Social CRM Company Engagement Framework Part 1.The rules of Engagement

The purpose of this framework is to guide individuals who wish to engage companies in a dialogue related to a particular conflict or service request. Usually this framework will be employed after conventional channels and dialogue has failed or broken down. This is due to the additional effort required by the customer to implement this framework over and above that required by the companies own conventional channels. The idea is that by moving the conversation to a public arena i.e. a social media run by the company then this will further empower the customer and increase the likelihood of a succesful outcome for the customer.

This framework has been constructed based upon lessons learned through the engagement with If vahinkovakuutus a Finnish insurance company in relationship to travel insurance claim that If refused to pay.

Part 1: The Rules of Engagement of Social CRM from the Customers Perspective

Operating in the Target Company's Own Social Media

When engaging a company on their own social media the following guidelines should be applied.

1. Only engage a company in this way when you have a valid argument. This is not a strategy for just venting your anger or trying to get some revenge.
2. Do not alienate your audience! Remember that when you are communicating with a company on their own social media, their audience is also your audience. You should be attempting to win them over with a valid argument. By gaining their support you will put additional pressure onto the company in question. As such do not do or say anything that may risk you having the audience turn against you.
3. Remain calm do not show your anger. Undoubtedly in this kind of situation you are experiencing feelings of anger and hostility. Displaying these will not help you at all. Do not post offensive or derrogatory comments about the company in question. If you do, you risk being percieved as an angry customer who justs wants to have a rant.
4. Try to avoid opinions and stick to the facts. When you add your opinion to much you increase the risk of alienating your audience. Let them make up their own minds. This is difficult i know.
5. Express how the experience has made you feel. This, if done in the correct way, will help garner support for your cause and generate sympathy from the audience. It makes it easier for them to empathise.
6. Express and highlight how the company's behaviour impacts their other customers and stakeholders. This adds weight to your own personal story and argument and further distances you from being perceived as an individual upset and angry customer.
7. Outline your arguments clearly and concisely. When you do this is it very difficult for the company not to answer you as this will reflect badly upon them if they refuse to engage you.
8. State clearly what you expect from the company and what actions you require for them. Numbering these helps (in a long thread for example). Ask them directly to respond to each. In this way you can avoid the conversation being taken of topic.
9. Attempt to control the conversation as if it were a debate. If a company does not directly answer your concerns, questions or requirements pull them up on it and request that they answer the questions directly and if pushed ask them to answer yes no.
10. Do not allow the company to steer the conversation away from your requirements. This is a diversionary and delay tactic. They know that at some point in time you will get tired.
11. Do not allow the company to steer you away from their social media and into hidden channels. You have failed already in these hidden channels. This is just a way for the company to get rid of you. If a company attempts this it will reflect badly upon them not you.
12. Do not give up until the dialogue is really at an end. Badly run companies or companies with something to hide will ultimately continue to avoid the questions. If you keep pulling them up on this you should be able to to garner more support form their audience and add additioal pressure to the company.
13. Be prepared that the company will not meet your expectations. In this case you still win. You have lost nothing but your time. As long as you had a valid argument, if the company does not resolve this issue for you then it is them who ultimately will come out of this worse. Even if you are financially out of pocket you still would have been even if you had not engaged them through social media. As a customer you had nothing to lose so try to think of it that way.
14. If the company does meet your expectations and resolve the case through social media let them know your gratitude. Post this publically. In this way it will help the company appreciate the value of serving cusotmers in this way and also let others know that this kind of strategy can be applied succesfully with this company.

Operating in your own social media

As part of this framework it is a strong advantage to adopt your own social media related to the engagement process. This is so as to tell your side of the story, preserve a record of the dialogue that you are in control of. In affect you are running your own campaign from where you can publicise your story and garner further support by leveraging your own socail media. More about this in a later post.

When utilising your own channels, it is more acceptable to be biased and slightly more opinionated. After all you are trying to push out your marketing message related to this story in the same way that a company uses their own media to push theirs. By being more oppinionated you will also generate more interest and discussion around the subject. This is also to your advantage.

As well as the rules of engagement from the aforementioned section, you should also be aware of the following.

1. Again avoid alienating your audience. How you behave in these channels is important you do not want to be seen to act in a way that is underhand, coercive or in a way similar to that of the company you are trying to engage. You should not profit financially from the engagement process other than for any compensation you are attempting to get from the company you are engaging. If you do this will damage your argument and own image.
2. Show gratitutude to all who participate and engage them in conversation. Anyone who comments or replies to you deserves a thankyou or a return comment if posting on a blog for example. Of course dependent upon the media you are using.
3. It is ok, not everyone has to agree with you. Do not attack people who disagree with you but engage them also you can learn about why they feel that way. By having an open dialogue with a real discussion you will actually draw more attention to your story. If you are receiving a lot of negative feedback you can use this to evaluate if you should continue your engagement process or not.
4. You need to behave in a the same way that you are expecting your engaged company to behave. Your actions need to be transparent and you need to be trusted. You must set an example.

Summary of My Dialogue with If Vahinkovakuutus

Discussion held on If's Facebook Page

So that future and new visitors to this blog can get a quick overview of the story and the dialogue that took place between If Vahinkovakuutusyhtiö in Finland and myself i have decided to write a summary of the discussion. Just the highlights.

This will also act as a sitemap of sorts and let you easily navigate to posts that you may want to read more about. So here are the highlights.

February 5th 2012. Malev go bankrupt, we are stuck in Turkey. We call If Vahinkovakuutus Emergency Customer Service

We travel to the airport discover that our flight has been cancelled. We call If vakuutus's emergency customer service and are led to beleive that everything is ok and that we are covered. We were told to pay the costs ourselves and claim when we get home. In response to this we buy very expensive flights home the next day in the belief that If vahinkoivakuutus will pay. See post.

February 6th 2012. We make our claim and If Vahinkovakuutus inform us that they will not pay.

We fly home and make the claim on If's web service. After a week or so we receive a large envelope from If vahinkovakuutus with a thick bundle of terms and conditions and a decision not to pay. See Post.

February 14th 2012. We visit the If Vahinkovakuuutus shop for personal customer service

We visit an If vahinkovakuutus shop to discover that we cannot get customer service related to claims there. If offices only sell insurance and they do not address your customer service needs as an existing customer other than to sell you more insurance. See Post.

February 15th 2012. We call If Vahinkovakuutus's customer service number

We call If vahinkovakuutus and they say that they will investigate and get back to us. They send us an email the next day saying they have heard the phone conversation and as they did not promise to pay and based upon their terms and conditions they will not pay. See post.

I also requested the copy of the phone call conversation on this day.

February 18th 2012. I start the blog and engage If Vahinkovakuutus on Facebook.

After feeling totally ripped off and having bought really expensive flights home at additional expense to myself. I decided to start this blog and engage If vahinkovakuutus on their own Facebook page This is deliberately in a public forum where If could not hide. This is also the first day that If respond but it is a "we will get back to you message" See Post. However i also see this as an opportunity for If Vahinkovakuutus and write a post describing that.

February 20th 2012. If vahinkovakuutus's First Real Response.

• If vahinkovakuutus admit that they failed in their communication (accepting liability in my eyes)
• If still refuse to pay as in their terms and conditions they do not pay travel insurance when companies go bankrupt (what is the point have travel insurance)
• If Vahinkovakuutus try and get me off their social media by directing me down other channels that they can control (Nice Social CRM)
• I respond by saying that i want to resolve the case in this public forum and ask, is it really the customer's responsibility to pay for their admitted mistakes. See post.

February 21st 2012. If still argue that their terms and conditions state that they can't pay

• If vahinkovakuutus stick to their terms and conditions argument
• They state that it would not be fair to pay this for their other customers.
• I reply with concrete demands of what i expect and re-emphasise that this is not about the terms and conditions. I expect payment because of the false and misleading information supplied to me and the resulting additional costs i incurred as a result of this..
• At this time i also write a post about Finnish culture with mention to adherence to rules and customer service. See Post.

• I supply If vahinkovakuutus with a concrete list of my expectations from them
• Change your terms and conditions so the If Vahinkovakuutus are liable for giving out false or misleading information. This is to protect their other customers.
• Review and publish the results on Facebook relating to not outsourcing their emergency customer phone service to an unqualified third party without detailed knowledge of their policies.
• Review and publish the results on Facebook relating to not offering personal face to face customer service relating to claims in their If vahinkovakuutus shops.
• Settle the claim and pay my personal costs incurred as a result of information supplied to me by them.

February 21st-23rd 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus are silent

• After no word from If vakuutus i believe that they are not going to answer me and are waiting for me to go away. (Again nice Social CRM).
• As a result of the silence I engage in a strategy of interference in their other Social Media conversations. See post
• I believe that If vakuutus have lost any opportunity they had to turn this into a social CRM success story. See Post.

February 23rd 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus re-engage me but don't answer my requests

• I will never know the reasons for why If vahinkovakuutus decided to re-engage but they did.
• They again try to get me off their social media saying they do not want to handle it there and wish to do it privately. (I bet you do). Again nice social CRM, isnt SCRM about the customers needs?
• They do not answer any of my questions but agree to pass the feedback forward.
• I again ask for a copy of the phone conversation which this discussion is based.
• I try to help them by also supplying a link demonstrating how to engage a customer through social media. See Link. See my post on the subject.

February 25th 2012 If vahinkovakuutus request that i stop linking to my Blog

• If vahinkovakuutus request that i should not publicise my story on their social media.
• Sorry no you cannot control a public forum. This is a place for customers to engage you on their terms. This is not your own private marketing channel. This is not your website. Very nice social CRM once again.
• I agree to stop interferring with their other marketing messaging on Facebook while they engage me in this conversation.See orignal post.

February 27th 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus can you please just answer the questions!

• After getting pretty tired of If vahinkovakuutus i start a new thread as the conversation was getting a bit long and congested.
• I simply reiterate the questions I asked to them on February 21st and request that they answer them Yes/No and with their justification. I want to bring this to an end i have wasted enough time on If.
• See post.

February 28th 2012 If Vahinovakuutus reply with an answer a politician would be proud of

• If vakuutus give a reply that is basically marketing drivel about your feedback being valuable. They do not answer any of the questions.
• I request again for them to answer them with simple yes/no answers.
• My post is not very flattering of If Vahinkovakuutus. I am getting quite tired of engaging If for over 2 weeks and getting no where.
• I notice on the same day that i have been blocked from If Insurance's other regional facebook pages. After posting on the subject my user rights are mysteriously returned. Again nice social CRM. As a reaction i post the story to If's competitor's Facebook pages. See my post on the subject.

February 29th 2012. If vahinkovakuutus's final response and Mine

• I receive a final response (see post) from If stating that they will not handle this in the public areena
• They do not answer any of my questions
• They again try to drive me off the social media to another channel they do not want to discuss with me anymore.
• I post my last comments to them in the dialogue. I am not very flattering of If unsurprisingly.
• If's silence and refusal to answer the genuine questions concerning not only me but their other customers tells me more about If Vahinkovakuutus than anything they have done so far. Their Social CRM behaviour has been of a very poor standard.

February 29th 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus have the last word

• Upon cancelling my insurances with If and moving them to Pohjola i discover If want to charge me 30 euros to do so. They claim that this is to stop people cancelling their insurance after only a few months. I have had my insurances with them for years. Nice customer service touch once again, well done.

I still have not had the recording of the conversation as is my legal right and cannot verify anything that If vahinkovakuutus have stated regarding that conversation.

View the original If Vahinkovakuutus conversation threads on Facebook.

Part 1 here
Part 2 here
What do you think about If Vahinkovakuutus? Find them on Facebook

If Vahinkovakuutus's Last Response: End of the Dialogue

Well this is it. It seems that If vahinkovakuutus have lived up to my previous experiences of Finnish customer service. If are not going to do anything.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to change their terms and conditions so that if they supply wrong or misleading information to a customer that they will take responsibility for this.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to publish on their Facebook group the results of their review regarding the use of a third party in their emergency call centre.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to publish on Facebook the results of their review into the lack of customer service other than for sales in their shops.

If Vahinkovakuutus will not pay the additional expenses incurred to me personally as a result of their self admitted failures in communication.

Do you want an insurance company who treats their customers like this? They refuse to engage me in the arena that i wish. Why are they on Facebook? They obviously have not heard of SCRM (Social Customer Relationship Management) and the main reasons people engage companies on facebook. Increasingly customer service is one of them.

View the conversation thread on Facebook.

Well it seems apparent from this If Vahinkovakuutus do not and never did want to engage me on facebook. With almost every response they have tried to eject me from their Facebook page. It is clear that this was something very new to them, they are not use to and do not like offerring customer service in a public forum. However the golden rule is if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about. It seems clear that If Vahinkovakuuts do have something to hide and they certainly do not want to share it on social media.  least in my eyes they have performed poorly.

See my final response to this and the summary of the entire conversation.

Adoption of Twitter in the Insurance Industry in Finland

As part of this story i first attempted to engage If vakuutus through Twitter. I discovered that If vahinkovakuutus had no twits and only a few followers and did not follow anyone except their Norwegian counterparts.

You can read more about If' Vahinkovakuutus's social media performance via the blog Post If Vahinkovakutus Social Marketing vs If Sweden Social Marketing.

In any case i decided to have a look at whether or not this pattern was reflected by other insurance companies in Finland.

So in short i took a look at the above. Finnish insurance company's presence on Twitter.

Good news, they were there!!! but..........

Pohjola

Well enough said a big company in Finland. There is no description, the default image, no following, only a few followers, not even a link to the website, no tweets. Well there was not any other. My Evaluation is POOR

Well enough said another large insurance provider in Finland. There is no description, the default image, no following, only a few followers, not even a link to the website, no tweets.  Well there was not any other. My Evaluation is POOR

I have never heard of this company but they seem to have at least added their website and a description but that is about it. Strategy seems simply to drive people to their site not to engage them via social media. Performance is also POOR

Maybe the largest insurance provider in Finland. Well just the same as the others sadly, no content, no following, no followers. Performance can only be described as POOR.

Well If vahinkovakuutus are the only insurance company i have heard of to have a link to their website at least. They also have the most followers but that is artificially high as i have drawn attention to thi sprofile through my actions. It was about 12 followers when i started. There are no twits and not even a description. They only follower their Norwegian colleagues. Performance is POOR.

 So what can be surmised from this. Well it is clear that Insurance companies in Finland have not understood Twitter. For the most part they see it as their own channel to drive traffic to their website which concidently is such a turn of the century strategy. They have not even tried to push out their own marketing content. BTW another prehistoric strategy. This indicates to me that they clearly and simply,

1. Insurance companies in Finland Do Not Get Twitter
2. Insurance companies in Finland do not have Twitter in any real social media strategy
3. Insurance companies have not attempted to engage customers through Twitter in Finland
4. Insurance companies in Finland are behind the rest of the world.

But Why?

Why would Insurance companies in Finland not be present actively here in this media?

Insurance companies in Finland do not value Twitter as a marketing and engagement channel.

But Why?

Well from my own experience during this experiment and when i consider my own twitter followers related to this experiement i see a trand.

Of the followers i have only around 5-10% of them are from Finland. This suggest that even though the content of this experiement was targeted at Finnish people in Finland, they did not follow me as often as people from other countries. Of course language may be a factor here but let's consider the average Twitter user.

The average Twitter user is under 40. In Finland pretty much everyone under this age can speak English despite what they may think themselves. Finns are pretty bashful when asked "can you speak English?" The usual answer is a little but then you proceed to have a fluent conversatipon.

In anycase we are left with the situation where perhaps the level of adoption of Twitter is low by both the companies and the population as a whole. In this case i will not enter into the "which came first the chicken or the egg" type conversation but will simply state that, perhaps Finlands reputation as an early adopter and innovator of new technologies is not justified based upon the populations behaviour regarding Twitter. Or perhaps it is just that Finns are not that "social" which is something that does fit the sterotype of a typical Finn.

Who knows why, but the pattern is clear and i believe is indicative of many Finnish companies performance regarding social media and Social CRM and in part explains If Vahinkovakuutus's slow and not very "customer orientated" response to my own Social Media Experiment.

End of Day Summary Day 6: Still no word from IF Vakuutus

Well as i posted earlier today the main news has been that IF vakuutus seem to have stopped communicating and engaging me. They still have not answered my requests and it is still sitting on their facebook wall.

If Vakuutus's Wall Comment

Read the full thread

Today i wrote about this as IF vakuutus's lost opportunity. This was based upon what i wrote as IF vakuutus's opportunity in the first post on the subject when the blog began.These are fast becoming the most popular posts on the blog.

I have not toally given up on If yet and hope that they choose to engage me tomorrow.

Development of Strategy

Well some of you may have noticed i have learned and have improved the look of the blog by adding more user friendly buttons from addthis.com the advantage of which are they are nicer for you and will give me some better statistics about their use and traffic generated from them. I can recommend this to others as they are really easy to use and setup.

If you are visiting this blog from Sweden, Norway, Denmark or Latvia then you probably arrived here from If's Facebook group pages in those countries so welcome to you.

I am not going to try and damage these If country's reputations or either try to interfere with their marketing as i am not their customer and i am not attempting to engage them directly. Comments from them are of course welcome also.

I have posted on these pages as i think that people visiting those pages may have an interest in seeing what is going on on If Finlands pages. Below  is what i posted onto If Swedens Facebook wall.

View If Sweden's Facebook wall

Actually i just noticed they removed my If Sweden vs If Vakuutus Finland post. That is ok i do not mind. I wont put it back. Interesting they left the other post though.

I have also expanded my own use of social media channels to include my own YouTube channel Unfortunately i have not uploaded any rant videos directed at If Vakuutus Finland like the one i have previously posted here on the blog. but i am linking to If Finlands own YouTube advertisements where i now also have a presence. People can link to the blog via that media also.

I describe this type of content as a "Piggyback" Strategy as described in my earlier post today.

You are probably thinking about what i will do if If continue not to engage me. I will keep that under my hat for now but i think it is doing them more damage than good as described in the previous post today.

In terms of attracting interest it has been another record day on the blog today and again we have increased the twitter followers substantially and again have been replublished several times. Thanks to everyone contributing. You know who you are (i try to twit everyone to thank them, sorry if i missed anyone).

BTW i read a great blog today about how not to engage your upset customers via social media. So i will end with this. Seems that If broke most of these rules. Stay tuned! I have added this link to the relevant links section at the bottom of the post.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-ways-to-deal-with-upset-customers-using-social-media/

Engaging Companies in Social Media Channels Politely Does Not Work

Well after the latest If vakuutus's response it seems clear to me that If vakuutus have missed their opportunity to turn this into customer service and marketing success story. Something i wished that they had because this alone would have shown that social media has empowered the consumer and that companies have recognised this and have changed their behaviour accordingly. This has not worked.

As such previously i was playing the role of a customer who was merely trying to communicate and engage with a company in a public channel with the hope that this combined with a growing support and interest base via this blog and the @IFinsurance twitter account would change their behaviour.

In this Experiment: Using a company's own Social Media as a channel to engage a company does not guarantee success even with a valid case and a growing social media presence.

As such a change in strategy is required so as to apply more pressure to If vakuutus through publicising the case and further damaging their brand image.

I will continue to try and engage with people in Finland, the conventional media, persons interested in social media, the insurance industry and PR and Marketing Generally. I will do this primarily through Twitter @Ifinsurance.

I have also expanded my use of Twitter. I decided that instead of just posting my own content i will redistribute content created by others writing about relevant subject material. I realise that social media is not only about pushing your own messaging but also spreading the word and collaborating with others. If i do not spread the message of others how can i expect others to spread my word. As such i have started a process of retweeting other relevant content via my twitter account.

I will adopt a new strategy of Interference Against If vakuutus.

Actually i am not sure if this is wise but i feel that at this point in time it is the only option really left to me. To try and increase the pressuse on IF i will interfere with their other customer dialogue on their own facebook group page and expand on this later to further increase the pressure if IF continue to resist.

This is a risky strategy as i risk alienating my own audience. I hope that this is not the case.

I have communicated very clearly with IF via their facebook wall what i hope to achieve and what will bring this to an end. If know what they need to do to stop this.

I have started the policy of interference see IF vakuutus's Facebook group to start with....... more to follow if necessary.

Please note i am not telling any lies about If vakuutus's, i will only post truthful comments. IF are very welcome to comment. I will continue to promote my own story via the blog. This is a very important fact, i do not want to do anything that could be conceived as slander. This is and always will be an entirely legal endeavour!!!

My primary goal is to publisize my story and disrupt If vakuuts's own brand messaging through factual story telling and interaction with people who are posting on the IF Facebook group.

I do not think that this is unreasonable. What do you think?

You can get live updates of the conversation on the Facebook thread by liking it. http://t.co/JlbiA65M Liking will also show support. Comments of course also appreciated. Follow the conversation live also on Twitter @IFinsurance.