Detect and Deflect a Potential Crisis

Transcription

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2 Using social media, you can minimize the damage of a crisis with honest and timely communication, or even avoid it altogether by identifying trends early. While a crisis can impact your bottom line, it can do even more damage to your brand, your reputation, and your customer relationships. Unlike other channels, social media can help you not just address a crisis, but also mitigate the consequences or even stop one before it starts. The key to avoiding a crisis is identifying trends, and if one does occur, the key to reducing its fallout is honest and timely communication. Social media gives you fast and comprehensive insights into what your customers are saying and lets you engage in real-time, one-to-one conversations. In this whitepaper, you ll learn how to use social media to: Detect and deflect a potential crisis Shorten the length of a crisis Minimize damage to your brand Detect and Deflect a Potential Crisis Social media lets you listen as well as talk. It provides an efficient way to hear the unedited voice of your customers and their experiences with your brand or products. And, with the right tool, you can also identify when a few scattered complaints are becoming a trend you need to address before it gets any worse.

3 Detecting a Crisis How do you separate the griping of a few disgruntled customers from a full-blown crisis? Jay Baer lists three signs to look for on social media: 1 1. Information asymmetry. You don t know any more about the situation than the public does. News travels extremely fast on social media, and the more dire the situation, the more quickly it spreads. A customer issue unfolds relatively slowly, with a few posts here and there that allow you time to investigate. When you see hundreds of posts in a matter of minutes, you re dealing with a crisis. 2. A decisive change from the norm. Most brands see an ongoing low level of chatter about one or two specific issues. For example, a few brands are routinely criticized for foreign labor practices. When a new, unrelated topic suddenly starts trending, you should be on high alert. 3. A potentially material impact on the brand or company. But you need to look at the scope and scale of that new topic before determining your level of response. If you re hearing complaints that your new planes don t offer enough leg room, you re in customer service territory. If you re seeing pictures of one of your pilots in handcuffs, it s time to move into crisis mode. Business now operates in an environment where news travels at lightning speed, the latest information is at our fingertips, and every person has the power to make their voice heard. Family Business Australia

4 Deflecting a Crisis Although the low level of ongoing criticism we mentioned above doesn t constitute a crisis yet, it can easily turn into one. Make sure you re tracking any relevant keywords or hashtags and that you have a social monitoring tool that will alert you to any increase in frequency or negative sentiment, so you can stop a crisis from forming. You should also factor in the influence or authority of the person posting the complaint. That manageable rumble could easily become an unstoppable roar. If someone with thousands of followers joins the chorus, you need to take aggressive action. Shorten the Length of a Crisis If, despite your best efforts, you find yourself facing a crisis, social media will be your best friend. Unlike traditional or digital media, social allows you to engage directly with customers. And you re going to use it to respond to each and every customer who communicates with or even just about you. Respond on All Platforms Use a tool to make sure you know about every comment on every platform. While news of the crisis may start on one platform, it will almost certainly spread to others, and you can t expect, for example, that a Facebook user will see your situation update on Twitter. As with all service and engagement these days, you need to meet your customers where they are. Respond within an Hour CrisisVu CEO Nick Sharples explains that addressing a crisis within 24 hours used to be the standard, but with the advent of social media, it be-

5 came one hour. Now we are on Twitter time, with customers expecting the company to respond within minutes. 2 These expectations are no longer just about waiting for you to put out a blanket post addressing the crisis, though. Almost two-thirds of consumers say 60 minutes is the acceptable limit for you to respond to an individual post on Twitter (Facebook users are more patient, with 85% expecting a response within six hours). 3 And 57% think that response time shouldn t change outside of normal business hours. 4 You never know where a crisis will break, so you must have presences in every social outpost, even if you re not routinely participating there. For example, are you ready for a Pinterest crisis? It could happen. Jay Baer Always Respond You may not have much information or any at all within a half hour, but that doesn t mean you should stay quiet. One expert advises, The correct rapid response is a high-level acknowledgment of an issue, with the clear message that you are looking into it and will provide an update as soon as possible It s even better if you can give them an estimate as to when you ll get back to them. 5 Whatever you do, he says, don t go silent or just put out updates and move on. Yes, many consumers use social media as their primary source of breaking news, but they choose that channel because they want to join the resulting conversation.

6 Minimize Damage to Your Brand In a survey of 300 executives and board directors, Forbes Insight found that companies attribute about 25% of their market value to reputation. 6 And nothing can put your reputation on the line as quickly as a crisis. Thankfully, if you use social media well, you can mitigate that risk. With its break-neck speed, social media is actually the best channel for crisis management. When you engage in real-time, one-to-one conversations with your customers, you can quickly gauge how they re responding to your messaging and adjust in the moment. In addition, you can show the world that you re responsive and care about your customers, which is what they ll remember after the crisis fades away. Avoid Confrontation As a social media manager, you re already aware that you should never argue with a customer, or even give the appearance of doing so. This rule is even stricter when you re dealing with a crisis. Remember that you re communicating with upset, confused, or possibly scared people who are accustomed to using social media as an outlet for venting their frustrations. If you keep your ultimate goal in mind protecting your brand reputation and customer relationships it will be easier to stay unfazed. Social media crisis management isn t about winning, it s about damage control. Some people will be angry enough that you re not going to convince them of anything. Jay Baer

7 Try to move any negative posts to a private conversation to stop them from adding fuel to the fire. First respond publicly with an apology and your approved messaging, then ask them to contact you directly so you can collect more information. Know When to Escalate Some customers need more than an apology and explanation to be placated. Consider escalating them to the customer service or legal department. At a minimum, provide a phone number or address to move the customer to a channel that s better equipped to handle more in-depth issues. Some tools will let you do this with the push of a button by automating the process of assigning the case and all of the details to the right person. Ideally, you can avoid asking the customer to repeat their story. What If Social Media Is the Crisis? We ve all seen it happen: an employee means to post to their personal account and inadvertently sends out an inappropriate, inflammatory, or even obscene message to your customers. Or it might not be inadvertent, if you re the target of account hacking by an outside group or a disgruntled employee. Sometimes social media is the crisis. Bring In the Big Guns When that happens, your leadership needs to step in immediately. KitchenAid deftly smoothed over a potential social media crisis by handing the Twitter reins to a senior executive. She apologized within 15 minutes, gave an explanation for the offending post, and let people know what changes they d be making to avoid future mistakes. 7

8 Stay Alert Don t put one person in charge of your brand s social media and then walk away. In addition to having backups in place for sick days, vacations, and emergencies, someone should be assigned to approve or at least monitor what s being posted. With that role in place, you have a better chance of noticing an offending post before your customers do. How Astute Solutions Can Help Astute Social gives you the tools to leverage social media during a crisis: Social listening discovers relevant conversations about your brand across millions of sites of consumer-generated content Powerful analytics and natural language processing (NLP) track trends and sentiments to alert you to a potential crisis Auto-routing assigns high-priority posts and connects consumers with the people in your organization who can help them the most All-directional integration means customers always get seamless, timely, and informed responses The Astute Social mobile app keeps you in sync with the web app without tying you to your computer. You can meet your customers demands for immediate engagement, even outside of normal business hours: See recent interactions related to your brand Receive push notifications for important content View posts assigned to you, and respond within the app Escalate posts to other departments Monitor other users social engagement

9 Sources 1 Don t Be Scared Be Prepared How to Manage a Social Media Crisis, Convince and Convert 2 Being Prepared for a Social Media Crisis, Our Social Times 3 New Retail Multichannel Customer Experience Study, Eptica 4 42 Percent of Consumers Complaining in Social Media Expect 60 Minute Response Time, Convince and Convert 5 A Comprehensive Approach to Managing Social Media Risk and Compliance, Accenture 6 Managing social media risks to reputation risk, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited 7 KitchenAidUSA: Handling a Twitter Crisis, Our Social Times About Astute Solutions We build the world s smartest consumer engagement software. Leading consumer brands have chosen to partner with us to increase efficiency, drive revenue, and be more loved by their customers. Contact Us Today astutesolutions.com