Social media experiment: the #1 way to engage customers

I ran a fun experiment throughout the month of March to test how well companies that I do business with can engage me through social media.  I gained a lot of insights along the way, but here’s the number 1:

If you want to engage your customers through social media, you have to communicate with them, not just at them.

There it is.  Stop reading if you want.  Profound, right?  No, not really, but sometimes we need a Blinding Flash of the Obvious to help us out. 

Below are the rest of my major discoveries from the experiment.  You may want to first read about the experiment itself, or check out an overview of the four strategies I discovered.  I’ll be releasing a ‘how to’ white paper in the next week or so that goes into even more detail.  The white paper will be announced via this blog, Twitter, or you can send me an old-fashioned email and I’ll send it to you directly.

Am I more or less engaged?

The ultimate question is whether I was more or less engaged with these companies now than when the experiment started.  Since I was already a customer, I wanted the answer to be “more” for all 12 companies in the test.  The actual results were disappointing. Here are the companies in the test along with how they did:

• More engaged.  These companies responded to me quickly and directly.
• Neutral.  Office Depot is neutral simply because I didn’t have much interaction with them.
• Less engaged.  These companies ignored me on Facebook, Twitter, or both.

5 Questions Answered

I started my experiment with three questions.  Two of my colleagues, John Curran and Grace Judson, suggested two more.  Here are the answers to all five:

#1 Engagement: Does the business proactively try to engage me as a customer when I connect with them on Facebook and Twitter?

The answer is “no” for all twelve.  I didn’t expect any “welcome to Facebook” messages or “Thanks for the follow!” Tweets, but I know some companies that do it so I thought I’d check.  This didn’t affect my engagement since I didn’t expect any proactive response.

#2 Interaction:  Does the business respond when I reach out to them via Facebook and Twitter?

The table below shows the results.  A “N/A” means I didn’t try to contact them this way. (I tried to contact companies via Facebook or Twitter only when I had a legitimate reason to do so.)

#3: Social, Media, or both?  Does the business focus on the social element, the media element, or both?

The graphic below represents my general observations of how much “social” and how much “media” the companies used.

#4 Does company size matter? (Thanks, Grace!) 

No, size did not correlate at all with my level of engagement.  Best Buy, one of the biggest companies in the group, does an amazing job of connecting with customers via social media.  Their blueprint is one that large and small companies alike should follow.

1. Monitor frequently and respond quickly.  Best Buy accomplishes this by dedicating several employees to social media.  Small business owners need to make this a priority, trust an assistant, or get out of social media. Your customers really won’t care if you are ‘too busy to respond’.  One business day is a good rule of thumb.
2. Personalize it.  Coral is a ‘Community Connector’ at Best Buy.  She responded directly to me via Facebook and Twitter, and was always friendly, enthusiastic, and helpful.  Communicating with Coral was much more enjoyable than communicating with a nameless, faceless “Best Buy”.
3. Help in public, resolve in private.  Coral and her co-workers make helpful information to customer questions available to all who are on their Facebook page or following them on Twitter.  Have a gripe?  Coral or one of her colleagues will politely request that you send them more details in private (via email or Twitter direct message) so they can help you out. 

#5 Do companies have service level agreements? (Thanks, John)

I was surprised to learn that most companies don’t make it clear what their customers should expect.  Only two companies (Studio Diner and Best Buy) provided information on why you should connect with them via Facebook.  And, just two companies (Best Buy and Ultra Star Cinemas) described why you should follow them on Twitter.

A best practice would be to clearly identify what customers should expect from you on each social media outlet you choose to use. You can see more here.

What's next?

I’m recruiting a few companies to implement some of the best practices identified in this experiment to see if they really do work with other customers.  Stay tuned for more details.  In the meantime, please post your questions, comments, and ideas. 

Social media strategies (4 of 4): Engage

This post highlights the fourth of four social media strategies I uncovered in my experiment to learn how companies use this medium to engage their customers. I highlighted the first two strategies, the Placeholder and the Sell and Tell, last week. Yesterday, I highlighted the Forum. Today's strategy is called "Engage", as in "I'm using social media to engage my customers".  The funny thing is very few companies in my experiment used this strategy. 

Engage

This strategy is characterized by high levels of social interaction and high media. The catch is your media piece has to be interesting to your customers to entice them to socialize with your company.

When to use it

This strategy isn't right for every company because it can take a lot of time and effort, but there are a few situations where it can be tremendous.

1. Your products or services require some education. The Cuvaison winery is a great example here. They post YouTube videos of their latest wine releases to their Facebook page. If you are a wine club member, you can watch the short video and then wait for your latest shipment to arrive a couple days later. Comment on how you liked it and someone from the winery will reply!
2. Your brand truly inspires passion, and your customers want to interact with your company and with each other. Unfortunately, I didn't find any good examples here, even though I consider(ed?) myself a fan of these organizations.

How to use it

I guess I'm a bit lost here! The point of the experiment was to observe from a customer's perspective rather than simply repeat what so many social media gurus have explained much better than I can. However, I can offer two tips from my observations:

1. Respond! You risk alientating customers if you don't respond to comments or participate in conversations, especially the conversations you initiate!
2. Provide meaningful media. Give us something interesting to start the conversation. The Home Depot recently posted a video to their Facebook page that explained how to start a container garden and then asked, "What's the most unusual container you've used as part of a container garden?" They got some interesting responses and I found it helpful because it's something I'm looking into.

Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion. One preview - 7 of the 12 companies in my experiment hurt their image in my eyes. Tomorrow I'll reveal all and tell you why I think a lot of companies have a long way to go.

Social media strategies (3 of 4): the Forum

This post highlights the third of four social media strategies I uncovered in my experiment to learn how companies use this medium to engage their customers. I highlighted the first two strategies, the Placeholder and the Sell and Tell, last week. Today's strategy is called the "Forum". All the strategies are a function of how much 'social' and how much 'media' is used.

The Forum

This strategy is high on social, but low on media. It is generally used to engage in direct dialogue with your customers.

When to use it

The Forum is a great strategy when your customers have something to say. I've uncovered two general ways you can use it effectively. (There may be more, but I didn't see them in my own experiment.)

1. Customer service. If a customer is going to rant, make a suggestion, or sing your praises online, why not join in on the conversation? This strategy reaches beyond Facebook and Twitter to include any forum where your customers might congregate, such as Yelp or Trip Advisor. Best Buy is an amazing example of how to use this strategy effectively on both Facebook and Twitter.
2. Technical support. This strategy involves using social media as an extension of your support team. It can also encourage customers to help each other resolve technical challenges. Home Depot helped me find an answer to a product question I posted on Facebook by actually researching it and getting back to me!

How to use it

There are three basic steps to effectively using the Forum social media strategy.

1. Clearly state why your customers should participate. Encourage customers to participate and help each other. On Facebook, it's a good idea to post a few rules of engagement. Best Buy provides a wonderful example of how to do this.
2. Monitor and respond. You'll lose customers fast if you fail to check your messages and respond. Assign someone to monitor social media channels and give them the training and authority to respond quickly. Don't forget to look anywhere your customers might be ranting and raving, such as Yelp, Trip Advisor, etc. Active participation is a great way to amplify the positive comments, lessen the impact of negative comments, and spot emerging trends in your service levels.
3. Help in public, resolve anger in private. Best Buy provides a great example of when to answer directly and when to take it off line. In general, it's a good idea to respond to compliments and requests for help in public so others may benefit. If someone is using social media to vent in anger, respond to their post quickly and offer a private way for them to contact you (email, Twitter Direct message, etc.) so you can resolve their issue. This way, all the public sees is that you are responsive and caring.

As always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated! 

Undercover Boss highlights the need for passionate people

It's no secret that I really like the new CBS show, Undercover Boss. I'm mildly disappointed that it's been a few weeks since they featured any cringe-worthy moments, but there are still plenty of great lessons to be learned.

The latest episode featured Joel Manby, President and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment. His experience highlighted the importance of having passionate employees who truly care about the business, the people they work with, and they people they serve.

Watch the episode first if you don't want me to spoil the plot.

Hiring Passionate People

A lot of companies seem to have their recruiting priorities backwards. The first thing they look for is relevant experience. "Have you worked in similar, soul-crushing jobs before? Great! You can be mediocre here too."

Some companies dig deeper and look for relevant skills. "Yes, I see you have a long history of customer service jobs. However, at our company we like our customer service reps to be friendly. Have any of your customer service positions required you to be friendly and courteous when dealing with customers?" At first this sounds ridiculous, but we all know there are plenty of service jobs out that where just a little courtesy could vault you to 'employee of the month' status. 

Very few companies hire for passion. The five employees Joel Manby followed at Herschend Family Entertainment all seemed to love what they did. Yes, some of them faced their fair share of challenges, but they loved serving people and they loved the business. Here's my suggested priority order for recruiting:

1. Passion. Find peole who will love your company and love their jobs.
2. Skill. Find people who have the skills to do their jobs well.
3. Experience. Experience is only good if you use it wisely. You could have 20 years of experience doing something, but that might just mean you've been doing it poorly for 20 years.

We use a very simply model to help visualize what you truly need in any employee. Check it out here.

State your purpose when using social media

The most basic definition of customer service is how well you meet your customer’s expectations.  If you meet their expectations, that's good. If you fall short of their expectations, that's bad. If you exceed their expectations, that's great.

Telling your customers up front what they can expect from you is a great way to avoid disappointments and misunderstandings.  That’s why I can’t figure out why so few companies in my social media experiment are clear about why they are using Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook was a total strikeout.  Nobody in my experiment explicitly states “here’s what you can expect from us on Facebook”.  Best Buy comes the closest with a set of ‘House Rules’ that you have to scroll down the page to find:

    

Twitter is a little better.  Here you can see the difference between Best Buy (clear purpose) and Starbucks (some guy named “Brad”):

   

As always, your comments and suggestions are very much appreciated!

Social media experiment: three strategies emerging

My social media experiment is certainly getting interesting and three different Facebook strategies are emerging. The quick re-cap is I'm interacting with 12 companies via Facebook and Twitter to see how they try to engage me through these social media outlets. (It was originally 11 companies, but I called an audible and added a 12th.) Read more about the experiment here.

Tthe three strategies are sell, tell, and engage plus a bonus strategy I call 'having no strategy'. I'm also revealing a few participants as examples.

Strategy #1: Sell
The most common social media strategy in this experiment is heavy on the media and light on the social. Companies often use Facebook and Twitter to 'meet customers where they are' and deliver promotional messages. This strategy doesn't take much effort, but it might provide the least return. Some companies in my experiment are just blasting promotion after promotion while refusing to interact with customers who comment on their Facebook pages or reply to their tweets. Others are doing a relatively good job of interacting with people who interact with them. I haven't made a purchase as result of a promotion from one of the participants in my experiment... yet.

Strategy #2: Tell
Some companies are using social media to provide useful information about their products or services. Cuvaison, a Napa Valley winery that makes amazing wine, posts You Tube videos to their Facebook page featuring their wine maker discussing various wines. I'm a member of their wine club and I thought it was cool to get a preview of my latest shipment before it arrived. I posted a comment asking when I could expect the shipment and someone from the winery quickly responded with an estimated arrival date. This strategy takes a little more effort than simply blasting sales pitches, but it can deepen your connection with your customers.

Strategy #3: Engage
Only a few companies are using social media primarily as a customer engagement tool. Best Buy is a tremendous example. My camera died after too many drops so I wanted to buy a new one. I posted a request for recommendations on Best Buy's Facebook page and received a quick response from Coral at Best Buy with a helpful link to product reviews along with two models she said were highly rated. Best Buy gets a lot of customer compliments and complaints on their Facebook page, and both get quick responses from a team of customer service reps. This strategy can lead to increased customer satisfaction, decreased customer complaints, and ultimately more loyalty, but it also takes the most time and money to execute.

Bonus Strategy: Having no strategy
Some companies have just put up a Facebook page and let the inmates run the asylum. Starbucks is a good example here. The really odd part is they have over 6 million fans, though I'm not sure why. (Perhaps I'm just not part of that demographic, whatever it is.) This strategy is by far the cheapest and easiest, but it strikes me as just doing something to follow the crowd. At the very least, companies following the 'no strategy' strategy should make it clear that their Facebook page is for fans to interact with each other and is not monitored by company representatives. 

This week's Undercover Boss seems to get it right

The television show Undercover Boss continues to yield great management lessons, but each episode is less and less cringe-worthy. I don't know if I should be happy or disappointed.

Last Sunday's episode featured Bill Carstanjen, COO of Churchill Downs, Inc., going undercover to get a glimpse of what's really happening on the front lines.  Bill seemed to get it right while sidestepping the sort of scandal shown in other episodes.  He found out his employees' jobs were really hard, but the employees he worked with were very passionate and dedicated. He was touched by their personal stories, but resisted the urge to meddle in his operations or burn one of the employees' managers on national television like other bosses have done on the show. Bill even provided a gem of a quote as the show was wrapping up:

  The most important things in life start with human interaction.

Unfortunately, the episode didn't have the kind of shocking (a.k.a. entertaining) moments I saw on other episodes. There weren't any openly disgruntled managers trying to lead the mutiny against corporate (see White Castle). I didn't see any corporate edicts being ignored (see 7-Eleven). No employee on the latest show used a coffee can for a restroom (see Waste Management). I know, 'yawn', right? Well, it was still an interesting show.

Watch Undercover Boss at Churchill Downs, Inc.