing manager. “We wanted existing fans to tell their friends about us.”

Brands are working out rules about how far they can go, because people do not want to be advertised to, says Ms Goodman. “Your page will be dormant and deserted very fast if you do this. You need to be engaging, fun and provocative – create a destination for conversation, not a push-marketing venue.”

This is no small challenge, because consumers are busy and there is huge competition for their time online, she says.

Grooveshark’s Mr Murphy sees social media as a way to “personify” the company.

Its Facebook and Twitter postings tend to focus on third-party products, service updates, or blog posts, for example, about the company’s presence at a festival. “We did a post on our campaign to help victims of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and one to promote an artist we are interested in,” he says.

His company won’t take payment for a posting. “We want to be objective and informative rather than self-promoting, so that people have a positive feeling about us and tell their friends,” he says.

One problem with using social networks for sales and marketing messages is that they accumulate quickly and are often ignored. More than three items posted a day could be seen as a “spam blast”, says Mr Murphy, and will drive followers away.

Mr Halloran favours e-mail for sales and marketing promotions, but says Twitter is ideal when you want things to be instant.

“The nice thing about Twitter is that messages tend to be looked at a bit more quickly and regularly and in-boxes are less cluttered.”

Dingo plans to use Twitter for customer service, so people can send questions and receive rapid replies.

“A dog might have just stained a carpet and the customer wants to know how to remove the mark,” says Mr Halloran.

“If we post a solution to this on Twitter it will be seen by many people and picked up in search engines such as Google and Bing long afterwards.

“We are looking at anything where posting answers creates ‘breadcrumb trails’ that link back to us.”

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