Clarabridge, a provider of customer experience management technologies, today improved its CX Social solution with a crisis management component that allows organizations to plan for, and react to, emergencies on their social media accounts, to protect their reputation and ensure that customers stay with them during sensitive events.
According to Dimitri Callens, director of product management at Clarabridge, the idea came to the software vendor after the 2016 attack on the Brussels Airport; Brussels Airlines happened to be one of its clients. “Back then, we made a huge effort to make sure that they were able to handle that attack on social media, because lots of questions were being directed towards the airport. What we learned from them in the aftermath is that, effectively, they had a crisis plan--which most companies have--but there is a difference between having a crisis plan and acting on it the moment that the crisis strikes.”
For instance, after a crisis or emergency, many companies with a social media presence would likely opt to cancel any advertorial posts or campaigns scheduled to go out in the following hours and days, because they might be regarded as insensitive or inappropriate. Rather than requiring that an admin log in to the system and manually remove each of the posts one at a time, CX Social enables users to automatically do so on all of their social media accounts. And because it is not clear who in the organization will be able to act at a time of need, administrators can extend permissions to select team members so they can act without approvals.
“The moment that a crisis strikes, no one has time to do all of this stuff,” Callens stresses.
Within CX Social, companies can define one or more potential crises beforehand, setting their degrees of severity from high to low. A company only needs to prepare for a scenario that could possibly take place--a terrorist attack being an extreme example. Other examples include product recalls, competing product launches, or an emergency weather situations.
To activate the crisis plan within Clarabridge, the admin has to act manually and enter a password. This is done in order to prevent false alarms, Callens says. “Each company has a different set of parameters for when a crisis strikes, and sometimes” it’s hard to predict what they will be beforehand, he points out.
When the crisis is triggered, all agents with access to Clarabridge can view a clickable bar on their screen that shows them who the coordinator of the crisis was, as well as a to-do list for actions that need to be assigned and completed outside of the social media accounts, such as issuing a press release or updating the website home page.
The social media tool also includes “automation recipes,” Callens says, which enables users to cancel or set in motion various actions. For instance, during a crisis, customers are likely to retweet materials, thus creating unmanageable noise. With the technology, a company can automatically resolve all of the retweets so that the team can focus on more pressing matters.
The product hasn’t yet been beta-tested by any of the companies that have outlined their plans. One such prepared customer is Transport for London, the government agency in charge of London’s train system, which has set up a system to inform train operators when a line is experiencing issues.
“The funny thing about this [launch] is that it’s something we created and would rather not have our customers ever have to use,” Callens points out.
CX Social works with major social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Foursquare.