McDonald’s on why customer service is a boardroom issue

When McDonald’s appointed its new director of corporate communications, Carolyn Khiu, more than a year ago, the company also chose to add e-commerce and customer relations to her role, effectively giving the customer service function a voice at the boardroom table.The move was an understandable one.“At McDonald’s, we are a lightning rod for everything and social media has made our world a very transparent place. A lot of conversations you might think are private will become public the minute a customer blogs about it,” Khiu says.One key example was an incident last year where McDonald’s all-day breakfast promotions became a PR fiasco when a visually impaired customer, Cassandra Chiu, was “refused” service at McDonald’s because she was with her guide dog.Khiu said the conversation was initially a private one over the phone. However, since the customer took to blog about it, it became a public matter.Khiu explained that because the proliferation of social media, online and offline communications has become more closely tied, companies and their operations have now become more transparent.As such, more brands should push for CS to have a voice in the boardroom.She added that traditionally sales and marketing simply minded their daily tasks without much interaction with their CS counterparts.“Only when a problem arises is the CS team consulted. This needs to change,” she said.“CS should no longer be seen as a back end function, but rather a change agent. CS folks know best what customers want and problems they are facing day to day. They need to be taken seriously. It should be an alignment of all departments working together. It cannot just be customer service solving the problem.”Using a crisis to your benefitNo doubt when a communication crisis hits any brand, it is a testing period for the whole organisation. However, what brands need to do during such an occasion is to keep calm and tailor the conversation towards topics that customers may not otherwise pay attention to.“Use this as a branding opportunity. Take the opportunity to reaffirm your company’s commitment to certain values.“All people want is transparency. Use that occasion to talk to your customer and explain what is happening behind the scenes and why you have taken the steps you have.”Giving an example of its styrofoam breakfast packaging, she explained the packaging caught the attention of the public for not being eco-friendly. While the rest of the brand’s packaging is now paper-based, it wasn’t able to change the ones for the breakfast menu because of the complexities required in the supply chain for this to take place.However, the brand has a multi-pronged approach which it uses for its CSR initiatives, and it used the opportunity to share more about them, which she said went far “beyond just packaging”. For example, here’s a video on one of McDonald’s sustainability initiatives.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ6QGesUWAQShe added that authentic communications were vital, although this may not immediately lead to sales.However, she added that while this helps in winning over some consumers, you still have to be ready to lose some as not every customer will agree with you.Nonetheless, when a brand explains its views or addresses a complaint on social media, it has to be extremely careful “as the whole world is watching and listening”.For McDonald’s, before addressing any customer concern, the brand always consults a legal expert and a subject matter expert before constructing a response.“You have to be careful about phrasing and if this is managed well, you can build a community of support. But don’t be afraid of social media. Take it as a way to explain yourself.”