INTELLIGENCE REPORT 1

Intelligence Report

Margaret Christen

Bellevue University

October 24, 2014

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2

Tillman Salons’ Approach to Social Media

Background

Tillman Salon is a high-end, local salon chain located in Columbia, South Car-

olina. The first location was opened fifteen years ago and as the salon thrived the

owner, Mr. Till Fallaw, was able to open more locations creating the Tillman Salon

chain. The salons experienced early success, but as time passed the Tillman Salon

chain began to slowly grow stagnant and even decrease in business at some of the lo-

cations. The salon chain was in jeopardy of having to close some locations if business

did not increase.

Not wanting to close any of the locations, the need for new client growth and ex-

isting client retention was imperative. The problem the salon chain faced was that old

marketing tactics of newspaper advertising, mailings, and radio commercials are just not

effective any longer in today’s technology driven world. Also, the existing clients were

not displaying loyalty to the salons; perhaps it was because there was no sense of real

personal connection with the Tillman Salon business. The Tillman Salon chain needed

to embrace the current online advertising and networking technology by utilizing social

media.

Wanting a tailored social media site to our clients, we surveyed our existing clien-

tele base. Doing this we learned more about our business from the customer’s perspec-

tive, built brand loyalty with our existing clients, and attracted like minded clients with

our social media site.

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How to go about choosing the right platform, keeping information secure, and

any legal situations that could arise as a result of taking a step into social networking

and advertising; these were all issues that needed to be thoroughly researched.

Research

The business owner really needed to see the value in utilizing online marketing

and advertising through social media sites. I not only wanted to present my research but

I needed to lead with this fact from Socialnomics founder Erik Qualman, only 14% of

consumers trust advertisements while consumers trust 90% of peer recommendations,

this proves that traditional advertisements do not work in today’s technology driven

world (Qualman, 2011). Armed with information like this really sold the whole process of

moving into social media networking, with an old school owner.

Wanting to really connect with our existing clientele and build brand loyalty with

them, we decided to utilize their input by conducting a survey. This approach would al-

low us to see what our clients really wanted from us in order to keep their business and

what they think would help us grow. Using this approach would mean more legal re-

search, tighter security protocols, and total salon involvement.

To conduct a quality survey that would lead us in the right direction, I researched

several different kinds of surveys, the best tips for putting together survey questions,

how to ensure the greatest survey response, and how to analyze the results. The sites

that I found most helpful were:

Emery, A. K. (2012, December 12). How to analyze satisfaction survey data in Excel.

YouTube. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=nbYi2x84EW0

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Ennis-O'Connor, M. (2014, April 14). 5 Tips To Increase Your Survey Response Rate.

LinkedIn. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/

20140414011802-35897939-5-tips-to-increase-your-survey-response-rate

Smith, S. (2012, December 31). 4 common sense tips for creating surveys that work -

Qualtrics. Qualtrics . Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.qualtrics.com/

blog/creating-surveys/

Along with updating contact information the questions I asked in the survey were:

1. Would you recommend Tillman Salon? Yes, why? or No, why?

2. What social media site do you use the most? Why?

Since I collected data from our existing clientele and used it to assist in building

our social media pages and growing the salons’ business, I knew I would need to look

into legal ramifications and data protection. One area of law we needed to be concerned

about is the CAN-SPAM Act. Our stylists were gathering email addresses from their

clients so we were able to email them the survey. According to the CAN-SPAM Act

there are certain regulations that need to be followed, which include accurate subject

lines, allowing clients the opportunity to opt out, honoring opt out requests in a timely

manner, and including our business’s locations. Not doing so could result in fines of up

$16,000, so attention and research need to be paid to this area of the project (CAN-

SPAM Act, 2009). Legally we are required to make our online privacy policy available.

Some items that need to be covered are; if there is a cookie practice and how it will be

used, how their information will be shared, the privacy policy will need to be easily ac-

cessible, and everyone in the business needs to be aware of and adhere to our policy

(Beesley, 2012).

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 5

In order to protect the salons and the project we launched, we needed to imple-

ment a non-disclosure agreement with all employees. A non-disclosure agreement will

outline what is private and what is available to share with outside parties, helping us to

protect our sensitive information (NDA 101, n.d.).

Analysis

In order to conduct a successful survey and get an optimal response there was

one theme that seemed to resonate through all my research, that was to keep it short

and simple. According to the research I conducted, people only want to spend 5-10 min-

utes on a survey, the questions needed to be simple to get accurate answers, and most

importantly to follow up (Ennis-O’Connor, 2014). This last tip really resonated with me,

because too often we’re caught up in recording the data and applying it, that we don’t let

the client know how valuable their response is. Letting the client know they’re appreci-

ated and their response was used in improving the business helps build brand loyalty. It

turned Tillman Salon into more than just a profit driven business.

We recorded the survey results in a spreadsheet format; that allowed us to cate-

gorize the results by location, spot trends in what we were doing well, what needed im-

provement, and what clients did not like at all. Also in the spreadsheet was the category

for which social media site they utilized the most, this aided in determining that Face-

book was our best choice in connecting with clients; existing and new.

All the great advantages of technology come with great responsibility. To ensure

the salons would not run into any legal issues as a result of the survey, we needed to

make sure we followed the laws surrounding information security, opt-out regulations,

and privacy policy regulations. The laws are very clear in what is required of us in re-

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 6

gards to clients being aware of their options to no longer participate and what we intend

to do with their information. However, to take this further I believed that we also needed

to protect the business as well. I made all employees sign non-disclosure agreements

that aided in keeping not only client information secure, but also our business pro-

cesses. It is also very important to keep all policies current and accessible to all current

employees.

Conclusion

Once we received the results we created a social media page that was tai-

lored to our clients and the clients we wished to attract. From the existing client survey

we learned what our clients enjoyed about our salons, areas that we needed to improve

upon, and what clients did not like at all. What was really interesting was seeing how the

clients from different locations were looking for different qualities. Our downtown loca-

tion patrons valued quick appointments over anything else, while our suburb locations

valued a more pampered appointment that takes a little longer.

Not only were we able to build a site the truly connected with our clients, but we

were also able to remodel our business standards. From analyzing the information we

took what the clients thoroughly enjoyed the most and made it a requirement at all of

our locations. We were able to rewrite sections of our employee handbook to make sure

we eliminated the issues clients had with our salons as well. We made the clients’ high

expectations a standard at all locations, but because what the clients wanted varied

from location to location we still left room to cater to the different clientele bases at the

different locations.

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 7

With all the research conducted we were able to avoid legal situations, protect

the data as well as the salon, and launch a social media page that ultimately helped us

build brand loyalty and increased our new client base by 10% within the first two months

of page launch. We also came away with a new perspective and a new vision for contin-

uing our successful business.

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 8

References

Ayers, S. (2014, July 1). Top 10 Benefits of a facebook business page. Post Planner.

Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.postplanner.com/top-10-benefits-

facebook-business-page/

Beesley, C. (2012, March 28). 7 considerations for crafting an cnline privacy policy.

SBA.gov. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.sba.gov/community/

blogs/community-blogs/business-law-advisor/7-considerations-crafting-online-pri-

vacy-policy

CAN-SPAM Act: A compliance guide for business. (2009, September 1). BCP Business

Center. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://www.business.ftc.gov/docu-

ments/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

Emery, A. K. (2012, December 12). How to analyze satisfaction survey data in Excel.

YouTube. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=nbYi2x84EW0

Ennis-O'Connor, M. (2014, April 14). 5 tips to increase your survey response rate.

LinkedIn. Retrieved October 24, 2014, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/arti-

cle/20140414011802-35897939-5-tips-to-increase-your-survey-response-rate

NDA 101: what is a non-disclosure agreement?. (n.d.). Rocket Lawyer. Retrieved Octo-

ber 25, 2014, from https://www.rocketlawyer.com/article/nda-101:-what-is-a-non-

disclosure-agreement.rl

Qualman, E. (2011, November 7). Social media video 2013: social media revolution.

YouTube, 4. Retrieved October 3, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=QUCfFcchw1w

INTELLIGENCE REPORT 9

Smith, S. (2012, December 31). 4 common sense tips for creating surveys that work -

Qualtrics. Qualtrics . Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://

www.qualtrics.com/blog/creating-surveys/

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/facebook-roi-business-explained

http://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2011/10/25/7-tips-for-building-brand-loyalty-in-a-dis-

count-obsessed-market/