Role of ORM during the Pandemic

 The pandemic changed how business is done; from brands starting to spend more digitally and reaching out to their customers through social media. Users became active while interacting and following their favourite brands on social media and accepted the digital ecosystem as the “New Normal” globally. 

Let us look at the Big 3 roles ORM played during the pandemic:

1)      Reassuring the Customers -

The pandemic left the users in panic mode as they wondered what will happen if they need some assistance from the brand. ORM helped reassure the customers through effective Response Management that they are down, affected, but not out! Brands like Hero MotoCorp and Firefox Bikes step up their game by improving their average Turn Around Time (TAT) to just 37 minutes and 52 minutes as compared to the agreed upon TAT of 2 hours and 1 day respectively.

2)      Making Customers Aware about the Policy Changes -

The Lockdown forced brands to make many warranty/service policy claim changes as the customers were forced to stay inside and businesses were shut. Brands understood the situation and wanted the customers to get all the support they need by extending the deadline of the claims like Hero MotoCorp did by pushing the dates of their Free Service Coupon & warranty valid between 21st March and 30th April till 30th June 2020. ORM helped to make the customers aware about the same through promptly reverting to the queries coming in the social media platforms leading to customer satisfaction and a feeling of trust.

3)      Delivering Insights Through Listening -

As the users got digitally active in the lockdown it became very important for brands to track what conversations were happening on various social platforms. Social Listening with the help of a tracking tool helped in doing just that, by delivering meaningful insights that helped in altering brand communication, keep a check on the sentiments and the share of voice. Brands like Araldite capitalised on these insights which highlighted DIY’s is becoming extremely popular in these rough times and ran multiple campaigns during the festival season encouraging users to share their creative DIY’s using the products which gave the brand a huge push of 126% in Sept’20 as compared to the previous month in terms of positive sentiments. 

To sum it up, as the customers became more digitally savvy during the pandemic and will continue to be so in the coming future, ORM played a Key Role in Digital Marketing be it while responding to customers or analysing conversations happening online to deliver insights. Hence, managing the online reputation has become extremely essential for top brands to have in their arsenal.