Now that “tweet” has become a verb, it seems that everyone has a Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and any other alphabet soup social media account. And rabid social media “experts” are calling for every C-level executive to embrace social media as part of their “new commitment to transparency.”
Who cares whether or not the CCO tweets? Is the CMO going to magically create brand evangelists in 140 characters? If the CFO posts a family vacation snapshot on the company blog is Wall Street going to raise earnings expectations?
I think not. While there are benefits, whether you choose to blog or personally participate in social media is irrelevant. However, there are four things CCOs need to be thinking about now with regards to this powerful phenomenon.
Customer monitoring
More and more of our customers are on social media and, with the proliferation of social media monitoring tools, we have at our fingertips a very rich and real-time view of customer (or end-user, as it may be for your business) needs, desires, and issues. Do we need yet another source of information about our customers? We might think not, but in truth, this source is far more immediate than sales reports, quarterly rolling surveys, or even post-interaction surveys. And because they are unsolicited, they are probably more accurate although sometimes far more inflammatory due to the inherent anonymity of the medium. Leverage the opportunity presenting itself and use it to mine information about customers, users, and even competitors and detractors. What might words said in pseudo-public tell you about private business strategy and direction that salespeople can leverage?
Triage and escalation avoidance
As we’ve seen over and over again, mistakes and mishaps can go viral in a heartbeat. FedEx did a wonderful job of responding within 48 hours to a security camera video of one of its drivers caught throwing a monitor over a customer’s gate. In two days the video received more than 4 million views and 17,000 comments. The SVP of U.S. Operations issued a video and print response that was fantastic: apologizing, reiterating the true values of the company, detailing actions being taken, and reaching out to the offended customer. Every news article includes reference to his response, nearly nullifying the impact of the original misdeed. We have all spent significant time and energy creating in our companies elaborate, closed-loop triage and issue resolution processes for our customers in the call centers, sales channels, and at the executive level. We need to extend those processes to social media to discover problems and nip escalations before they become full-blown PR nightmares that damage our brand, loyalty, and profits.
Opportunity discovery
During the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, a number of customers were highly offended by Go Daddy’s continuing borderline risqué advertisements and expressed their frustration with the obvious disconnect from their personal values along with their interest in changing domain hosts. An individual in Comcast’s then-nascent social media monitoring group happened to be watching and offered them a special incentive to switch. There was a fair amount of business generated by this lucky catch. What opportunities can we find and shuttle to our sales teams?
Employee engagement
In addition to all the benefits, social media can be a legal nightmare, a PR disaster, or simply a venue in which customer trust can be damaged or destroyed. Make sure you provide customer-facing employees authorized to use social media channels on the company’s behalf with clear guidelines for appropriate, business-relevant social media behavior. Take advantage of the many new businesses that are emerging to help companies monitor and control how employees interact with customers using social media. Your objective should be to empower and leverage the enthusiasm of your employees to build trust, promote products and services, champion the brand, and foster productive customer relationships, while providing guidance and oversight to the creation of a consistent customer experience across all channels.
What are your thoughts? Who cares whether or not the CCO tweets?
