SMART: A New Social Media Metric?
23 Dec
Imagine that you’re stationed on a Navy boat in the Middle East, and — God forbid — some enemy force launches a missile at your boat. What would you hope the boat’s response time to identifying the attack is? Milliseconds?
I have no idea what the actual response time is, but considering we’re talking a matter of life and death, I’m willing to bet that the Navy’s response time is pretty damn fast.
Now imagine that you work for the Navy Federal Credit Union, and somebody — not even a CU member — tweets something negative about the credit union. What should the credit union’s response time be?
Certainly not milliseconds. An hour? Before the end of that calendar day? Forty eight hours?
Remember, we’re not talking life and death here. We’re talking — at best — about reputation. And I would argue that depending on who did the tweeting, the long-term potential impact of a single negative tweet is not very great.
I raise this point because of a blog post I recently saw mentioned Navy FCU, and the blogger went on to tweet — just a few hours after putting up the post — about how NFCU hadn’t responded yet to his criticism. (P.S. I’m not sure, but I don’t think the blogger is a NFCU member).
This raises the question: What should a firm’s SMART (social media attack response time) be?
As I read blogs and tweets that exhort firms to respond “within the hour” or even immediately, I can’t help but think: LET’S PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE, PEOPLE.
The first two questions a firm should be asking are: 1) Who launched the attack (er, lodged the complaint or critique)? and 2) Who saw it?
Is the critic a customer of the firm? If yes, that would argue for faster than slower response. But in the example we’re discussing, the critic was someone from the credit union community. Which doesn’t warrant putting a response on the top of the stack, in my book.
The other question concerns who saw the criticism. Not to pass any judgement about the blog in question (after all, I can’t even begin to tell you how few people will see this blog post), but I think it’s very unlikely that many — if any — NFCU members saw the blog post.
So what impact did the lack of an immediate response have on NFCU’s reputation? NONE.
In the end, NFCU did respond, not long after the blogger’s tweet, not only on the blog, but on Twitter, and directly to the people who commented on the blog. In my book — and I bet other’s — NFCU’s reputation was enhanced, not damaged. But even then, mostly with people in the industry, not members. But I’m sure that’s still important to NFCU.
The point of all this is to emphasize one point: That “right-time” is more important than “real-time”.
Shoot a missile at me, and I better damn well respond in real-time. Attack me on Twitter, and my response time doesn’t need to be nearly as quick. My SMART isn’t milliseconds, but — as the email channel learned — it isn’t 48-72 hours either.
Firms that launch a Twitter presence need to do some upfront thinking about what the right SMART is — it varies by the type of comment or remark, and by who makes the comment or remark.
I can’t remember where I read this but a popular author who writes books about business said that when he first started with Twitter he found himself spending way too much time responding to negative comments. Of course it’s important to engage with everyone, not just those who agree with you. But if you’re in the public eye it’s only natural that you’ll have critics. I don’t know what the magic number is for SMART but I definitely agree with you that it doesn’t have to be milliseconds for every negative comment.
@Luke: The thing firms should start thinking about is, if their Twitter volume increases (e..g, # of support-related tweets), what will that do to response times? Have they created the right expectations?
There a bunch of people out there who love to highlight the stories about how some firm saved some customer from defecting by responding to a tweet. But the question is: Does it scale?
BTW, the same people never mention that THOUSANDS of customer defections are being saved every day in the call center and stores/branches.
A very good set of points but I can’t help but wonder if one’s SMART (Social Media Attack Response Time) metric would be helped, when the response is aggressive, if one used the standard Social Media Uppercut Response Format?…
More seriously, a small idea did pop while reading. Some posts are made in under-read forms by under-read people. But, sometimes they are incendiary when picked up by others. I think this argues for not really allowing any negative post to just sit for indeterminate time…. unless the author is clearly nuts… For instance, he may write seriously about Smurfs….
@Step2: Good point. Clearly, firms are going to need a more formal organizational response to all this.
I think in 2010 we’ll see the emergence of SMART ASSs (Social Media Attack Response Time Assessment Support Specialists) who will help determine and measure the appropriate response times.
BTW, I think I could be good at that.
Ron – I followed the developments yesterday and a few things jumped out at me. First, the alternate NFCU Twitter names that were popping up were modifications to the NFCU name with an “F bomb” attached. How could they follow all of those modifications? Difficult but not impossible I am sure. I looked at some of the NFCU alternates and what should be troubling for them is it looks like tweets were coming in as people were forced to wait for service in a branch. The authenticity didn’t seem questionable but in reality it could have been a fabrication. Even if the complaints were only fractionally true – they have some SERIOUS issues to address.
Social media is a medium that can be extremely painful at times for any organization participating. You will never please everyone all of the time – BUT – by going through the processes, addressing your shorcomings, and making changes in the end results in a stronger company (in this case CU). NFCU has an opportunity to come out of this farther ahead than they were but they have to do something about it.
@Joe: Whoa, hold on a sec, here. You mean there were people complaining about a credit union’s service? I thought CUs provided superior customer service? CUs aren’t perfect? Damn, that’s a blow to the image I have of them.
But — more seriously — to your point, if NFCU, or any other CU, has service issues, what should they do — fix the source of the problem, or allocate resources to responding to comments on Twitter? My counsel to them would be: Ignore Twitter, fix the service problem. I mean, c’mon, how many NFCU members are seeing tweets from alternate NFCU Twitter names?
Hey don’t get me wrong – by no means am I saying that CU’s or banks for that matter have stellar customer service.
Of course you should fix the source of the problem – with or without someone tweeting about it. I would insist that you address the problem via Twitter as well. Ignoring it = “we don’t care and you don’t matter”. If you have a presence on Twitter you are signed up for the good and the bad of the medium. In this case, NFCU is out there so they have to engage.
Just do a search on NFCU or look at their followers. It took me very little time to come across the alternate twitter names and worse for them, to read their dirty laundry.
@Joe: Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that YOU implied CUs had stellar customer service. Just ask most CU execs what their point of differentiation is, and THEY’LL tell you it’s their “superior customer service.” (Sorry, CU folks, but you KNOW I’m right here).
@Ron: Good point about the “superior customer service”. If a credit union competes on that and “great rates” they are in essence a financial commodity.
Ron! Thank you so much for the great blog post and continuing the evolving conversation. It has been so exciting to see what Christopher Stevenson’s blog post , “Why Are You Using Twitter?”, started last week. It has generated 22 comments and great conversation.
This was followed up by my two part blog post on http://www.cugrow.com, “Credit Unions, Twitter, Service and Brand Management” and the topic was even featured on this week’s CU Water Cooler’s Liquid Lunch.
In addition, great conversation has also evolved on Twitter about the topic at hand which spurred your insightful blog post to continue the conversation.
I love your analogy and acronym of a SMART (Social Media Attack Response Time) strategy. When you review the situation you detailed above, there is really no comparison to the sense of urgency. Life and death goes above all.
However, in regards to Twitter and creating a SMART strategy, your post sparks some good conversation and debate. Aside from a life and death situations (which once again there is no comparison), I think it is important for organizations to be quick to respond on social media channels (primarily Twitter), even if the response is simply, “we heard you”.
Twitter has changed the way we communicate with 140 character tweets. In my on experience, I use Twitter to communicate both professionally and personally. When it comes to addressing complaints with organizations, I use Twitter as a place to voice my complaint, and as from my experience I know I will be heard within minutes.
Carla Day had tweeted a question about how long is too long for an organization to respond on Twitter as she had asked a question but had a 24 hour response time. In her case, it was to a restaurant and 24 hours was too long, causing the restaurant to lose her business and move on to the next one.
As a society and individuals, we have expectations about response times for different communication channels. The following are my expectations which may be different from others. I know that if I write a letter, it may be a week or two before I receive a letter back, if at all. Email for example should be followed up same day unless there is a note saying it will be longer. It’s funny as I am more lenient on verbal communication response such as voicemail which I will wait a day or two to hear back from someone. However, I expect a quicker response time for electronic communication channels (including Twitter). Once again, these are my personal opinions and not everyone may have the same needs.
Please allow me to recap and share a story in the comments of my blog post on http://www.cugrow.com and how quick response time to a Twitter complaint helped turn me into an advocate for Southwest Air.
I love the way they have built their brand around “LUV” and feel that “LUV” from them every time I fly as I travel a lot.
One time, we landed in Vegas (and if you have been there you know how crazy the airport is), and Southwest Air had lost our bags. We had a show at 7PM and it was noon. I went to the baggage claim and got no help. I called in on the phone and got no help. I hopped on Twitter, told @southwestair they sucked and I hated them for losing my bags and getting no help. Within 3 minutes I had a response back that they had heard me (that was huge) and worked to help me out through direct messages.
The bags were delivered at 5:30 PM to our hotel and Southwest Air became rock stars. I loved the fact that I was able to use Twitter to be heard. Now, every time I fly I let people know I am on @southwestair to where ever.
Regarding the post on http://www.cugrow.com on Navy FCU, I don’t think the issue necessarily lies with me and the response time to the blog post. It is true that Navy FCU members probably will never see the http://www.cugrow.com blog post. The real issue I believe lies in the comments and conversation that @navyfcusucks is having that Navy FCU cannot control.
This is in relevance to Doug’s thought that “some posts are made in under-read forms by under-read people”. While Navy FCU is the “world’s largest credit union”, @navyfcusucks has 464 followers and is having conversations on Twitter with Navy FCU members who are upset and disgruntled. He is even referring Navy FCU members who complain on Twitter to his blog http://www.navyfederalsucks.com (which he has noted he receives a lot of traffic from general Navy FCU web searches).
It appears that @navyfcusucks responds faster and to more disgruntled members than Navy FCU does. Is it important for a Navy FCU, with 3 million plus members, to respond quickly to a disgruntled few voicing their complaints on Twitter? That is for them to decide when creating a SMART strategy.
In summary, every organizations SMART strategy will differ as there is no “right way” to do this. I think this will evolve overtime as we are all still learning. It is through great conversation like this that will help us to innovate, communicate and collaborate.
Ron, I love that you are keeping things in perspective here. Yes, why should Navy FCU respond to an industry-targeted blog instantly? There is no pressing need. A cool, calm response is better than a rushed one.
The danger in not responding is that there is a chance it can snowball online, as it did for Motrin. This isn’t exactly the same situation as cited here, but rather points out that it’s not smart to launch a marketing campaign on a Friday afternoon, and then not monitor social media immediately for reaction.
And on the other hand, quick twitter response can really enhance the perception of a company, as when it was tweeted that a large group of us were heading over to a particular restaurant/tavern (National Mechanics – @NatMechanics) after REBarCampPHL, and the restaurant tweeted back that they had a table reserved and waiting for us. You betcha I will return there the next time I’m in PHL!
@Morriss: I think we’re on the same page here. It’s not “whether or not” to reply, but “how fast.” Simply advocating that the response doesn’t have to be immediate. In fact, I think I once told someone from a credit union, to give it a few hours before replying to a nasty comment, to see if other CU members would come to the CU’s defense. What you bring up w/ the Motrin example — which was not an example of a bad service experience, or a random nasty comment — is that there are different types of negative comments. THAT’S one of the points I’m trying to raise here: That there are different types of comments, each of which may require a different type of response.
But I’m with you 100% that a response is needed. Remember that guy who wrote that anti-social media story on (what was it?) CU Journal, and NEVER responded to all the comments on the story. I think we all think less of him because of that. What’s important there, though, is that his “audience” is the CU community. So, by not responding, he did hurt his credibility w/ the people he shouldn’t want thinking less of him.
But is it really the same story w/ NFCU? How many members saw the negative comment on the blog? How many knew what NFCU’s response time was? I agree w/ you that a “quick twitter response can really enhance the perception of a company” — but in the NFCU example, that perception was mostly going to be that of CU industry insiders, not the CU’s members and prospects.
Ron:
I just wanted to thank you for the mention in your blog (www.navyfederalsucks.com). Navy Federal has only recently started to ramp up its Twitter operations, I like to think it is because of increased pressure from a formerly silent but growing population of their membership. If they would only put the same effort towards helping their membership in the first place, then they wouldn’t have to worry about response teams and damage control.
Chris
@Chris: Thanks for taking the time to comment, but I’m little confused. I don’t recall mentioning your site in my blog post.
In fact, I make a pretty concerted effort to not mention sites like yours.
If the purpose of your site is to spur Navy FCU to improve its service to its members, then — while I might not be a big fan of your tactics — I do applaud your goal.
Responding to negative comments is great and all, but it’s very important to have a strategy. I previously wrote about negative blog comments in this post – http://bit.ly/4vm7JF – check it out.
From the post,
“From past experience, if you respond to a person’s negative comment it’s almost guaranteed that they will respond to your response. This is where you could find yourself in a back and forth that a) takes up a lot of time and b) gets you off your message.
And I don’t care who you are, if you don’t plan for this you’re going to find yourself in trouble. Trust me, it’s happened to me. The negative comments that correspond directly to a specific blog post are the easy ones to handle; primarily because you can typically support your writing, admit a mistake or respectfully disagree.
The comments that can be problematic are the ones that come from left field and are more attacking in nature. For this type of situation I think it’s good to respond, but if they respond back with more attacks you invite the person to contact you offline or state that you are only going to approve and respond to comments pertaining to the original post [speaking in terms of blogs].*”
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen this blow up on a person/company. Knowing how you are going to respond and when you are going to stop responding is very important.
Ryan
I want to know what Ron’s SMART score is on Christmas Eve…
Less than 4 hours.
That’s pretty good
Interesting thread but I think it misses the substance that lies behind Rons point. I remain of the view there is no such thing as Social Media Strategy per se, or at least there ought not to be.
The decision to respond in seconds, minutes, days or ever, ought to be dependent on the marketing stance and image of the company.
So … how does the NFCU respond and react to customers? The answer to that question will determine the appropriate response to Twitter, blogs, newspaper stories with comments enabled.
I think we are getting too twitterified.
I disagree that responding to social media sites is a low priority, or that “just a few hours” is sufficiently quick. Anyone who has ever posted a comment on a blog or updated their status on Facebook knows the feeling of sitting and waiting for immediate validation in the form of responses. In fact, as others beside me have noted, Facebook and Twitter and every other social media is about nothing but personal validation.
I think you have to consider what the person making the comment was actually trying to do, which, Ron, you alluded to. But you said if the goal is to improve member service at Navy Federal, then a slow response to a comment is fine. And what if that’s not the sole, or even primary, goal? I submit the true goal is to be heard and validated, and for that to feel authentic, it’s got to happen faster than within “just a few hours.”
P.S. I see there’s a box I can check after I hit “Submit” that will notify me of follow-up comments via email. Hmmm. Wonder if that’s because the true purpose of my comment here (and of everyone else’s) is to elicit reactions to me/us?
Thanks for your comment, Patricia.
It really comes down to expectations, doesn’t it? If you expect a sub-one hour response, and don’t get it, you’ll be disappointed. If another person, however, expects a response the next day, then a response within two hours is a pleasant surprise.
As for the purpose of the button to be notified of comments, I think different people have different purposes. For sure, for some it’s to see what the reaction to their comment is. For others (and I have someone in mind), I’m willing to bet it’s because they want to keep up with the conversation.