How to harness social media to achieve customer experience excellence Expert Knowledge Series // Chapter 4
Table of contents Introduction... 3 Social media and its role in customer experience... 4 Brands excelling in customer experience through social media...5 Primark... 7 Five steps to advance with your social media... 8 2015 social media landscape... 10 Youtility: Why smart marketing is about help not hype... 12
Introduction According to research conducted by Forrester, 91% of IT buyers are now involved in social media 1, with 73% of them engaging with a vendor via a social network. 2 One of social media s most defining characteristics is its constant rate of change, with businesses now recognising the evolving relationship between social and business goals. Last year, Sitecore US teamed up with First Point Research and Consulting to survey 330 marketers and web developers to uncover the realities of today s digital marketing landscape. When asked about their priorities for digital tools and techniques for the next 12 months, 35% planned to start using social media integration and 42% admitted it is an area in which their organisation should be doing better. 3 In this chapter of the Customer Experience 101 Expert Knowledge Series, we look at how the social media landscape is changing, with its growing contribution to customer experience. We ll explore the top challenges facing marketers when it comes to effectively implementing a social media strategy and provide some recommendations for success. Econsultancy s 1 annual social media statistics compendium, released March 2015, ascertains just how large UK social reach is: 87% of UK internet users own an account on a social network 76% of UK social media users follow a brand on social media 77% of marketers are running an online community 31% of marketers saw an increase in customer engagement from the use of social media 1 Social Media Statistics Compendium, Econsultancy, 2015 1 North American and European B2B Social Technologies* Online Survey Q4, Forrester 2008 2 IT purchasing goes social, Forrester 2012 3 Uncovering the realities of today s digital marketing landscape, Sitecore 2015
Social media and its role in customer experience The behaviour and expectations of today s consumers are shaping how brands engage with them. As we already know, relationships no longer end at the point of purchase and there is an increasing desire for brands to create an ongoing relationship with each customer, by improving the customer experience at every step along the customer journey Research conducted by Accent in the Beyond the Point of Purchase survey, revealed that nearly half of all customers interact with a brand postpurchase, with social platforms providing the toolsets for them to do so with ease. 80% of customers will make a future purchase after a positive experience, leading to 14% following the brand on social media and 36% writing an online review. 4 Through the power of social media, CMOs and other marketers have a unique opportunity to empower customers and encourage them to share their experiences. Customers want to talk about brands, so why not empower them to become brand advocates? Julie Hopkins, research director at Gartner explored the growing convergence of social media and customer experience, explaining that companies need to pay attention to the brands and organisations that are interacting with your customers, as they are setting the standard for how people expect to interact going forward. 5 In recent years the expectation curve has shifted, with customers now expecting brands to respond to each and every social media post, even amidst a sea of other social media content. We are currently at a stage where there is a large gap between customer expectations of a business and what businesses are currently able and willing to do when it comes to social media. Research conducted by Econsultancy highlights that 62% of leading UK companies say managing out-of-hours engagement is the biggest challenge with real-time social media engagement. 6 Therefore, it is important to remember that although social networking can improve the customer experience, it can just as easily aggravate the impact of customer service failure, giving dissatisfied customers a means to publically vent their frustrations. With social media communities continuing to grow year-onyear, it is important to ensure influencer channels are being actively monitored and to have the right social tools and strategies in place to address customer needs. In September 2014, British Airways was on the wrong end of a promotional tweet after BA lost his Hasan Syed s father s luggage en route to Paris. What caused the situation to spiral further was the fact that it took 10 hours for BA to pick up the tweet, by which time 50,000 BA customers had seen the tweet; further prompting other Twitter users to begin sharing their bad experience with BA. 1 1 Social media has a role in customer experience, Customer Experience Magazine 4 Beyond the Point of Purchase - A look at Behaviours that Build Brand Loyalties, Accent, 2015 5 The coming convergence of social media and customer experience, Convince & Convert Podcast 6 Social Media Statistics Compendium, Econsultancy, 2015
Brands excelling in customer experience through social media There are a number of brands in the market that are excelling with various aspects of social media. Taking inspiration from the industries of finance, transport & travel and retail, here are a few examples of industry leaders using social media to strengthen their customer experience. Nationwide Entering the top 10 for the first time in 2014, Nationwide was recognised by Nunwood s Excellence Centre 7 for its best practises in customer experience, largely due to its social media strategy. In 2014, Nationwide Building Society became the first high street financial services provider to offer its customers 24/7 Twitter support, answering questions and queries, as well as providing them with customer service information any time of day or night. 8 @AskNationwide acknowledges customer service as one of the fastest growing social media uses, however it is surprisingly still only one of a handful of businesses in the UK manning its Twitter presence 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Jenny Groves, director of customer experience at Nationwide says Our people and culture make the difference: we aim to engage and enable our people to deliver an exceptional member experience. 9 In addition to answering customer questions, @AskNationwide is also being used to proactively promote how-to videos for customers 7 Customer Experience Excellence Centre -2014 UK Analysis, Nurwood, 2014 8 The first high street financial services provider to offer 24 hour support on Twitter, Nationwide Media Centre, 2014 9 Customer Experience Excellence Centre -2014 UK Analysis, Nurwood, 2014
Ford Motor Company At 110 years old, and the fifth largest car manufacturer in the world, Ford still manages to remain relevant and engaging in the digital age. Ford has been recognised by Econsultancy for its excellent work across many different social media channels, successfully connecting to each channel s audience with the right content and tone of voice. 10 Vine: Boasting high levels of inventiveness, Ford has taken to vine and started uploading a series of low budget videos, showing off its imagination and charm with the tag line, Sharing the inspiration to #GoFurther, six seconds at a time. Instagram: A collection of images all strikingly shot, Ford uses Instagram to showcase its collection of cars through the years, but also to engage with its audience by running a series of competitions. Using the hashtag #FORD followed by a second buzzword that differs each week, the brand is encouraging its community to post and share too, while extending its reach. Facebook & Twitter: Ford uses these two platforms as engagement channels. It understands the value of its customers and makes them brand ambassadors by retweeting images, helping to nurture their social media community. Ford makes a conscious effort to reply to users who engage with them, asking for permission to use followers images that they ve tweeted to the brand for further promotion and use on their other channels. Believing that social media can sustain excitement over a long period of time when compared to TV & traditional media advertising, 2015 will see Ford launch new cars via social media first campaigns. This social media push is all part of Ford s decision to shift more budget into digital channels. 10 Why is Ford s social media strategy so good? Econsultancy Blog, 2014
Primark In just six months Primark achieved 1.7 million Facebook likes, entering the top five of the 100 UK retailers on social media for the first time in 2014. 11 This activity coincided with Primark s recent redesign of its website, with the goal to raise product awareness, increasing customer engagement and drive traffic to store; all without selling clothes online. Primark decided to capture how people shop and use Primark on social media, which led to the introduction of Primania: a real-time fashion look book modelled, styled and curated by fans. The new website has capabilities that allow users to upload images of their Primark look and tag all of the clothes in their outfit. The new website is integrated with Facebook, allowing Primark to bring content from the website into its social network. Other users are then encouraged to vote on the looks, as well as enter weekly style competitions. The retailer constantly reinforces its business model across social media sites, posting images of its extensive product range and highlighting eye-catching price tags. The new website has enabled Primark to better promote social media links and create a seamless experience across all channels. 11 Retail Social Media Benchmark Survey, edigitalresearch, 2014
Five steps to advance with your social media 1. Know your community Social media starts with people. One of the first steps in creating a social media strategy is to understand your audience: if you don t know who it is you want to have a conversation with, then you are unable to nurture a relationship. By engaging and interacting with your audience, through the sharing of brand stories, over time you will start to see a community forming. 2. Identify your brand personality The key to a brand personality is identifying a tone of voice that will help you to manage and influence the perceptions people have of you as a company. An authentic brand voice is important for three key reasons: It showcases the people and ethos behind your business It establishes rapport and trust It distinguishes you from your competitors To successfully build a relationship between your brand and your community, all of your communications need to be consistent from one message to the next. In turn this will strengthen the perceptions people have of your business. 3. Co-creation of value through the production of content Companies should be having a two way dialogue with customers through social media. Instead of broadcasting to your community, companies want to interact by educating and personalising the online experience. Social media is all about sharing, therefore companies shouldn t be constantly talking about themselves. When posting on social media you may want to take in to consideration the 70-20- 10 rule, evolving this concept to suit your community and what they want: 70% - adding value and brand building 20% - sharing other people s ideas 10% - promotional; endorsing products or upcoming events. A social media strategy, however, is still important. Be sure to create a detailed plan don t simply post on your social media platform to fill space.
4. Engage your community It is important to monitor your content and listen to what your social media community is saying. Customers will continually like and share your content, both asking questions and leaving comments. You shouldn t ignore any engagement on your social media channels, whether positive or negative. According to research by ACCENT 93% of consumers claim that a positive response or special offer can help restore the company s reputation after a bad experience. 12 Not only is it important to engage with customers, but don t forget about other companies; social media is a great way to create a relationship with industry thought leaders and big brands. 5. Be the change that your community requires In this social media era, customer service now carries the expectation of continually proving to your customers that you value them. When customers share stories about their experience with your brand, products and services, take this feedback on board and communicate these messages to the wider company. If similar queries keep popping up, look into how this can be avoided, investigating any complaints thoroughly. It is also good etiquette to contact the customer directly to offer a solution and let them know that you are investigating the problem further. 12 Beyond the Point of Purchase - A look at Behaviours that Build Brand Loyalties, Accent, 2015
2015 social media landscape Today s marketers are tasked with influencing more of the buyer s journey than ever before, with social media playing an important role at the various stages, from awareness to customer service. With social media budgets on the rise, here are a few suggestions on how to get involved in 2015. Social listening with social analytics Analytics give you the data you need to improve your social media engagement, inform marketing decisions and tie social media to your bottom line. When it comes to social media marketing, there is a continual demand for marketers to demonstrate ROI. Social listening is becoming easier, with social media platforms integrating their own analytics systems for account owners to access. Third party analytics tools such as HootSuite and Social Report are also available, through which you can sync your social media accounts and receive automatic daily reports. It is also worth checking with your CMS provider as the latest platforms can actually provide social media analytics tools that integrate with your CRM and offer the ability to empower social communities on your own website. Find out more about Sitecore Social Media Solutions. trend towards real-time marketing. This year will see audio and video components evolve to become powerful visual tools that generate better engagement and positive responses. The continued rise of paid social media advertising Social media advertising uses unique tactics, such as sponsored content and brand graphs, which are fast becoming standard aspects of any integrated campaign. In 2015, social networks will continue to find ways to push businesses into their advertising programmes. Facebook plans to supress organic promotional posts in the news feed, and Instagram is set to roll out Carousel Ads as social content becomes more visual. Twitter s new business advertising model now offers businesses more choice and flexibility in how and what they pay for in terms of advertising. The growth of social live-streaming With the continued popularity of Google Hangouts, FaceTime and drone footage, it s no surprise that 2015 has already seen Periscope and Meerkat taking off. These streaming apps allow users to instantly broadcast their activities to the world in just a couple of easily-navigated steps, continuing the New social networks There are a few new social networking platforms in the pipeline, including Ello, which intends to go head-to-head with social giant Facebook. Ello will be an ad-free social network that, unlike Facebook, will not share vital user data with third parties. Ello is taking advantage of a potential gap in the market after an influx of
sponsored content on other social media channels. Content marketing meets social Last year, research from the Content Marketing Institute suggested a shift towards content marketing with 58% of B2B marketers planning to increase their content budgets in the upcoming months. 13 This year they have announced that 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago. 14 However, the strength of content marketing relies not only on the creation of impressive content, but how effectively you distribute it to your target audiences. According to Forbes, in 2015 marketers will finally realise that there are two core pillars of a content marketing strategy: publication and distribution. 15 This will see companies leveraging social channels to become more helpful and marketers will distribute this content more widely, expanding the reach and visibility across their social networks. 13 B2B Content Marketing 2014: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends North America, Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProf s, 2014 14 B2B Content Marketing 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends North America, Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProf s, 2015 15 The top 7 social media marketing trends that will dominate 2015, Forbes, 2015
Youtility: Why smart marketing is about help not hype A concept pioneered by Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, Youtility is centred on the idea of helpful marketing. This new approach cuts through the clutter to provide marketing that is truly, inherently useful and wins attention by asking a different question: "How can we help? Jay Baer believes if you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. 16 The aim of Youtility is to be as helpful and trusted by people as their friends and family are when it comes to recommendations for products and services. However, according to Baer, this may be a leap of faith for marketers, as it may not generate sales straight away. Hilton Hotel group set up the Twitter account @HiltonSuggests to help travellers find recommendations in the cities they are visiting. If someone tweets asking for a restaurant recommendation in town, the staff managing the Twitter feed do not automatically recommend one of their own restaurants, but a restaurant from where they believe the customer will get the best experience. A spokesperson from the hotel group said Social media gives us the opportunity to extend hospitality beyond the front desk. We ve focused our efforts on areas where we can cultivate relationships and enjoy conversations we may not otherwise have. 1 1 Youtility: Helping other to help yourself, Marketing Week 16 Youtility: Why smart marketing is about help not hype, Jay Baer, 2013
Interested in learning more about Jay Baer s Youtility concept and the role of social media in customer experience? Watch Jay s webinar During the webinar Jay Baer take us through the concept of Youtility, helping us learn why smart marketing is about help, not hype.
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