Over the weekend, the European train system Eurostar suffered severe delays that caused more than 50,000 passengers to be delayed or stranded. The crisis also affected the rail line’s budding social media presence, and offers a great learning opportunity for businesses considering deploying social media outreach.
We Are Social, a European social media marketing firm, manages Eurostar’s social media presence, and counseled the company to begin to use the relationships it had formed online to respond to the crisis. Eurostar’s social media channels, which primarily had been used for marketing, were transitioned to crisis communication services.
Customers were already using channels such as Twitter to discuss their dissatisfaction and frustration with the delays and cancellations, so it was imperative that Eurostar begin addressing the negative sentiment. The company began sending updates telling customers when the next announcement regarding service delays would take place, while responding directly to irate customers to try to defuse the situation.
When faced with a crisis such as Eurostar confronted this weekend, small businesses often are overwhelmed by the volume of complaints, because they don’t have the resources that a large company like Eurostar has to respond. But social media levels the playing field and lets a small business owner rapidly communicate with large groups of customers.
But there is no way to leverage social media to address a crisis if a small business has neglected to develop these powerful networks. Building presence on networks such as Twitter and Facebook can have powerful effects on company’s marketing efforts. Additionally, these channels serve as a great way to get important messages to customers when time is of the essence.
The Eurostar example shows how useful the act of fostering community online can be in responding to problems that occur offline. Though the main use of its social network profiles is to generate interest in its services through marketing, they can also be leveraged for other important business needs, making these networks very helpful to small businesses with limited resources.
Have you prepared your business to communicate effectively with customers using social networks?
