Summary : Facebook is usually considered as a communication and marketing tool. But it’s becoming more and more obvious that it’s becoming a customer relationship tool what has an important impact on the design of the community management system and the role of the community manager that’s becoming the central point of a service and internal networking system. Facebook is becoming a call center and the community manager a problem solver and a connector like the Air France – KLM Switzerland case shows.

I recently found this long and interesting video in which  Alain Pezzoni from Air France KLM Switzerland talks about their social media strategy. The video is in french but here are some points I’d like to highlight from this case.

1°) Favor local initiatives

This is Air France KLM Switzerland, not Air France KLM global and this fact is important. In large international organizations, linguistic and cultoral factors make that, both at the customer and organization level, having a global strategy is very complex. Depending on the countries, what can be done and the way to do it may be radically different and building a strategy may be hard and take a lot of time. Since it’s a new field where businesses are starting from scratch, having local initiatives from which the whole organization will learn what can be reused elsewhere and what will stay local may be a good option.

Talking about Air France KLM Switzerland, it’s about 2 brands and three languages what makes 6 communities to address…and as many fan pages. So a local anchorage is essential.

2°) Communication is service

Even if, at the beginning, pages have to be filled with content to feed the fans and get their attention, the flow slowly reverses and the organization starts answering to customers’ requests. As I’ve previously mentioned, the scalabity of the model allows, as Alain Pezzoni says, to deal with call-centers overload. The social channel, even if owned by the communication department, is shared by many processus (customer service, quality…) this department does not own but facilitate. What implies to prepare things beforehand. The community manager is only the front of the system and has to work with many people from many departments across the organization and mobilize them. So he or she has to have the required legitimacy. Moreover, that’s not a job for an intern or a junior, rather a senior who knows the organization quite well. According to Pezzoni, this person must know whom to ask questions and have a strong internal network.

That’s a frequent observation. Many organizations that are good at external communitu management face, one day, the difficulty of identifying the right internal expertises. The limiting factor of external networking is often, once a critical mass and complexity is reached, the lack of internal networking.

3°) The value of transparency

Being good at customer relationship management is key for any business. But when it’s delivered through social media, the work is done “in public” what makes things visible. Being exemplary on twitter or facebook is like having a free communication campaign while serving customers.

4°) Community managers are not here to attract fans

As noticed by one of the participants, the role of the community manager is not to attract more fans or followers but improve the quality of customer relationship. I remember a good friend of mine who was asked to attract a given number of followers (number scientifically explainable regarding to the organization’s capacity in terms of delivery). He refused the job and, in my opinion, was right. In my opinion, the best way to measure a community manager is through the indicators of the processes he facilitates (quality, service, innovation), the measured image of the company but not by counting followers or fans. The numbebr of fans is the consequence of a good service, not its cause.

In fact, it’s interesting to see that the discussion that was about e-acquisition quickly moved to customer e-services.

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