Anyway, I clicked on the link and was dazzled by the Slideshare presentation that I saw from a major multi billion dollar company and their Social Media lead. It showed all of this info about how they use social media, how they respond to people, how it makes the company that much better, how they have integrated social into the fabric of the company. It was pretty compelling and impressive to see from such a large company. A real strategy for how they are using social media to create digital relationships.
Then something came to my head, I thought I would click over from there to their website to see if they are following the same principles and ideas on their website. I would think that a consistent experience would be a no brainer for this company, based on the message in the slides.
Sadly, the experience was much different than what they talked about in their social channels. All of the ideas about customer loyalty and customer experience and wowing the customer in social media didn't extend to the website, specifically the support pages of the website.
It got me thinking, why is this the case? Why do companies put so much effort and time into creating a unique and compelling experience in the social media channel, but neglect the place where people still, more often than not, go to get answers to the questions they have?
Maybe it is because different groups own the different channels internally at the company. Maybe it is because some executive is in love with social and is just demanding a different experience in that channel. Or maybe it is because the perception is that your brand can be damaged much faster on the social channel than on the website.
Regardless of the reason, I think it is only damaging the company with their customers when they choose to focus dollars, time and resources on the channel of the day and relegate the other channels to second class experiences.
1 comment:
I agree that you are probably right about the social media team and the website team probably coming from two totally different parts of the company.
Perhaps, the website is maintained by the IT Department after content handover from marketing. Meanwhile, the "social media" department is a few interns stuck in the back cubicle of Marketing.
Another factor though could be customer segmentation.
A customer that engages with the company on social media and receives helpful answers would seem unlikely to then waste their time trolling through an obsolete website.
Similarly, customers who are comfortable with the website content may not be motivated to spend the time learning how to engage with the company on social media.
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