Tag Archives: customer dialogue
Andrea Donatucci | Critical Mass Chicago
Last week, I attended the Chicago AMA BrandSmart Event “Staying Relevant in an ever changing world.” The day started with an inspiring keynote presentation from Walgreen’s CMO Kim Feil called “Changing Times at Walgreens- There’s A Way.” She explained how her team is working to change consumer perceptions and emerge as the preferred and trusted health services provider. With their new brand campaign “There’s A Way,” Walgreens is moving beyond the trusted traditional channels of TV and print and expanding into digital (online advertising as well as the largest out of home digital display in Times Square) to deliver integrated messaging and a more consistent customer experience.
What made her presentation especially fitting to the theme of the day was her own personal story… her first day as the new CMO at Walgreens was the same day that Wall Street experienced its biggest one day drop ever. Her “best laid” plans of transforming the brand were immediately revisited with the lens and added pressure of compelling consumers to spend (in especially trying economic times).
Beyond the keynote, I tried a sampling of breakout sessions from the available tracks of Innovation, Engagement and Social Media. My favorite presentation was one entitled “Diving into the Social Media Mosh Pit” given by Melissa Meulenberg, ecommerce Manager for the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago.
My reason for selecting this session was two-fold: the title sounded pretty interesting, plus this particular hotel is located across the street from the CM Chicago office and has been the topic of much conversation… but more about that later.
Melissa is a marketing department of one so I was immediately impressed by her simple but efficient methods of staying aware of the brand dialog that is in play on Twitter, Facebook and Trip Advisor. She told many stories about being tuned into what current and past guests were posting and responding quickly. Some of the major themes:
1. Selecting the sites in which you wish to join the dialog
2. Setting aside time each day to respond to posts and contribute new, relevant content (not solely promoting or talking about your brand)
3. Turning fans of your brand into public advocates.
• Hard Rock has an outreach to encourage those with positive hotel experience to share their story on Trip Advisor
• Their ranking on Trip Advisor has moved up 30 spots among Chicago hotels in last 18 months to #46
4. Proactively searching for comments about your brand as a Customer Service opportunity (before, during or after the experience with your brand).
• When comments are overly negative, taking action privately first and then publicly to remedy the situation
• Also taking action when posts give the opportunity to turn a good experience into an extraordinary one
All of the stories were entertaining, but the following account is my favorite.
Toyota reminds me of a guy who buys flood insurance the day after the big rain.
In a recent post on my personal blog, I proposed that an effective ethical strategy required speaking to the emotions of your audience. Watching this car maker’s mounting mistakes and the continuing ethical violations still coming to light, I’m reminded about one of the keys to a successful crisis management strategy:
Crisis management begins before the crisis.
In January (the same month the Toyota debacle really hit the fan, incidentally), clothing retailer H&M was hit with a story claiming that their employees were slashing up clothes before they were discarded. While some brand protection can be understood by some, it looked dastardly in the midst of a recession.
H&M responded to the hubbub immediately, issuing a 5-tweet salvo that concisely stated their case: They gave their brand statement, contact information, a promise to resolve the problem, and a link to a robust corporate social responsibility page. (Here is a history of the incident and the Twitter effect.)
You’d be forgiven if you missed this story. At the time, H&M’s 30K Twitter followers got out the message, mostly defended the brand (or at least stopped disparaging it), and pretty much quashed the story. Compare this to Toyota’s handling of their ethical crisis.
Toyota Goes The Old Route: Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems
Toyota spent a lot of money on ads in newspapers (yes, they still exist) and on television. They had very few Twitter followers. They have no blog that I know of (and certainly not one I heard about developed after the story broke).
No customer communication channels. No tools for dialogue. No presence in a community where fans could defend them.
Consider Joseph Jaffe’s admonition of Toyota:
“Toyota did not have a direct line…with their customers, with their advocates, with their loyalists, with their influencers. They weren’t able to go to their community and say, ‘Help us, we need your help, we need your advice…’
You can’t expect to miraculously turn to your customers if you haven’t been building up that relationship with them in advance… You’ve got to anticipate this stuff because it’s going to happen.”
