Corporate Britain joins the social network

As well as answering questions about how to get hold of clutch bags and the availability of loafers in size seven, the Facebook page of clothing store Next is dealing with an unhappy customer.

Kirsty’s order turned up missing two pairs of navy shorts, and she is not very
happy – but within the hour the issue had been resolved without anyone
needing to pick up the phone or send an email.

Companies are increasingly hitching themselves to social networking sites like
Facebook, whose users are now upwards of 750 million, and Twitter, which has
175 million.

“Everyone knows that Facebook is one of the most popular websites on the
internet,” says Dan Cryan, ananalyst with Screen Digest. “In
simple marketing terms it is good practice to be where your audience is.”

According to statistics from market research group Nielsen, 90 per cent of
internet users value the opinions of their friends, while 70 per cent trust
the opinion of strangers posting online, giving companies an incentive to
publicise new products through social networks. Yet, they are no longer
simple marketing tools.

“Companies are increasingly taking social networks seriously,” says
Joshua March, co-founder and chief executive of Conversocial. “Many are
plugging their call centres into Facebook and Twitter.”

However, as they invest in what marketers call “building engagement”
a new study shows that companies have to tread carefully to avoid blunders.
The report, drawn up by Conversocial, a company that provides companies with
social media management, tracks how well the top retailers in the UK use
Facebook to engage with customers – and it includes some surprising results.

The study tracked the level of customer service among the top 10 “liked”
companies on Facebook. Topshop is the most followed retailer in the UK with
1.3 million fans on the social network, with River Island in second place at
902,000.

But with all the free advertising comes the complaints. “Companies need
to be on constant damage control duty,” warns Conversocial. “If
you do not challenge or resolve public condemnations of your brand, these
opinions could sway current or prospective customers against you”.

It is surprising then that the two retailers with the most fans were among the
worst in the top 10 at dealing with customer queries and complaints, with
Topshop taking on average close to eight hours to respond and River Island
taking even longer.

Worse, at the bottom of the top 10 on this test is an online retailer. Amazon,
Conversocial found, just did not bother responding at all. Its fan page is
full of marketing and not much else. Amazon did not respond torequests for
comment from The Independent yesterday either.

“On some pages we found large numbers of queries and complaints that were
left unanswered. During our week of investigation, Amazon did not reply to a
single query, even though they were regularly putting out marketing messages,”
thereport says.

Mr March thinks the study shows companies need to change the way they deal
with customers using social networking sites. Many have only just begun to
realise the importance of responding if the company has set up a Facebook
page or Twitter account.

“The complaints are now completely public for anyone who clicks on the
page, as are the company’sresponses,” Mr March warns. “What
started as a marketing tool has quickly emerged as a two-way conversation.”

Even for companies that are quick to respond, Conversocial points to the
logistical difficulties of “isolating questions and complaints from
huge volumes of less critical comments”.

River Island, for example, moved to prevent complaints from becoming visible
by disabling its wall. But then customers posted complaints under its
marketing updates instead.

Still, the move by companies to use social networking as a customer service
channel is a recent one that has yet to be fine-tuned. Somecompanies are
beginning to bring in dedicated staff with social media training.

Mr March adds: “Some companies are really putting serious resources to
this: if a company can show a page full of happy customers that is a great
marketing tool – less so if it’s the opposite.”

There have been some attempts to measure the success of socialnetwork
campaigns: Starbucks says engagement on Facebook boosted UK sales of its
Christmas drinks by 15 per cent last year.

Yet, at the moment companies are mainly in the dark about how much return they
receive from social networking. More than half of them are “unsure”
of the returns, according to the World Federation of Advertisers.

That hasn’t stopped companies experimenting with different uses for Facebook
and Twitter. “Anecdotally, we hear that Facebook is being used for
customer engagement, while Twitter is seen as a broadcast medium for getting
messages out there,” says Mr Cryan. Google+ is yet to be opened up to
company pages.

Few companies are using Facebook as a fully-fledged sales channel yet. But
some have experimented with setting up “f-commerce” stores on
Facebook, including ASOS in the UK. Procter Gamble and Levi’s have
also tested the water.

“These have had pretty low take-up so far,” Mr March comments. “In
general there are huge possibilities for social commerce by pulling in
social data and recommendations into e-commerce sites, but just sticking an
e-commerce store into Facebook doesn’t really add value to customers,”
he points out.

Groupon’s drive onto Facebook and Twitter

One business depending on social networking to drive sales more than any
other is Groupon, the discount vouchers company launched in the US and now
growing rapidly in Britain. Rebecca O’Sullivan, social media manager for
Groupon UK Ireland, explains.

“It is essential as it is intrinsic to the whole business model. As
many of our deals only stay on the site for 24 hours, they need to be
marketed quickly and customers need answers to their questions instantly.
Social media tools are the perfect vehicle for this.

“We have over 40 Facebook pages and 40 Twitter accounts – representing
the cities we work in – and we also have a blog.

“There are eight people in the social media team, in a number of roles
including planners, blog editors, executives, analysts, designers,
developers and social media customer service representatives. This is a
sales channel that can reach people who may have missed our newsletters or
have not had the chance to look at the site on a given day.

“It is also crucial for engagement – creating a dialogue with
customers while a deal is active. Many people who are interested in buying a
deal may have questions about it – and we can answer these questions quickly
through social media. It can also get people talking and excited about the
deals, as we often post them with questions attached, encouraging customers
to participate.

“Social networking services are also very important for customer
relationships. Often, questions about a deal fall into certain categories
common to acertain deal.

“Social media hence allows us to effectively address the concerns
ofseveral customers all together – saving both us and them a lot of time.”

Share and Enjoy