Virtual Communication Plan

Virtual Communication Plan

COMM/470

Annjela Hynes-Porter

August 13, 2018

Virtual Communication Plan

Virtual communication is a form of tool that most company are going towards to communicate with their stakeholders. Some companies communicate virtual and some don’t, but as we hear in the news some business suffer from the lack of communicate effectively virtually with their stakeholders such as Facebook. What are some negative effects from Facebook communication techniques? What are some methods of communication used to reach Facebook external stakeholders of the business? What are some challenges experienced with customers satisfaction as a result of communication failure? There can be some future risk if these issues are not addressed for a better effective way to communicate with the stakeholders, so what are the changes that should be implemented?

Facebook is the number one social media platform in the digital world, but they still lack effective virtual communication to their stakeholders. There are a couple negative effects to the company and stakeholders due to the lack of virtual communication. Some negative effects from the poor communication is people are dropping Facebook all together. People feel their privacy and the lack of communication from the company is at fault. People joined Facebook to communicate with people and not to have their information taken without their knowledge. Their lack of communication in recent news also hit the company in the way of drop of their shares in the stock market. So, the lack of virtual communication hurt the company by losing share prices and even losing users all together. The company loss of money and users is all due to the lack of virtual communication. Even thou some users may have not quiet Facebook all together the amount of time spent on Facebook has dropped due to this concern and lack of information provided to them from Facebook in general.

Methods of Communication Used to Resch Identified External Stakeholders.

Facebook has had many difficulties in overcoming the issues that have been created by the breach of customer’s accounts. The organization needs to detail a communication plan that will enable them to have the ability to reach the many people that have a stake in the success of Facebook. One major area that needs to be identified is who the external stakeholders of Facebook are. The identified stakeholders are the many consumers that use the Facebook platform. Facebook will reach it’s many consumers by using the platform itself to communicate any information that needs to be conveyed. However, the breach in the accounts of these many millions of consumers is the biggest problem, but it’s also the answer given that each of these millions of stakeholders whose potential personal information may have been shared has already been notified through their own “friends” on Facebook. According to Badshah, N. (2018), “eighty-seven million Facebook users around the world will find out on Monday, April 9, 2018, if their details were shared with Cambridge Analytica in one of the social network’s largest data breaches.” (para. 1). This has been communicated through the consumers newsfeed.

Other communications details can be achieved through the media, as well as, through other sources of virtual communication. One way to communicate to all consumers would be through texting since each consumer used their cell phones to create accounts on Facebook. The organization can also use the Facebook App so that when consumers log into their Facebook accounts, those that have been affected by this data breach could be notified by a pop-up when they log into their own accounts. A detail of what needs to happen next can be implemented into the consumers start up page indicating that a breach has occurred and that it would be in their best interest to remove that account and start another one.

Workflow and Escalation Procedures

According to “PNMsoft” (2016), “Workflow is the definition, execution and automation of business processes where tasks, information or documents are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.” (What is a Workflow?). When customer expectations are not met or they feel that their views have not been heard, it is human nature to want to “intensify” and escalate to the next level. There is an over-all belief amongst several customers, that if they escalate to a senior leader, then action will happen faster. However, this is not always the case.

Google’s Dictionary defines escalation as “an increase in the intensity or seriousness of something; an intensification”.  Customers experience is the overall interaction that a client has with a business and its product and services. Facebook is continuously enhancing their methods and techniques in how they need to enhance customer experience and improve their data privacy to rebuild customer relationships. There are different ways that Facebook can enhance customers experience by including tools like mobile support, live chat (instant messenger), and self-service support. These tools will not only work to improve their clients experience but will bring other benefits, as well.

Below is a list of Best Practices for Better Service, stated by “Oracle” (2012):

1. Establish a knowledge foundation.
2. Empower your customers.
3. Empower your frontline employees.

4. Offer multichannel choice.
5. Listen to your customers.
6. Design seamless experiences.
7. Engage customers proactively.
8. Measure and improve continuously

Communication Tools to Improve Relationships.

The communication tools that can be used to improve relationships between employees and customers are going to be tools that will enhance the customer’s experience with the Facebook platform. This will include:

Electronic Correspondence. Providing information about an error within the platform as soon as the error occurs, such as the breach, will enhance Facebook’s position that they have been made aware of the issue and are working to fix it as soon as they can. This will help to build trust from the consumer that they believe that this was an error and not something that would have been known to have been a possibility. Another tool that could improve the relationships are surveys or evaluations. By collecting this data from millions of Facebook users, the analytics would be able to create fail-safes that would prevent something like the data breach from occurring in the future. This also would help to build trust within the Facebook community. One last tool that could improve relationships for consumers is the use of blogs. Blogs will enable Facebook to communicate to its millions of users in real-time so that they are able to update the consumers on any of many different issues that could come from the Facebook platform.These tools will enable Facebook to communicate effectively in a virtual world and to build trust so that the consumers will not be concerned that their personal information could be compromised, and this will enable Facebook to be a trusted provider of social network activities. Since Facebook is one of the largest social network platforms, they have an obligation to the millions of users of their platform to ensure that their personal information is protected and that when it does occur, that they communicate quickly and efficiently to the millions of Facebook users.

Challenges with Virtual Communication

Virtual communication can be challenging for both ends of customer service. Customer satisfaction is important to all companies, to ensure that, there must be a healthy relationship between the two. Customer service is available to help customers in need, and is communicated over a few different channels; phone, email, online chat is the most popular. Challenges that can arise with virtual customer service could be due to lack of connection on either parties’ channel, bad service or internet outage. Another challenge is miscommunication between the service and the customer, language barriers can impose along with the attitude of either party. With a customer service phone calls being transferred out of the United States, to other countries, language barriers make up most of the frustrations with calling with questions, concerns and problems. Speaking to a customer service representative with an attitude can also send bad signals to a customer. Although it can be frustrating, it is important to remember that everyone is human and deserves a chance to be civil. Communication failures can cause a loss of a lifelong customer, which can be detrimental to any business. Companies depend on customer satisfaction, without them, no one would buy their products, which would send them out of business. Taking into consideration the severity of keeping your customer base satisfied will also help in maintaining loyalty. Many businesses will attempt to mimic a successful business model and being able to show the uniqueness and efficiency of your services will keep customers subscribed to your services for a much longer period of time.
Identifying the Risks
Being able to identify the risks in a scenario where virtual communication is being utilized is imperative to the success of a business in satisfying the needs of its customer or user base. Any application or software that requires the presence of a technology-based platform such as a smart phone or computer is going to be subject to attacks and potential failures within the software itself. Understanding that not all of your user or client base is familiar with simple troubleshooting methods such as virus scanning or checking the file path of a program will need to be approached in a step by step type of manner. By standardizing how issues are handled by customer service we as a company can provide an easy to follow set of instructions to keep our customers satisfied. As a company we should be able to identify new and upcoming risks such as new types of viruses of phishing scams that may occur. In this way we can communicate with our users and inform them of potential attacks which in turn protect them in the unfortunate case that they are approached by malicious entities such as other companies with similar business models or hackers. Not only does this type of communication help to ease the minds of our users but also it will assist in loyalty and the amount of time a user will use our services or subscribe to them. Another important point is to understand that not all users are utilizing our services from the same digital platforms. Knowing the procedures to assist on each individual platform such as a smart phone or home desktop computer will expedite the process of troubleshooting and more importantly, getting the customer back using our products as quickly as possible. Through these actions we can expect as a company to maintain a high level volume of users that will consistently use our services and choose not to utilize the services of our competitors.
Steps to Prevent Lose of Customers

Facebook has taken a few steps to try to prevent customers from leaving their social media network. The steps that they are taking are a step in the right direction. It begins with letting the customers know that the breach has happened. Informing the people is one of the most important things that any company can do. When the customers are kept informed they feel like they matter to the company. Facebook is also making that they simplify the privacy settings, so that people can take and adjust the setting on the third-party access and the applications as well (Badshah, 2018). While Facebook makes the privacy setting easier to adjust the people are going to feel more comfortable with being able to adjust their privacy setting on their own. After this breach Facebook has decided to share less information with third-party vendors making it a little harder for the information of the customers to get out there. This will give some customers some relief and make them want to stay, it will help them feel like they can keep their information safe with Facebook. All of these changes will help Facebook keep the customers from leaving and will help them feel comfortable that Facebook is working on changes so that a breach does not happen again.

While even though Facebook has had an issue with disclosing the information about the breach of information for their customer, there seems to be a good start to change how the company is handling their communication with their customers. With Facebook being the Digital platform that it is, it has created a name for itself. The company took the time to identify the risk and came up with lasting solutions that should help not only the company but also the customer as well. By working with the customer and making it easier for the customers to manage their own privacy settings and other changes it will give the customer the opportunity to feel comfortable and will create loyalty to Facebook. Good customer service will be the key to the success for Facebook.

References

Badshah, N. (Apr. 8,2018). Facebook to contact 87 million users affected by data breach.

Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com on August 12, 2018.

PNMsoft Ltd. (2016). What is a Workflow? Retrieved from pnmsoft.com:

https://www.pnmsoft.com/resources/bpm-tutorial/workflow-tutorial/

Reynolds, M. (April 8, 2016). 10 Tips to master Customer Escalation Management.

Retrieved from theoperationsblog: https://theoperationsblog.com/2016/04/customer-

Escalation-management.