An Introduction to Social CRM for the Travel Industry A special report from Chess Media Group and Hotel Marketing Strategies Written by Jacob Morgan and Connie Chan, in collaboration with Josiah Mackenzie January 2011 Chess Media Group – http://www.ChessMediaGroup.com Hotel Marketing Strategies – http://www.HotelMarketingStrategies.com What is Social CRM? There isn’t one single definition of social CRM. In fact, many people and companies have their own ideas about what it is and how to best approach it. Social CRM can be explained not as a discipline, but as a way in which to conduct your business through new communication channels while keeping the customer needs, wants and expectations as your focal point. Organizations are faced with many of the same business problems today that they were faced with last year and five years ago. These same business problems will continue to exist in the future. What has changed is consumer behavior, expectations, demands, forms of communication, and technological fluency. Social CRM is the strategy, process, and approach for helping your organization solve these business problems within an environment of changing consumer behaviors and advances in communications. The goal of social CRM is to leverage these new social and collaborative technologies to help solve customer facing business problems. 2 Why Should the Travel Industry Care? Travel has always been somewhat of a stressful activity. But with extreme weather conditions affecting airplane, train and automobile travel, increased airport security measures, and other factors, it’s no doubt that traveling is even more stressful in recent years. It’s hard not to go a day without reading a customer lament on Twitter and Facebook about a flight delay, a dirty hotel room, unfulfilled tour expectations, or a bad service experience with an employee. It’s enough to make many rethink their discretionary travel in favor of a less mentally jarring leisure experiences. It’s not all bad, however. Many customers, on the other hand, share positive experiences with their communities on the same social networking sites, happily tweeting about a room upgrade, a pleasant flight attendant, a perfected executed destination wedding and a successfully planned business convention, and more often than not, acknowledging the business. People are becoming increasingly more connected with their personal and professional communities. They are using email, SMS, video, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and review sites to share thoughts as well as collect information about brands, products, and services. This “customer as curator” trend obviously extends into the travel industry. People are using the Internet, web 2.0 and mobile to tap into their network for peer-to-peer references and reviews. Through the use of digital technologies, people now have almost real-time access to their trusted peer groups to engage with during their purchase decision-making processes. Positive or negative, by listening to what people are saying about your brand and your industry, and routing this social data through to the appropriate departments for resolution or action, brands will expand their understanding of what people need, know what people want, and customize their products and services accordingly. By meeting people’s expectations, brands have the opportunity to improve the customer experience, grow revenues, and increase their competitive advantage. 3 The Social Traveler Travelers are a very tight knit community that are known for helping each other. You don’t need to look further than sites such as TripAdvisor, Couchsurfer, and AirBnB to see this in action. Review sites have become crucial for travelers to research vacation destinations, hotels, cruise lines, airlines, restaurants, and other travel and tourism industries. Oftentimes, when a traveler makes a purchase, the purchase itself is just the final step in a process. The decision to purchase was made long before the customer pressed the ‘buy’ button. Travelers refer to the recommendations and comments left by peers on review sites, blog posts, and social networks. A Sheraton Hotels and Resorts study examining attitudes toward social media for business and travel use shows that 21.9% of men use social networks multiple times an hour while traveling, 34.4% say they do so throughout the day, and 14.1% say they do so once daily. This means that just over 70% of traveling men check and connect with a social network at least once daily. Women follow a similar pattern with 16.2% checking and using social networks multiple times an hour while traveling, 27.9% throughout the day, and 30.9% once daily. This means that 75% of women check and connect with a social network at least once per day. For both men and women, the largest age group that check social networks at least once daily is 25-34 at 75%, however the 35-44 and 45-54 age groups do not lag far behind at 70% each. This clearly shows that social networks and social media are not just for the younger demographics. Building a relationship with these travelers is imperative. It should not be a one-way broadcast. The travel industry must recognize that the traveler is “social” and expects brands to be listening to what they want, and to provide informational, supportive, relevant, and valuable communications through their choice of communication channels. 4 Abundance of Traveler Data The result of all this sharing through social and mobile sites comes a massive influx of data about your customers, your prospects, your competitors, and you. This data and information is extremely valuable and can help your organization make business decisions that affect your customer’s experience, your product, and your service. This is especially important when trying to differentiate your brand or your product or service. Let’s say for example you are trying out a new scent that is being introduced into a hotel lobby. Your customer might find that scent unpleasant or perhaps overwhelming, causing them to move to another hotel. If you are operating a cruise line, you may be able to boost sales during the slow season with special promotions and deals that are catered to customer demands heard on the social web. Travelers will give you data and information on everything from feedback about service, to the quality of your food, your pricing, and their overall customer experience. Moreover, your customers will also tell you what they are interested in while providing quality information about themselves, in terms of what they want from you and how they want to be communicated with, including their email address! Location-Based Services Enable Extraordinary Experiences Location-based services and the travel industry go hand in hand. Travelers frequently use geo-social services to let their friends know their whereabouts. They tweet out messages about flight delays and airport gates they are waiting at, check-in at hotels they are staying at and restaurants they dining, or update their friends on their vacation tours and activities. Networks like Gowalla and Foursquare enable brands to monitor when fans and followers are in close proximity, and to communicate with them online or through their mobile devices. These technologies allow you to deliver exceptional service experience to your customers at just the right time. KLM Airlines recently experimented with an interesting campaign taking advantage of this. The airline decided to use this multitude of available social data to surprise their passengers waiting at Airport Amsterdam Schiphol with personalized gifts. KLM monitored the social web for passengers that checked-in through Four Square or Twitter. They then searched their social profiles for information such as their favorite activity and interests to obtain gift ideas. 5 Then they set out to locate the passenger, either at their departure gate or again through information shared through social networks. Through online conversations about its brand, and based on data that passengers shared, KLM found the passengers and surprised and delighted them with the personalized gifts. The Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Hotels employ a similar approach to meet customer needs and deliver better service. Jade Bailey, E-strategy Development Manger for the hotels, makes sure that her staff greets and serves guests who check in on Foursquare or tweet about being on the property. They also fill Foursquare with numerous tips inside the hotel - using it as a tool to educate guests about the stories behind some of the more elaborate interior decorations. Rewarding customers is a key facet of location-based services. Offering virtual points, badges and mayor ships, and gifts, deals, discounts and rewards incentivize travelers to check-in at travel and hospitality venues. This translates into a mutually beneficial exchange between traveler and brand, which is engaging and sustainable. 6 Customer Service, Support and Retention The customer service economy is upon us, and will become the norm in the coming years. In an industry as price-driven and customer-driven as travel, companies are feeling an even greater need to strengthen customer relationships and maximize customer retention. The social web has transformed the expectations of your customers, and companies now have the opportunity to adapt to the social customer’s changing expectations of a brand, drive customer trust and increase loyalty. Companies can create a two-way dialogue with customers, using tools like Twitter, Facebook and Yelp, and allow customers to share their experiences with a company immediately after it happens and even while it’s happening. Identifying a customer issues, responding to it, and solving the problem quickly using social media can provide great customer experiences. Competitive Advantage Conversations between social customers are now at a tipping point for brands. The time is now for companies to begin embracing the new social technologies and join the customer communities that these technologies bring together. Listening to customers, taking an active role in fulfilling their needs and wants, personalizing products and services, delighting customers with unexpected rewards, and nipping problems in the bud will give companies an edge over their competitors who don’t. The sooner you begin to really understand your communities, the sooner you will begin to better serve your existing customers and gain new customers in more cost-efficient ways. By consistently and continually meeting a customer's needs, a company will reap the long-term benefits of customer retention: solid new relationships, repeat business, and referrals. 7 How to Implement Social CRM You were asked to develop a social CRM strategy. Where do you start? There is no single correct answer to developing a Social CRM strategy, but there are basic components that, if adhered to, will enable your success. 1) Start Listening Listening to relevant conversations happening around your brand and products is the first step. With or without you, customers are talking about your brand, sharing their opinions, comments, complaints and kudos, and they expect you to be listening. It’s important not only to listen to your customers but also to your employees. Customers will tell you what they want but it is your employees that are often the ones to come up with the most creative and effective ways to fulfill customer expectations. Satisfied and passionate employees can be the best people to engage with customers, so it’s important to find these champions and advocates within your company. 8 2) Define Objectives This should go without saying but often companies that are interested in social strategy forget to consider the reasons for their involvement. The “why” behind a proper social CRM campaign must be considered. For example, perhaps your organization is interested in reaching a new demographic, or maybe you are looking to increase sales or improve your customer loyalty program through social channels. Whatever it is your trying to do through social channels, it’s important to understand why you’re trying to do it. Finally, organizations should ask themselves what value they are going to bring to customers through social channels and what value customers are going to bring to the company through social channels. 3) Select People Once you identify the business objectives you want to meet, the next step is identifying the right employees and customers that are going to help make that happen. Are there a specific group of customers you are trying to reach? Who are those customers and where do they exist? Internally, it’s important to understand which employees need to be recruited to successfully accomplish these objectives. Is Bob, the SVP of Sales someone that needs to oversee the initiative? What about Tom, the CMO? And Pat, the CEO? Who will drive this initiative from a tactical and a strategic level? 4) Create Guidelines If a customer says something offensive on your community page, what do you do? If another customer is seeking support through Twitter, how do you address him? Business rules and guidelines dictate which channels those interactions should take place on and how employees should interact with customers. This is also the time to think about metrics, data, and analytics. How is information going to be captured? How will success be measured? What information does your organization want to track and why? 5) Identify Communities Your organization needs to think about the type of community it wants to build and what the community is going to be used for. Is the community going to be built around a product or service? Perhaps the community is going to be designed specifically for support or customer ideation? 6) Select Technology This includes everything from the social channels and community platforms to the backend systems and integrations. This is definitely a more technical step to think about as it revolves quite a bit around data and information. There is much data in the social web so it’s important to understand how your organization is going to access to that data and what it is going to do with it. 9 Finally, this is also where your organization wants to think about community platforms, monitoring tools, CRM systems, email marketing providers, and general technology integrations. It helps to draw out a map or process diagram for how the information is going to flow and which providers are going to be responsible for making that happen. 7) Begin Measurement Tracking progress doesn’t need to be rocket science. The challenge that most organizations have is a lack of focus on measuring the important things. Measurement needs to be tied directly to business objectives just like anything else. Organizations also fall short around lack of technology integration, social media is treated like a separate engagement silo. Instead, social media activity and customer data needs to be integrated with back end systems such as CRM and tied into initiatives such as loyalty programs to be able to paint a complete picture of how social customer engagement is translated into business outcomes. 10 Social Customer Engagement Social customer engagement can be grouped into one of four scenarios. What are these and what exactly do they mean? The four scenarios consist of: 1. No Engagement Companies may be actively educating themselves about social customer engagement. Some organizations may just be in the listening/monitoring stage, collecting feedback and research to help plan their social customer engagement strategy. We see pockets of social experimentation on a select group of channels but there is no process or infrastructure of any kind in place to support any type of a social customer strategy. 11 2. Partial Engagement Engagement with the customer is somewhat more active but an infrastructure and strategic framework still does not exist here. In this scenario, departments within organizations have difficulty agreeing on the value and the desired business outcomes of social customer engagement. Turf wars usually arise here with departments vying for control of this initiative to serve their own agendas or negotiating which department will fund the efforts. At this stage, an organization is most likely using multiple or disjointed CRM/technology solutions. 3. Modeled Engagement In this scenario, the infrastructure for social customer engagement is almost fully developed. The organization has developed and is implementing a strategic framework for customer engagement. We begin to see a cross-functional effort - a big hurdle has been overcome as most companies immediately defer to their marketing and/or PR teams the moment they hear the word “social.” They are building brand awareness and deep relationships with customers via social technologies. We begin to see more data integration and process development. End-to-end customer experience management processes are in place as are some data sets on the social customer. 4. Social Customer Engagement Companies in this scenario have a very solid understanding of the social customer and know how to deliver an exceptional customer experience that has beneficial value to both the customer and the brand. They understand that we are now in a customer driven economy, and have adapted to serve this new social customer. Companies are collaborating externally with customers and internally with colleagues. An integrated effort has blossomed with executive leadership, an evolved internal culture, defined processes and guidelines, and the right technology are present across the company. What’s Next? Social customer engagement is new. There is no one universal approach that fits the objectives of all companies in the travel and hospitality industry. As you embark on your own social strategy, focus on listening, proactively reaching out to build relationships, interacting and delivering an exceptional customer experience. If you need help implementing a social strategy, call Jacob Morgan, Principal at Chess Media Group: 818-442-3579 or email [email protected]. 12 About Us Chess Media Group is a social business consultancy that focuses on developing Social CRM, Enterprise 2.0, and social media strategies. We implement collaborative and participatory solutions that strengthen business performance. By combining deep industry knowledge, experience, expertise, and innovation, we design and implement solutions that help our clients release their potential. As with chess, we understand that in order to succeed, you cannot focus only on one particular part of the board while ignoring the rest of the pieces that are in play. To become a social business, you must have a clear strategy from the start, one that can be adapted, scaled and modified to better manage the relationships with your internal and external communities. About Jacob Morgan, Principal and co-Founder, Chess Media Group Jacob is widely regarded as a thought leader in social business. He co-founded Chess to help companies understand the business value of employee, partner, and customer collaboration (Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM). Jacob helps companies can boost productivity, cut costs and foster business agility from their social business initiatives. Jacob’s book, Twittfaced – Your Toolkit for Understanding and Maximizing Social Media was entirely co-authored through online collaboration and demonstrates the power of social media and online collaboration. Jacob's blog is ranked among the top 100 most influential marketing blogs by AdAge; he contributes to publications like Marketing Profs and the WSJ, among others. Prior to Chess, Jacob consulted on SEO and worked with Adobe, Conde Nast, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, Salesforce, and Sandisk. About Connie Chan, Principal and co-Founder, Chess Media Group Connie is a senior marketer with 15 years of marketing, management and consulting experience. She co-founded Chess to help companies unlock the full potential of combining people, process and social technologies to achieve high business performance. She has developed and implemented effective strategies, and delivered integrated demand-generation campaigns that produced measurable value to clients. She uses her extensive experience in traditional marketing to help clients to integrate Web 2.0 strategies and traditional marketing. Prior to co-founding Chess Media Group, Connie has been optimizing online and offline marketing communication and customer service strategies for companies like Ivanhoe Cambridge and Rogers Communications and for clients like McDonald’s, Insurance Corporation of BC and Greyhound at DDB Worldwide. 13
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