Vincent Boon is one of the leading experts on community management. He was head of community at giffgaff, a true successtory since 2009.

Over the last couple of years he has helped giffgaff integrate an online community into its business, allowing the customers to take part in business decisions, help out with marketing and take responsibility for a large part of their customer service. At The Social Confence he will help us understand what the pitfalls and keys to success of giffgaff are.

Vincent has now turned his attentions and talents to Telefónica Digital’s new operating business, Standing on Giants. And is transforming the way businesses communicate with customers. His community at giffgaff loved him so much they started a special Vincent appreciation thread. 

 

To better get to know Vincent we have asked him five questions about social business.

What do you think are the biggest challenges companies are facing today in the field of social business?

There are two main challenges here:

The first one is in creating a company structure, and way of working, which enables you to truly listen and engage your customers in an open and honest way. To properly listen and engage your customers there are a lot of things that need to change in a business to allow you to operationally get ready for the influx of ideas and demands that come flooding in once you open your doors to the customer. These changes are by no means trivial and demand a lot of attention to detail,. time and willingness to change behaviours or direction.

And secondly, should a company have overcome all the challenges associated with the above, I believe the speed at which companies need to respond to the demands of their customer community is the biggest challenge these days. Your customers are incredibly knowledgeable, not just about the products or service you sell, but also about how you operate your business, the challenges you face and what they feel is the right direction for your company. With that in mind they have demands and a world-view of what they would like to see you do. And they want you to hear them, loud and clear. And preferably change your product, service or behaviour and they want you to change it now…

The speed at which you need to respond to these demands and the flexibility you need to have in your roadmap gives businesses today some of the most difficult challenges to overcome.

 

Our visitors are professionals and managers with responsibility for social strategy, communication, PR, HR and marketing. What would be the biggest key take away for them after attending your presentation?

My key take away is to show everyone is the real value a properly run online forum community can have for a business. No fluffy ROI, but real numbers, with real meaning and hopefully an idea of the sort of impact this can have as well as a very general idea of how these sorts of results can be achieved.

 

What other presentations at the conference are you looking forward to and why?

Tan Lam‘s talk on Connection Hyperinflation is something I am very interested in. Mainly because I have very strong opinions on the real value of social media (as opposed to forum communities). So am always interested to see anyone with a good case either for or against to help spark good discussions on the subject.

And also Kees Verhoeven‘s talk on social in politics, which is an interest of mine, which I am looking into in the UK as well. Not just how politicians use social media to garner votes, but also on how social media or online communities can be used to shape our future or help solve some of the greater social issues we face today.

 

What is your biggest social media success and what was your biggest #fail (what did you learn

The success I’ve had with giffgaff as a whole certainly trumps anything I’ve done before, but if I have to pick out individual triumphs of what has been achieved there, I would have to say that gaining more positive sentiment than negative sentiment out of a price rise we implemented, was certainly one for the books. The way the consultation was run, the way we were able to present the logic behind it, and the real problems the business faced, and getting the community on board with it was fantastic to watch and work on.

A real failure was when we did not consult and inform the community on the removal of a product. That created a massive backlash from the community, and unnecessarily so. We had all the data to support our decision and we were right to do so. But by not explaining our reasoning and not sharing the details we created a lot of animosity and loss of trust, which took a long time to rebuild.

It takes a long time to build up trust, but only a moment of stupidity to destroy it all.

 

 

Is there anything that you would like to ask our visitors

What is that you really want to achieve by building a community or going on social platform? A quick buck, or a real change in how you work?

Depending on the answer to that question, have you adjusted your budget accordingly?

 

We want to thank Vincent for his openness. You can leave your remarks and answers to his question in the comment section below.