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acebook & Customer Service How a company has started to use social media to directly engage with their customers 22 nd November 2011 Jamie McDonald Customer Service Director 07710 934702. 1961. The Great Debate…. Should we do anything at all?
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acebook & Customer Service How a company has started to use social media to directly engage with their customers 22nd November 2011 Jamie McDonald Customer Service Director 07710 934702
The Great Debate… • Should we do anything at all? • If we do, who should do it: PR, Marketing or Customer Service? • What style: neutral, active or robust? • How do we handle conflict, arguments and untruths? • How do we defend our people, team, company, brand and client? • What are other people doing?
Our Facebook Model • Key Tactics • Owned by the Customer Service Team • Led from the front initially to help convince our stakeholders • Adopted a proactiverobust approach to issues • Informal professional language; consciously different to a complaint letter • The Three Golden Rules • Customers should receive the same service & priority as other channels • Public criticism of named team members is deleted with an explanation • Criticism of our client is not allowed as they have no right of reply
Phase 1: What We Found… Growth in headline membership was straight line for the first few thousand Weekly member acquisition is irregular, bordering on a random distribution • Our resourcing quotient seems to be about 0.25 FTE for every 1,000 active members • Posting times broadly mirror the traditional demand profile, apart from Chardonnay posts, and Stella posts…
Phase 1: What We Found… Thursday 27th October 2011 Weekends
Phase 1: Ten Key Things Internal doubters far outnumber external ones Some customers don’t always tell the whole truth Most posts are negative We’ve got a whole new dimension of internal 360o feedback Most customers who post think it’s a great idea Customers start to help and support each other But about 99% are true But a lot are positive You have to get used to not being in control… But some compliments are very backhanded Social media must sit within customer service “Social media has changed customer service from being a support function to being an extension of marketing” (agency2, Call Centre Expo: Oct 2011)
Phase 2: Making it BAU • Facebook sub-team being established within the Customer Care Team • They use their first names only, and no photos • My senior team and I still dip in, visibly and frequently • Cover extended to evenings and weekends • Response within 60 mins (8am to 8pm), or by 8.30 next day (8pm to 8am) • Evolved from “Group” to “Page”, and content enrichment underway • Twitter evaluated but our customers don’t associate us with this, yet… • Proprietary monitoring applications reviewed but not taken forward, yet… • Facebook will be eclipsed at some point, but we are on the road now • It’s become a way of life…
Final thoughts… • If you don’t do something your customers will do it anyway, far worse! • Setting up an official presence opens a new world of pain & pleasure • You’ll get a wealth of valuable feedback, actions and ideas • You’ll get credit from customers for doing it • You need to take your internal stakeholders with you; remember 1961 • “A human face representing the company” (agency2, Oct 2011) • Losing control can be really good…