Fall 2007

I just had a run in with a teller at my bank branch, which I visit every few weeks. I’m fuming at her refusal to help me. But instead of looking for a manager I walk out. Heading back to my office I think “I want revenge”. I log into Facebook and search for the words “hate” and “sucks” along with my bank, which shall remain nameless. Voila, I find four groups of people brought together by their mutual mistreatment. Welcome to the power of social networking.

What are a few people on Facebook going to do you ask. Plenty. This past July HSBC announced a change to its policy of offering interest free overdrafts to recent university graduates in the UK. The result, a group of students quickly unite on Facebook to boycott HSBC. After seven thousand students join, the pressure on HSBC grows to the point of capitulation. By August they reverse their decision.
Social network: 1. Big business:0.

So how does this affect your business? Recent research by Forrester¹ shows that consumers are more likely to believe or trust in the opinions they receive from friends or online reviewers than the promotion material your company produces.

And those customer reviews are out there. Search the internet for almost any company and you will find a blogger talking about their recent negative experience. Worse still, you’ll find a dedicated individual who has mocked up a sophisticated website for the sole purpose of destroying the brand. Even more disturbing, this individual has a following and is recruiting detractors to join him. The result? Acquisition efforts are wasted. Consumers have second thoughts about doing business with companies; existing customers rethink based on what their friends have experienced.

What can you do to stop this? You can’t stop people talking about their experiences. They used to do it one-to-one, now they can do it on a one-to-many basis using the internet. Don’t fight it. Instead, engage with customers in the same medium they’re using to turn complaints and rants into a useful dialogue. Start your own Facebook group, or join theirs. Use it as a forum to connect with them and show that you are listening.

Take for example NTL, a large cable company in the UK, now called Virgin Media. In 2004 they turned one of these anti-brand sites, NTHellworld, into a consumer forum called Cable Forum where consumers could discuss their issues with all cable companies. The ones that sponsored these forums were active participants. NTL responded to consumer complaints and resolved issues that arose. Those customers who had issues resolved also discussed the resolution process and advised other consumers on how to make progress with their own issues.

That your customers are willing to talk about your product or services means that they still care. You can use this to correct things quickly. Even better than waiting until they appear on Facebook or an anti-brand portal, let them tell you about their experiences immediately, using text messaging, kiosks, online tools, and IVR surveys and a structured system for distributing the feedback to people in your organization who can use it to make improvements.

Embrace customer concerns and complaints as free ways to identify flawed systems and processes. Customers will tell you how to fix things in your business. All you have to do is get the information to the right people who know what to do with it.

Your customers are talking; you can either be part of the conversation or you can be left out. What are you going to do?

¹ Source: Forrester’s Consumer Technology Adoption Study, Q4 2006

Learn More

Learn more about CEM: email us, with CEM in the subject line.