before engaging with him. united airlines famously ignored
a customer whose guitar the airline broke until he posted a
funny song about the incident on youtube, leggett noted.
the passive approach is the wrong way to go, she said,
explaining that companies should take the initiative to figure
out how customers want to interact with them on communica-
tion channels such as social networks. then they should roll
out social tools that meet customers’ needs and are aligned
and integrated with the company’s business processes and
customer-service strategies.
levi strauss links to its e-commerce site
from its Facebook fan page. other retail-
ers sell on Facebook directly. For example,
1-800-Flowers.com opened one of the first
storefronts on the social network.
the apparel maker has proof that Face-
book is important to its customers, said peck.
Facebook users visit the levi’s fan page
1 million times a month, and 4. 4 million of
them have clicked the “like” button — up from
180,000 in 2009. during the big shopping
days after thanksgiving in 2010, 50% of the traffic to levi.com
came from Facebook. now, on a typical day, 30% comes from
that domain.
peck declined to reveal figures for levi’s sales generated via
Facebook, but he said the partnership with the social networking site allowed his company “to market and sell directly” to
consumers.
Facebook is faster and more creative than some traditional
enterprise it vendors, according to peck. as he explained,
“they don’t sit back and take years to innovate, [and that]
pushed us to be more nimble.”
Kim s. nash is a writer with CIO magazine . contact her at knash@cio.com.
We’re reaching
massive
numbers of
consumers
where they
spend their
time: online.
Tom peck, sVp and cIo,
LeVI s Trauss
