Competition: What does RARE mean to you?
December 16, 2010What can UK businesses learn from US data about their customers?
December 22, 2010
I had the opportunity to listen in to a webinar the other day that was hosted by the Institute of Customer Service. The webinar featured Mark Pilkington, who is the Head of Sales for Complete Cruise Solution, who run P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises and Cunard Line, a major provider of cruise holidays. In the webinar he talked about how they are using social media in their business.
What I wanted to do was share some of the tips and things they have learned that, I believe, you could apply in your business.
By the way, you can check out P&O and their social media presence on facebook, Twitter, YouTube, their customer forums and their blog.
In the webinar, Mark came up with the following series of quick tips of things that have worked for them:
- Be sociable – respond and comment!
- It’s a conversation – don’t spam
- Include pictures, video and surveys
- Ask for feedback from customers
- Focus on quality over quantity
- Link between traditional and social communication tools
- Try to take “complaints” off-line quickly
- Link all your various profiles
- Don’t be too corporate or “on message”
- Be honest, informal and controversial!
- Stick loads of inbound links on everything
- Use Hootsuite and google alerts to monitor
- Update regularly (but not too often!)
- Get your staff involved – trust them to speak!
For me, I think the two really stand out tips are:
- Try to take “complaints” off-line quickly – I think this is a key point and it reminds me of the saying ‘ Don’t wash your dirty laundry in public’, particularly when dealing with complaints. Deciding when it is appropriate to have a ‘public’ conversation and when something more ‘private’ or offline would be more appropriate is key for you and the customer.
- Get your staff involved – trust them to speak! – Mark made a great point when he said that, in business, we, generally, trust staff to send emails to customers and to speak to them on the phone so why should communicating on social media channels be any different. If you trust staff to communicate in one area then why would you not trust them to communicate in a social media channel. If you don’t then think about what message that sends to your staff and how that could affect the effectiveness of your communication to your customers in that (and other) channels.
However, coming back to the title of this post, what struck me about Mark’s talk and after having checked out their social media sites was this….their business is ideally placed to leverage the use of social media for their customers. Why?
Well, think about it this way……when you have ships that range from 1,200 to over 3,000 people on board and that set out on journeys that range from a few days to a few weeks then what you are creating or hosting is a temporary community for the time that they are onboard the ship. Also, going on a cruise is an adventure but your enjoyment of it will have a lot to do with the community that is built up and exists on board the ship.
So, what, I believe, P&O have done is to use social tools is to start trying to bind those communities together before, during and after their journey providing them with real time updates, allowing them to connect with each other, share photos, videos & memories and maximise their chances of having a great time.
Where’s the community in your business and are you using social media tolls to help build and connect that community even if it is only a temporary one?
Thanks to ecstaticist for the image.
22 Comments
Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other? http://bit.ly/eT5KNp
RT @adrianswinscoe: Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other? http://bit.ly/eT5KNp
RT @adrianswinscoe: Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other? http://bit.ly/eT5KNp
You know Adrian, if they were really smart they could create pages on a website for upcoming cruises where people could post up details about themselves (maybe using Facebook connect) so that when you’re booking your cruise you can find out who is going to be on it and maybe arrange to meet-up.
This could work especially well if it was a specialist cruise such as (say) photography or natural history, where you have many people with the same interests.
Great posts, some top tips and I love the point about getting ‘offline’ asap when dealing with complaints.
Great inspiration.
Matthew
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for dropping by and commenting.
I think they try to do that with their facebook wall and on their forums but I am sure that they could probably do more. Great suggestions, by the way, re specialist interests. I’ll send Mark an email about the post and get him to pop over for a look. Hopefully, he’ll share his thoughts.
Finally, completely agree about the taking complaints offline asap…..not nice having ‘bun-fights’ in public.
Adrian
Thanks Adrian – a great summary of the webinar!
Just this week we have been using Facebook to update customers during the snow! We had over 5000 people flying to Acapulco and Barbados this weekend which has proved challenging! As Facebook hasn’t reach 100% penetration (yet!) we contacted each customer individually by phone over the weekend and also posted updates on Facebook. The response has been phenomenal (have a look at facebook.com/pandocruises for some of the comments we got) and it shows how important it is becoming in customer service.
Watching the conversation develop on Facebook also gives us a great insight into what is important to our customers when we are facing operational challenges and has helped to shape some of our offline communications as a result.
Matthew – regarding having customers form groups pre-cruise with like-minded people, we’ve had a chat-room in the “community” section on pocruises.com for about 7 years now which is regularly used by customers for this
Mark,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
I’ve been over to your facebook pages and have seen what you have been doing over there to keep your facebook’ed passengers up to update, especially during the snow. Very impressive and great work.
I do believe that the combination of the quality and timeliness of info you are providing, how helpful you are being and the communities that you are developing is going to pay huge dividends for the company in terms of word of mouth marketing.
Is that something that you are tracking ie. the positive feedback loop that you are getting from your social media activities in terms of referrals, leads and new sales?
Adrian
How P&O use social media to build on-board communities in the cruise liner industry: http://bit.ly/gBH51d
Interesting post, thanks for your tips and insight.
Hi and thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
Look forward to seeing you here again soon.
Best wishes,
Adrian
RT @adrianswinscoe Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other? – http://bit.ly/hNPOBo Pls RT #custserv
RT @guy1067: RT @adrianswinscoe Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other – http://bit.ly/hNPOBo #custserv
RT @guy1067: RT @adrianswinscoe Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other? – http://bit.ly/hNPOBo Pls RT #custserv
RT @instituteofcs: How P&O use social media to build on-board communities in the cruise liner industry: http://bit.ly/gBH51d
RT @instituteofcs: RT @guy1067: RT @adrianswinscoe Why cruise holidays and social media are made for each other – http://bit.ly/hNPOBo # …
Cruise holidays, communities and social media are made for each …: Cruise holidays, communities and social med… http://bit.ly/hfu7jm
P&O have a great summary of how best to use social media – thanks for sharing Adrian.
Kate
Hi Kate,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. I think this is a great example of “real” social media in action, which we can all learn from.
Adrian
Great and informative post. Thankz.
Thanks John.
Glad you liked the post 🙂
Adrian