Marketers using Twitter, Facebook to reach customers - Advertising - Services - News By Industry - News - The Economic Times

Marketers using Twitter, Facebook to reach customers - Advertising - Services - News By Industry - News - The Economic Times
That Hrush Bhatt, founder and director (product & strategy) of Cleartrip, is a Twitter fan will come as a surprise to those aware of ‘Kiruba incident’. The travel portal had a harried time last year, dealing with the incident initiated by a Twitter user, @Kiruba.

Kiruba posted a link to his complaint on Cleartrip’s customer support page, Cleartrip Forum. “Cleartrip.com took my money and did not book my ticket to Malaysia. Had a harrowing experience at airport...,” he Tweeted. Within days, 40 other Twitter users took it up: Some simply re-Tweeted Kiruba's post while others demanded explanations and crucified Cleartrip.

The portal had to act fast. It apologised to Kiruba on Twitter and promised to look into the issue immediately. Cleartrip took ownership of the problem, which it says involved other parties as well, and refunded Kiruba. It also paid to upgrade the return ticket of Kiruba and his wife from Malaysia to business class.

While Kiruba incident may remain in the conscious memory of several Tweeters, Cleartrip used the crisis to gain a virtue: proactive customer attention and responsiveness. “We see complaints as an opportunity to improve and Kiruba incident was one such opportunity,” says Mr Bhatt.

Others were noticing. Over the last one year, multitude of firms across industries have discovered the potential of social media in a variety of business functions, from addressing consumer grievances and receiving consumer feedback to brand building and market research.

Today, social media networks such as Facebook, Orkut and Twitter — accessed by 8% of the country’s Internet users — are among a marketer’s best tools to interact with and respond to consumers.

Use of social media in India grew 43% in one year to 33 million users in July, making the country the seventh largest market for social media, says a recent report by digital market research firm comScore. The report, released last week, also said that Facebook has overtaken Orkut as the most popular network here.

Almost all of those 33 million users belong to the middleclass, which is driving the booming Indian consumer market. Clearly, social media offers marketers endless possibilities. And most marketers seem to be making the best out of it.

The Influence of social media is phenomenal, say analysts. “It gives a higher SEC, educated audience which is well networked and quick to shares ideas and opinions,” says Ramesh Srinivas, executive director of KPMG. He believes consumer grievance redressal, if delayed, can generate bad mouth, which travels faster on social medium. “Online mediums like Facebook, Twitter and blogs instantaneously transmit unedited, candid opinions and companies have realized that quick redressal of consumer complaints is a competitive advantage”.

These consumers are aware of their rights and are willing to exercise them. “The more agile companies have moved from viewing the redressal process as a compliance process to seeing it as an opportunity to enhance the brand image through a quick, painless process,” he says.

Today, most large retailers have in-house customer grievance section to resolve any concerns. And firms such as Kingfisher, Capital Foods, Shoppers Stop and Café Coffee Day, are using Facebook and Twitter to acknowledge and respond to complaints and are earning praise.

A few weeks back, a consumer and a Greenpeace activist queried Capital Foods, the maker of Ching’s Secret range of Chinese food ingredients, about the use of Genetically Modified (GM) food on its Twitter page. Within 20 minutes, Ajaay Gupta, managing director of Capital Foods, confirmed that it absolutely does not use any GM food. A similar issue had become a worldwide controversy for another global food company when it failed to respond to a query for days.

Gupta says that Capital Foods respond to any customer comment —praise, complaint or feedback — within 45 minutes. “There’s a complete buy-in by the top management on this project and we directly respond to a lot of queries primarily through smart phones on social networking sites,” he says. “The challenges in doing this is the company should be prepared to be naked or absolutely transparent and has to be very nimble-footed to respond.”

For companies that are not shy to own up their mistakes, social media is a great way to establish their consumer-centric credentials.