The Conversation Manager

One of the big Telco players in Belgium, Belgacom, has scored a new advertising hit! The previous one was the ‘Who took my badjas’ campaign. 180 000 views on youtube.com, 150 000 fans on Facebook and a lot of attention in the press and in the streets. Everyone used the famous quotes from the ad.

And they did it again … the new TV ad with the two children educating their parents is a big hit again. Now already 63 000 fans on Facebook 60 000 views (over different videos) on youtube.com.

Very nice, but what about it … Well in the first campaign everyone knewabout the ad and talked about it with friends. Most of us used the ‘Who took my badjas’ sentence regularly at that time. But no one was talking about the brand Belgacom. I even think the fanpage on Facebook was not initiated by them. Now Belgacom has evolved and has worked on the activation part. Due to the success of the new movie they got a lot of requests of parents who would like to have their children in the next Belgacom ad. They immediately acted upon this and started a new campaign triggering the activation. Parents can go to www.belgacomcasting.be and send in their children’s’ version of the quotes in the ad. Of course parents can post the movie on social media to spread the word.

I’m sure in this case, more people will know that Belgacom is behind the TV ad. By owning the Facebook page they can interact more with their fans, which they do, but they can go further in my opinion. They facilitate the conversation but do not join it actively. (Except for the postings of bloopers or pictures.) Some of the reactions can lead to interesting ideas, conversations and I’m sure sales. Some examples (in Dutch):

And due to the this hit, I’m sure more people will remember that the previous one … was also Belgacom! 

Yesterday something very remarkable happened in the Twitter spheres. The global vehicle glass specialist Carglass suddenly became the center of attention after the hashtag #carglasszuigt became a trending topic on Twitter.

It all started with some people complaining about the quality of Carglass’ latest advertisements, tagging their tweets with #carglasszuigt.

It seemed that Carglass was observing & joining the conversation via the Twitter account @NL_carglass, sending out warning-messages to everyone using the #carglasszuigt hashtag that they would be sued if they continued using it.

This and other bold reactions of the @NL_Carglass account were so striking that they were retweeted massively as a case of total miscommunication. Later on, it seemed that the Twitter account was fake and that the official (unfortunately inactive) account of Carglass is @Carglass_NL.

This case clearly shows that companies really need to join the conversation, and at least need to start observing it, to be able to react quickly upon such a critical situation.

So what should Carglass have done:

• Being proactively present in the conversation (they have an official Twitter account @CarglassNL, but it’s inactive)
• Communicating proactively about the fake Twitter account by observing the conversations
• Giving immediate and clear reactions on all media channels (both on-and offline) to avoid speculations (it took a long time before official messages came through)

However, it is not too late for Carglass. Now that the brand is being discussed by a great number of people, it is time to take positive action. What about using the hashtag #carglasszuigt as an ongoing customer satisfaction survey? Carglass could openly communicate that it has picked up on the buzz, and that it knows that it’s a hoax, but that they however are always willing to listen. Whoever really thinks that Carglass sucks, could use the hashtag to give feedback to the company, so that they know what to improve. There is a wave out there, it might be the ideal time for Carglass to ride on it!

Follow me on Twitter via @matsjombo

Investing in advertising is a common practice in our current enterprises, which is good! Investing in marketing and communication is a good thing which we should embrace. On the other hand, most companies see departments as customer care or their call center as a cost, which is strange in my opinion!

Call centers, for instance, are places where consumers take the lead and decide to contact your company. You have their full attention during that call. For the consumer this call is very important and they really expect your time and your positive intention to help them out.

Why do we see this as a cost and not as an investment? We invest so much in advertising of which we know only a limited part of our target group will be reached. The same company often refuses to invest in a real intense communication moment with a consumer: a 10 minute phone call. The KPI that is used most often in a call center is the duration of a call. Which is totally wrong! This motivates people in the call center to get rid of the client as fast as possible. I don't know what your experience is, but I certainly feel that duration of a call is their key KPI and certainly not my satisfaction after the call.

Imagine there would be a Telecom or Energy company who would turn this around and would see their service towards existing clients as their primary focus. I would like to be their first client, but I'm afraid there is still some work to be done to turn things around like that. But I'm convinced that every consumer conversation is a huge opportunity to grow your business.