How “The Body shop USA” can enhance their customer engagement?

Two weeks ago, I posted my first report monitoring “The Body Shop USA” conversations. A lot of things have changed for “The Body Shop USA” since then. In this post, I will showcase my findings from (Mar 14, 2012 to Mar 27, 2012) and also outline few steps that "The Body Shop USA" can take to enhance customer engagement.

The global company “The Body Shop” introduced their first-ever brand advocate, model turned actress, Lily Cole, who mentions herself as a developing activist and firmly believes in the company’s fair trade policy. The company has just last week (Mar 22, 2012) launched its new blog (for more visit: http://blog.thebodyshop.com/). Well the blog was definitely a part of my suggestions for “The Body Shop” but I guess they read my mind :) The Fortune Magazine featured "The Body Shop’s” founder Dame Anita Roddick, and gave her an honorable mention on their list of the Greatest Entrepreneurs for creating a socially and environmentally responsible business.

In hope that all these would have changed the different social media metrics and statistics for “The Body Shop USA,” I examined a few free social media analytics tools.

• Consistent increase of fans and followers

The increase in fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter continued in the last two weeks (data gathered using Famecount & Tweetstats). During my period of study (Feb 20 to Mar 27, 2012) the fan count has increased by 4500 on facebook alone.

• Rise in blog citation and interest levels due to the new developments

The Ice Rocket trend tool highlights an upsurge in the blogs citation of “The Body Shop USA” on Thursday, March 22, 2012. There is also rise in the interest level cited by Google Insights. All of the above mentioned developments have together contributed to this increase. The customers/fans welcomed the new brand advocate both on Twitter as well as Facebook. The fans applauded the efforts of “The Body Shop’s” founder, Anita Roddick for all the ethical business practices she adopted to run her business.

• Qualitatively, some things have changed since my last report. Customer complaints at least in the last week were better handled. I guess they read my report ;) And many… many… many… received a prompt response. Kudos to “The Body Shop USA” 

 

• However, there was a clear irregularity in responding to customer queries on Facebook. On some days, customers received a quick response while others it took as long as 2-3 days

 

• Unlike my last report, in the last two weeks I found very few negative posts that did not receive a response 

 

• In the past few weeks, branding and marketing efforts included communicating about the company’s ethical practices of conducting business

 

• And… the fans supported company’s ethical practices posts
  

• One generic message received huge response. None of the branding messages could get such traction. Of course the natural ingredients angle did help!!
  

Steps for "The Body Shop USA" to enhance customer engagement:

Given my observations in the last two social media monitoring reports, a different online approach can have a dramatic difference in terms of impact and customer/fan engagement for “The Body Shop USA”. Engagement is really important, having hundreds and thousands of fans with only about 2.5% engaged can take one only so far.

• Listening: The company adopts a more ‘corporate’ tone of engagement. It would be nice if the company adopted a more active, personal and conversation building tone of engagement to build greater trust and deepen relationships with their fans/customers. Additionally, there is no uniformity in the look and feel across the various social media platforms. They should take concrete efforts on building a uniform presence across their website, Facebook page, Twitter page, Flick account and YouTube page.
• Talking: By simply being regular and consistent in responding the customer queries, I am sure the company can build on their goodwill and add many more fans to their existing base.  Responding in a timely manner in the groundswell is a necessity and not a luxury.
• Energizing:  The company did not have an official blog until last week. Now that “The Body Shop” (corporate, based out of UK) has a blog, they should build country specific pages (for USA and others) and encourage the brand evangelists in that country to blog about the products, write reviews and do the marketing for the company. Instead of running many discounts/sales promotions they can reward customer sponsored stories/guest blogs and thereby build credibility. The company can focus on driving branding/marketing efforts through their fair/just business model and communicating about their values and the actions they take to live up to those values (human trafficking, fair trade and so on). The company can cultivate online relationships with their partners and various online animal rights organizations across the globe (Thank You Jesse for the suggestion). Additionally, I found a wonderful booklet cum brochure (Values Report 2011) on their website, that talks about many such cases; engaging blog posts accompanied by rich media (photos and videos) will definitely inspire, connect, engage and drive action within the community. 
• Supporting: Yet another suggestion is that “The Body Shop USA” should put up product reviews, application/usage tutorials on one single site (ideally their website) as many customer posts were related to them and most reviews for Body Shop products were scattered all over the place. Organizing reviews will help the company reduce significant customer support costs. Another suggestion could be linking popular health and beauty blogs/product reviews to "The Body Shop" blog. 
• Embracing:  “The Body Shop USA” should create an integrated platform that includes elements such as a blog with content that inspires, connects and drives action. It may also include their existing customer loyalty program and other social networks such as LinkedIn, Pinterest or YouTube.  It should most times also include an integrated email communication option for nurturing.

With tracking and monitoring “The Body Shop USA” should have a better understanding of the elements of social media that are benefiting its business. What they need to do is feed this into their ongoing customer engagement (marketing) strategy. They must focus on relationships and connecting with their audiences and it doesn’t matter where the return policy is located, people will find them and use them because they want to engage with the brand!

It should be “The Body Shop USA’s” mission to see that all the good causes they support take up a larger share of the popular-culture pie (space). They should help more than just selling a product; they should engage with the community in the worthwhile. They have been and are pioneers at this – partnering with people, organizations, and missions that are socially and ethically defensible. It’s just that their customer engagement efforts should be tailored and shout-aloud the same message.