How to get social media to work for your business

This is how life started for Internet. Just 15 years back. It was supposed to be a fad, a personal fetish that many individuals nurtured but something that would never be useful for business. And life comes around.

Here come Facebook and Twitter with their ubiquitous status updates. Why would businesses be interested in knowing whose mobile conked or whose baby rolled over - they said. Just a few months back.

But can businesses ignore Social Media any longer? I came across this very lucid article "4 ways Social Media is changing business" by Soren Gordhamer (courtesy: Mashable) - I thought it was a fantastic way to look at customer engagement possibilities for business.

The faster businesses adapt social media, the more engaged they would be with their customers and therefore, can respond to their needs better.

Creating a great customer experience

I just came across a brief article on how to create a great customer experience in a retail store. While the article itself is very short, the points made are worth thinking about and present a great deal of depth.

Click here for the full article

Spend more, spend less or spend well?

As we all know, the austerity measures that the Government is seemingly taking up on 'war footing' is occupying a fair amount of media space. One can imagine the amount of wasteful expenditure an organisation of the size of a federal government deals with - the question of course remains if these measures will impact the real unseen expenditure.

That brings us to the point of austerity measures for a company. Over a period of time, as the business picks up, a company typically starts loosening its grip on its austere ways. It can happen in many ways.

a. As the budgets increase, one starts negotiating less harder on the smaller line items. (When the media budgets grow by crores, spends of Rs.5 lakhs and below assume less significance. A lot of smaller line items could just slip through without proper negotiation because people don't have time for it)

b. People start travelling at the drop of a hat while a call or a video conference could have helped deal with the issue. (Bangalore-Mumbai-Bangalore: 5 hours of travel including the commute. 60 minutes of meeting. Relaxing lunch at a nice restaurant. Who is complaining?)

c. The company starts hiring for the future (and not the present) and begins to put on flab. (In the garb of bringing in specialists, more people are hired to divide the job which was earlier done efficiently with less number of people)

d. Salaries begin to jump up without proper authorisation - the excuse? "In these times, we cannot get good quality talent at our scales". (Because one finds the right person, one goes overboard to 'match' the market salary, which in any case is subjective)

e. Team parties get more frequent and spending caps get relaxed. (I was surprised at the spend pattern at a well funded start-up where a team party of 30 odd people would end up with a bill of more than Rs.75,000)

f. The company starts buying things which are not compellingly required. (Exclusive laser printers for each department? Upgrading laptops much before time? Giving key executives the newest phones every 12 months?)

g. The tastes get expensive! (A modest Indica cab becomes a Ford Fiesta and a more senior executive now travels in a Corolla. One starts staying in a more upmarket hotel replacing the old faithful who kept company during difficult times)

The real question is if austerity should be exercised only during tough times. Isn't spending well (as against spending less) a sound business principle?

Of course, one would argue that if businesses can afford to spend more, they should. And in any case, what's wrong in enjoying the success? However, companies might want to look at a few parameters before okaying material changes in the spending pattern.

a. Is this a spend we can stop tomorrow if we need to? (Marketing budgets are a good example - if the quarterly sales numbers are not coming up as per expectations, a good way to pull back and save your profit projections is to reduce the remainder of the marketing budget)

b. Is this a spend that can play havoc with the 'ego' system of your key executives? (Who doesn't want to fly business class? Or stay in a cool 5-star hotel? While no one grudges these privileges to your key executives who have brought you success, when you bring the privileges down, considering these privileges are more like 'status factors', dissentment is inevitable.)

c. Which arc would you place this spend in - the "need" arc, the "comfort" arc or the "luxury" arc? (Even in good times, businesses would do well to straightaway disallow spends in the "luxury" arc while being moderate in approving spends in the "comfort" arc)

d. There should be a strict 'upper cap' on all spends that can be termed 'recurring expenditure' (and this includes the salary) with a 'zero tolerance' view on non-compliance. (For example, hiring of more people than one needs at a salary level much higher than one can afford is an invitation for disaster - it's something one has seen at close quarters many times over)

Are these austerity measures or are plain good business measures? Perhaps, your views will add to the perspective.

Engaging with employees is a full time job

Companies, big or small, thrive because of the people who work for them. It is the passion of the employees that drives a company towards its target and its success. And hence, one would imagine that engaging with one's employees would be the biggest priority for a company. But sadly, while this could be the stated objective, in more cases than not, HR (perhaps the designated department to carry the onus of employee engagement) might be busy handling matters of immediate urgency such as a recruitment drive or a Comp and Benefits presentation to the COO!

It is not to say that an employee engagement strategy and plan is easy meat - infact, one would say that most mid-sized companies should have an exclusive resource to manage employee engagement. Several questions come up about what constitutes employee engagement.

At a broad level, it's about creating an eco-system which places the employee as an important pillar of the organisation's being and success. It then boils down to deriving strategic guidelines on

• creating a framework to reward good employees with challenging and high visibility work
• encouraging the practice of knowledge sharing and team work - intra and inter departments
• streamlining the compensations and benefits policy that is built on the principles of meritocracy
• ongoing communication with the employees to enhance the spirit of belongingness

Giving employees visibility with the CEO is just one of the things that can pull up employee morale considerably and this is one aspect which Cisco seems to do so well - http://features.bizmore.com/2009/08/the-employee-birthday-breakfast/

At the end of the day, a high employee satisfaction score is a factor of all the above and in my humble opinion any company looking for employee engagement should do a grounds up introspection to put together a integrated plan.

How important am I?

In this customer centric world, no business can afford to take its customers for granted. Doesn't everyone know that, you would say. So, what's the big deal?

Look around you and you will see scores of examples of how businesses do not seem to care for this factor of 'customer sensitivity'. No matter how small the customer is, she expects to be treated like an important customer - and there's nothing wrong with that expectation. Because when she signed up for a prepaid mobile service with an average monthly spend of Rs.240/-, the service provider never mentioned to her that she is not as important as the corporate customer who bills Rs.5,000 a month.

The other day I called Standard Chartered phone banking to enquire about an online transfer which had not gone through yet. The lady on the other line gave me a scripted line saying it takes anywhere between 24 to 48 hours for the transfer to take place. And immediately asked me if that was all. Thank you but I haven't got my answer yet because the debit had taken place in my account - why was there an urgency to end the call? Was there something interesting happening in office that you didn't want to miss out on, Lady?

Businesses have to realise that paying customers - big or small, expect a courteous response and a reasonable resolution. This would be the foundation on which the company's customer service framework has to be built. And perhaps, someone can tell the lady on the phone that the customer comes first while she's at work!

How to lose business

We live in a competitive world today and thus, no company can afford to lose business building opportunities. While this will not be refuted by any company, some of the well known companies do not seem to be really in a mood to do something about it.

Honda recently launched its Jazz model. The car looks good, it's from Honda and therefore, I am sure there would be thousands of customers wanting to have a close look at this car. I am one too. So, I went online and registered myself for a test drive. 3 days on I haven't heard from Honda. This isn't the first time - I see checking customer responsiveness of companies as part of my learning process - I had asked for test drive of Honda Civic as well - 8 months back. I still haven't heard from them.

People who are familiar with the automobile industry tell me that generating test drive is the most important milestone for a new car launch. If this is such an important metric, can Honda explain why their full page advertisement for Jazz does not have a prominent "Call for a Test Drive" with the number as the call to action? I looked at the ad as a consumer and as a marketing professional and I felt like saying "I am sure this money could have been made to work better".

Honda possibly needn't worry about their lack of focus in handling leads. My experience with Hyundai has been no better. My online registration for i10 has not been responded to yet - it's been 3 weeks. Jai ho!

I was at a mobile store the other day for a new connection - it was a small store but seemed like a popular store in that area. In the 10 minutes I was there, 2 people came asking for Reliance GSM Prepaid cards - the store didn't have it. Now, you have a high profile campaign endorsed by a celebrity and you have created the demand. But potential sales are leaking due to lack of distribution. What I saw was a small pocket. Could there have been thousands of such small packets leaving not just loss of sales but disgruntled consumers?

If one looks at each of these examples closely, actually all it needs is for a few people to put their heads together and frame a process. I am sure there is one but the internal system seems to have completely re-engineered the process to produce results that are not just business threatening but also customer-hostile.

Engaging with prospects and customers

Every business owner knows that his / her business depends on continuing support from the customers. And that every customer was once just a prospect i.e., a future customer. For retail business, every footfall is a potential customer. For a service firm, every call is potential business. Thus, there is business that is floating all around but how often does one see the prospect being treated like a King?

Let's take the case of a Super Market. Hundreds of people enter the outlet - some make purchases and most do not. From a business point of view, every one who has come into the outlet has come with a reason and could be a potential customer. Wouldn't it be nice if the Super Market exactly knew who these people were and what they were looking for and be in a position to service them better? How many Super Markets you have visited (including the ones where you have bought something) actually 'know' you?

You have been a mobile subscriber for years. How many times has the service provider called you or written to you to ask you about your feedback? How many times has the car dealer asked you about your satisfaction with his service?

Customer engagement is what most businesses would like to do in but seldom actually execute it. Infact, some very interesting facts came out of the Economic Intelligence Unit Survey 2007.

• 80% of executives believe that their company loses sales each year because of its failure to engage customers
• 10% estimate that insufficient customer engagement accounts for 50% - 75% of their company's lost sales
• 76% believe that increased engagement would bring in increased revenues
• 60% think that customer engagement could be the engine for growth over the next five years

It's time for every business that dreams of big growth to look at avenues of customer engagement - whether it's simply asking for feedback or getting them involved in a company initiative. The more engaged the customers are with your business, the more they will be thinking of you.

Do you have a business that could do with more engagement with its customers? Tell us your story. Together let's brainstorm solutions and help many businesses like yours.

How unique is your business proposition?

While perhaps everyone knows that there are businesses that are successful and those that aren’t, many businesses (especially the ones that could do with a little more support from their customers) would be wondering why they aren’t attracting more customers.

One can see it all around us – one medical store will be filled with people whereas another one just down the street would have no customers. One bank versus another bank or one restaurant versus another restaurant.

The key thing every business – large and small – has to realize is that it has to have a unique reason for being. The reason why a new customer walks in or why an existing customer keeps coming back. The customers will keep walking in as long as the business has an answer to this critical question – “why should my customer choose me and not my competitor”.

One more restaurant serving north Indian food in a street that is full of north Indian restaurants might not cut ice. However, it would be a different matter altogether if the new restaurant becomes the first one serving Gujarati cuisine.

It is a simple logic that a business needs a unique proposition but it’s quite amazing how tens of thousands of businesses ignore the basic principle of business growth.

Does my business have something that my competitors do not have? Obviously the differentiator has to be important for the customers. And this unique proposition could be related to product (plastic buckets stronger than any other bucket in the market), service (door delivery of medicines anytime of day or night), price (half-price sale through the year), relationship (have we ever let you down in the last 12 years?) or fine segmentation (everything for kids below 12 months of age).

It obviously is not easy to find the unique proposition for the business. Advertising Guru David Ogilvy once said, ‘interrogate the product until it confesses to its strengths’ – this indeed would be the starting point for zeroing in on the unique business proposition. If the business does not have a unique differentiator that is important for the customers, create one. Because, a “me-too” product stands no chance in this competitive world.