Going Groundswell



My name is Ashley and I have a problem!

I wasn't sure if I would continue this blog after I finished my class last month, but today I have a new reason to write.  You see, I recently took what I learned about the power of social media and applied it to solve a real life problem.

A Tale of Missing Dresses and Horrible Customer Service

To give you the short(er) version, I am a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding next month.  In February, my sister and I went to an Alfred Angelo store in North Attleboro, MA to order our dresses.  We were given an estimated shipment date of May 4^th and told, at the latest, they would arrive in 14 weeks.  This is week 14 and neither of us have our dresses.  When I stopped by the store yesterday to check on this situation, I was brushed off, scolded for ordering late, told no one knew where my dress was or when it would arrive and verbally attacked for asking to speak to a manager.  I left without my dress, but with the determination to fix this situation myself.

Don’t Get Even…Get Social

In addition to the 3 page email (see that was the short version) that I sent to Alfred Angelo customer service and the Better BusinessBureau, I shared my story on the Alfred Angelo Facebook page.  For some reason my wall posts kept disappearing (the joys of timeline), so I reposted it as a comment on the company’s post.  To Alfred Angelo’s credit, my comments were not deleted.  In fact, someone responded in a timely and helpful manner.  Five simple sentences that made me feel better and left me with a shred of respect for this company.  As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one singing the bridal shop blues.

For good measure, and to warn other unsuspecting potential customers, I also shared my story on Foursquare, Local.com and Google Reviews.

They Said “Yes” to Finding My Dress

The moral of this story is that social media works.  Today I received apologies from the Alfred Angelo Facebook page, the head customer service representative and the North Attleboro store manager.  I like to think that my use of social media is partly why.   It gave me the platform to stand up to an international company and tell them that I, Ashley, a customer who spent $140 on a single dress, matter.  I deserve to receive the product that I paid for and to be treated with respect.  I am told that my dress is now in the United States and will be available to pick up this Friday – exactly 14 weeks to the day that I ordered my dress.  While this experience has been less than pleasant, I will be happy to forget about it once I can confirm it has arrived.

T.J. Maxx: Social Media Monitoring Report 2

T.J. Maxx Website

T.J. Maxx
I've now been monitoring T.J. Maxx and its use of social media for the past month and a half.  In addition to Social Mention, Ice Rocket and Addictomatic, I also used Google Insights, Starcount and Compete to expand my data analysis.

Compete.com

Social Media Metrics

Social Mention:  I tried to be more scientific in gathering social media metrics by checking at the same time each day.  I found the results to be much more consistent.  The strength is considerably higher on Saturdays, which makes sense, because more people are likely to be out shopping and talking about their purchases on social media.

Sat. 3.17          /          Tue. 3.20           /          Sat. 3.24           /           Tue. 3.27

Ice Rocket:  The number of blogs mentioning T.J. Maxx nearly doubled during the second half of my social media monitoring.  From 2/13/12 to 3/13/12 there were only 476 posts.  From 2/27/12 to 3/27/12 there were 861 posts with and average of 28.7 posts per day.  The number of posts spiked to 40 on March 2nd.

Ice Rocket - Graph of Blog Posts 2/27/12 - 3/27/12

Google Insights:  Google searches for T.J. Maxx have steadily increased over the past 8 years.  The number of searches spikes every December for the holiday season.

Google Searches from 2004 - 2012

Starcount:  Using Starcount I was able to measure the growth of T.J. Maxx Facebook followers.  The page has gained 32,049 followers in the past two weeks. 

  

Facebook fans as of 3.27.12.

Listening & Engaging

I had previously found that T.J. Maxx did a good job of listening and engaging fans through its social media pages.  Unfortunately, there's been some recent controversy with hate group known as One Million Moms. 

Read: OMM is not letting up on "GCB" 

T.J. Maxx not only made a bad business decision (in my opinion), but it is compounding this mistake by ignoring followers who are questioning this, while still responding to less controversial posts. 

Selective Hearing:  T.J. Maxx ignores a negative comment while responding to another post made at the same time.

Goals

1. Online Retailing - The company needs to move forward with its e-commerce plan and fast!
2. Listen Equally - The "GCB" controversy is a major step back in social media efforts.  
3. Respond Faster -   Someone should be monitoring the site all day or if that's not possible, a specific question and answer period could be made so followers aren't left hanging.
4. More Engaging - There should be more updates/questions on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  Also, the company could stage specific events, like a Twitter chat with buyers, fashion bloggers, etc.
5. Better Incentives - T.J. Maxx needs to draw more people to its social media sites.  It could hold more competitions or simply feature a shopper/outfit of the day.  Once the retail site is up, there could be 10% off on Tuesdays.