Lily Allen and the social media emergency

When Lily Allen tweeted a complaint about her BT broadband connection last year to her two million followers, alarm bells started to ring at the telecom provider’s headquarters.

Nicola Millard, the firm’s customer experience futurologist, saw the negative buzz this incident could create and before long BT chief Ian Livingstone was on the phone to the pop star and the situation was resolved, with BT getting some positive mentions from the songstress thrown into the mix.

Allen is typical of today’s consumer, Millard says, in that they are changing faster than the companies that serve them. They don’t trust what companies tell them, they make their minds up about products through their own online research, and when they have a complaint, social media is the first port of call.

Companies like BT need to change aspects of the way they work, Millard thinks, so they can respond quickly to incidents like the Lily Allen one, rather than shy away from getting involved with social media.

“You can’t control the dance floor, but you can go and dance,” she says.

So where does this leave research? Will MR be left out if clients start talking to their customers solely through the likes of Twitter and Facebook?

There is still very much a place for MR, Millard says, even though companies have access to a “rich vein” of information through social media channels.

But Millard warned companies to be wary of the social media “hype”. The online world is not the be all and end all, she says.

“Social media gives access to a certain type of consumer, but you need a broader picture,” she said.