Using Social Media to Build a Global Culture & Happier Customers
[Robert Stephens presenting, photo by dougfl07.]
In 1994, with a personal investment of $200, and a used car, Robert Stephens started a little home computer business in Minnesota. To add a little flair, he called it "Geek Squad." In 2002, the organization had grown considerably when Best Buy, the world's largest consumer electronics retailer. Unlike most entrepreneurs who get acquired, Stevens elected to stay on board.
Today, Stephens oversees the world's largest tech support organization, with 17,000 employees, or "Agents," as his technicians are called. There are Geek Squad service departments in all Best Buy US and Canadian stores offering phone, in-store, and in-home support. It also has operations in Shanghai, UK, Spain and Shanghai.
Home tech and product installation support is conducted via a fleet of 5,100 "Geekmobiles" including 2,300 oddly painted and modified Volkswagen bugs. Wherever customers encounter Geek Squad members they see individuals dressed in white short-sleeved shirts and black ties.
At the core of it all is a behind-the-firewall social network on which Squad Agents play computer games, share information and solve customer problems. The social network maintains a cultural solidarity that seems to carry over from one store to the next.
Your Louisville repair center labels it's sections as "First Street," "City Council Chambers," for the executive offices, etc. What's the idea behind building a community culture in this way?
Every company has a culture. The key is to start at the source and build from there. When I first saw the size of the Louisville facility, I said "It's a city. Let's call it Geek Squad City. 700 Agents living in harmony under one roof." The theme stuck and we used it - to define who we are. Even within companies, there are subcultures. Geek Squad City is distinct from other Best Buy divisions. We encourage individual department identity pride as a simple means of reinforcing quality.
How does all that serve your customer's needs?
The Geek Squad is a master brand with distinct subcultures. Each department is branded. This generates pride. Pride helps inspire people to pursue quality.
Is it true that Geek Squad even has a Minister of Culture and a Public Defender's office? Can you give me the job descriptions for these positions?
There is no Minister of culture. Culture is everywhere and nowhere - so we would never have that department or title. Culture is the product of everything a company does and stands for. The Public Defenders are a specific group who "detect disturbances in the force." They listen to blogs, podcasts, twitters, etc so we can make it easy for customer to communicate with us. We have been doing this for a few years and we continue to evolve our process. We believe customers won't write letters to us anymore. Instead they will blog it.
Why do Geek Squad members dress like 1960 FBI agents?
Every company that has any customer-facing employees needs a uniform. We looked around in 1994 and saw only a sea of polo shirts and mini vans. When you have no money for marketing, everything you do is marketing. We looked at several ideas and were inspired by the dress of NASA circa the Apollo Era. NASA of those days remains a great symbol of teamwork, impossible goals, and technical ability.
Wearing a tie used to be a sign of conformity, but now dressing nice is an act of rebellion.
Why do they drive Volkswagens that look like Irish Police cars?
The "Black and White" motif gives us the flexibility to use a variety of vehicles that also maintain a consistent look and feel. Most of our business is word of mouth, so we need to be visible. The police are complaining that they are getting pulled over by civilians and being asked tech support questions. We only realized later that we have been borrowing a large amount of our fashion sense from the Federal government.
I understand that Geek Squad has a private social network. Not even other Best Buy employees are allowed to join it. Is that true?
We employ wikis, forums, blogs, etc. We intend to merge them all for the entire company at some point. It's not integrated yet only due to technical issues. Long term, we intend to open up parts of it to the public as well. For example, we are completing a new system to combine internal knowledge management with a public "support wiki" for customers to get self-help on any consumer devices - and help from us if they need more.
What is the purpose of that social network?
Socialization is a primal form of learning. To maintain culture, keep your people talking. We use all of the new tools to spread knowledge. Especially with tech support. We need to "know everything." Since that is impossible, we use the power of our network to make everyone smarter. I guess you could say we are a subset of Google.
How does all this serve the customer?
We get answers to them faster if our internal network of people can talk with each other. New solutions get to all members of our global network faster.
Can you give me a couple of good examples of how the social network has served customers with problems?
Agent discovers a problem with a device and a software update. They post it on a wiki. Everyone else finds out and avoids problems.
I understand that the Geek Squad SocNet started as a networked game. Tell me about that.
We began to think about how culture can be preserved and strengthened as it grows larger. We noticed our Agents are already socializing with each other when they play online games. We foster that by hosting free gaming servers. The assumption is the more we can do that, the more they will feel comfortable to help each other out solving customer problems.
How do you measure the success of failure of your social network in terms of customer service?
I think participation is the first metric. The more the merrier.
Do you measure it for ROI in any way? Just what do you measure?
I don't know if models have evolved to be able to measure the long term benefit but thankfully, the cost to try this stuff is low. Everybody should be playing with these ideas.
We have seen movement on each of these metrics:
- Lower return and exchange rates
- Lower incidents of "damage claims" meaning Agents make fewer mistakes
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Profit margins are protected from erosion,
- Agent retention improves.
Is it true that you personally monitor social media for unhappy customers and sometimes call them up to talk?
Yes - and we have expanded this to an internal team called Public Defenders.
What's the thinking behind that?
Common Sense. No customer expects a company to be perfect, but they expect you to try. If we reach out, they know that at least we are trying. We then plan to collect data on this and use a feedback loop into what we call our Stage4 process - based on plane crashes.
- Detection-- What did the customer report to us? (or we detected)
- Treatment --What did we do to resolve the issue? (apology, repair, free house call, refund, all of the above)
- Cause -- What caused this to occur? (system failure, SOP, improper training, bad part, poor diagnosis)
- Prevention -- What need to be done to prevent this from EVER happening again?
I think our Stage4 process will provide an ROI and reduce the occurrence of every negative into 1000 positives.
How has social media improved Geek Squad?
It keeps us on our toes. It provides real time feedback into our quality and systems. It gives us new ideas for services and quality improvements.
Additional Comments?
All companies are in the service business, whether they realize it or not. If you have a web site, a store, a line, or a phone number, you are in the service business. As companies realize their margins erode thanks to commoditization, they will realize services are profitable. Then they have to decide: Will they 'own" or "outsource" their service operations. After that, they have to decide how authentic their experience will be. Lastly, if they ask and answer these questions, eventually they will have to answer the questions above.
I recommend Pine and Gilmore's book that came out recently called Authenticity. They called the experience economy in '99, and now authenticity is the next gold standard - and authenticity cannot be faked.
