Week 3 Discussion Points for Comi610 #MaristSM16
Social Media Transparency
A marketing director at a small, private college is
ordered by her president to not release a survey report on behavior and
satisfaction perceptions of the College's students since the report found
unfavorable results. A public relations coordinator at a local university is
told to say "no comment" to the media about a controversial
story.
Unfortunately, these are all too familiar realities
for many marketing and communications professionals in higher education, and
other fields. In his book, Likable
Social Media, Dave Kerpen (2015) noted
that to build trust, transparency is no longer negotiable. Not only is it
ethical, it also builds a direct relationship between a company and its
customers (p. 117).
This stands out to me as one of the most important
rules of social media. I was often one of those folks put in similar situations
as the examples above. Today, the communications professional must make the
case to leaders on the need for honesty and transparency. Customers expect it.
Period.
Social media dynamics have forced organizations to explore how openly they communicate with their audiences. And, that's a good thing. Customers demand open access to relevant content and the ability to actively participate in discussions about organizations or companies and their products.
The Public Relations Society of
America (PRSA) lists honesty as the second priority, behind only advocacy,
in its Statement
of Professional Values (PRSA, n.d.). Any communication from a company must be honest and accurate. As Kerpen (2015) noted, if one applies the golden rule, customers will fall in love you (p. 124). A little honest and transparency will speak volumes toward building trust.
Responding to Negative Posts
“Why did we create a Facebook page anyway?” Leaders and CEOs often
question why their companies delved into social media in the first place. Negative
comments and posts on social media can cause frustration and regrets. However,
the proper handling of complaints can actually help a business.
Kerpen (2015) noted that complainers might actually be turned
into supporters if responses are efficient and effective. A customer might be
so impressed and pleased that the company cared enough to respond that he
recommends it to his peers (p. 85).
Many companies have become proficient at listening (not
monitoring) to their customers on have plans to respond quickly to negative comments
on social media channels.
A few years ago, I found myself in a long checkout line at my
local Walgreen’s. In a hurry, I became
frustrated that there was only one cashier working at a register while there
were several other employees visible throughout the store. I took a picture of
the line and posted the following to my
Twitter account:
Within a few hours, I received a response to my post from a Walgreen's representative:
The representative, Belinda, did what many experts, including Kerpen (2015), suggest - to respond quickly and publicly and then take the issue private (p. 82). By responding quickly and privately, Belinda not only responded to my complaint, but the world saw her response as well - that Walgreen's is a company that listens to its customers and fixes problems swiftly.
Kerpen,
D. (2015). Likeable social media. (2nd ed.). United States: McGraw
Hill Education.
Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Member Code of
Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2016, from
https://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/ethics/codeenglish/#.VrEVwksSosE
Scott, D.
M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR. (5th ed.). Hoboken, New
Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the example of your experience at Walgreens. We’ve surely all been in that position before! In fact, I encountered something very similar at another big chain store just this weekend – perhaps if I had taken to Twitter, the store would have responded! The Walgreen’s associate’s response to your tweet was concise, apologetic, and helpful in that it indicated that further communication would occur, which are all important elements of responding quickly to negative feedback (Kerpen, 2015, Ch. 7). Out of curiosity, what was the outcome of your conversation? Did they do anything to rectify the situation?
In doing some research for our assignment, I came across various examples of companies that have both mastered – and clearly failed – at social media management. One example in particular stuck out from Smuckers, which deleted Facebook posts from customers who questioned the company’s stance on GMOs (Samson, 2015). By Kerpen’s guidelines, this is a clear “Don’t” when it comes to corporate social media, a violation of the “do-not-delete” rule that states that unless a comment is inappropriate or contains personal information, it should never be deleted (p. 81). This type of action could result in even more anger from customers.
References:
Kerpen, D. (2015). Likeable social media (2nd ed.) McGraw Hill Education.
Samson, E. (2015, July 7). 10 brands’ worst social media mistakes. Retrieved from http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10_brands_worst_social_media_mistakes__18929.aspx.
Nicole, Thanks for your response. It's funny you should ask what happened with my Walgreen's story. So, I really didn't want to simply take the conversation private at that point, so I tweeted back to the representative reiterating my frustration that only one register was open and sympathized with the poor guy at that register as his coworkers were potentially letting him fail. To my surprise, that's where the conversation ended. Walgreen's never responded to my second tweet. It was likely a smart and strategic decision to end the conversation there rather than prolong it with me for the world to see. I probably would have done the same.
DeleteThe do-not-delete rule that you mention is one that not a lot of companies follow, even today. You'd think they would have learned by now. At a previous institution, an alumni office staff member deleted an angry pointed Facebook comment and, wow, what a firestorm it created. Before it was over, there were more than two dozen comments from other irritated alums about how the university could do such a thing. There are times when the best strategy is to leave a comment alone, rather than respond, or, even delete.
Hi Stephen and Nicole,
DeleteThank you both for providing your examples. I am completely shocked that a company with a tagline of “with a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good” would be so shortsighted as to delete comments and ignore customers who had feedback with which the brand did not agree (smuckers.com, 2016). Even more shocking is that Smucker’s did not think anyone would notice.
Smucker’s missed an opportunity to engage with its customers and help ease concerns about the brand and its products. I imagine the reactionary tactic of deleting comments stemmed from the fact that the company was not prepared.
Kerpen (2015) advises that companies should work with corporate counsel to develop a plan and the appropriate language to respond to negative comments swiftly and publicly (p. 104). Although dealing with public crises is challenging, having a strategy that allows brands to be proactive, rather than reactive, is critical to achieving a positive outcome.
I have to admit that I am the worst person in the world when it comes to using social media personally. I feel like I spend the majority of my day handling social for work so I have a hard time convincing myself to jump in for non-work reasons. Every time I see situations like Stephen’s Walgreen’s example, however, I start thinking maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea!
References
Kerpen, D. (2015). Likeable social media (2nd ed.). United States: McGraw Hill Education.
Smuckers.com. (2016). Retrieved 5, February 2016 from http://www.smuckers.com/
Stephen, such great examples! Transparency could be difficult at times in my own job, though I do not use social media to spread information about problems. I used to work in a culture where if a brief outage of a system was going to occur, some staff did not want that publicized. My area, in charge of keeping the Marist College community updated on service and system availability, would want to put something on our availability page that might read "There will be a brief outage of xxx between this time and that time." But others would argue the downtime will be less than a minute, you do not need to tell the world. We found that it was better to let people know the potential for downtime as opposed to not telling them at all and possibly running into a longer downtime than was expected. I can see similar experiences in using social media.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your example of Walgreens. I am now convinced that your interaction led to even better customer service at my Walgreens, where sometimes if the line starts getting long, whoever is covering the Photo area calls out to take customers as well. I remember a few years ago standing on my own share of long lines there, but in the past year I have not had that problem, even when the store is busy.
Thanks for sharing the Twitter conversation and picture with us as well!
Thanks for your response, Jenn. Your example about notifying your community of service interruptions is a great one in terms of building trust and teamwork. The notices are likely perceived positively - that your office cares about the great work that the company's employees produce each day and that, together, you're all working as a team to accomplish goals. Nothing erodes employee trust more than the perception than an employer tolerating poor performance. What message does it send about the company if these notifications never happened? It could be perceived that the company doesn't care. At my institution, we not only send IT communications such as the one in your example via email, but we also post them on social media.
DeleteYou make an interesting point about Walgreen's improving it's issue with long lines. Perhaps, my tweet was one of many across the country complaining about the same problem. Walgreen's potentially used our collective comments as a positive by listening, identifying a big problem, and then responding by creating and implementing better customer service practices.
I have a plan to incorporate social media into the mix with notifications. I'm hoping to use what I learn in this class to write up a proposal to be able use Twitter and possibly one of those "tiny" URLs (so we don't have to post our full availability page URL) as an additional communication tool. I think it will be an added benefit. While many people may call our Help Desk and be able to speak to someone about something going on with technology on campus, opening another form of communication for those who might not want to call would be extremely beneficial.
DeleteHi Stephen!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog. It was well written and your personal experience with Walgreens was a great example.
Liking, following a company's social media platforms is a great way to show loyalty to a brand.
It can be easy for a company to forget resolving customer complaints over social networks is the SAME as dealing with them face-to-face in the store! Imagine if you went to return something you purchased and the person working the register chose to ignore you or dismiss you all together! I suspect, this would not be well received by other customers in line or other patrons! If this behavior is unacceptable in the store, how can it be acceptable online!