Ambient awareness: companies that are all ears
Ambient awareness is the term used in social sciences to describe peripheral social consciousness, in other words, attention to what is going on around you through a more or less constant presence on the social networks. Its use in this context was popularized by Clive Thompson in a 2008 article in The New York Times entitled “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy” in which he described the world of permanent contact and sensitivity that a growing number of users of social networks like Facebook and Twitter now occupy.
Applied to the world of business, ambient awareness describes the ability to capture the mood of a company’s client base through the social networks, along with mechanisms to engage in a constructive dialogue with them.
When companies first began to be discussed on the social networks, the dominant theory was that most comments were negative: human nature led us to expect a good experience from a product or service, while a poor experience was considered exceptional and thus worthy or public complaint.
Complaints made on the social networks were seen as the third step of a client’s negativity: after a first phase in which the client swallowed their anger; a second in which they discussed the problem with friends and family; a complaint made on the social networks was the equivalent of opening the window and shouting out to the world. In response, some companies between to set up early warning systems, or even accounts on the social networks to channel these complaints and to be able to respond to them.
The growing popularity of the social networks has meant that for many of us, the first step we take in expressing our unhappiness with a product or service is via the social networks; at the same time, we are also more predisposed to use them to say if we like something.
Iberia is a case in point. I am a frequent flyer of the Spanish flag carrier, and recently had two occasions when I was unhappy with their service: one related to the company’s smartphone app; and the other the onboard WiFi service. On both occasions I commented the problems on Twitter, and in the case of the second, I also wrote about it here on Medium. In both cases, the company responded immediately, and in a much more effective and positive way than I expected.
The first incident took place on a Tuesday morning: my original tweet was replied to from @iberia in a few minutes with a message trying to ascertain what the problem was. A practical answer to a problem that in reality didn’t exist: after having tried to access by boarding pass via an app that normally worked without problems and having discovered that a redesign now prevented me from doing this, I had simply tried to see my boarding pass via the email that was still in my in-tray. A bit fiddly, especially if you have to look through a great many emails, but not critical.
My conversation with the company had nothing to do with being a user with a large number of Twitter followers: the company responds to all queries very promptly. I was invited to a meeting to discuss the usability of the new app, once again proving that Twitter reaches deep into the heart of all companies.
The second case took place in the early hours of a Saturday after my flight had arrived in Madrid from New York. Iberia’s Twitter account is subcontracted out to an agency that handles it with notable brilliance, but that only works Monday to Friday (although, according to what I heard, that might change soon).
Despite this, my complaint was replied to within three hours, and not through Twitter, but via a text message from the company’s head of Customer Experience, who had gone to the trouble of obtaining my telephone number. Proof that the ambient awareness is not limited to a subcontractor, but is now a part of the company’s culture. This is a significant shift in a large company, which for a large part of its history was a state-run monopoly, with the corresponding mentality on the part of many of its staff: answering a customer’s complaint when the Twitter account is closed, in the early hours of a Saturday.
Very few companies are able to respond in this way. We are talking about systems that are having to adapt to existing structures built around a very different approach to customer services. Whatever we may think of Iberia, this initiative is worthy of further study and should be highlighted.
Is your company operating at this level? Can you imagine one of your directors going to the trouble on a Saturday morning of trying to find a customer’s cellphone in a bid to sort out a problem? If the answer is no, then get working. The answer isn’t just about technology, but many others, among them culture, which is what sets many companies apart. Have no doubts, in the current climate, it is worth investing in something like this.
(En español, aquí)
