Most brands offer dreadful customer service on social media. Plus, they are tone deaf when it comes to planning social media interactions with their customers, which helps to explain why Q&A-type efforts fall flat or turn into PR disasters, like JP Morgan's recent fail on Twitter.
The problem is that brands and businesses don't actually communicate with their customers on social media on a day-to-day basis or understand sentiment on social media. They don't do the basic frontline work of actually tracking customer complaints and concerns, and answering them. One study found that social media response times have actually worsened recently.
But a few companies are doing great things with social media, and helping to recast their companies as customer-centric organizations. In a new report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's paid research service, we explore how some companies are interacting more effectively and serving customers better with a focus on social media, often using special social customer relationship management tools. They're defusing PR crises and recreating themselves in the process.
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Here are some more highlights from the report on social customer management:
- The report looks at data and mini-case studies to reveal the best practices for opening up customer relationship management, and how to involve different facets of business organizations in this function, from customer service teams, to marketing departments, IT officers, and sales executives.
- The wealth of data on customer desires being generated by this strategy is helping organizations work more effectively, and achieve better results.
- We discuss social customer relationship management's huge sales potential. The data shows that social customer management doubles the percentage of sales leads that result in actual sales, relative to traditional CRM approaches.
- The report also explores the three main differences between traditional and new social-influenced approaches to customer service and relationship management.
- We explain why it is critical for brands to adopt a social customer strategy, especially as social media and mobile apps begin to mediate more and more customer feedback, purchase decisions, commerce transactions.
- We present the four necessary ingredients of a successful social customer strategy, and examples of businesses that have paved the way for holistic approaches such as social customer service.
- We'll answer frequently asked questions about social customer relationship management and what defines it.
- We explain the fact that because social customer management is a strategic stance rather than something that comes out of a box like brand-name CRM software, it has often fallen on deaf ears.
- The report digs into data showing that a social customer strategy will differentiate companies from the pack, which is still woefully bad at responding to customers on social media.
- Boosting leads and customer lifetime value are two aims of social customer management, but a broader goal is to bring customers' concerns deeper into the company's decision-making.
In full, the report looks at a few case studies of good social media customer-centric efforts:
- Dell: The computer technology corporation was an early adopter of social customer relationship management and in 2010, Dell opened up its social media command center to all employees, regardless of their function.
- Domino's: A disastrous YouTube video posted in 2009 showed two Domino’s employees mishandling a pizza. After the video went viral, the company launched a massive campaign to analyze public opinion across all social media.
- Best Buy: The electronics retailer unrolled a Twitter-focused marketing and customer service strategy built around “Twelpforce,” a system the company created to allow thousands of employees across departments to receive and respond to customer queries via Twitter.
- American Airlines: Socialbakers recently began ranking industries and brands according to “social devotion,” or how attentive they are to customers on Twitter. Surprisingly, troubled American Airlines ranks ninth among all U.S. brands (American has a response rate of 94%).
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