Digital CPG Blog

Facebook has begun introducing a new feature which allows business pages to receive private messages from their fans on the social network.

The new communications option, which has appeared for Asia-based admins only so far —is a significant introduction that will allow businesses to interact more closely with customers on the service than ever before.

Consumer facing businesses will find the feature particularly useful as it enables more personal communication with individual customers, opening the possible of a greater level of customer service on Facebook. The move is also likely to cut down on the pain of off-topic comments on company pages and reduce communication lost when Facebook fans fail to take their comments to customer service channels outside of the social network.

The move isn’t an all out opportunity for business to contact customers, however, as communication must be initiated by the customer. However, once that has been done, the conversation is open to both parties.

I think this is a great move for Facebook, and sorely needed! So many customers reach out on Facebook and you’d love to be able to discuss account details, but to do so you, you must move the conversation to email or phone. Hopefully customer service teams will become familiar with these new features when they are rolled out to all business pages, and perhaps we will even see some apps that allow for increased customer service! One can dream… 

Really? Are you sure? Because most brands ignore 50% of consumers’ Facebook posts!

Despite glowing percentages about social media users – 65% of users recommendations led to a purchase, and recommendations by social media users were twice as likely to lead to holiday gift purchases – brands apparently are not responding to consumers on social media sites.

More stats:

A slim 36% of social media users trust brands that have a social media presence more than brands that don’t.

Only 55% of brands respond to consumers via Facebook.

Brands respond to consumers via Twitter 61% of the time.

Here at Alice, we respond to every mention on Facebook or Twitter (even if it’s just a “like” or RT), but I imagine it becomes increasingly difficult the more fans and followers you get. Does your company respond to every customer on social media? Is it any different from responding to every customer who emails or contacts your Support team? I don’t think so.

All that goodwill you’ve built up on your marketing side? Gone in an instant if you have a crappy customer service strategy or team. If you need a refresher on the basics of how to get customer service right, here are some tips:

The customer is always right

Here’s your starting point as a retailer. Retail is a service industry, and part of what customers are paying for is your ability to provide them with a high quality service. Just because their item is low price, in a sale or ordered online, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be treated like any other customer.

Of course, retailers know that customers aren’t always right. Sometimes they make mistakes. They can be rude, abrasive, or just plain wrong, but that’s not the point. You have to approach service from the perspective that the customer is correct.

Don’t try to win an argument with a customer. In their mind, you’ve already made a mistake of some sort, so you’re starting from a losing position. Consider the impact of, say, providing a refund, against the possibility of losing all future revenue from that customer.

Make your returns proposition clear up front

Not only is this best practice, there is also a legal requirement (again as part of the DSRs) to ensure that your delivery and returns proposition is clearly explained before the customer makes a purchase.

Make sure your returns policy is up to date, and don’t do an HMV; make sure you know exactly how the policy works in every circumstance.

Respond quickly and positively

Let the customer know you’re looking into the issue, even if you haven’t got an answer straight away. Don’t leave an issue hanging, as the customer will increasingly feel like they are being ignored.

These are great tips, but how do you put it into practice? Let’s say you get a swath of confusion on your Facebook page that all your fans can see. Instead of ignoring them or deleting the comments (never, ever do that), here’s some language you can use: “Sorry ladies! We are working on it and might try again next week. Thanks for your patience and letting us know what was going on.”

See how it follows all the rules above? The most common thing I see when companies respond online is that they don’t match their tone to the company’s personality or the person they are speaking with. It’s okay to show personality and be positive – being stoic and proper really won’t win you any points, even if you do everything else right since it’s so forgettable.

If you don’t have friends to ask about a certain product or company, it takes a lot of time and research to evaluate whether you want to buy in or make a purchase.It’s understandable that when a friend or knowledgeable acquaintance is available, you’ll want to skip this process.

“There is, however, a deeper reason why your customers turn to each other,” argues Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent, “and that is that they get an immediate focused reply instead of having to wade through clumsy content on your site [hat tip: Bernd Nurnberger]. It also means they have the feeling that peers are in it to help, while the business purely for profit [contribution: Brian Driggs].”

If you’re actively listening to your customers, it shouldn’t be too difficult to replicate this interaction, however. Maltoni asks, “How can you change the customer experience so that your business is part of the positive conversation and solution?” I love how Patagonia uses a great Q&A experience on their site to do exactly this:

How else can you be useful to the customer?

If you’re trying to fake it until you make it with cause-related marketing, stop. Consumers are seeing right through it.

“The annual Goodpurpose study of corporate involvement in social issues found consumers are expecting more from companies, reports AdWeek, “with 62% saying it is ‘no longer enough for corporations to give money; they must integrate good causes into their everyday business.’ The research indicates consumers will reward such social engagement, with 72% saying they are “more likely to purchase a product from a company that supports good causes and has fair prices than a company that simply offers deep discounts.”

Sometimes it seems, doing good leads to good profit. There’s a great opportunity here for CPG companies as well. When study respondents were asked to identify the causes they’d like to see companies engage in, “alleviating hunger and homelessness” topped the list, cited by 89 percent.

Efforts to give back don’t have to start big. Why not let your employees have a day off to volunteer? A simple initiate such as that is sure to spread lots of goodwill this season.

Have you bought anything online without reading the product review first? Chances are, no. We love seeing what our fellow strangers think on just about everything and trust their opinion.

New research from eMarketer says that 92% of internet users read product reviews, and retailers are responding with over 80% of retailers planning to feature them by the end of 2010. And not only are shoppers reading reviews, but they’re spending a lot of time with them:

• 64% of shoppers took 10 minutes or more to read reviews, vs. 50% in 2007.
• 33% took a half hour or more to read reviews, vs. 18% in 2007.
• 39% read eight or more reviews before buying, vs. 22% in 2007.
• 12% read 16 or more reviews before buying, vs. 5% in 2007

Never fear though. Consumers are realistic about the validity of product reviews. Some 57% of shoppers trust customer reviews but place them in a supportive role to other information sources. Another 35% of respondents expressed mixed feelings by indicating that customer reviews are interesting but sometimes questionable in their authenticity.

On Monday, we talked about how word-of-mouth is primarily still an offline phenomenon. But one thing still spreads far and wide online, and that’s bad customer service experiences.

“The Customer Experience Impact 2010 report reveals that 82% of consumers in the U.S. said they’ve stopped doing business with a company due to a poor customer service experience,” reports Tech Crunch. “Of consumers who took to social media sites including Facebook and Twitter to publicly air a complaint, 58% expected a response from the company, 42% expected a response from a company within a day, but only 22% said they’d actually gotten a response as a result of griping there.”

And expecting to receive great customer service online is only a growing trend: “In 2007, 60% of U.S. consumers said when they had a negative customer experience, they wanted to speak to a live agent about it. At that time, 26% preferred email, 5% chat, but Facebook and Twitter weren’t used by corporations to handle complaints and resolve problems. This year, 83% of U.S. consumers said they wanted to speak to a live agent, 66% preferred email, 12% chat, and 7% choose social networking sites when trying to resolve a problem.”

Do you have a presence on social media that is consistent and helpful? If not, how will you ensure your customers are being heard?

Photo Credit: Ocularinvasion.

Michelle Greer makes the obvious, but often left unsaid argument, that consumers don’t care about your brand. “You give them service, they give you money,” Greer argues. “The transaction has ended. They are under no obligation to fan you, friend you, or do anything beyond this.”

So what’s a brand to do?

Greer says that you’ll have to pony up the cash in terms of promotions and deals, exclusive content and over the top service, not to mention advertising your Facebook page around the web. In this case, your investment is probably worth it.

“According to this study on GigaOm, the average Facebook fan is worth $136.38, as fans spend an extra $71.84 more than non-fans, are 28 percent more likely to be repeat customers, and 41 percent more likely to recommend a brand to friends than non-fans,” Greer reports.

We’ve talked before about how customer service is no longer just your toll-free number. Such “traditional models of delivery are being replaced by a wider variety of channels and touch-points,” Jake Hird argues. That maens your marketing and PR efforts are intricately linked to customer service in a way they haven’t been before. If you aren’t looking at these two areas in the same breath, Hird suggests you ask yourself the following questions:

- What is your current customer service culture?

Start with excellence before you try to integrate it with new initiatives.

- Are your goals for customer service in line with your overall business objectives?

Customer service doesn’t provide that direct financial return, but it can feed sales positively. Evaluate who is championing your customer service and whether your approach is too much, too little or just right. Customers want service where they’re at, but don’t want to get confused.

- Where are your customers and what are they doing online?

Don’t put all your resources on Twitter if most of your customers are on Facebook. Easy.

- Can you keep customer service universal?

Everyone in your company represents your brand and even your non-customer facing departments can create internal conflicts or successes that bleed out to the general public. Rally your employees around the common goal.