DIGITAL MEDIA MARKETING IN EAST AFRICA: THE CX ISSUE A white paper authored by Mrs Seanice Lojede, CEO - Blu Flamingo Digital Africa.
THE CUSTOMER CARE ISSUE “The advent of the internet in Uganda is changing the way thousands of mobile phone users communicate with each other. It has brought about a new trend of using Wifi and Mobile data." So starts an article published On Online Portal 'UGO' on June 22 2016, in Kampala Uganda. The African market has largely been one that we consider as leap frogging technological and innovation boundaries as evidenced by the rise and rise of Mobile Money and several other creative applications and technology. As a digital marketing company lucky to have a front seat to many of the teams behind this innovation and contributing to the industry through initiatives like the social media awards, we are happy to present to you 5 Issues Covering 5 areas to watch in 2016, in Digital Marketing in Sub Saharan Africa. This is the first of 5 Issues.
EVOLUTION OF ONLINE CUSTOMER CARE Uganda is a fairly small East African country with a population of roughly 38 million. According to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) the number of internet subscribers grew from 8 million in 2014 to 13 million in 2015. This has led to an interesting rise in the number of data supported voice calls for the telecommunication industry, e-commerce has boomed with the advent of online shops like the more sophisticated Kaymu and Jumia to the simple down-town boutique selling second hand clothes.
With all this online activity an interesting customer driven pain point is emerging - online customer care or online CX as we call it. The advantages are numerous and obvious, customer education is more personal and one one, Word of mouth can now be 'word of tweet/post/comment /share' But companies are still grappling with this beast: Below you will find an example of what we mean:
HOW IT STARTED
WHO IS THE CLIENT
CEO OF SCANGROUP
13.3K Followers on Twitter
THE RESPONSE
DOWNHILL
DOWNHILL
FURTHER DOWNHILL
EVEN FURTHER DOWNHILL
THEY’RE NOT HELPING
THE COMPETITION TAKES ADVANTAGE
WHAT WAS THE VIRAL IMPACT?
680,000 FOLLOWERS
TEUSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014
RMA MOTORS DEFENDS TWITTER GAFFE
RMA Motors has, through its CEO Sanjiv Shah, responded to the story published by Nation.co.ke about its handling of a customer's complaint on Twitter. In the response, Mr Shah said that RMA was puzzled as to why Mr Thakrar chose to use social media to complain about the service rendered to him by the motor dealership yet he had an open line of communication with RMA. "We are puzzled as to why Mr Thakrar decided to air his views on social media in the early hours of the morning on a public holiday (Monday 21st October (sic)). Mr Thakrar had taken to Twitter to complain that his Sh30 million Range Rover Vogue, which is specially customised, was not working as it was supposed to and asked for assistance.
Courtesy: www.nation.co.ke
TEUSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014
RMA MOTORS DEFENDS TWITTER GAFFE
In response, the company said it was a public holiday and he would have to wait until Tuesday for assistance, and in the meantime he was advised to take a "cold tusker". In the same statement, RMA defended its use of "cold tusker", saying that the company liked the reference, as Tusker is so Kenyan, and also in deference to a blogger by the same name. "We used (the) reference to enjoying a "cold beer" as there were many tweets from the @coldtusker handle and we liked the reference to Tusker as it is so Kenyan, especially on a public holiday.“
In this rejoinder, RMA stops short of calling Mr Thakrar a hostile customer out to besmirch the dealership's good name. RMA also took issue with Mr Thakrar, saying that none of its high-end clientele had ever taken their issues with the motor dealer public. "None of our other high profile customers have ever resorted to discussing their issues and slating us in the public arena. Generally owners of these type of vehicles (and we have many delighted such customers) are private, discreet and very friendly.“ Mr Sanjiv is also happy with the publicity Mr Thakrar has garnered for them, terming this a bitter-sweet moment for the company.
RMA's comments were taken to show the artlessness of corporates’ interaction with their clients on social media. Courtesy: www.nation.co.ke
LESSONS LEARNT
Apologise
Clients do not expect you to be perfect; they do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.
Which side of Twitter do you want to be on?
Offer Solution
Listen and offer a solution. Don’t engage the customer in a war of words if you are not going to solve their need
#TwitterThumbsUp
DO NOT Blame the Customer
Clients complain when their expectations are NOT met. Do not blame them for complaining via any channel.
#TwitterBigStick
DO NOT Assume
If you relax over a cold Tusker, not all people do!
On a more cheerful note let us take a look at how great social media care can be when done right and it’s effects on your bottom line
CASE STUDY: AIRTEL KENYA Blu Flamingo Digital took over the handling of the online customer care for Airtel Kenya on July 2014. The Airtel Facebook page on July 1st 2014 had 376,712 fans with 55 interactions per day. The Airtel Twitter profile had 37,199 followers with 262 mentions per day.
WHAT WAS OUR OBJECTIVE? To create a social care system that would differentiate Airtel Kenya not only from all other telecoms in Kenya, but from all other brands in Kenya. To be the number 1 social care team in Kenya. To introduce a new level of social care in Kenya & in the region.
HOW TO ACHIEVE THIS?
By being relatable, human and approachable. We wanted to create a forum where existing and potential customers could not only get their queries answered, but engage with the brand on a personal level. Personal interaction and emotion = loyalty to the brand. So we went on the hunt for 2 loveable and compassionate personalities.
JAMO
Jamo is a young guy, 25 years old. He is a very social person who loves having fun. Jamo is a football enthusiast, a music lover and aspires to own a Subaru.
CARO
Caro is fresh out of campus and is very chatty. She’s always in the know of everything; be it celebrity gossip or upcoming events… she knows it all. She loves shopping and cannot go a week without having chocolate.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
PERFORMANCE TRACKER
The Airtel Facebook page currently has 618,959 fans with 2,500 interactions per day. The Airtel Twitter profile currently has 167,000 followers with 1,200 mentions per day
SOCIALLY DEVOTED Airtel Kenya has been on the socially devoted brands list every single quarter from Q2 2014
AFRICA BRAND INDEX Airtel Kenya was number 1 in Africa Brand Index for all categories in Kenya and ranked 4th overall across Africa April 2016
ABOUT JAMO & CARO Jamo and Caro are always at hand to help our customers with any query that they need help with. They both work around the clock to make sure all Airtel customers are happy and are served efficiently. Since Jamo and Caro joined Airtel Kenya, customers have responded positively to the personalization of their responses. They speak the customer’s language, literally. If a customer writes a query in Sheng’, Jamo and Caro reply in Sheng and the same for Kiswahili and English. They also ensure that they sort out all queries within 15 minutes.
PRE JAMO & CARO RESPONSES An example of responses from before Jamo and Caro.
JAMO & CARO RESPONSES
An example of responses from Jamo and Caro
ENGAGEMENT POSTS Apart from responding to customers queries and feedback, Jamo and Caro also have engagement that have nothing to do with Airtel Kenya but more for creating a human relationship with the consumers. This is a chance for fans to relate to Jamo and Caro as ‘fellow humans’. Also, Jamo and Caro posts elicit healthy engagements rate. Engagement rate refers to the activity on our page and fan interactions to our post types.
- TAKE AWAY -
THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIAL MEDIA. 1. FIND YOUR VOICE It is Imperative as brands to understand that the ground has shifted beneath us, literally. A 35 year old today ‘feels’ relatively young but in the digital world (unless he or she is working in it) is light years away. Unless we are deliberate about it, we may have no clue on how to relate with an audience of 19-22 ‘snap-chattin’ year olds and these are the majority in the digital space in East Africa. As such it is necessary when putting together your online care strategy; whether you are a Telecom or a Bank a FMCG or a mom and pop shop that you start by identifying your ‘Voice.’ Will you be young, hip and trendy? Will you speak the local languages? Are you knowledgable/ dependable? Helpful and friendly, will your ‘thing’ be to always know your customers birthdays or to always observe certain national holidays in style? This pre work will help you determine your persona and help you be ‘consistent’ in your communication.
2. RESEARCH AND USE THE RIGHT TOOLS Without the right monitoring tools, online customer care can be an absolute nightmare, how to keep track of sentiment, how to compile reports, what KPI’s to measure - the list is endless. At Blu Flamingo our recommendation would be that you start by listing your objectives for engaging in the online customer care space and working accordingly. The three main areas you should consider: - Of course genuinely solving customers issues. - Educating the customer on your product and Increasing uptake - Gathering information on which of your products/services are capturing the market and which aren't and why. There are numerous tools you may consider looking into, that may help: Examples are Zoho and Hootsuite or Adobe. At Blu Flamingo we have built proprietary in-house tools that suit clients very specific needs.
3. TRAIN YOUR TEAM CONSISTENTLY The life expectancy of digital strategies and ideas is shockingly short, this means you will need to train your team at least quarterly on staying abreast with ideas, platforms, content and trends. The reason this is essential is because the online world’s biggest advantage is also it’s biggest Dis-advantage everything is out in the open’ Therefore staying up to date and consistently checking in on your teams knowledge levels is a crucial element of success. When choosing a facilitator for your training be sure to draw specific and measurable goals of the differences you would like to see in your online care.
4. RECRUIT THE RIGHT TEAM This may seem obvious but I cannot tell you the number of times we at Blu Flamingo have seen this mistake being made. At interviews the interviewer asks for social media followers as the main criterion for judging a candidate! Now, it is obviously necessary that one be an avid or even fair user of social media if they are to work with a social care team, but this is a skill you can generally train for. It is better to choose candidates with a passion for communication and a passion for people.
Good grasp of written and spoken language you primarily communicate in is equally important. A creative flair and knowledge of social media will stand you in good stead for when your customer service needs to go the extra mile and then be used as a marketing campaign! It is then essential to train this team extensively on your product- even better if they already consume your product. Any photography/blogging and or graphics skills are also an added advantage to look out for.
5. INTEGRATE SEAMLESSLY WITH MARKETING As an agency that started out exclusively doing marketing and that has also moved into the CX space, one of our edges is our knowledge of marketing.
It is for this reason that we ensure that our customer care teams are also creatively empowered to contribute to the marketing objectives of the company as well.
We do not consider the gap between customer care and marketing and this is mainly because we feel that successful and efficient customer care, markets the brand - the trick is to make sure marketing campaigns align with customers needs.
But primarily the purpose is always to provide value whether this is through educating you about a product, fixing the product to provide a better experience, or sharing a fun video with you- all these are part of the experience a brand gives you and thus the customer doesn't care if it’s in the marketing or customer care department!
Who knows their needs better than the team that interacts with them daily? A team that has built a relationship with them and is there to serve and be on their side (the customers).
www.bluflamingo.digital
