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These days when people have something negative to say about a brand they don’t just moan about it to a few friends, they take to the internet to broadcast their displeasure. This is an issue for brands because bad news travels fast – the average person has around 120 Facebook friends (not to mention Twitter followers). Consumers are also becoming savvy about this, they know how to make sure the brand sees their tweets and they know that a complaint posted on a brand’s Facebook wall will be picked up more quickly than one emailed directly to the company.

Once the consumer has vented the brand must decide how to react. Sometimes the best plan is to ignore the complaint (if it seems unreasonable for example) but generally speaking, ignoring the problem will make it worse. Most brands will discreetly contact the consumer and try and sort out the complaint behind the scenes. Other brands however will try to turn a negative into a s positive which requires a bit of effort and creative thinking (or a free voucher).

Case Study: Glasses Direct

I recently had some problems I had with an order with Glasses Direct. I sent my sunglasses off to them to have new lenses put in but when they returned they were wonky, one of the arms had been damaged. I sent the glasses back but when they were returned to me they were still wonky. This annoyed me so I tweeted about it:

Glasses Direct replied, as I expected they would, with a tweet saying that they would look into my complaint. Then a few hours later they send my the following tweet:

Which contained a link to this video:

The result was 300 views, 20 retweets, a link from my Facebook page and a little boost of positive press. If you were being cynical you might suggest that the video might have been motivated by the fact that my Twitter account is linked to this blog with posts about Social Media but hey, it worked. The video put a smile on my face and turned a negative situation into a positive one.

The Secret (is not a secret).

The moral of the story obviously isn’t to make a video for every unhappy customer, but to carefully judge the situation. If the complaint was more serious a funny video might make it even worse (Stop making videos and sort my order out!). The secret is to:

• Acknowledge the complaint
• Apologize for the problem
• Take control of the situation
• Explain how you are going to fix the problem
• Fix it

These aren’t actually secrets of course, this is exactly what you would need to do if you worked in a high street shop. The only difference with Social Media is that you must be quick (time moves faster on the internet) and you must be seen to fix the problem. Social Media sites are public places, if you resolve a complaint make sure you make this clear (“Just checked your account – we’re going to sort out a new frame for you…”) so that everyone who sees the tweet/post knows that the problem is being solved.

It’s one of those phrases that makes me feel a little bit nauseous but it is good practice to “own the problem”. Introduce yourself and make it clear that you are going to be responsible for finding a solution and preventing it from happening again. Don’t pass the blame or get someone else to sort the problem – you are now the customer’s point of contact.

The Importance of Word of Mouth

The most important point is to fix the problem, whatever it takes as this is the only way to make the consumer trust you again.  If you don’t you risk losing more than just one customer. Consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know more than any other factor when deciding what to buy:

When asked what sources “influence your decision to use or not use a particular company, brand or product” 71% claim reviews from family members or friends exert a “great deal” or “fair amount” of influence. (Harris Interactive, June 2010)

The average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times per week in conversations with friends, family, and co-workers. (Keller Fay, WOMMA, 2010)

In a study conducted by social networking site myYearbook, 81 percent of respondents said they’d received advice from friends and followers relating to a product purchase through a social site; 74 percent of those who received such advice found it to be influential in their decision. (Click Z, January 2010)

between 10% and 24% of [US] social media users turned to social networks when making purchase decisions about various categories of products and services. (eMarketer, October 2009)

Stats via Bazaar Voice

Ask anybody to name a successful Social Media campaign right now and they will probably mention Old Spice. Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like campaign staring Isaiah Mustafa certainly got a lot of attention online but how successful was it? The graph below showing the rise in Google searches for “Old Spice” suggests increased interest but is this enough?

Shortly after the campaign finished many blogs including Time.com’s News Feed were reporting that sales of Old Spice body wash had actually fallen by seven percent. This figure spread quickly and created a lot of debate. Had Wieden + Kennedy’s campaign not increased sales at all? Had it actually had a negative impact on sales? In actual fact the sales figures quoted were out of date, revised figures (which have yet to be confirmed) suggest a 107 percent increase in sales.

Is online buzz enough without increased sales figures?

Would we still consider this campaign a success if the original reports about reduced sales figures had been correct? Is increasing awareness of you brand a reasonable ROI for a campaign this large? Personally I would still have considered this campaign successful although Old Spice might have, depending on what they were looking to achieve. It certainly got people talking about and engaging with the brand. The viewing figures of the videos, Twitter mentions, video embeds etc. were at the levels most brand created ‘viral videos’ could only dream of. It will be interesting to see what Old Spice do next to capitalise on the brand’s improved reputation.

The campaign was forward thinking, fun and clearly created by people who understand how the internet works. Creating videos for internet celebrities such as Perez Hilton and Digg’s Kevin Rose was a cunning plan, how could they not share the content with their readers when everyone had gone Old Spice mad? The videos made Old Spice seem like a cool, modern brand if even if most of were left wondering if Old Spice body wash still smelt like our granddads.

Converse‘s Domination campaign showed a fresh approach to Google Adwords which proved that not all PPC campaigns need to target relevant keywords. Instead they targeted high volume yet good value keywords such as “first day of summer” and “how to talk to girls” which meant they had little to no competition.

The ads they used had a conversational tone and linked to fun single serving sites such as outofyourleaguegirl.com which were designed to engage young people rather than shift trainers. Many of the sites sent users back to Google with specific search terms to find the next site in the series.  This video explains the campaign nicely: