How important is social media to USAA?

Tom Vaughn: Social media and community initiatives are critical for USAA’s continued success. We have been a word-of-mouth company since our inception in 1922, with much of our growth coming as a result of members sharing their experiences with friends and family.

Now, social media is transforming our relationships with members. Social tools allow us to better understand member needs so that we can stay engaged with our members. This ultimately results in strengthened relationships between each member and USAA.

As we improve upon these relationships, members will tell even more of their friends and family about how much they trust USAA – continuing our history of growth via word-of-mouth.

Our members want to hear from people like themselves, and user-generated content facilitates the sharing of these authentic customer stories. In addition to customer reviews on USAA.com, we’ve reached out to our members via Facebook, and even created an iPhone application that lets customers deposit checks. We’re constantly coming up with new ways to make our members’ lives easier and social media is a big part of that.

What objections did you have to overcome when creating a social strategy?

For USAA, and any financial services organization, the two main challenges lie in letting go of brand and messaging control and ensuring proper regulatory compliance. So convincing the early stakeholders of the value of encouraging authentic conversations – both positive and negative – is the first step.

No matter how excited we may get about the power of social media and communities, we will not sustain any program if we cannot figure out how to follow the regulations. Bazaarvoice’s content moderation and reporting capabilities helped us create a strategy that satisfies all the necessary compliance and reporting requirements, as well as helping key stakeholders understand the value. In fact, our legal partners trust the processes in place with Bazaarvoice so much, their first question – literally – for any proposed social project is “Is this using the Bazaarvoice platform?” If the answer is “No”, the project has a much harder time getting started and often goes back to the drawing board to figure out how to take advantage of the existing compliance procedures with Bazaarvoice.

How have member reviews helped improve the member experience at USAA.com?

Bazaarvoice categorizes every review so that it goes to the right department at USAA. Items that need customer service help are routed to the appropriate area for immediate assistance.

Our financial services department saw there was desire for members to service their CDs online. Based on the direct feedback from our members, a new online functionality was put in place and members can now change their renewal options online.

Members also tell us that these authentic stories and testimonials help them make a more informed decision before opening a new account or service.

How has Bazaarvoice helped you roll out your new social initiatives?

As one of the first financial services firms to dive into social media, we were excited about the opportunity to really explore what our members were saying about us. The Bazaarvoice team offered great suggestions and guidance to help with the introduction of the new social initiatives.

It was important to us that the posted reviews accurately reflected how members rated our products. You gave us great advice and suggested that we compile reviews for two weeks before publishing them. This approach ensured we had sufficient volume to stabilize the ratings so that a single review didn’t drastically change things.

The Bazaarvoice team also shared examples of how other companies used reviews to improve all areas of their business. By doing so, you helped us determine how to get the right reviews to the right people to address USAA member concerns.

What’s next for USAA in the social realm?

We’ll continue to innovate across all channels – social, mobile, online and more. The case study with Forrester gives some good examples of how members and USAA are seeing mutual benefit from reviews and online Q&A. You’ll see us continue to lead how financial services firms use social media to reach their clients – through collaborative and engaging communities, mobile capabilities that make members’ lives easier and online tools to help with all facets of members’ financial world.

Congratulations to Tom and the entire USAA team.

To learn more about USAA's success with Social, read the Forrester case study.

In the travel industry, we’ve witnessed a higher average number of reviews a day – understandable, since so many travelers book online, and want to share their travel experience with others. Edreams sees an average of 323 reviews a day, compared to the typical 65 reviews a day for retailers. The higher price point of travel creates more critical decision-makers and contributors, leading to more critical feedback. The travel industry stands to gain from these reviews in the same way restaurants benefit from negative customer feedback, as Derrek J. Hull, voice of the National Restaurant Association, writes in his blog post. Hull emphasizes that every business can expect a negative review at some point; smart business owners will take that review as an opportunity to start a conversation with the customer. The ball is now in their court.

Like travel, the entertainment industry has a higher price point than most online products. But there’s also larger price range – tickets to Taylor Swift’s upcoming Austin concert range from $91 to $682 on Razorgator. This leads to highly inquisitive and engaged shoppers viewing user-generated content. I know from personal experience; I check out what people say about the act, whether it’s worth the price, and any recommendations on seats. Who wouldn’t want to research a bit, especially with the choice between paying a few bucks, a few hundred, or not even going at all?

Another interesting and fairly new industry in the UGC game is the financial services industry. Our financial services clients like Geico are quickly gathering review volume from customers wanting to share their opinions, and are actually seeing many more of their reviews being served up on their websites than on typical retail sites. In other words, visitors to financial services sites click to “Read Reviews” more often, curious to see what customers are saying. This is expected, as much more research goes into choosing a financial services provider than the typical product; UGC helps meet the higher shopper demand for information.

Charlene Li (author of Groundswell) and Jeremiah Owyang, both leading experts in emerging social technologies, explained in their socialgraphics webinar that most consumers just “watch” social media – meaning, they read reviews, consume Q&A, etc., and fewer actually contribute. If travel, entertainment and financial services trend the same way that retail has, there will be a gradual but definite build in customers contributing content as user-generated content becomes more prevalent in all of these industries.

Setting measurable business goals for UGC

Once Nationwide decided to move forward with a social strategy, their first step was to identify goals for their UGC. At a high level, Shawn and Sue wanted to build trust and confidence in the Nationwide brand among current and potential policy holders. Consumers want to hear from their peers before making a purchase decision. Recognizing this, Nationwide wanted to give customers the opportunity to share their experiences, helping prospects find the information they need at the point of purchase.

At a more specific level, Nationwide needed to show real, direct business benefits from UGC. To do this, the brand aligned its social commerce efforts with three key business goals: increasing policy conversion rate, driving SEO traffic, and improving marketing effectiveness.

Meeting these goals with social commerce

Nationwide has leveraged Ratings & Reviews in a number of ways to meet their corporate goals and grow their business.

Enabling customer reviews on auto insurance. Customer reviews on insurance policies provide relevant content that consumers trust, helping them determine the right policy for their needs and take the next step towards a purchase decision.

Pushing content to customers’ social networks. Using Social Network Accelerators, Nationwide customers are invited to share reviews with their Facebook network, helping Nationwide reach new audiences and bringing traffic back to the brand site.

Driving SEO with fresh content. Enabling UGC provides the site with rich, relevant content that is continually updated, driving organic search traffic to Nationwide.com.

Improving paid search ads. Keywords pulled from customer reviews make for compelling paid search ads, bringing new traffic to the brand site by reaching customers in their own words.

Measuring the results

Nationwide segments site visitors who interact with UGC from those who don’t, and compares their behavior against the goals above.  Specifically, they look at the quote start rate, quote completion rate, and policy bind rate for both audiences, and measure the difference in performance. They also track “intent to buy” metrics, like finding an Agent’s office or contacting Nationwide directly. Additionally, they look at click-through and conversion rates for homepage ads and paid search landing pages with UGC, benchmarking the performance of both segments over time.

Spreading these results to the entire organization

The impact of UGC doesn’t end on Nationwide’s website. Since launching Ratings & Reviews, they have embraced customer oxygen across the organization, transforming the brand’s culture and the way they talk to customers.  “As much as we can bring the voice of the customer to every employee in this company,” says Sue, “the more effective we’re going to be.”

Any Nationwide employee can read customer reviews online, giving everyone from claims representatives to executives tremendous insight into how the brand is doing and what their customers value. This translates into recommendations and improvements, helping pinpoint what the brand is doing well and where they can invest more to better serve customers.

There’s also a strong motivational effect, Sue says. Many reviews praise claims reps that went out of their way to help customers. “We are in the business of putting people back to normal after something bad happens,” says Sue. “When you see that we’re doing that every day, over and over again, and you see the emotions that our customers share in a very positive light, it really helps drive and prioritize our behavior as an organization. It’s very inspirational content internally.”

Want to hear more about Nationwide’s use of social commerce?  The full webinar, “Overcoming Your Fear of User-Generated Content: A Webinar for Highly-Regulated Industries,” is available to download for free, here:

Sue McManus, VP of Direct and Customer Solutions Marketing at Nationwide

As a Client Success Director for Bazaarvoice’s Financial Services team, I’ve worked with several financial services brands to build social commerce strategies that increase online conversion and search, as well as improve customer service and client retention. But sometimes it’s daunting to make headway with new media in such highly-regulated industries.

When we started collaborating with Nationwide Insurance, they faced questions from Legal, Compliance, PR and Customer Service about the risks of participating in social. Nationwide created a strategy for overcoming objections to UGC and now embrace “customer oxygen” across all aspects of the organization, and have seen measurable business results from doing so.

Shawn Morton, Director of Mobile, Social & Emerging Media at Nationwide

In our recent webinar with Nationwide, Sue McManus, VP of Direct and Customer Solutions Marketing, and Shawn Morton, Director of Mobile, Social & Emerging Media, shared how they were able to overcome organizational concerns about adopting Social Media.

Facing the fear of UGC

One of Nationwide’s brand tenets is “we listen,” and they saw social commerce as a new opportunity to listen to the needs of their customers. Before moving forward, Sue and Shawn faced the fear that many companies face in embracing UGC: the fear of the unknown. What would happen, and how would they deal with it? What teams needed to be involved? Who would run it, and who would make sure it complied with industry regulations? Even with evidence like the J-curve indicating reviews would likely be positive, Nationwide wanted to see the results for themselves.

Strategy for overcoming objections

The key to Sue and Shawn’s success in gaining company-wide buy-in was to garner executive support across the organization. Gaining this support required a four part strategy.

1. Reinforce importance of participating in the conversation. Nationwide looked for best practices outside the insurance industry, taking inspiration from Dell’s IdeaStorm and Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation. They realized that participating – and being transparent in doing so – was important. “Our executives realized the time had come to stop watching and start doing,” Sue said.
2. Ensure brand protection through content moderation. Moderation was Nationwide’s golden ticket to social commerce. It allowed the brand to limit their risk while staying authentic.
3. Demonstrate the business value of investing in Social. Sue and Shawn showed execs the business impact of the investment, examining how UGC would impact Nationwide’s advertising, reputation management, PR, and SEO to provide better, more relevant content on the brand site. Tying social to real business objectives created a compelling case for moving forward.
4. Create a process for testing and measuring results. Nationwide tested the strategy first, sending review solicitation emails to a subset of customers to see what type of content they would get. As expected, customer feedback was extremely positive.

Using this strategy, Sue and Shawn were able to gain the executive level buy-in they needed to bring the customer voice to the center of the Nationwide brand.

Their biggest piece of advice to help position social commerce to senior management? Tie it to clear business objectives, says Shawn. It isn’t enough to say something is a “fun, new trend.” Make the business case the old-fashioned way, just as you would for any other investment. Demonstrate the value behind social in numbers; show how reviews impact decisions. From there it’s easy to gain the executive advocates you need to make a case for social across your organization.

Want more? The full webinar is available to download for free, here:

This is the first of two posts from our webcast for highly regulated industries. Stay tuned to our blog to see how Nationwide is using social commerce today, and how it’s transforming their corporate culture. You can also read more about Nationwide's use of social on Shawn Morton's blog, here.

This webcast gets to the heart of these concerns, explaining how Nationwide Insurance tackled these issues – and won big with consumers.

Join us and see how Nationwide partnered with Bazaarvoice and Rosetta to:

• Overcome organizational concerns about posting user-generated content on their website
• Assess the issues and find the right solutions
• Measure the results of user-generated content across the entire business

Thursday, February 11, 2010
11:30 to 12:30 EST

Speakers

Sue McManus
Leader of Nationwide Direct and Customer Solutions
Nationwide Insurance

Shawn Morton
Director of Social Media
Nationwide Insurance

Adam Cohen
Partner, Social Media Lead
Rosetta

Marc Ostryniec
Vice President of Financial Services Division
Bazaarvoice