Here’s a Smarter Use for Social Media

Companies that combine customer loyalty programs and social media scraping can quickly capitalize on signals from customers.

By Fred Reichheld

min read


This article originally appeared on LinkedIn. Social media has opened up vast new ways for companies to get to know their customers—what they like, what they hate and where they shop. But anyone with a Twitter handle knows that social networks are littered with inane noise. Customer loyalty programs, such as the Net Promoter System®, and social media scraping have advanced along largely separate paths of development. However, there’s a huge opportunity for companies willing to combine them—and cut through the dissonance. Net Promoter® companies commit to processes that help everyone focus on earning the passionate loyalty of both customers and employees. They regularly get feedback from customers about a recent experience or interaction, and loop the feedback to employee teams who take action to improve the customer experience. Social media analytics tap a different stream of information—immediate, unfiltered consumer sentiment about a company’s products or services. Many companies focus on social media either to monitor their share of voice or to watch for eruptions that would trigger customer service reps to intervene. But my Bain & Company colleague Laura Beaudin and customer loyalty strategist Joshua Rossman argue that blending social media analysis with the Net Promoter System offers a practical and effective means of putting the seemingly chaotic chatter on the web to good use because the two channels complement each other. Social media typically provides raw consumer sentiment at a point in time, while Net Promoter, which captures a view of the consumer’s complete experience, is more easily linked to purchase patterns and the full suite of information in the company’s CRM files, and individual customer results can be tracked over time (both intent and actual behavior). A few longtime airline customers might tweet their annoyance about a service slipup on a particular flight yet still give the carrier high marks overall and remain loyal. Combining social chatter with Net Promoter puts sentiment of the moment into the equation of intent and real behavior. Restaurant chain Taco Bell works with data platform provider Quantifind to sort through the noise of social chatter to understand the signals that correlate with sales or profit performance. Taco Bell’s social analytics team has unearthed business insights from social media analysis that never showed up in its Net Promoter feedback. For example: Restaurants that were first to launch the chain’s new breakfast menu showed an overwhelming response on social media. That response allowed Taco Bell to adjust preparation for locations that had not yet offered the new menu so that they could better meet demand. While the positive feedback would have been captured after the fact through Net Promoter, seeing a real-time view allowed Taco Bell to anticipate and prevent service issues that could have negatively affected customers’ experiences. Social chatter often focuses on particular events or new menu items (such as the free breakfast for Cinco de Mayo) that would not show up in Net Promoter feedback. Taco Bell’s insights tie to business outcomes, but now imagine how much more powerful this kind of analysis could be if a company knew whether the person posting comments was already a promoter or detractor. Both the Net Promoter team and social team could pinpoint opportunities to delight their advocates and quickly respond to detractor feedback before it gets amplified. Social posts could also help to define the questions that Net Promoter surveys ask. For instance, if the desire for meal delivery pops up in social chatter, a restaurant could test the response to a delivery pilot project through Net Promoter feedback to pick out the valuable signals from the noise. Listen and learn. Get smart about where consumer sentiment is heading by listening to feedback from multiple sources. Investigate technical solutions that help pick out real insights from the background noise. Act. Move from listening to chatter to incorporating social media into the Net Promoter feed, with the goal of taking action on business decisions more quickly. Activate. Don’t stop at fixing problems identified by detractors. Mine your social data for the biggest promoters, and respond within and outside of social media sites. In many cases, promoters have an even louder voice online, so ensure that your brand is what they talk about. At many firms, the various voices flowing through social media, customer surveys and the contact center each become a separate story produced by separate teams reporting to different executives. Instead, it makes sense to establish mechanisms for the groups to see and respond to each other’s insights so that they can cross-pollinate. Companies that close the distance between the social media and Net Promoter worlds will be able to capitalize more quickly on signals from customers. Net Promoter^®, Net Promoter System^®, Net Promoter Score^® and NPS^® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

Social media has opened up vast new ways for companies to get to know their customers—what they like, what they hate and where they shop. But anyone with a Twitter handle knows that social networks are littered with inane noise.

Customer loyalty programs, such as the Net Promoter System®, and social media scraping have advanced along largely separate paths of development. However, there’s a huge opportunity for companies willing to combine them—and cut through the dissonance.

Net Promoter® companies commit to processes that help everyone focus on earning the passionate loyalty of both customers and employees. They regularly get feedback from customers about a recent experience or interaction, and loop the feedback to employee teams who take action to improve the customer experience.

Social media analytics tap a different stream of information—immediate, unfiltered consumer sentiment about a company’s products or services. Many companies focus on social media either to monitor their share of voice or to watch for eruptions that would trigger customer service reps to intervene. But my Bain & Company colleague Laura Beaudin and customer loyalty strategist Joshua Rossman argue that blending social media analysis with the Net Promoter System offers a practical and effective means of putting the seemingly chaotic chatter on the web to good use because the two channels complement each other.

Social media typically provides raw consumer sentiment at a point in time, while Net Promoter, which captures a view of the consumer’s complete experience, is more easily linked to purchase patterns and the full suite of information in the company’s CRM files, and individual customer results can be tracked over time (both intent and actual behavior). A few longtime airline customers might tweet their annoyance about a service slipup on a particular flight yet still give the carrier high marks overall and remain loyal. Combining social chatter with Net Promoter puts sentiment of the moment into the equation of intent and real behavior.

Restaurant chain Taco Bell works with data platform provider Quantifind to sort through the noise of social chatter to understand the signals that correlate with sales or profit performance. Taco Bell’s social analytics team has unearthed business insights from social media analysis that never showed up in its Net Promoter feedback. For example:

Restaurants that were first to launch the chain’s new breakfast menu showed an overwhelming response on social media. That response allowed Taco Bell to adjust preparation for locations that had not yet offered the new menu so that they could better meet demand. While the positive feedback would have been captured after the fact through Net Promoter, seeing a real-time view allowed Taco Bell to anticipate and prevent service issues that could have negatively affected customers’ experiences.
Social chatter often focuses on particular events or new menu items (such as the free breakfast for Cinco de Mayo) that would not show up in Net Promoter feedback.

Taco Bell’s insights tie to business outcomes, but now imagine how much more powerful this kind of analysis could be if a company knew whether the person posting comments was already a promoter or detractor. Both the Net Promoter team and social team could pinpoint opportunities to delight their advocates and quickly respond to detractor feedback before it gets amplified.

Social posts could also help to define the questions that Net Promoter surveys ask. For instance, if the desire for meal delivery pops up in social chatter, a restaurant could test the response to a delivery pilot project through Net Promoter feedback to pick out the valuable signals from the noise.

Listen and learn. Get smart about where consumer sentiment is heading by listening to feedback from multiple sources. Investigate technical solutions that help pick out real insights from the background noise.
Act. Move from listening to chatter to incorporating social media into the Net Promoter feed, with the goal of taking action on business decisions more quickly.
Activate. Don’t stop at fixing problems identified by detractors. Mine your social data for the biggest promoters, and respond within and outside of social media sites. In many cases, promoters have an even louder voice online, so ensure that your brand is what they talk about.

At many firms, the various voices flowing through social media, customer surveys and the contact center each become a separate story produced by separate teams reporting to different executives. Instead, it makes sense to establish mechanisms for the groups to see and respond to each other’s insights so that they can cross-pollinate. Companies that close the distance between the social media and Net Promoter worlds will be able to capitalize more quickly on signals from customers.

Net Promoter^®, Net Promoter System^®, Net Promoter Score^® and NPS^® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

March 14, 2017

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