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Serving the social customer: how to look fabulous on the social dance floorA thought leadership white paper by Dr Nicola J. Millard, Head of Customer Insight & Futures, BT Global Innovation Team.

Serving the social customer: how to look fabulous on the social dance floor 2

Have you ever been to a party where you don’t know anybody? You scan the room and spot someone fascinating, so you move into the group of people surrounding them. The person finishes talking and you ask them a question – and they just walk away.

This might be regarded as somewhat rude – and yet it is precisely what many organisations are doing to customers on a daily basis on social networking sites because they have forgotten that they are dealing with social rather than broadcast media. The clue is in the title!

Let’s go back to the party. The dance floor is full and it would be arrogant to assume that you could jump on and take control of it, but you can go and dance. The first move is to stand at the side and look around to see who is dancing, what kind of music they like and who you fancy dancing with when you pluck up enough courage to boogie. This is the best approach to social media strategy – work out which dance floors your customers are on, listen to what they are saying and then look at ways to boogie with them that isn’t going to result in a slapped face.

Many companies have decided to jump onto the dance floor with no real rationale apart from ‘everyone else is doing it’ – this tends to result in uncoordinated ‘dad dancing’. The strategic struggle with social media is often about ownership. Marketing see immediate opportunities to talk to customers over social media but they are often woefully ill equipped to respond back

if people start to wander away from the messages that they want customers to hear. They may create a separate account for help but social customers rarely stick to the ‘rules’ of the dance – and simply jump on the first branded feed that they find, regardless who happens to run it or what its official function is.

Worse still, some organisations create a “social department” divorced from either marketing or service. All this can cause a disjointed experience and an already disgruntled customer to rampage around social media (and no doubt to all their friends and family as well) with a tsunami of negativity. Situations can rapidly spiral out of control on a very public channel unless some kind of coordinated action is taken.

Social media is no longer new and yet the hype around it as a channel to customers has not diminished since the last time we did this research back in 2011. As with our previous study, we wanted to cut through the hype and examine how and why customers are using social media dance floor to comment on or engage with brands. We wanted to understand what dancing is actually going on at the moment and look at the implications for corporate boogieing.

Our approach was to take a snapshot of social media interactions for 13 brands in multiple vertical sectors over key forums and social media sites (principally Facebook and Twitter because they are the dominant channels) over a one week period.

The previous study in 2011 took a two week snapshot but the one very obvious change in the intervening years is that volumes have spiraled upwards as more customers choose to dance, so we decided that a one week exploration would give us enough data.

IntroductionDancing with customers


In total we collected 44,336 customer interactions. By the time we took out retweets of the same story, we categorised 12,553 social media conversations with brands (compared to 2,986 for 14 brands in two weeks in 2011 – over four times the amount of traffic). Because many of these brands are international, content came from multiple countries including the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea and Singapore.

Specific brand and customer names and content have been anonymised to protect the innocent, so the brands will be referred to under a code name.

The new sample encompassed retail (SuperCo and DepartStore), banking (BrandBank and GlobeBank), travel (Hi-Flyer, Lo-Flyer & TrainCo), logistics (LogistiCo), central government (GovCo), local government & police (CopShop and LocalGov) and utilities (EnergyCo and WaterCo). The selection included a number of companies that have a substantial presence on the social media dance floor as well as some who have not to see if this made any difference to the conversations.

This research was conducted using a combination of an intelligent social media aggregator and also a popular search engine (which is often the first port of call for a customer when looking for a specific brand).

Interactions were then categorised manually (mainly because irony and sarcasm tends to bypass most analytics tools, e.g.

‘A whole 2p off my next shop. Thank you @SuperCo, I know where to come for a good bargain’; ‘I’m really glad TrainCo have installed saunas in their rolling stock. It’s doing wonders for my skin’ – compliments or veiled complaints)?

They were then put into one of the following five categories:

1. Comment/opinion — expressing a personal viewpoint about a brand. Not generally something a company would necessarily feel the need to reply to. For example:

‘Anyone know how to open a SuperCo plastic bag? It’s just I have things to do tomorrow.’

‘Signed up for the gym and this was considered such unusual activity for me that GlobeBank blocked my card. Trying not to be too offended.’

2. Complaint/criticism — reporting specific problems or complaints with products or services.

‘Telephone robots that don’t understand Scottish accents, vomit-inducing hold music; the GovCo helpline experience is awful.’

‘@SuperCo thanks for my “luxurious” lillies - what they lacked in flower heads they made up for in slugs.’

3. Compliment/recommendation — positive comments and promoters.

‘One small step for GovCo, one large step for convenience. Just did everything online. Brilliant!’

‘Delighted! LogistiCo delivery on a bank holiday sat morning!!! Wasn’t expecting that :) Now we can have orders ready for Tuesday morning. Happy bank holiday :).’

‘I’m just in love with SuperCo’s Cinnamon and Apple tea, it smells like Christmas and tastes like heaven’.

4. Suggestion — constructive recommendation about how to improve a product or service.

‘@GlobeBank it would be good to be able to create travel plans that span multiple countries instead of one for each country. A bit like Google maps. Create a plan, then add countries with an ‘add country’ button.’


5. Questions and answers – Customer asking a question or answering one.

‘@SuperCo hi lovely peeps! Pls can you tell me nearest store to Derby that stocks coconut yoghurt? Thx.’

‘@AnoYmouse Good afternoon Mr A, we missed you last week! Can you share how you got GlobeBank to answer your tweets?’

Social overview: snapshot summary of customer activity

“Big and small companies today listen like never before. The question is whether they are ‘hearing’ any better.” Dave Carroll [1].

Social dance floors like Facebook and Twitter are more packed than ever! But the dance varies massively by sector.

The first thing to note about the one week snapshot of traffic is that there has been a HUGE amount of growth since 2011. From an average of just 200 interactions a week in 2011, there are now an average of 965 in 2014 — although these are still much lower than the volumes that typically come through traditional channels such as the phone and email. This also varies by sector.

Retail Travel Financialservices

Utilities Logistics

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Social activity by sector

Retailers took the lion’s share of interactions, with a whopping 74 per cent of traffic – topping the table in 2014 (from its position in second place at 32 per cent in 2011).

Travel earned second place (down from first place in 2011 when it gained 41 per cent of the traffic) with 12 per cent.

Rising from 6 per cent in 2011, financial services took third place with 11 per cent.

Finally, utilities, logistics and government all share bottom spot with 1 per cent each (no utilities companies were included in the 2011 study but logistics previously took 3 per cent of the traffic and government 12 per cent).

Local brands such as local authorities/police authorities and regionalised utilities companies typically have lower volumes than national or global brands, simply because they have a reduced pool of social customers to start from.

With a fourfold increase in social media contacts over the past three years, it has established itself as a primary channel for contact alongside more traditional channels.

This can be problematic for a couple of reasons. Firstly, more and more customer service #fails being pushed into a public channel (and very occasionally, into the national media as a result). Issues become very transparent when they are plastered all over a Facebook wall, for example:

‘Sat here, reading SuperCo’s wall, and the amount of complaints about being sold outdated food is baffling’

‘What saddos feel the need to moan on #SuperCo account all the time? It’s hilarious reading. A person is moaning re: the staff being in the way!’


Secondly, celebrity can trump dancing ability as social voices are magnified by the social dance floors they are boogieing on. There are some abnormally showy dancers out there who can very easily hog the limelight. Twitter can be especially problematic since it is the equivalent of having a loud hailer at the party – the more followers you have, the louder the voice. If a rock star with ten million followers is tweeting negative things about you (as was the case with one company in this study) you might consider this to be a significant brand issue that requires rapid entry onto the dance floor.

The more real-time, instant channels such as Facebook (47 per cent of the content) and Twitter (51 per cent of the content) have become the dominant dance floors for customers. More static social platforms like forums have become less significant dance floors than they were in 2011, where they dominated searchable content with 84 per cent of the total, but are now down to two per cent. There are still some notable and very active exceptions like TripAdvisor for the travel sector, retailer technical help sites and community sites like Mumsnet and NetMums.

What customers are talking about on social media

The top reasons that customers used social media across

all brands and channels emerged as:

It is unsurprising that the bulk of the content is simply comment or opinion largely because social channels tend to reflect life, and we all have opinions. Brands should probably just accept this and steer well clear.

As in 2011, there were surprisingly high levels of compliments and recommendations alongside the more negative stuff – largely complaints and criticisms about products and services. The most complained about on social channels in 2014 were the travel sector, followed by banking and logistics. The highest number of compliments and recommendations came in the retail sector.

Government was the sector with the least compliments, followed closely by utilities (although utilities also had the least complaints). Unsurprisingly, all sectors had more negative comments than positive.

Questions were often firmly directed at the brand in question (along with their Twitter handle or Facebook tag) but they were sometimes directed at the world in general in the expectation that someone out there might have an answer. Government and utilities had the least questions and answers directed at them. Banks and travel companies got the most questions and answers.

Of the complaints and criticisms (24 per cent of the sample), nine per cent of these were about primary contact channels (i.e. the face-to-face, contact centre, email or web experience), whereas in 2011, 84 per cent were about contact channels.

Comment/opinion

Complaint/criticism

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1. Comment/opinion = (36 per cent – from 27 per cent in 2011).

2. Complaints/criticism = (24 per cent – 31 per cent in 2011).

3. Compliments/recommendation = (15 per cent – 28 per cent in 2011).

4. Suggestions = (three per cent - one per cent in 2011).

5. Questions and answers = (22 per cent – 13 per cent in 2011).


It seems that social media has shifted from the channel that people go to in order to complain about other channels to the channel they complain on – in other words, it is now a primary rather than a secondary channel. A typical comment from many social customers we interviewed was: “I don’t even bother ringing the contact centre any more. I get faster and better service on social media.”

Many reinforced this view. Example complaints include:

‘@DepartStore - funny that weeks of going into different stores and calling I get lack of help, I tweet and within minutes I hear back!’

‘I’d like to apologise to all followers about my on-going LoFlyer rants. It seems to be the only way I get any response from them Much love x’

‘@LoFlyer 7-10 WORKING days? That’s long for such a simple question; besides I see people using Twitter/Facebook and it is being solved faster.’

Interestingly, it isn’t uncommon to see customers sending other customers hints and tips to get companies to respond to their issues, for example:

‘Just a hint mate…put @SuperCo in your tweet and you’ll get a response to your complaint against that store.’

This is a worrying trend because, if customers believe that the only way to get service is to blast the brand on social media, volumes can rise rapidly, especially if customers are inciting others to complain. The sudden flooding of the social dance floor can prove problematic — as one social customer noted: ‘Twitter is training people that they get faster response in that mode. Thus everyone goes there, thus it breaks’.

There were no major incidents during the week’s snapshot but there were social campaigns about sensitive political issues that had mobilised communities to blitz one brand’s Twitter stream. This is very visible to customers and was noted in some (fairly politically incorrect) Tweets. For example :

‘No chance of a reply from @SuperCo today. Too busy with nobs who are upset that they stock the wrong type of veg!’

This, and can provoke even more anger if some customers think that others are being prioritised over them. For example:

‘@SuperCo I understand that you’re busy but tweets posted after mine were being answered while I was waiting for a reply. Poor customer care.’

If companies are effectively creating a two tier service level with social media users being offered preferential, faster or more personalised service than through other channels, they must be equipped to cope with the inevitable rise in volumes that this will encourage resourcing, escalation, service level agreements and back end system integration that is necessary in the same way as it is for more established channels like the telephone.

Do customers actually get a better service over social media?

The actual service levels for social are sometimes far inferior. In fact, the contact centre often deals with even the most complex issues within 8-10 minutes and they rarely have to pass or escalate the issue.


The challenge is often getting through to the contact centre in the first place – and long wait times become very apparent on social media, as this serial rant from one Twitter user proves:

‘#Brandbank I’m losing the will to live. Waiting for a

Brandbank Helpdesk advisor..... Been on the phone now for

15 minutes and 25 seconds!’

‘#Brandbank I am sick of hearing Richard Clayderman on

a loop. Waiting for Brandbank Helpdesk to answer the

phone.... 16 minutes waiting!’

‘#Brandbank Yes, Brandbank Helpdesk - I am still here 22 minutes waiting!’

‘#Brandbank 25 minutes waiting for the Helpdesk to answer the phone. I hope this isn’t a premium rate number’

‘#Brandbank Waiting for the Brandbank Bank Helpdesk to answer the phone for 30 minutes. I’ve almost forgotten why I’m ringing’

‘#Brandbank Brandbank Bank Helpdesk - you win. I give up. Wait time 32 minutes and no answer. No service or help whatsoever!’

‘#Brandbank Should there be any journalists out there reading my Tweets about the waiting time for the Helpdesk - do report it.’

Expectations of contact centres are often low – with on hold waiting times being a significant issue, along with terrible on hold music and ill-prepared agents, who can’t help. For example:

‘Dear @Brandbank, Your India office has no idea what’s on your website. The man at the help desk is clueless. #Brandbank’

‘GlobeBank, when you keep customers on hold for hours at a time, why would you have a single 30 second loop as your hold music?’

However, when it comes to social media, many studies have shown that lots of interactions never get answered either. Even when they do, the time to get an answer can vary from 20 minutes (an average for one ‘best practice’ retailer under study) to eight to ten hours (especially if they are at an anti-social hour). Imagine never answering the phone or taking eight to ten hours to call customers back. The impatient social customer is very ready to note this:

‘@GlobeBank I finally got a response to my question but then they went quiet again. Three days for each reply is not acceptable’

‘@SuperCo I hope SuperCo answer my previous tweet towards them. Easy to ignore something they can’t answer #RubbishCustomerService.’

‘@GlobeBank I contacted you via Twitter on Monday

and have emailed you, all I have received is an standard

email back despite emailing a 2nd & 3rd time with specific

questions. This is unacceptable, I just want to talk to

someone on the phone!’

‘@SuperCo feeling sad, you still haven’t responded to my

stock question from 4 hours ago’

‘Well, pretty #BadCustomerService from the Twitter bods

at @LoFlyer today. Four hours to respond to first query and

then silence afterwards,’

A lack of response can cause customers to channel shift multiple times - “Brandbank website won’t let me update phone number as site link doesn’t work & their customer service is engaged. Let’s try online web chat”. This means that they frequently phone, email and tweet about the same issue and wait to see which responds first — sometimes with contradictory results: ‘TrainCo customer service is amongst the worst I have encountered. The station staff argue with info provided to me by their Twitter team and telephone customer service team despite having the information in front of me. In future I will avoid them at all cost’.


Some companies tend to apologise but then direct customers to another more private channel such as email, as this frustrated customer’s retweet shows:

‘RT: unfortunately we are unable to follow you. If you send an email to [email protected], I can assist you’. #useless’.

This is not ideal from the customer perspective as they are given the corporate channel shunt and often have to repeat themselves every time they switch.

It’s also sometimes not ideal from a corporate perspective either. This can actually increases cost to serve because customers are effectively being double or triple handled by the agents dealing with social media, the phone or email channel. It is more effective and efficient if the agent handling the social interaction can seamlessly pick the conversation up through chat or phone from social media itself, e.g. using click-to-call or click-to-chat.

This shift from public to private is essential for any company actually wanting to know the real identity and personal details of @fuzzyduck567, without he or she publishing everything on a public channel. Customers are also often more than aware of the public nature of social media:

‘@SuperCo you are deluded if you think I am going to reply on Twitter with my details’

‘@GlobeBank I wouldn’t put my bank details on here but a phone number is ok no? If a weirdo calls I can just hang up!’

If the only way to solve these issues are to take them from a public channel to a private one, by solving the issue “offline”, the resolution then becomes invisible to the social customer – so it’s important to close the loop with the customer in public once things have been resolved.

Another issue is around the limitations of social media itself – especially Twitter where customers are extremely limited in the number of characters that they can use:

‘@GlobeBank- Not sure I can do that in 126 characters...’

‘@LoFlyer Hi, thank for the response. Think I’ll need an email add to make a complaint - not enough characters in a DM! Thanks.’

Sometimes proactivity from corporates on social media can feel like unwelcome attention on the dance floor:

‘I’m sorry but why has SuperCo replied to my tweet?’

‘Seriously @BrandBank, I’m flattered you ask but haven’t you got better things to do than reply to my idle twitterings?’

And sometimes there is the occasional slap because of inappropriate dancing (often because of the informality of the conversation):

‘@CEOSuperCo have you looked at your @SuperCo feed recently? Several men staffing it are incredibly rude and dismissive. #customercare?’

‘@SuperCo since this is a legitimate complaint, perhaps you could reserve the emoticons for when you’re texting your mates...?’

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

The single biggest issue is that saying sorry isn’t enough for many customers. Actions truly do speak louder than words — and the responsiveness of organisations is not simply judged by how quickly they respond to demands on social!

There are many examples of customers wanting organisations to solve their issues, not simply pass them on or ignore them:

‘@TrainCo An apology is pointless unless measures are taken to prevent the problem recurring. Love from ALL your customers’

‘@HiFlyer Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong’

‘@GlobeBank: my social media tirade will continue, including colourful derogatory language!! Until I receive a personalised solution’


‘@LoFlyer “hi Phil, we don’t know what we are doing so we will keep sending the same reply. If you send us this we will do this “blah blah blah”’

‘@SuperCo I can’t fault you, you always reply to my tweeted complaints - if only they went beyond simply being passed on.’

“’Thanks to @Brandbank for wasting my whole day with Tweets with exact same result as yesterday’s unsatisfactory conclusion. Cheers for that’

‘@LoFlyer I have had so many tweets telling me how sorry everyone is and to send in my booking ref in. It’s been done but still nothing!’

‘@GlobeBank ...?! How about taking action against my first tweet and making the telephone menu more helpful!’

This inevitably exposes the inadequacies of back end processes and the limitations of internal silos - especially when one brand has multiple, and entirely functionally or geographically separated, social media feeds:

‘@SuperCo Can you please explain what is going on, lots of conflicting information coming from various departments’

‘RT reply from @Brandbank: “Hi there. I’m sorry I can only help with GlobeBank UK queries. I don’t have contact details for India. Please contact them directly’.

Don’t waltz in a hip hop club: not all social dance floors are the same

“Social customer service should be led by people who truly understand traditional customer service in the offline world.” Rich Baker [1]

When it comes to dancing on the social dance floor, not all sectors are equal. Social media gurus are yelling that ALL companies should be on social media but this research seems to question that opinion. Sure, everyone should be at the side of the social dance floor but the appetite for dancing from both customer and corporate perspective is very different depending on which sector you are in.

As in 2011, there were significant differences between sectors and customers’ willingness to engage with them on social media. Retail (74 per cent in 2014, twice as much as its 32 per cent in 2011), travel (12 per cent in 2014, less than half the activity in 2011) and banking (11 per cent in 2014, up from six per cent in 2011) had the liveliest social discotheques. Utilities, logistics and government all were having less of a party at one per cent each (no utilities companies were included in the previous study but previously logistics were at three per cent and government at 12 per cent).

Where social is king: retail

Retail formed the highest proportion of social content in this study, at 74 per cent and is one of the most active areas in the social media space. Although they tend to have the brands we talk about, BT’s research in 2014 with Retail Week on UK consumers [2] showed that only 5.5 per cent regarded responses to social media as being a key influence on their loyalty to the retailer.

We do tend to follow recommendations of people that we know and respect on social media (as we would in real life) as this interviewee confirmed:

‘Do I care what Fred from Essex is recommending, no! But if it’s one of my friends, yes I’ll listen to what they say on social”. Only 0.9 per cent of people currently start their shopping journey on a social media site [2].’


Proof that social media reflects life was that there was a significant amount of content about how people looked whilst they were shopping (e.g. “Why are there so many good looking people in SuperCo when I look like a cross breed of a pterodactyl and a puffer fish?”) and what music was playing in the background, e.g. “@DepartStore Leicester - Absolutely fantastic music selection. A great start to my day’). There was also a whole category of posts featuring foreign objects found in food – including many photos of said foreign objects, (e.g. “@SuperCo thanks for my “luxury” lillies - what they lacked in flower heads they made up for in slugs”; “#SuperCo @SuperCo This false nail was IN OUR SuperCo Take Away Stuffed Crust Cheese Pizza. SuperCo I want answers” <Pictures redacted to spare readers of a sensitive disposition>).

Aside from retail personal hygiene the other key activities that customers did on social media for retail brands were:

1. Comments/opinion = 39 per cent (27 per cent in 2011).

2. Complaints/criticism = 20 per cent (25 per cent in 2011).

3. Compliment/recommendation = 18 per cent (32 per cent

in 2011).

4. Suggestions = one per cent (four per cent in 2011).

5. Questions and answers = 21 per cent (12 per cent

in 2011).

The retailers we looked at had very different approaches to social media. One responded to almost everything in the social channel. Another directed any complex conversations into the email channel rather than play things out in public. However, the former also had multiple twitter streams covering different sub-brands being answered by often disconnected social teams which was causing some confusion:

‘@SuperCo Can you please explain what is going on, lots of conflicting information coming from various departments?’

In fact, one brand was so good at responses to social media that it got significant kudos from customers:

‘I want to marry whoever runs the SuperCo twitter account’

‘I actually love the SuperCo twitter account, I feel the need to go spend money in there now’.

Of course, being a good conversationalist means that you tend to stimulate MORE conversation and customers often engaged about topics beyond customer service:

‘@SuperCo if you were a salad, what salad would you be?’

‘@SuperCo tell me a rude joke’

‘Hi @SuperCo, what do the little asterisks mean next to items on your receipts? Just curious!’

Comments/Opinion

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Social activity: Retail


‘@SuperCo what do I do if my friend’s having a bad day?’

‘Dear Mr SuperCo, your veg packaging suggests I wash before use. I find the presumption I am too dirty to handle a potato outrageous’.

Employees too were commenting on their brand in ways that their employers probably wouldn’t necessarily want:

‘Someone come to SuperCo and cheers me up, this shift is s*** and I’m gonna kill someone #hatepeople #generalpublic’

‘Away to do a four hour shift in the hell hole that is DepartStore while very much hungover. I must have been a bad person in a previous life’

‘Apologies to anyone who worked at DepartStore today, I hate doing 7 tannoys in a row about roast carveries too’.

Listening to what customers are talking about can provide some insight into what is topmost in customers’ minds. Typical comments ranged from:

Criticism about deliveries:

‘I would not advise anyone to order anything online, especially what DepartStore calls “furniture” (even if it is a towel) - delivery takes extremely long time, the status is unclear and you will almost certainly have trouble reaching customer service’

‘@SuperCo why offer next day delivery when you can’t deliver next day?! Not even bothering to let us know!! #baffled #beensatinalldayfornothing’

‘Congrats SuperCo for substituting my wrapping paper with 4 packs of...Love Hearts’

‘@DepartStore why is everything I order online out of stock? And why do I only find out when it’s not delivered and I ring up...#poor’

Inability to get a contact from traditional channels:

‘I’ve emailed @SuperCo customer service six times - they’ve failed to reply on each occasion - is this a new strategy to win more custom?’

‘After a number of phone calls where each operator contradicted the previous operator it was clear that no one knew how to arrange for a collection. I was told various stories and promised phone calls that never happened’

‘@DepartStore Helllllooooooo? Anyone want to help me out here? Phone line just rings and rings’

Ignoring feedback:

‘@SuperCo I filled in your online feedback form with a complaint, over 48hrs later and still no response??’

‘I don’t really see the point in @SuperCo asking people for reviews if they’re not going to put the bad ones up as well’

‘They don’t like negative reviews. Wrote a review for the DepartStore site and they rejected it!!’

Staff attitudes:

‘Not only was the potato disgusting it was accompanied by 2 members of SuperCo staff discussing sore bum cheeks at full volume – delightful’

‘The staff go slower than an elderly snail and run off somewhere random when the queues are LONG!’

‘The fact people prefer to use #self-service checkout at #SuperCo illustrates the quality of the staff’

‘Walk up to till in @DepartStore Chelmsford to be met by “what??” from (a seemingly rare) staff member. Maybe I want to PAY FOR SOMETHING’

But it wasn’t all bad, there was evidence of superb service as well. Retailers had the most recommendations and compliments of any sector:

‘@SuperCo your staff at my local store were escorting people to cars in the rain using umbrellas and lending coats #goodcustomerservice’


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‘Had fun at SuperCo shopping today with those new fan-dangled scanny things, great fun and much easier to shop in there using them. Love it!’

‘Big shout out to @SuperCo customer service phone people for being incredibly lovely and helpful #ThumbsUp.’

The message is clear for retailers — you need to be on the dance floor but make sure that you can:

• direct customers to the appropriate channel for their goal,

• deal with the volumes of conversation,

• manage customers’ expectations from the social channel,

• have a social media policy for staff.

The veterans of social: travel

The travel industry was one of the first to embrace the social web as a customer service tool, fielding complaints, inquiries and even the odd compliment. This year it was knocked off its 2011 pedestal as top dancer by retail but it was still second in terms of volume and demand for social contact (12 per cent). This is largely thanks to a combination of a very well established set of social travel forums plus delayed and grumpy travelers armed with smart phones. They had the most active dance floor for complaints of any other sector.

This study took a sample of two airlines – one budget carrier and another premium brand – and a UK train operator. This is what customers were talking about:



3. Compliment/recommendation = ten per cent (26 per cent in 2011).

4. Suggestions = three per cent (three per cent in 2011).

5. Questions and answers = 27 per cent (12 per cent in 2011).

This sector, unlike most others, still had a substantial amount of activity on well-established forums like Trip Advisor, Skytrax, and TrustPilot. Being completely unconstrained by inconvenient things like character limits, many of these forum posts involve

long, blow-by-blow accounts of travel woes such as lack of information at airports or stations, rude staff, queues, service levels, lost bags, unforeseen charges and, by far the biggest category, late/cancelled flights/trains.

Forums tend to attract a more community feel than other real-time social media feeds. This means that experienced travelers can give “newbies” fairly short shrift if they dare to post a rant or rave review, for example:

‘I was just about to say that your positive review will be crapped on by ranters sooner or later, but XXXX has beaten me to it! :-)’

‘You are seriously going to set off on a transatlantic trip with your wife and young daughter with no travel insurance??? That is a seriously unwise thing to contemplate doing. And you think it’s all the airline’s fault. What planet are you on?’

‘So Highflyer helped you and you do not want to fly with them again? Hmmm. I think they did more than other airlines would have done’.

The brands in the study had very different strategies where social media was concerned. In the airline sector, the ‘low cost’ brand were far more proactive than the premium carrier. They were tweeting apologies when flights were late, broadcasting updates on their Facebook page and offering vouchers for compensation when passengers were stranded.

Social activity: Travel


UK train operators have an almost aggressively proactive strategy with train delays – providing a minute-by-minute update on delays on the network, complete with hashtags to follow for major incidents. This does provoke a number of customer questions back (travel was the second highest category for questions and answers behind banks) but also sets an expectation across the industry, for example ‘HighFlyer never tweeted me when my flight was delayed...why not? TrainCo do!’

Again there was evidence that social contact breeds more social contact – especially in the case of LoFlyer who had a high volume of questions coming through (31 per cent of questions directed at LoFlyer, verses 16 per cent directed at HiFlyer) – especially asking why flights are delayed and for how long, asking where bags were, and about baggage allowances and boarding cards.

However, the challenge then is to ensure that everyone is operating from the same information set. If the app contradicts the website and the customer service person at the airport, station or in the contact centre the result is often frustration and confusion, e.g.

‘@LoFlyer why doesn’t the app sync up with the website? They’re showing different things’

‘Flight delayed by 5 hours. Google knows more than airport staff, who don’t seem to know much...’

As with other sectors there was a good deal of feedback about the experience through other channels (15 per cent of the total conversations):

‘@LoFlyer - Is there anyone that answers calls in your call centre? 22 minutes on hold then it hangs up! No answer to emails, no calls! NICE!’

‘I’m assuming HiFlyer has gone on holiday. Have been on hold for 15 minutes (second call) trying to resolve a major problem.’

‘I believe the long waits and bad customer service is intentional. In order to maximise profits they are trying to steer people away from the call centre and to online activity. HiFlyer wants to reduce staffing and this is how they have decided to do it. Knowing you have a one hour wait will eventually cause people to stop calling and try to find another way to deal with their issue’

“Whenever these companies outsource to India they give their agents so less power as to make them useless. The agents by themselves could have been so much more useful if HiFlyer allowed them. I think it’s high time the management at HiFlyer looks into this issue”

“Out of curiosity @LoFlyer, what is the average customer service call waiting period for people ringing you because you don’t answer emails?”

There was also evidence that customers were using social channels overseas in order to avoid paying roaming charges or dialling premium rate numbers.

Social media and travel are seemingly very comfortable dance partners with opportunities for real time updates and geography specific content especially appropriate. They do have the challenge of responding to high volumes of questions and complaints during travel disruption – and they don’t have the luxury of taking a day to do it. These customers in crisis generally want answers NOW! This can offer challenges up to resourcing – especially if you only have one person dealing with the social media channel. Scalability is key as it might be necessarily to occasionally call all hands to the pump. The other challenge is around getting information flowing across the network – saying

sorry frequently isn’t good enough, customers want answers!

Banking on social media: financial services

Social media and finance are not comfortable bedfellows – not least because regulation and compliance means that financial services companies can’t publicly identify an individual who has an account with them and can’t provide unregulated financial advice on a public channel - which potentially makes responding to customer queries a legal minefield.


This has understandably meant that banks have been late entrants

onto the social dance floor. Customers don’t always talk about

their finances in public either. But it is clear that social media is

becoming an increasingly popular mechanism to engage with

banks as they have risen from near the bottom of the rankings in

2011 to third place in terms of social activity in 2014 for questions

and answers. According to our Youbiquity Finance research [3],

only one in ten customers follow their bank on social media.

This is what customers are talking about on the financial services

dance floors.



3. Compliment/recommendation = 12 per cent (six per cent in 2011).

4. Suggestions = four per cent (six per cent in 2011).


Most major banks now have a presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, the effectiveness of this social presence can be questionable. Our Youbiquity finance research suggests that three in four customers say that they aren’t satisfied with their bank’s social media contact [3].

Partially the struggle for banks themselves is to engage in any meaningful conversation about finance on social media – with many falling back on fairly bland postings about corporate social responsibility (30 per cent of Youbiquity finance customers felt that updates were ‘irrelevant’ and 25 per cent said that they were ‘boring’ [3]). Worse still, even some of the best intentioned updates were sometimes greeted with customers characteristically going ‘off-piste’ on the dance floor.

For example, BrandBank put a message on their Facebook page designed to help people use their digital banking service. Forty five replies with another thirty four sub conversations were then generated about issues with the bank’s existing physical service delivery:

‘Queues out of the door, only 2 counters open and a member of staff walking around showing people how to use Skype on an iPad – bloody ridiculous!’

‘All I want from @BrandBank is more windows open at your Cambridge branch. Everyone is FED UP of queuing. We don’t want this digital stuff. We just want a BANK’

‘This is not a service. Employ more staff, serve your customers better and stop messing about. Leave digital to the professionals – concentrate on what you know best please.’

‘I would love to go to my local Brandbank for internet lessons but it’s closing down in two weeks’.

The bulk of the content was not really about specific financial issues but about major events that these brands have sponsored (42 per cent of the comments) plus the usual grumps and groans about the website, queues, on hold music, staff training and attitudes, complicated passwords, opening times, branch closures, unavailability of mortgage advisors and getting through to the contact centre (17 per cent of the complaints). For example:

‘Sat in @Brandbank for 40 mins now. The guy “helping” has been on hold for 25 mins. Call centre not answering their own staff. #Poorservice’

‘As per usual, dealing with #Brandbank on the phone is a nightmare. 10 mins to answer call, 8 mins later I’m on hold again’

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Social activity: Financial services


‘@Brandbank everyone has a limit and being placed on hold for 59 mins and 59 seconds was mine #socloseto1hour #customerservice.’

‘@GlobeBank - you must be struggling with recruitment because EVERYONE, I’ve dealt with from your organization is beyond incompetent!’

The customer expectation for any sort of response from banks through any channel seems to be extremely low:

‘@GlobeBank I guess your lack of response is acknowledgement that your customer service is #terrible, #disgusting and #pathetic’

‘@GlobeBank why are you ignoring my Tweets? I’ve tweeted you twice & you’re choosing to push me to one side without a reply? #uselessGlobeBank’.

As in the travel sector, there were customers using social channels whilst travelling because they couldn’t access the phone bank using their usual local number or wanted to avoid paying roaming charges. This went to an extreme in a couple of instances when desperate customers posted their phone and account numbers up on a very public channel.

It is undoubtedly true that banks need to listen to the concerns of their customers using social media. HOWEVER, they also need to signpost appropriate channels and what they will and will not engage on over social media. Most now emphasise that personal

data should not be shared on social media and a few also post

their phone number on their social media pages to ensure that

customers can make an appropriate contact choice.

For brands like GlobeBank, who have multiple global feeds,

this signposting also needs to span geographic boundaries as it

wasn’t uncommon for tweets from one country to be directed at

a branded Facebook page or Twitter feed for another country.

It is clear that customers like the immediacy of social media in

the financial services sector. According to Youbiquity Finance [3]

customers think it takes too long for the following:

The big question is whether social media is the appropriate channel to use to speed things up or whether investment in channels like the branch, telephone and chat might be the answer.

Engaging the social citizen: local and central government

Citizen engagement is something that is critical for governments to achieve and social media seems to offer a way to engage better, cheaper and faster. Embarrassing dad dancing is a huge risk for government on the social dance floor. The lack of control and the challenge to traditional silo departments means that many government departments have been cautious in adoption.

This research took a snapshot of a UK central government department (GovCo), a local authority (LocalGov) and a police authority (BeatGov).

To have complaint resolved

To have question answered

To get to speak with a specific person

To apply to a new account (including providing ID and signing)

To book an appointment with a specialist

To find out about other products and services

To get foreign exchange

To get an overdraft increase

63%

60%

59%

51%

49%

41%

38%

35%


1. Comments/opinion = 58 per cent (35 per cent in 2011)

2. Complaints/criticism = 19 per cent (37 per cent in 2011)

3. Compliment/recommendation = four per cent (five per cent

in 2011)

4. Suggestions = two per cent (five per cent in 2011)

5. Questions and answers = 17 per cent (18 per cent in 2011)

Interestingly GovCo have nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter (they don’t have a Facebook page). However, this is not a conversational feed, it is exclusively for GovCo to push out news and information. This content forms a high proportion of the 58 per cent of the comment/opinion as customers re-tweet it.

Around 12 per cent of conversations were about the contact centre and, more specifically, how long it takes to get through:

‘Best way to meet GovCo call targets is, it would appear, to just cut calls off rather than answer today’

‘Is anybody else having problems getting through on the GovCo Agent line today?’

‘Telephone robots that don’t understand Scottish accents, vomit-inducing hold music; the GovCo helpline experience is awful’

‘Sweet, after talking to a machine for ten minutes at GovCo I then get told my call can’t be taken. What was the point?’

‘GovCo need some competitors. What other business could get away with “We can’t deal with your call now, bye” and then hang up on you? Argh!!!’

‘Been on hold to GovCo for 36 minutes. Who’s the idiot me or them’

‘I’ve got a better chance of getting through to aliens than GovCo! #Long’

‘Being on hold with GovCo makes me want to cry. #wheresTheGin’

However, if they got through, things changed somewhat:

‘Wow, super helpful GovCo person on the phone. Unusual...’

‘I got THROUGH, I genuinely spoke to a helpful human being on phone to #GovCo and could sort out what I wanted. It only took 3hrs waiting.’

“It’s amazing how different 2 call handlers can be within the same agency #GovCo”.

This gives the contact centre an indication that they have a real issue with queue times but, when people do get through, the agents are generally delivering well.

Of course, the true extent to which these issues are happening (and critically the true cost of failure for this) is likely to lie in the contact centre MIS (through abandon rates), CRM systems and in calls themselves (through call analytics) as well through this real time view on Twitter. Being able to respond in real time by managing demand better is the big challenge then – either by pushing messages out over social media or on the IVR to manage customer expectations, or by flexing the pool of call handlers up.

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70

Social activity: Government


Local government

The contrast between local and central government interactions was stark. The first thing to note was the complete LACK of customer engagement. Of course, the major difference is scale; central government have to deal with the entire population of the country, whereas local is much smaller in terms of numbers. The other factor is that the conversations could be about anything that the local or police authority does, ranging from policy, local news stories, alerts, potholes, the state of streets (including photos) and council tax charges.

Social media also defies geographical (and local authority) boundaries, so finding content specific to a location can also be difficult. The rise of geo-tagging (literally pinning social content to a location) may make this easier but it may still prove to be misleading as people may not be commenting on the location that they are in at the time of posting on a social media site.

However, there it is also obvious from the few conversations that do occur that people don’t really direct much of their social content AT local government (very little use of @ within Twitter content for example), they direct it at each other. For example;

‘We can only pray that this monstrous edifice is demolished! LocalGov are great at that at least!’

‘Just checked my paperwork and can’t find a letter from LocalGov saying “cheers for paying your bills so quickly” #angry’.

This would seem to go some way to explaining why there seemed to be next to no interactions going in the local government social space beyond messages which were broadcast out by the local authorities themselves. The promise for dialogue is there (and is attractive to local authorities interested to raise levels of public participation in local communities) but the public motivation seems not to be. This is also often reflected in the erosion of community spirit in the physical world (especially in urban areas where people rarely even know who their neighbours are).

This doesn’t mean that local government and police can’t use social media – far from it!

There are many shining examples of local government doing fantastic things to keep their citizens informed, encouraging dialogue and deflecting contact as a result. However, the emphasis needs to shift to using the social space to inform and connect rather than interact. The simplicity of accessing social content might also help in an era where many local government websites remain confusing and complicated because they tend to be structured from an internal rather than a citizen perspective.

Another inhibiting factor is the public scrutiny that social media tends to attract. Twitter, especially, is like a large chocolate box for journalists. In an effort to minimise risk and limit damage, authorities often fall back on the traditional external communication approval process. Even an hour can be a very long time in social media terms, so local government processes need to evolve to work in internet time.

Keeping the lights on: utilities

This was the social activity that went on with both an electricity and a water company during the week’s snapshot (no utilities companies were included in the 2011 study, so we can’t look at changes in this sector):

Comments/Opinion



2014

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40

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60

70

Social activity: Utilities

1. Comments/opinion = 65 per cent.

2. Complaints/criticism =13 per cent.

3. Compliment/ recommendation = five per cent.

4. Suggestions = nil.

5. Questions and answers = 17 per cent.


Utilities are in a category where you don’t notice the service unless you don’t have it – we expect things to work at the flick of a switch or the turn of a tap. The real test for utilities is likely to come when things do go wrong, weather conditions get extreme or bills confuse customers. For example:

‘The water had completely stopped. WaterCo water and the lady on the phone was ever so helpful. They gave constant updates which was great and the issue was resolved within 2.5 hours from the time of the call. They sent their engineer who was knowledgeable and offered great service dispute it being past 11pm.’

‘This has been the worst service I have ever had. The guessing of my bill has resulted in debts of over £2000. Every time I call I get someone different who tells me a different figure, it’s as if they were guessing! The final straw has been the increasing of the direct debit without my agreement by £300 for a few months so my accounts are overdrawn. Appalling, I wouldn’t recommend them to my worst enemy.’

‘Answer the phone. I gave up waiting for someone to answer and the same applies for webchat. Managed to change tariff on the web (I hope). Don’t put technology in the way, not everyone has internet access. I know your FD loves reducing head count but it’s short term. Stand out from the crowd and deliver customer service by simply answering the phone’ (ironically this rant on a forum got a reply telling the customer to email them).

This snapshot was taken in a period where the weather was uneventful and the quarterly bill had not just hit the mat. This oasis of calm was reflected in this snapshot of social media (with just one per cent of the total traffic).

However, if customers do hit a crisis point with a utility company, they are neither patient nor tolerant creatures. They may not always expect miracles but they do want information and reassurance. What they don’t want to do is listen to Barry Manilow on loop whilst being assured that ‘their call is important’. It is at that point that they may pour their frustration onto channels like Twitter – causing a secondary wave of contacts, which are then visible to all.

Social media can be very effective in helping utilities to proactively manage emergencies, especially if customers in crisis can have their expectations set as to when normal service will be resumed.

A good case in point is Western Power in Australia who push social alerts out about bad weather and what to do about it along with pushing messages out over the IVR to manage customer expectations. However, they also have an innovative approach to flexible resourcing as well, using a BT cloud solution to turn back office people into agents handling incoming queries over multiple channels.

Logistics: a journey

Logistics companies are generally not the subject of a huge

amount of conversation on social media they only grabbed one

per cent of the total conversations logged. This is typically what

customers were talking about:

Comments/Opinion



2014 2011

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5

25

20

15

10

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35

40

45

Social activity: Logistics



3. Compliment/recommendation = 15 per cent (15 per cent in 2011).

4. Suggestions = one per cent (two per cent in 2011).


19Serving the social customer: how to look fabulous on the social dance floor

Twenty three per cent of the comments were about events that LogistiCo had sponsored.

The bulk of both the comment and opinion and the questions and answers were professional sellers discussing what logistics companies delivered the best service at the right cost. For example:

‘@Sellergirl I just googled about LogistiCo complaints and reviews & it seems like many people hate their service! :O’

‘@Storelady1 I hate LogisiCo. They used to deliver at the anime store I worked at - stuff was ALWAYS broken’

‘@Sellerboi @Santaself - nah man, I’ve used Logistico before, the quality of service is incredible.’

Of course, much of the excitement of logistics tends to come from the fact customers are looking forward to getting their parcel. For example:

‘@Logistico It’s here! I even got a nice phone call from customer services, so thank you LogistiCo for getting it to me swiftly! #happy’

‘LogistiCo are pretty awesome. Their tracking is pretty great, too. GOT MY PARCEL.’

If, for some reason, it doesn’t arrive there can be murder on the dance floor. For example:

‘I’ll be in a bad mood all weekend now. LogistiCo don’t allow collection of parcels on a Saturday so I’ll have to wait until Monday night! #sadface’

‘LogistiCo I could drive and get my package faster’

‘Dear LogistiCo parcel tracking, I do not need to know the 5 locations so far that my parcel has been sent. When are you going to deliver to ME?!’

Inevitably the biggest source of angst is waiting for that special parcel to be delivered:

‘At least LogistiCo didn’t make me wait all day. The one thing I dislike about courier services: never knowing when they’ll turn up’

‘LogistiCo want to know if I’d like to collect my parcel from depot rather than have it delivered. No thanks, you can deliver it, like I asked!!’

‘Hate waiting for packages. @LogistiCo couriers take forever to come.’

As with many other sectors, the holes in the complex service and supply chain process tend to become very apparent. Different countries have different social streams, contact centres and functional silos (particularly between sales and service). This becomes even more complicated if the seller says something different to the delivery company. This tends to cause both anger and confusion.

[Part of a LONG forum rant]: ‘Every person I spoke to had a different story. Some didn’t have my payment information, some didn’t even have a record of my previous calls. Every person I spoke to had no record of the situation and what was going on. I had the Toronto facility customer service hang up on me twice’;‘LogistiCo Sales Specialist can kiss my a**. Why ask me if I need any assistance with anything then when I say yes tell me to contact customer service!?’

‘OnlineCo’s tracking says my package will arrive on the 11th or so. LogistiCo texted me saying it’ll be tomorrow. who is right and who is wrong?’

‘RT @Angrycustomer123 We are working for LogistiCo German only ;-). Please contact your local customer service.’

The challenge for logistics is to ensure that information is consistent across multiple channels and the supply chain – not an easy task!


Conclusions: reasons to be social 1,2,3

Customers must want social servicing. The challenge is they [marketing] were not fully listening to these complaining customers, and I am not sure companies are still doing a great job at that. Customers never wanted social customer service, they want to be treated right the first time.” Frank Eliason [1].

Three years is a long time in digital terms, and since we last did this study in 2011, there have been profound changes in the rhythms of the social dance. With volumes increasing by a factor of 4, more customers are boogieing than ever before. Retailers, especially, need to be dance masters.

Social media is no longer a secondary channel for customers – it has taken its place up with the more established channels like phone, email and chat. It is often used in addition to these channels rather than replacements for them, which is why it is also very desirable to be able to easily and seamlessly switch between a (public) social media conversation and (private) webchat, email or phone call.

Social media’s real value, and its challenge, is around the immediacy of engagement – one reason why the less dynamic forums seem to have declined in popularity since 2011. Creating

a two tier service level with social getting a more rapid response than other channels might not be a wise idea unless you have a very solid strategy for handling huge volumes of incoming action on social channels. It is also not necessarily wise or desirable to drive everything into the public domain – especially if you are in sensitive sectors like banking.

Social media needs to have a defined role in the overall customer experience journey. What role is it performing?

Customers need to be guided as to what is or isn’t likely to get a

response. They also need to have an expectation as to how long

will it take to get something back.

Some organisations are doing this well. However, strategies vary

hugely. Some answer pretty much everything (even if it isn’t

entirely appropriate to do so). Some direct everything to other, less

public channels like email. Some don’t engage at all - which is fine

as a strategy, as long as you state upfront that you aren’t dancing.

21

What isn’t good are inconsistent strategies, no indications of what customers can or can’t expect in terms of service levels you provide on social channels, multiple disconnected branded streams that don’t (or can’t) pass customers to the right place to get their issue addressed or a lack of signposting as to which channel is the most likely to get customers to their goal.

What does become very apparent is what questions and issues companies are unwilling or unable to respond to. Process flaws that probably exist quietly in other channels become the source of very public frustration on social media. Customers often want some of these fundamental problems solved rather than an apology with no action – and they can often rapidly find allies in other customers who have had similar experiences or with the ladies and gentlemen of the press.

The challenge on social media is to learn how (and if) it is appropriate to dance with customers. Engaging in social media with no intention to create dialogue (yes, marketing departments, I’m talking about you) is probably liable to get organisations a virtual slap in the face – they may just as well stick to broadcast channels. However, engaging in uncoordinated dialogue, especially if it isn’t linked in to overall strategies for customer experience is likely to get the same outcome. Not having adequate policies on staff intervening on social can also be a recipe for disaster.

Clearly analytics can help companies to better understand the torrent of data being thrown at them from multiple channels and media. The good news is that analytics technologies are getting better at making sense of this unstructured space. However, knowing that the data is there is one thing – doing something about it in order to enhance customer experience is another. Using it to listen and improve or to listen and action is vital – and it is the degree to which this is embedded into customer experience business as usual that is likely to dictate the difference between a successful dance experience and a public vote for eviction.

Any good dancer knows that a trusted dance partner is key to mastering the quickstep. On the social media dance floor, a great technology partner is vital. Social media can’t be a single, standalone solution for dancing with customers – it needs to be part of an integrated omnichannel strategy embracing both new and traditional channels. Partnering with BT will allow you to orchestrate, measure and manage multiple channels effectively into a centralised relationship hub or contact centre.

So, seek out your dance floors, select the right dance partner, figure out how to dance appropriately and in a coordinated way and then go forth and foxtrot!

References[1] Stephens, G (2014), Five Years of Social Customer Care: The Pig Puts on Some Lipstick and the Fish Come Out to Play, Future Care Initiative White Paper, http://futurecare.today/ .

[2] Retail Week (2014), The Consumer 2014, BT/Retail Week White Paper.

[3] Hickman/Davies (2014), Youbiquity Finance: Consumers, channels and changing behaviours in retail financial services, BT/Avaya White Paper.

Thanks toThis paper couldn’t have been written without the help of Dr Hamid Gharib from BT TSO Research.

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