2014年11月4日星期二

How "LUSH cosmetics USA" can enhance customer engagement?



In the first part of monitoring, you were introduced "LUSH cosmetics USA" social media and their customer engagement via groundswell. Two weeks past, a lot things have changed for "LUSH cosmetics USA" and there are some new things I found.  In this post, I will continue to monitor some changes of  "LUSH cosmetics USA" and considering the problems I find in my post, I will also figure out some steps that "LUSH cosmetics USA" can generate more buzz in the groundswell and enhance customer engagement.
  • New campaign: Make Fur History
Cruelty-free cosmetics brand LUSH is joining with the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals and Montreal SPCA in hopes to #MakeFurHistory. People can join the fight against the fur trade by taking the pledge online or spreading the hash tag, #MakeFurHistory, with a picture of your favorite fur-bearing animal via your Twitter and Facebook accounts.


We see that many people support LUSH #MakeFurHistory campaign on Facebook.A major tenant of the LUSH is not to test its products on animals; these vegan and vegetarian products attract consumers fighting for animal rights.  LUSH also makes the majority of its products with fair-trade ingredients, which grabs the consumer who is concerned with social justice. LUSH’s target markets are women 18-45 who are middle to upper class and desire fresh organic beauty.


  • Consistent increase of fans and followers
    Twitter increase fans and followers
    Oct.29th
    Nov.3rd



The increase in fans and views on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ continued in last two weeks(data gathered from Starcount). The daily increase of fans can be 600-700 on Facebook, and the most fan increase in on Instagram, about 2000 a day. During the two weeks, followers increased more than four thousand on twitter only.




From the data I gathered from Tweetstats, LUSH cosmetics has about 124 tweets per day and 1610 tweets per month. On Thursday it has the most tweets-568 tweets. About the hourly tweets, around 4 pm it has the most tweets in a day-435 tweets. What's more, the graph shows through Sept 14th to Oct 14th, the tweet number grew from 961 to 2259 in one month. 
You maybe wonder why tweets increased that much on October and reach to the peak on Oct 14th.
  • #LUSHoween - LUSH Halloween 




Lush Cosmetics love any excuse for a lim-ed product launch. Whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter or a campaign special, Lush have our backs with season tailored goodies. Halloween is no different. This year, Lush launched their Christmas and Halloween ranges at the same time , new product for Halloween is October 1st online, and 3rd in stores, and new products for Christmas is in the mid-October. That's can explain the peak in the graph of interest over time at the beginning of October, and the peak in the graph of daily blogs citation trend in the mid-October (data gathered from Google Trends and Ice Rocket).
As a result of  Make Fur History Campaign, we can see there is a peak at the beginning of November in the first graph and As a result of Make Fur History Campaign, we can see there is a peak at the beginning of November in the first graph and the line rose up in the second graph.

  • Feedback and problems
- Different types of criticisms on Facebook and Twitter






It wasn't easy to find negative comments on its Facebook pages, as positive comments seem to be more frequent than complaints; however, I categorized different types of criticisms:
A. The staff is overbearing. By trying to be too friendly and helpful, some staff members come off as pushy. Or the opposite, staff is snooty and the customer feels ignored.
B. Products weren't as fresh as they should be, or the customer was expecting something different from a certain product.
C. Discontinued products: comments asking for discontinued products to be brought back (this is not exactly a complaint, but we have seen a lot of these)
D. After ordering online, customers complain that the products arrived late or damaged. (They sometimes post pictures as well.)
On the positive side, happy customers leave comments as well: to thank the brand and express how much they love it, praise the staff members for their help, post pictures of their makeup, nails, in-store experience, etc.

- On LUSH cosmetics forum   
                         


As a communication platform for customers and LUSH cosmetics USA, I found sometimes there standard answer in it. Customers deserve to feel special, so I don't think they should use standard answers. If they response this angry customer in one short sentence, I don’t think this customer will be satisfied with their solution. Also they failed to give timely response to their customers sometimes.

- Problems on Facebook

- During the two weeks, I have noticed that LUSH cosmetics on Facebook didn't respond to their customers’ questions. As an example above, five days past, LUSH hasn't given a timely response. But on Twitters, I can see an active communication between customers and LUSH. I think maybe LUSH cosmetics should pay more attention on timely response on Facebook.
- To grow a Facebook community, brands promote what they stand for, knowing that the fans share the same values. LUSH cosmetics did really good at that aspect, they held campaign for protect animals rights, but here are some followers hold opposite opinion with LUSH on Facebook.
For example, in LUSH #MakeFurHistory campaign, many customers support LUSH’s value about people shouldn't use fur and what LUSH post on in their Facebook, but there are some customers don’t agree on that, so they have argument on Facebook. Also I can’t see there is any response from LUSH to deal with these replies. I think this can make LUSH loose their followers.
  • Few steps to enhance customer engagement
- Assess customers’ social activities. Listen to your customers, and talk with them.  If customers are happy about the in-store experience, they will tell you on Facebook, and it’s important to show them that you’re thankful. If they are unhappy, they will also tell you. The company has to show that they care, and try to fix it somehow.
- Decide what you want to accomplish. Company should support their customers, and  energize their best customers to evangelize others. Then try to collaborate with them to figure out your objectives of each activities or campaign.
- Plan for how relationships with customers will change. LUSH should involve right people in their campaign and measure the effectiveness of their campaign.LUSH seem to have an international community of loyal fans. It becomes easier to do customer service on social media  when fans are ready to step up and defend the brand at any time, as well as answer other fans’ questions.
- Pay attention to what your fans/customers are complaining about: staff, products, orders, etc. and try to fix any problem they may have as soon as possible.