Are you being served, digitally?
By Wayde Bull, Planning Director at Principals.
Without doubt, the Australian marketing community have passed through an emotional crossroads and now place digital and interactive channels at the heart of their ‘message out’ brand planning.
But as yet there are few examples of big brands that harness digital channels as a ‘key way in’ to their organisations, for their customers to access personal service, to share ideas and to engage openly with other brand users.
Marketers are yet to realise the opportunity to reframe customer service as more of an open source concept in which their customers and service staff are part of a like-minded community that helps one another online.
Airline, bank and hotel brands that have a strong transactional focus have excelled in creating secure DIY online service channels that are highly valued by their customers, particularly their heaviest users. Yet there’s little sense of community engendered here – they’re private, password-protected spaces that rarely offer the opportunity for on-demand user interaction with service personnel or with other like-minded brand fans.
Ironically, while brand campaigns are becoming more involving for consumers due to digital interactivity, the practical service exchanges with these same brands are stuck in the old world of ‘press 1, press 2’ and ‘your call is important to us’.
Consumers’ loathing of interactive voice response systems in call centres is universal and has led to the creation of websites like dialahuman.com in the U.S. to help callers to short-circuit the push button routine and get through to a real person faster.
Homegrown protest sites such as notgoodenough.org provide a further outlet for frustrated consumers to vent about brands that have let them down, in the hope of retribution – or revenge.
But the lasting service breakthrough – offering a win-win for consumers and companies alike – may come through a new generation of social networking sites that mimic the openness of Facebook and Twitter, yet focus their content on narrower topics of shared community interest – such as brands.
Sites such as igopeople.com. and getsatisfaction.com are built on the social networking model, allowing users to ask questions, report problems or give praise related to a specific brand.
Sometimes straightforward questions are answered by passionate consumers who willingly assist a fellow brand user. Their posts are added to an archive of questions and answers that grow stronger over time, by tapping into the wisdom of the crowd.
Bigger brand problems and complaints are increasingly addressed by service personnel from the organisations in question, as customer service teams start to multi-task across conventional and new service channels.
It’s the transparency and total openness of these sites that make them such a fascinating forum for brand communications. Brand users get problems and issues off their chest and feel empowered by the opportunity to engage a big business in a problem where other brand users are watching.
In parallel brand owners have a new, high profile opportunity to win users over by delivering quality service for all to see – and do so while the clock is ticking – the sites display exactly how long it takes for a company to solve each customer issue.
While these sites are yet to develop a real following amongst Australians, it’s interesting that a first wave of locals are starting to post questions on getsastifaction.com to our major banks, telcos and airlines that have largely gone unanswered so far.
As word travels of these new ways for consumers to engage brands in direct and plain-speaking online service, it will surely encourage local marketers to also ‘hit the keyboards’.
First published on AFR (www.afr.com) - 5th November 2009
