Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School

Q: We’ve been trying to find a way to improve communication with our customers, but neither our website nor our Facebook page is producing results. What would you suggest?

—Billy Loaiza Rivera, Colombia

A: This is a question keeping many chief executives and company founders awake at night as they struggle to keep up with rapid changes in the digital world.

The swift rise of communication channels such as Facebook and Twitter has caused many executives to reassess how they stay in touch with their customers, with employees and, increasingly, with the media itself.

Companies’ relationships with their customers have dramatically and suddenly changed. People no longer want to be sold to; they want companies to help them find an informed way to buy the right product or service at the right price. They still watch ads, but often online rather than on TV, and they’re much more likely to view ads that friends have recommended. When something goes wrong with a product, they want to be able to reach the company instantly, and they expect – no – demand, quick solutions.

How companies adapt to this energetic and sometimes chaotic world will define their future success. The website Google plus, Facebook page, blog and Twitter feed are no longer add-ons to a business’s communication budget: they have to be central to its marketing strategy, and used in coordination with other marketing efforts.

As a first step in addressing your problem, make sure that your site is set up not just to handle transactions, but also for communication – and that when customers leave comments or send emails your team always follows up. Look at every contact as an opportunity to build stronger relationships with your customers. Depending on the channels you choose, this might mean helping your customer service staff adapt to new methods of communicating. Once they have, you must continue to keep in touch with customers yourself.

In the past, I would ask Virgin customers to write to me with problems or ideas, and I often called people to talk about the problems that came up. It was and is a great way to check on our businesses’ quality and standards – though many of the complainants believed one of their friends was playing a practical joke on them. To this day, I try to answer as many emails as I can and encourage our executives to do the same.

Neil Berkett, the chief executive of Virgin Media, our UK cable and telecom group, recently told me that he gets twenty to thirty emails a day from customers, and he tries to respond with a brief, direct note within hours. This has helped him improve the company’s reputation for customer service, which certainly needed a lot of work when we first combined NTL:Telewest and Virgin Mobile to create Virgin Media in 2007.

Beyond customer service, you may need to consider that the old divisions between advertising, marketing and public relations have completely rearranged themselves so it’s time to review how your marketing team works. Virgin Atlantic recently created a social relations team to manage the combined media space and to make sure our sites and communications are current and interesting, maintaining the cheeky, irreverent flair that characterises the brand.

We have always tried to maximise the impact of our advertising through clever PR, daring stunts and amusing media campaigns. The rise of social media has presented some exciting challenges to the status quo and caused us to question our usual ways of doing business.

When we launched a new global ad for Virgin Atlantic on TV and in cinemas – full of humour, fun and with a touch of glamour – it also started to generate a big following online, as it was promoted by our fans to their friends. This extended the reach of our ad far beyond our usual audiences. It also ensures that the people see and hear our advert. Amusingly, I was in the cinema recently and could not hear the sound on the adverts. I asked an attendant what was wrong, and was told they often turn the sound down to allow people to chat before the film. Only problem was – I gently pointed out – they had blanked out two Virgin ads! The next time I went in they were deafeningly loud!

To succeed, such efforts must be supported from the top. I have taken digital very seriously and with more than 5 million followers, I have found it invaluable when campaigning on social issues such as drug reform or the banning of shark finning – as well as promoting the latest news from our companies. David Cush at Virgin America freed up the management of these channels from the company’s classic hierarchy. His social media team is made up of twenty-somethings who have been selected to run the online services. David says they were given broad guidelines and then let loose.

These employees, who were ‘born digital’, have placed Facebook and Twitter at the centre of the company’s communication strategy, capturing the Virgin spirit online. Recently the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals contacted Virgin America to ask if we would help fly chihuahuas from California to the East Coast. It seems West Coast shelters were so full of this breed of dog that they had a better chance of finding homes elsewhere. We agreed straightaway. Some of our caring crew members even volunteered to accompany the homeless pups, and we sent them off in style on a flight from San Francisco to New York.

The team promoted this story through all channels. It instantly went viral and also sparked the interest of the traditional media – drawing attention to the ASPCA and Virgin America’s efforts to help. We then used the story as the basis of a very successful online sale of flights to Mexico – chihuahua, think about it!

To succeed, entrepreneurs and business leaders must look at this digital world through a different lens; by working with your online sites, services and teams, you can transform these challenges into opportunities.

He who resists can only lose!