Tag Archives: social media

December 2, 2013 · 10:53 am

Klearly Stupid

The holiday shopping season has begun in earnest and so today let’s remind ourselves about how some online businesses deserve the equivalent of a Darwin Award for killing themselves as this big opportunity arises.

Stupid IV

(Photo credit: LauraLewis23)

You might have heard about KlearGear.com, a $47million online retailer of what they call geek toys and goodies.  They deserve the aforementioned Darwin Award for resolving a dispute with a customer in a manner that will, in my opinion, destroy their business.  Let’s see what you think.

A customer ordered something from the company way back in 2008 which didn’t arrive.  The customer then posted a negative review on the web.  Nothing very unusual about this so far, I know.  What happened next is.  Some genius at KlearGear decided it would be a good idea to “fine” the customer $3,500 for disparaging the company, citing a clause in their site’s Terms Of Service that wasn’t even in those terms in 2008.  When the customer didn’t pay, they reported the $3,500 as a bad debt to credit reporting agencies, trashing the customer’s credit rating.  You can read the gory details here.

Unfortunately for the retailer, the customer fought back and looks set to win a $75,000 judgement against the company.  Frankly, that’s the least of the retailer’s worries.  The torrent of negative commentary on social media has prompted the company to hide its Twitter account and to close off other social points of contact because of the overwhelming response.  Of course, by going into hiding the company has pretty much destroyed its own reputation on the web.  My guess is that the rest of the business will follow.

This began with a $20 item.  Instead of accepting that there was a problem – perhaps even one of the customer’s own making (which it wasn’t) – and apologizing, KlearGear escalated the problem.  The lost $20 sale is now a potential $75,000 liability which pales by comparison to the millions of dollars of negative coverage they’re receiving.  As we’ve said before, when you’re doing business the right way, the need to moderate or control customer feedback doesn’t exist.  If your product or service is great, so too will be the general commentary about you on the web and social.  We’ve also talked about how it’s easier and more profitable to sell to repeat customers than to find new ones.  That’s a huge reason why the best retailers go out of their way to minimize (or get rid of!)  bad customer experiences.

This is a textbook case on how not to handle customer service or bad reviews.  It’s about as bad as it gets and reached new depths of business stupidity.  You agree?

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October 2, 2013 · 10:29 am

Who Runs Social?

Any time I’m working with a client and the subject of social media comes up, there’s usually a pretty good discussion of how social is seen within the organization.  More specifically, there’s generally an internal tug of war of sorts over messaging and ownership.  I thought maybe my keyhole into this issue was sort of unique but as it turns out it’s actually very common.TCG_0913_SocialMedia

The folks at The Creative Group did a survey of more than 400 advertising and marketing executives about who should own social media and that internecine battle was evident from the results:

Overall 39% of advertising and marketing executives said they think social media belongs in the public relations/communications wheelhouse, compared to 35% who said it should be the responsibility of the marketing department. Meanwhile 15% said it should be delegated to customer service, and 5% said it should be the direct responsibility of the company’s CEO (6% said they don’t know).

Of course, this sort of misses the point.  As I discuss with clients, social media isn’t focused on the brand or on the company – it needs to be focused on the customer.  Figuring out who “owns” it is about you.  Instead focus on the customer’s needs and decide who is best equipped to serve them in the social channel.   The answer may not be tied to one department.  Hmm – working together as a team – what a concept!

The other thing the survey raises is that with multiple internal stakeholders there is bound to be multiplicity of thought on messaging.  The entire organization needs to be aligned on that –  it can’t come with a constant PR or Marketing or Customer Service point of view.  As with many things in the business world, often the politics supersede the thought process.  This is usually the biggest hurdle to an effective social plan.  Once the politics get sorted, the messaging can flow as a customer-focused stream.  Resolving customer issues and carrying on a conversation that engages the customer (and NO they’re not only wanting to know about your latest and greatest product) is social’s role.

Who runs social?  Your customers do.  Any questions?

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September 4, 2013 · 9:45 am

Behind The Big Ears

One of the challenges in any business is to systematize operations and processes.  It’s nice to be able to do something well once, but what distinguishes great from merely good is the ability to repeat that activity over and over at the same high level.   I raise this because I’m not sure many businesses think of social media as that sort of process yet.  Maybe they consider it to be jazz – mostly improvisational – without understanding that even improvisation in music has a lot of built-in systems.  In any event, one company – Cisco – seem to “get it.”  Here’s why and how it can affect your business.

Fingers in ears

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chris Brogan coined the expression “grow big ears” when it comes to social media.  I like that notion since it distills what’s critical in social down to three words.  It means companies need to listen – to put together ways to monitor activity on the various social media sites and to draw actionable conclusions from the data they gather.  It’s a process, one that needs to be put together and run by executives with enough business experience and company awareness to make it productive.  Yes, that’s a shot at the businesses who turn the social media keys over to interns with little or not instruction other than to stay active.

What Cisco has done goes well beyond that.  As Media Post reported, Cisco, using Radian6, has developed:

…a rapid routing and tagging system as part of its social monitoring strategy that automatically opens a service ticket after detecting a negative tweet or post on the Web… Aside from complaints, social reports also guide the company’s marketing strategies for campaigns by allowing search and social marketing teams to share information. The search engine marketing team feeds keywords to the social team related to products and topics. In turn, the social team feeds search marketing new lists related to social networks they wouldn’t typically find for themselves. This allows the company to identify features and technology internal teams should emphasize to customers.

In other words, big ears that feed a replicable process.  The process yields benefits (search keywords, features, customer service) that go well beyond being able to tweet out a clever quote or informative article.  Even the most engaging social media activity pales when measured against this sort of intelligent back end.  Something to consider.

How big are your ears?  What’s on the other end of them?

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