Tapping Facebook as Customer Engagement Channel: Insights for Supply Chain Intelligence

for Mobile Telecommunication Companies in the Philippines

Dennis Prince Y. Germano, DBAand

BSBA-111, Principles of Marketing Class

Global City Innovative College

Introduction

• Need for customer engagement• Diminishing power to dictate

communications agenda (McKinsey and Co, 2006)

• Decreasing brand loyalty• Low entry barriers

• Massive use of online media• Customer literacy• Supply Chain Management (SCM)

as a source of competitive advantage

• Customer Engagement (CE) - turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context (ARF Convention, 2006)

• Online Customer Engagement – marketing practices that aims to create, stimulate or influence CE behavior (Eisenberg and Eisenberg, 2006)

• Customer Engagement Behavior (CEB) – customer’s behavioral manifestation toward a brand or firm, beyond purchase, resulting from motivational drivers (van Doorn, et al, 2009)

• CEB includes word of mouth (“word of mouse”) activity, recommendations, helping other customers, blogging, writing reviews, and even legal action.

Facebook Statistics• Global– 800 million ++ active users– 350 million ++ users access Facebook

through mobile devices

• Philippines– Total Population: 94 million ++– Total Users: 27,033, 680– Global Rank: 8– Penetration of Population: 27.06%– Penetration of Online Population: 91.02%

Facebook Fan Pages• Facebook introduced Pages in 2007• User profiles for brands (companies,

organization, and celebrities)• Ability to quickly send messages to

thousands of fans

Literature• Companies recognize the power of

the Internet as a platform for co-creating value with customers (Sawhney, et al, 2005)

• There is a need for understanding the nature of customer-brand relationship and creating a model for customer engagement (Bowden, 2009)

• Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI) – provides the capacity to show opportunities to cut costs, stimulate revenue and increase customer satisfaction by utilizing collaborative decision making (Batori, 2010)

• SCI provides strategic information to decision makers

• There is a need for human analysis due to the limitations of Social Media Analytics (Crosman, 2011)

• There’s a lot of sarcasm in Facebook (e.g. “Wow, grabe naman laging di walang signal!” could be interpreted by software as positive)

• Tools that measure sentiment don’t usually do a good job at measuring sarcasm (Eliason, 2011)

• Executives of public and private companies see social media as a growing set of marketing tools (Grant Thornton Study, 2011)

• 53% see the corporate use of social media increasing significantly in the next 12 months

• 48% feel that social media will be an important component of future corporate marketing efforts

• Companies have not yet developed the necessary compliance and risk policies and procedures

Problem Statement• What information do mobile

telecommunication companies share in their official fan page?

• What updates do telecommunication companies post?

• How do fans react to wall updates?• To what extent are fans engaged?

• What are the issues and concerns raised by fans?

• To what extent are the issues and concerns addressed?

Results and Discussion• Fan Page Profile – Users (Likes): Company X = 1,118,822;

Company Y = 565,831; Company Z = 50,059

– Talking About the Page: X = 3,861; Y = 3,426; Z = 712

– Company Overview– Products and Services–Website– Contact Details– Likes and Interest– Other Information

• Wall Updates and Reactions

• Overall Net = -83• X = -172; Y = -6; Z = +95

Type of Updates X Y Z Total

+ (-) + (-) + (-) + -

New Products and Services

68 105 57 33 46 39 171 177

Events 79 18 82 12 30 6 191 36

Promotions 111 292 135 276

129 134 375 702

Community Service 15 2 29 10 58 7 102 19

Special Announcements 82 110 78 56 39 21 199 187

Total 355 527 381

387

302

207

1,038

1,121

• Extent of EngagementExtent of Engagement X Y Z Total

N Rank

Informing other users of related products

25 31 11 67 6

Informing other users of non-related products

19 42 8 69 5

Recommending other service options to page users

70 49 12 131

3

Expressing loyalty 34 27 29 90 4

Expressing dissatisfaction 115 86 53 254

1

Selling tickets 21 35 3 59 7

Selling gadgets 10 39 2 51 8

Giving instructions (e.g. how to connect, how to operate a gadget)

93 64 18 175

2

• Extent of Engagement: Cross-selling/Switching Loyalty

To Company X

To Company Y

To Company Z

From Company X

-- 11 2

From Company Y

8 -- 0

From Company Z

3 2 --

• Issues and ConcernsIssues and Concerns X Y Z Total

N Rank

Quality of Service 180 173 58 411

2

Mobile Internet Connection 125 118 90 333

5

Broadband Internet Connection

276 212 154 642

1

Poor Signal 109 97 188 394

3

Poor International Roaming Signal

15 18 6 39 10

Mobile Applications 126 93 64 283

7

Lost (Debited) Prepaid Load 159 21 33 213

9

Customer Service Hotline 207 85 77 369

4

Connectivity Across Network 91 105 61 257

8

Promo Mechanics 98 127 72 297

6

• Response to Issues and ConcernsTimeliness of Responding

to Issues and ConcernsX Y Z Total

N Rank

Attended to within 1 hour 18 20 15 53 3

Attended to within 24 hours 56 38 19 113

1

Attended to within 1 week 35 33 18 86 2

Attended to within 1 month 1 2 0 3 5

No response 12 9 7 28 4

Conclusion• Mobile Telecommunication Companies

provide essential information in their official Facebook fan page

• Wall updates are heavy on promotions• Page users are generally dissatisfied

(net satisfaction of -83)• Page users are highly engaged in

expressing dissatisfaction and cross-selling to other users

• There is a threat in switching loyalty between mobile networks

• Connectivity and service quality are major concerns

• Response to users’ (customers’) concern is relatively slow

Recommendations• Facebook fan pages information

should be periodically updated• Mobile Telecommunication Companies

need to employ soft sell strategies • Establish customer relationship

management• Improve Customer Service Hotline

(specially Smart)• Implement loyalty program online

• Develop risk management policies on maintaining fan page and engaging customers online

• Software + people to monitor comments and posts (especially sarcasm)

• Qualitative + quantitative tracking of fan page activity

• Establish offline relationship with active page users

• Decision makers and leaders of Mobile Telecommunication Companies must be informed of updates and dynamics of online customer engagement

• Reasonable regulation of posts by National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and other appropriate agencies

• Further research (Qualitative) on customer engagement via Facebook

Thank you!