Your Online Personality Matters!

This is my second post of my 3 post series talking about brand perception & complaint resolution. There will be a few topics in here that lead off from the original post found HERE.

In my initial post I mentioned that companies need to focus as much energy as possible on resolving problems / complaints when posted in a social forum. The reason for this is that when in a public forum, businesses have the opportunity to generate a following of brand advocates that will wear your companies brand with pride and evangelise the brand across the social-sphere. In my opinion, this is one of the most effective forms of marketing.

If you go onto a business’s website, you will find them selling themselves as providers of a particular product or service in a manner that makes them attractive to a consumer. They will tell you all sorts of wonderful things and often quote all sorts of success stories. THIS is what sets a level of expectation with the consumer base. If a company advertises themselves as an entity that can be implicitly trusted and this trust is broken through the delivery of product or services that don’t align with what they are selling, consumers log complaints across the multitude of channels available to us.

Random example…If a preowned car dealership (Everyone loves a good old car dealership example) tells us that their cars are “absolutely brilliant, never give the drivers any issues, are well priced and are delivered to the consumer’s door step 2 days after the order being placed”, that’s what we as consumers expect. If this doesn’t happen, then we complain. This business has sold their product and service along those guide lines and we trust them to deliver exactly that. (Totally get that this is super farfetched).

To put a spin on this a bit…what if the dealerships sales guide lines were as transparent as: “Need a temporary, well priced car? Come and check out some of the vehicles in our yard. These preowned cars have been serviced and valeted just for you.” The question is, which of these descriptions / offerings is more likely to get scrutinised on the social-sphere if the offering isn’t completely met?

A really good example of where this transparent approach has been effective is with “WeBuyAnyCar.com”. In summary, they basically say that you will get more money selling your car privately, but why would you want to go through the hassle? These guys are actually selling you your time back. They are selling convenience. You immediately know what you are getting. If I ever logged a complaint here, it would be about the service and not about the price I get for my car. Here is their actual marketing blurb:

 “Do you value your time? We Buy Any Car guarantees a fair price for your car without the hassle of selling it privately. Enter your reg number in the box above and get your instant valuation for free.

Whatever your car, whatever its condition, your valuation is valid for 7 days. If you are happy to sell to us, take your car into your local branch for an appraisal and we can pay the money/cash directly into your bank account. Don't waste your time: join over 1 million customers who have sold their car to We Buy Any Car today.”

Super smart advertising…. But they HAVE to deliver on these terms.

If you look at channels like Twitter and Facebook, you don’t actually have this amount of space to work with. You have 140 characters in a Bio and 2 pictures on Twitter to get peoples interest and a click through to your site. If you sell your business as the amazing, trust worthy and customer focused, and you don’t deliver that, expect to be hung out to dry on social media.

That little blurb is an indication of the businesses online personality. Businesses have the opportunity to create a whole online personality that depicts the companies “Persona”. Companies like Nandos and Sainsbury’s have done this BRILLIANTLY! They are GREAT at resolving complaints and interacting, but in a way that still reflects their brand. As an example ASDA wouldn’t be able to start responding to their customers in the same way Sainsbury’s do because consumers perceive the 2 brands VERY differently on the social-sphere. It’s like having 2 VERY different friends :) I know that, most of the time, if I include Sainsbury’s in a Twitter post, I’m likely to get a funny / sarcastic / witty response, but still get my issue addressed. (No, I don’t work for Sainsbury’s…HAHA)

If a business puts “We offer world class customer service” on their Facebook page and they don’t resolve a complaint or respond to a query posted there, they are advertising themselves incorrectly. Just by putting up a tag line like that, businesses may either set themselves up for failure or allow for an opportunity to prove themselves as being absolutely fantabulous!  

Telling everyone how awesome you are means you have to back it up. As I mentioned in my first post… smart marketing and brand awareness will provide a mechanism to avoid the “Villagers with Pitchforks” scenario…. Which businesses DESPERATELY need to avoid.

It's so important to establish your online personality and engage with your consumer base in a way that reflects the type of company you really are.

In my final post I’ll be talking about the Microsoft tech that businesses can leverage to help improve both customer service and marketing, which in turn provides an opportunity to generate brand advocates.