Page 218 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

202 7 Social Commerce: Foundations, Social Marketing, and Advertising

Sony is trying to do this with the help of their social media Sony monitors social media conversations and conducts
communities and initiatives. sentiment analysis (Brand24 2015) to improve customer ser-
vice and product improvement and design. Note that Sony is
using social media campaigns for customer engagement. For
The Solution: Social Media Projects an overview of how Sony is using social networks, see Moth
(2013). Finally, software from Reevoo.com helps Sony to
Sony Corporation embarked on social CRM as a vehicle for automatically translate reviews from one language to another.
improving customer service. According to Jack (2013), Sony
combined a customer support and direct marketing program,
mostly using social channels. The various initiatives are man- The Results
aged by Sony’s Customer Experience Management Team.
The team organized Sony’s Community Site (community. Significant results were realized in 2014/2015 after the deploy-
sony.com), which is a central hub for customer information ment of most SC initiatives. However, some improvements have
and support. It includes idea boards, discussion groups, materialized in 2013. For example, according to Jack (2013),
blogs, Twitter feeds, and other content-generating channels. the improved communication resulted in a 22% increase in
The site is used also for marketing campaigns. “clicks” (over 100% in some cases). Other results are:
The following are representative activities, many of which
are done at Sony Europe (see Taylor 2013). • Customer trust in Sony increased (Jack 2013).
• Page views, conversation rates, and engagement activities
• Active social communities; some are for specific prod- (e.g., posting) increased by 100% (Jack 2013).
ucts, others are general for the entire Sony brand. The • Follower growth increased 200% with a charitable Pinterest
company’s staff members and consumers are involved in board (Eckerle 2013).
these communities. Members of these communities are • Customer service was combined with marketing promo-
helping each other and providing feedback. Customer ser- tions, which resulted in new sources of revenue for Sony.
vice employees are “listening” to the feedback and using • In March 2014, PlayStation had about 2.5 million followers
the information to improve service. on Twitter and 35 million fans on Facebook. For a case study
• YouTube videos provide training for customers on the use about Plastation and social media, see Brand24 (2015).
of Sony’s products.
• Using Lithium Social Web software (a SAP company), rel- Sony’s share price recovered in 2015 and 2016.
evant sites are monitored for reviews and comments (posi- Sources: Based on Jack (2013), Taylor (2013), Eckerle
tive and negative). This allows Sony to improve operations, (2013), Reevoo (2014), Brand24 (2015), and Sony (2016).
resolve problems, and capitalize on opportunities.
• There is a special “Customer Relations” tab located on
Sony’s Community site, the company’s central social net- LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CASE
work, for easy communication.
• The company created a “Facebook Support Community” The Sony case illustrates that a company can use social
within their Facebook page (facebook.com/sony), Twitter media not only to advertise and sell, but also to provide
“Sony Support USA” (twitter.com/sonysupportusa), outstanding customer service. Operating in a highly
Tumblr Support (sony.tumblr.com), and a YouTube Sony competitive market, customer service can be an impor-
Support Channel “Sony Listens” (youtube.com/user/ tant strategic tool. Sony has supplemented their tradi-
SonyListens). tional customer service with social networks, blogs
• In the communities, the company’s staff demonstrates (e.g., Twitter, and a Facebook fan page). They have
how problems are resolved quickly and efficiently. For concentrated on improving communication and interac-
example, there is an “Experts” tab for “How To” videos tions with customers. The customer service provided by
and technical support, etc. See community.sony.com/t5/ social media tools and platforms is more interactive,
Meet-Our-Experts/bg-p/experts. timely, and direct. Furthermore, the system fosters a
• Sony is using all its social media channels, including truly conversation- based communication. This kind of
LinkedIn, to proactively engage users and provide cus- service is important to customers, and contributes to the
tomer service in a timely fashion (see Sony 2016). company’s success. In this chapter, we introduce social
• Sony Electronic integrates Pinterest (pinterest.com/sony- commerce fundamentals and describe its content and
prousa) to send information about its products to com- benefits. We also describe three major areas: social
munity members (see details at Eckerle 2013 and blog. shopping, social advertising, and social CRM.
tailwindapp.com/lessons-from-sony-on-pinterest).