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Case Study: How General Motors Uses Social Media To Improve Customer Service

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General_motors_logoAbout General Motors

This automobile giant is an American multinational corporation whose headquarters are in Detroit, Michigan. The company specializes in designing, manufacturing, distributing vehicles and vehicles parts, and also sells financial services. Besides that, the company produces vehicles in 37 countries under 12 brands! Some of the most selling car brands are Chevrolet, Opel, HSV, GMC and Vauxhall.

Social Media Presence

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With no major companies – small or big leaving behind in providing best customer services and products, the king of automobiles, General Motors has been leveraging the use of Social media quite intelligently. The company in 2012 had made a significant social media group – CARS (Customer and Relationship Service Group) that basically monitors online conversations and strives best to offer positive customer experience. The social media team has been reaching out to the customers proactively, particularly those, who have questions and concerns about the vehicle.

Besides that, the social media communication of the automaker has maintained quite consistent theme throughout the GM organization. All new employees are encouraged to take a tour of the social command center during their first week. The tour is generally led by the social care team. Moreover, the company’s social media manager and strategist, Mrs. Whitney Drake has been working hard to increase the internal visibility of her social care agents who are essentially the forefront of the company in the public eye.

Social Media Marketing

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There are several companies who just talk and never implement promises made to the customer and this is how companies loose consumer trust, loyalty and confidence. GM is one company that never disappoints customers and takes prompt actions. 

We bring you some of the social marketing strategies that GM has been using to improve customer experience over the years.

Have a look at the top Social Media Marketing Trends foreseen for 2017.

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Unlike other marketers, who just pay lip service by engaging customers on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, the automaker has a cross-functional team that assist customer queries in real time and offers complete solutions in standard 90 minutes. The social media agents quickly respond to the customers and interact as well with people who are willing to know more about the automobile’s products and services.

The automaker also has Social Center of Expertise, which makes efforts to build relationships with current and potential customers than just talking and doing nothing.

Embrace the Quirky

GM’s social media team makes sure to attend each and every customer and resolves their concerns at the earliest. One example that proves how GM is always at their toes is explained below:

A customer fired one question in the wee hours one day in February. He asked, “Can a Suburban handle a family of six members with two dogs and a dad that makes Vines in batman mask?”.

The social media team responded within hours and provided a summary stating how a Chevy Suburban SUV can fit the family needs perfectly. The customer was so elated after the suggestion that he for the next week posted short videos and discussed about his impressions of the SUV on their company Web Pages.

GM indeed values customers and strives hard to win customer’s confidence and trust!

Values Customers

Find customers

People often lose interest in companies that makes the discussion only all about them and often end up just touting their products, highlighting their sales statistics and investment. The automobile giant also does nuts-and-bolts self-promotion on social media but also shines the spotlight on employees and customers.

Recently, the automaker praised one of its engineers by highlighting his 16 years of restoration work on Twitter and Facebook as part of their Employee Felicitation program. An employee always feels good if he/she is appreciated by the company and as well by their supervisors.

And when it comes to the customers, the automaker has always gone extra miles to satisfy and win their trust.

While the company is still coping to recall 1.6 million cars, GM’s customer service representatives painstakingly try to answer questions about the recall and engage them in private messages to iron about individual problems such as getting a loaner car to Ms. Grandy’s daughter (an annoyed customer).

Assist the agitated customers

The GM’s social media team assists customers by searching for consumer complaints and dealing with angry customers that had aired their grievances on Twitter, Facebook or other social media platforms.  The social media representatives respond to frustrated owners with advice and offer to set up dealership appointments.

For example, in one of the complaints posted by the customer, the GM’s customer care team instructed owners of recalled vehicles who had sent messages through Facebook, to use the “ignition key and nothing else” on their key rings while driving.

This is how GM’s social media strategist, Mr. Colley said the social media staffers actively search for people who have vehicle concerns, whether it be on the forums, Twitter, Facebook or the blogosphere.

Use service data to improve customer experience

Group of three successful business partners in casual discussing data in laptop at meeting in office

The social media team leverage insights gathered from customer service interactions by combining rich unstructured text data with customer and conversion data to better understand the consumer perception and sentiments. The service data and customer interactions generally provide automaker with more focused insights than broad organic social listening and analytics.  

Prioritize Customer Solutions

The Giant automaker has always prioritize the satisfactory resolution of customer grievances and concerns over marketing opportunities such as cross-selling and up-selling that may have emerged during customer interactions. The social media team links customer contact data just to provide seamless customer experience, whether through email, chat

Content Courtesy: Wikipedia, www.gm.co.in, blog.savenkeep.com

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Surbhi Sharma

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