Business-to-business (B2B) companies also face potential problems from angry clients and customers on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube -- although admittedly less often. However, it's enough of a problem that B2B companies shouldn't think they're immune from attack. The key is to plan for trouble and address it immediately and honestly.
Boingo Wireless is an example of a company that successfully used social media to handle a customer crisis, according to the book Social Marketing to the Business Customer by Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman. Boingo Wireless's customer base is business travelers -- hurried, stressed people who need to fire up their laptops between flights and get some work done. Early on, Boingo Wireless identified Twitter as an effective way to communicate outages and issues, and customers sent in one quarter of their support requests by tweeting.
All that came to a head in April 2010, when Boingo Wireless accidentally sent an email meant for just a few customers to 20 percent of their users, stating that their accounts would be canceled. Those customers took to Twitter in droves. But with savvy social media management, Boingo was able to control the conversation in a matter of hours by responding, reassuring customers, and putting the brakes on further emails.
Sage Software faced a similar problem in 2007 when an upgrade introduced problems with its ACT! Software. Customers revolted on Amazon, posting negative reviews. Instead of trying to shut down the reviews, Sage Software created user communities, addressing problems individually and even calling customers directly to provide support. In one extreme case, Sage Software sent a team of engineers to a customer's site to fix the problem. Sage Software was able to turn some of their most negative customers into strong references, according to Gillin and Schwartzman.
Most of the time, B2B customers just want to feel like someone is listening to them. B2B customers are invested in their purchases -- these are the tools they use to run their businesses, keep their bosses happy, and make their work lives easier so they can go home on time.
B2B companies can uniquely prevent crises because they tend to know their customers better than consumer companies, Paul Gillin said in an interview. "The B2B companies tend to have smaller numbers of customers and do more business with them. There's a greater chance that they know who the customer is, can interact directly with the customer, and prevent a crisis," he said.
The other factor making B2B crisis mitigation easier is that the business customers are in business themselves. They understand that problems come up: service outages, software bugs, and the like. They tend to be a little more forgiving, according to Gillin.
For B2B companies to stay on top of customer complaints, they don't need complex listening platforms, Gillin said. Instead, they can often monitor their own communities and be open and honest with their customers. "SAP has a large customer community [with] a very honest exchange going on with its customers.
The customers alert SAP if there is a problem, and a company like SAP that has a lot of open dialogue is more likely to find out about problems before they blow up in social channels, he added.
Mr. Roques - Yes, companies need people monitoring social media 24/7. And the evening/weekend teams had better not be interns and entry-level, because the crises that blow up after hours are likely to be the worst.
Large companies that work with public relations firms are usually (or should be) prepared to deal with bad situations. When I studied at journo school, one class on PR was taught by a PR expert in emergency public relations at large firms; she had her own business that specialized in this area. Granted, nowadays it's an even bigger challenge, due to social media, phones with video, etc. -- but it's also more of a need for companies that can afford to have these pros on speed-dial. Smaller businesses should also figure out at least a generic plan; they should know who to call, which execs can publicly speak to the issue (be it on camera; on FB/Twitter/YouTube/LinkedIn or the traditional media, etc.), and at what point issues should escalate up the chain.
Well, but sometimes issues can't wait until monday at 10 PM. With those urgent cases, how are companies supposed to handle it? There's the technical side of it that handles whatever issues they were having but an equally-important subject would be how to handle the public relations of those issues.
Found this June 2012 study/whitepaper by IBM - http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/rlw03009usen/RLW03009USEN.PDF - which, among many things, found that C-level execs are often credited or blamed for a company's reputation. Lots of good stuff in this study. Appears they do this annually, so I look forward to the 2013 report.
I think that's one shift we're also seeing: In addition to employees' growing use of social media, we're also seeing many employees accessing email, social media, and other work tools during non-traditional business hours. I don't know any statistics; this is anecdotal, but I know few professionals who close their computers at 5 on Friday and don't log back on until 9 on Monday... not saying whether that's right or wrong, but it seems rarer with each year! However, depending on the reason a company has to respond at 8 pm on Saturday, execs should coordinate their public comments. We've seen businesses roiled in the press and social media for lame, weak apologies or badly phrased explanations.
It first requires that businesses go through a change in mentality, forgetting about the closed-environment years and start letting their customers know more details, in a way, letting them know they are part of it themselves.
Are those community managers hired for 24/7 jobs? How do they handle issues at 8pm on a saturday?
I've seen these things go horribly wrong when an individual takes it on his or herself to respond for the business, without really knowing what they're doing. Planning means having informed people inside the business guide the response -- or, I'm afraid, hiring outside help.
People who think they can deal with these crises just because they know how to tweet are often deluding themselves.
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Last week's official US release of the BlackBerry Z10, the BlackBerry 10 touchscreen device, on the AT&T network marked the official entry of BlackBerry as a player in the formidable US smartphone market. While most consumers may not be swayed from their shiny, sleek iPhones and Android devices, businesses may still have a compelling reason to deploy BlackBerry 10. However, BlackBerry needs to do a few things before businesses will jump on the bandwagon, including opening up their management API and luring consumers to their device.
Whenever I whip out my BlackBerry Bold in public, someone will undoubtedly say, "Oh, how cute. You still use a BlackBerry." Yes, I do, and I'll use it until the day I die.
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While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
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The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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