CHAPTER 14

Integrate Social Media into the Entire Customer Experience

I was walking to work one day from Penn Station, checking my phone, when I noticed an exciting promotion available through Foursquare, the location-based social network. The promotion inside my Foursquare application read, “Check in at the Marc Jacobs counter at Macy’s Herald Square and receive a Marc Jacobs silver tote bag with shower gel and other gifts. Value: $250.” Now I don’t know much about fashion, but this seemed like an amazing deal, so I texted my team to meet me at Macy’s thinking that everyone could enjoy all the cool free stuff, thanks to this social media promotion.

When the 10 of us got to the Marc Jacobs counter at Macy’s, however, the clerk there had no idea what we were talking about. We then showed several additional Marc Jacobs staff members our smartphones featuring the Foursquare promotion, and again, they literally had no clue. One staffer said, “I don’t know anything about a text message.” A couple of others rudely accused us of making up the promotion in order to get free stuff. A full 45 minutes later and two managers into waiting, they apologized and said, “Sorry, we were told that promotion was supposed to be the other day.” They gave us fragrance samples to make up for the miscommunication. The Macy’s manager took my phone number and e-mail address and said someone from Marc Jacobs would be in touch shortly to apologize.

Nobody called or e-mailed. The experience was disappointing and frustrating for so many reasons. But what was most upsetting was that Macy’s and Marc Jacobs went from having an interesting, buzz-worthy social media promotion to creating a memorable, negative customer service experience. Their staff members weren’t communicating internally, and they weren’t on the same page about a social media promotion that someone within the organization had obviously planned.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT JUST MARKETING

Social media leveraging is not just marketing or public relations. There is no way for an organization to use social media successfully if the organization simply silos the work to marketing or advertising. In order to optimize the results from your social media use, you have to integrate understanding and practice across a diverse group of functions and departments in your organization.

Of course, social media provides outlets for marketing, public relations, and advertising, but it also involves customer service, customer relationship management, sales, operations, human resources, and research and development. Ideally, anyone at your company who might possibly come into contact with a customer should be trained on the fundamentals of likeable social media: listening, transparency, responsiveness, and engagement. Furthermore, there are numerous opportunities throughout the customer experience for integration of social networks and social media best practices. The more open and transparent you are with customers throughout the entire customer life cycle, the more comfortable they’ll feel about continuing to buy your stuff, hire you, like you and your pages, and recommend you to friends.

Put on your consumer caps again, and imagine the following experience. You’re at home, logged into Facebook, where you see an ad for a local restaurant your friend has liked. You decide to visit for lunch. When you arrive, a sign at the counter tells you to text “like DavesGrill” to “FBOOK” to like the restaurant’s page and receive a free appetizer. You follow the directions and end up with the free appetizer as promised. You enjoy a meal, and your server, along with your printed receipt, encourages you to share feedback about your experience, good or bad, on the restaurant’s Facebook page. You post a mostly favorable review that night but you mention that the dessert was a little disappointing. A manager immediately responds to your post, saying, “I’m sorry,” and offers you a gift certificate to come back soon.

Social Media Should Be Integrated Across All Customer-Facing Departments

This type of teamwork, across different roles and departments, is what made the experience so satisfying for you, not social media. Yet everyone you came into contact with had to understand Facebook and be fluent in social media in order for that teamwork to actually function, unlike my team’s experience with Macy’s. If you have a very small operation, you’re used to handling many tasks on your own. But assuming you’re part of a larger organization, let’s review various departments and consider how each one might integrate and encourage social media in order to optimize the customer experience at every corner:

  •   Advertising. Include social media links and value propositions to customers in all paid linear media. For example, television, radio, print, e-mail, websites, and direct mail should all include social media links, text-to-connect opportunities, or both. The advertising department may also handle social network ads themselves, a growing part of most ad budgets.

  •   Marketing. Determine, create, execute, and measure promotions, contests, giveaways, other marketing programs, and content to be run on Facebook and other social networks. Marketing is where social media typically lives right now, even though it should have a home in each department.

  •   Public relations. Listen to customer comments on social networks and blogs, and respond in a swift manner. Determine the most influential bloggers and other key customers online, and reach out to them to pitch them on participating in programs.

  •   Customer service. Listen to customer complaints and requests across social networks, and respond. Encourage customers who reach out via traditional channels to share their feedback publicly on social networks.

  •   Operations. Create and implement social media policy. Ensure that all staff members are fluent in understanding company social media links and practices and that signage, receipts, and any other customer touchpoints include opportunities to interact and share.

  •   Sales. Listen carefully to prospects online as well as major potential partners and distributors. Leverage listening to create best-value propositions. Use LinkedIn and individual Facebook profiles to meet and engage prospects.

  •   Research and development. Listen to your customer sentiment and competitors’ customer sentiment in order to design new products. Leverage social networks to survey and ask key questions of your customer base.

  •   Senior management including the CEO. Serve as online spokespeople for the brand through Twitter, LinkedIn, video, and blog. Interact publicly with key partners, stakeholders, and media.

  •   Information technology. Ensure that your website is up-to-date with social links, content, plug-ins, and applications. Ensure that social media data is secure. Manage Facebook applications and any other social media and mobile applications.

Customers Don’t Care What Department You’re In

When should a customer’s comment on Facebook be answered by customer service versus sales, versus public relations, versus marketing, versus your agency? That’s all up to you. The truth is, the key challenge isn’t making sure you know exactly who should answer what kind of comment and when. Instead, the issue is making sure that as many people as possible are fluent in social media, are part of the team, and are treating every customer well!

Customers don’t care about your job title or what department you’re in. If they have problems, then they want solutions. When you’re looking for something specific in a supermarket and you find a staff person and ask for help, a good supermarket will have that staff person trained to walk you to the correct aisle. The employee will help you, with a smile, whether he or she happens to be the butcher, the baker, a cashier, or a janitor. The situation applies to the use of social media too. Try thinking of every post on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog as one that could have been written by the most important celebrity customer you’ve ever had, and you’ll be more likely to treat every customer and every post with great care, no matter your official department or role.

DO YOU NEED A WEBSITE ANYMORE?

As crazy as this may sound, there will definitely be companies and organizations in 2015 and 2016 whose only “official website” will be their Facebook page, Twitter profile, and blog. You already can do just about anything with Facebook that you’d want to do with a traditional website, whether you need order forms, sales carts, or secure data, or you need to utilize any other Web content or functionality. With Facebook, however, you have the added advantage of performing all of these processes in a place where 1 billion or so of your potential customers are hanging out. It’s the idea of fishing where the fish are, rather than expecting the fish to come to your boat, or in this case, visit your website.

Skittles, the popular candy brand, briefly redirected all traffic from Skittles.com to its Facebook and Twitter presences in 2009. This transfer was short-lasting, and it was more of a publicity stunt than an attempt at real engagement. But it proved a point: brands no longer have any control of the Web content people see about their companies. So rather than try to show people a prepackaged view of what you think they should see about your company (on a website that nobody will trust anyway), you might consider a total surrender of control and respond to what people are saying, where and when they’re saying it. In the meantime, though, you likely do have a website, and it’s essential therefore that the website is as integrated with social media as possible. If you have only a tiny link at the bottom of your website to “Join us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter,” you’re not leveraging the opportunity to connect to people.

Facebook’s social plug-ins, including the Like button and other assorted interactive elements such as Share and Recommend, are imperative to smoothly and deeply integrating Facebook into your Web presence.

Imagine if, for instance, instead of trying to sell people your product or service, whatever it may be, on your website, all you did was try to convince people to like your website’s content. You’d get fewer sales at first, of course, but over time, more and more visitors to your website would see how many people liked you. More important, you’d increase the likelihood that one of the site’s next visitors would see that her friend has already given your site, services, products, or content personal approval. Is there any sales or promotional content anywhere on the Web more valuable than the honest words, “Your friend likes this”?

HOW CAN YOU MAKE YOUR CONTENT, PRODUCTS, AND SERVICES AS AVAILABLE AS MOBILE FOOD TRUCKS?

New technologies have made it easier than ever for consumers to access what they want. People don’t need to go to bookstores to get books, flower stores to get flowers, or shoe stores to get shoes. People also don’t need to buy newspapers or magazines to read articles. Thanks to the growth of mobile food trucks, you don’t even need to go to restaurants to buy meals anymore in many cities. Now is the best time ever to be a consumer. Just remember, as a marketer, it is necessary that you make it as easy and efficient as possible for people to access your products, services, or content. How can you bring it to them, wherever they are on the Web?

Where in the marketing and communications process can you remind people to engage with you on the social Web? You can integrate your social links and value proposition on your website, in your e-mails, in your linear media, and on your packaging. You can have salespeople, receptionists, customer service people, and the mailroom all finish their phone calls with, “Ask us questions or leave feedback anytime on our Facebook page.” Right now, when you call up any big company and wait on hold, you’re told to visit its website. But a website is too often a static environment, so why not direct people to an interactive environment where they can quickly get the help they need?

LIKEABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS IMPORTANT, AND LIKEABLE EVERYTHING ELSE IS TOO

It doesn’t matter how good your marketing is if your customer service doesn’t make people smile. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on advertising to acquire Facebook likes if you don’t respond to people’s questions or comments. The bigger and more complicated the world gets, the simpler and more connected and transparent it gets as well. So before you spend lots of time and money on likeable social media, you’ve got to make sure you have likeable customer service, likeable salespeople, likeable products, and likeable processes. Whether you do or not, your customers will notice and share their experiences with others. It is worth training every staff person at your organization now and in the future on your social media presence and best practices for communicating with customers and prospects.

Tragically, many companies still don’t even allow computer access to Facebook for employees at work. This is disappointing for two major reasons. First, the reality is that most people can access Facebook and Twitter now from their mobile phones, so the idea that limiting computer access to social networking sites will keep productivity up simply isn’t practical. Second, and more important, not allowing employees to talk to customers through social networks is like telling all of the staff at a supermarket, “You’re not allowed to talk to customers walking around looking for help. Unless you’re in the marketing department, of course.”

Dr. Charles Waisbren: A Likeable Doc

Dr. Charles Waisbren has practiced medicine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for nearly 30 years. As a general physician, Dr. Waisbren prides himself on “service like it used to be; medical care how it ought to be.” In the age where more and more independent practices are being bought out by larger organizations, Dr. Waisbren works tirelessly to maintain a “family feel.”

“You always see the same receptionist when you walk in. You always see the same nurses. You always see the same doctor,” Dr. Waisbren said. “Trust is so important in this kind of relationship.”

Recently, Dr. Waisbren dove head first into social media. When the patient sits down in his chair, he asks her to take out her smartphone and directs her to like the practice on Facebook. “It’s not about collecting a ton of likes,” he adds. “It’s about adding another direct line of communication between me and patient.” He personally fields questions and concerns on the page regularly. When patients don’t have a smartphone, Dr. Waisbren takes out his pad and writes a very important prescription: “Like FB.com/drwaisbren and ask questions often.” (See Figure 14.1.)

FIGURE 14.1 Dr. Waisbren: “Ask Questions Often”

San Rafael: Launching a Brand and Building a Community

San Rafael is a brand with a long tradition in Mexico, where it got its start in 1948. It was known first and foremost for selling lunchmeats and hotdogs, but it expanded over the years to include other delicatessen specialties in countries in Central America and the Caribbean. In 2013, the brand introduced a line of quality Mexican cheese to U.S. consumers—its first foray into the United States. Not only was the company launching a product line but it was also essentially launching its brand to a group of consumers who didn’t know the name San Rafael. The brand simply didn’t carry the equity in the United States that it did in Mexico.

San Rafael launched a Facebook page six months prior to the launch of its product. In the midst of planning all the details of a product launch, the company spent a considerable amount of time perfecting its packaging look and feel to ensure that it would resonate with U.S. consumers. Prominently featured on each variety of cheese’s package were the social media credentials prompting users to stay connected with the brand and learn the brand’s story. In-store displays and product placements, along with special offers, are what got the U.S. consumers to try the cheese. A great product with a great social media community to match is what kept those customers coming back for more. Today, San Rafael has built up a community of Facebook users who have liked its page and eat its cheese. Launching a product in the age of social media allows you to quickly establish credibility and trust with your new consumers, so making sure they know where to find you from that first interaction needs to be a key part of the launch strategy.

EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS A PART OF WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING

An argument can be made that every single person at your company who ever talks to a customer has an opportunity to create a word-of-mouth marketing experience, for better or for worse. And every moment that a customer spends looking at any of your materials online or offline is an opportunity to either be likeable or unlikeable. Create as many advocates for social media at your organization as you can, and get help integrating a social media–friendly culture throughout your company. Ensure that you are using social media as fully and as deeply as possible, and you’ll also be as likeable as possible.