Customer engagement manifestations on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart

Customer engagement manifestations on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart Swaleha Peeroo

Martin Samy

Department of Management Université des Mascareignes Mauritius [email protected]

Leeds Business School Leeds Beckett University United Kingdom [email protected] Brian Jones Leeds Business School Leeds Beckett University United Kingdom [email protected]

Abstract— Social media have transformed the world in which we live. Although several studies have uncovered forms of customer engagement on social media, there is a scarcity of academic research on customer engagement within the grocery sector. This study therefore aims to address this gap in the literature and shed light on the various ways customers engage with grocery stores on Facebook. Netnography is used to gain an understanding of the behaviour of customers on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart. The findings of this study reveal that cognitive, emotional and behavioural customer engagement are manifested and that customers can both create and destroy value for the firm. This study contributes to knowledge by uncovering the various forms of customer engagement on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. Keywords — social media; customer engagement; relationship marketing; grocery stores; Facebook.

I.

it is important for businesses to understand expectations of customers who are interacting with them on social media. Following a call for research on understanding what customers seek when interacting with businesses on social media [7], this paper aims to provide knowledge as to why and how customers engage with companies on social media, more specifically on Facebook pages of grocery stores. Furthermore, some researchers examined the motivations of customers for interacting with apparel retailers on social media and suggested that further research be carried out to understand motivations of customers who connect with retailers on social media in different retail sectors [8]. This paper will therefore focus on the grocery sector to understand motivations of customers for interacting with grocery stores on Facebook by analysing responses of customers to customer and company initiated messages.

INTRODUCTION

Technological advances are dramatically and substantially transforming the retail industry [1] [2]. The Internet enables the transfer of information and knowledge worldwide in real time to customers [3] who use these technologies to enhance their shopping experience [4] To improve the satisfaction levels of customers, retailers are increasingly using social media, mobile and Internet technologies to enrich their shopping experience [4] The advent of social media is revolutionising marketing practices [5] [6].

The purpose of this study is to examine the various ways customers engage with grocery stores. The paper is organised as follows. First, the main concepts of social media, customer engagement and relationship marketing are presented. Second, we outline the netnography method, followed by an analysis and discussion of the findings. We then present the conclusion, limitations, and suggestions for future research directions.

With social media, it is now feasible for businesses to have ongoing dialogues and exchange of experiences by actively listening and responding to queries of customers. However, in practice businesses seem to be using social media just as any other communication medium and they are not directly interacting and are not seeking to obtain highly engaged customers through social media. Therefore,

A. Social Media and Facebook Social media usage is exploding and online platforms have become vital tools for marketing [9]. Facebook is the most widely adopted social media platform by brands and companies [10]. These social media platforms have converted the Internet from a platform for information to a platform for influence [6]. Individuals leverage social networks and blogs to create, recommend and share

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

information thus outspreading the reach of marketing influence [6]. Garretson [11] notes that consumers in the digital age increasingly use the Internet and social media platforms to not only find information about products and services, but also to engage the organisations they purchase from, and connect with other customers who may provide valuable insights. Businesses during the past two years have flocked to social media websites to interact with their customers [12]. These businesses of all sizes within most sectors are attracted by the potential benefits of adopting these social media platforms [13]. Yet, many managers are still unsure of the opportunities and threats pertaining to social networks and this may be due to the lack of knowledge of their structure and operation [14]. Nevertheless managers have rushed in the social media world out of fear of losing the social media battle [15]. Social media have radically transformed the world communication systems [16]. Among all the social media platforms, Facebook is by far the most popular site boasting 1.23 billion active monthly users [17]. Facebook has now turned into the most popular social media platform worldwide [18]. It is an online community where people can communicate with family, friends, and colleagues around the globe [19]. Unlike other social media platforms, Facebook actively seeks to attract businesses to use Facebook as a marketing tool by enabling users to access the network through applications and also gaining access to corporate websites through social plug-ins [18]. Dekay [20] has identified several reasons to explain why businesses have rushed to set up their Facebook page. Businesses have been attracted by Facebook, which is a global and popular marketing and recruiting channel that allows direct interaction with customers and employees [20]. These data allow companies to personalise the customer experience of visitors to their pages [20]. Additionally Facebook allows companies to create and develop applications (commonly known as ‘apps’) which are used to connect their Facebook page to their corporate website. This eases the ordering process and other transactions [20]. B. Social Media Marketing Social media have brought about significant and pervasive changes to communication between companies, communities, and individuals [21]. Yet, several authors have noted that organisations are still unsure of how to tap the full potential of social media [22-24]. Traditional methods of management are not suited to deal with consumers on social media who expect firms to listen to them, engage and respond accordingly [21]. Similarly, marketers should shift from traditional campaign thinking and to focus more on relationship building [25]. Social media marketing has been defined as a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through a set of Internet-based

applications that enable interaction, communication, collaboration of user generated content (UGC) and hence, sharing of information such as ideas, thoughts, content and relationships [26]. Social networking sites such as Facebook are increasingly being used by organisations to establish their marketing network, since social media platforms facilitate the establishment of communication and ongoing real time conversations [27]. Marketers consider that product messages sent or endorsed by friends are more believable and hence more easily accepted by the network of friends [27]. This form of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has encouraged companies to set up product pages on social networks and urge customers to join these pages with the view of building enduring long-term relationships [27]. When “liking” or “retweeting” product related messages, these posts are automatically sent to the user’s newsfeed and consequently the other members i.e. friends or followers in the network would become aware and this may influence them to engage in relationships with that product. The active interactions of a customer with an organisation, with potential customers and with other customers, whether they are transactional or non transactional in nature, is referred to as ‘Customer Engagement’ [28]. C. Customer Engagement Social media enable interaction with customers and hence companies have the opportunity to engage with customers [29]. Interestingly, Web 2.0 technologies and tools seem to facilitate the co-creation of value by the company and the customer [30]. Interactivity between customers and an organisation is at the center of the engagement construct [31]. The term customer brand engagement denotes the “level of an individual customer’s motivational, brandrelated and context-dependent state of mind characterised by specific levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioural activity in direct brand interactions” [32]. In this definition of customer engagement, there are the three dimensions cited in the literature, namely the cognitive, emotional and behavioural perspectives [31] , [33]. From a cognitive standpoint, engagement is a positive state of mind that is represented by high commitment, energy, and loyalty towards a firm [34], for e.g. the person's level of concentration or engrossment in the brand [32]. From a behavioural viewpoint, engagement refers to actions toward a firm that go beyond transactions [34], for e.g. participation, vigour and interaction with the focal brand [33]. From an emotional perspective, customer engagement may be characterised by feelings of an individual towards a brand [35], for e.g. a customer’s level of brand-related inspiration and/or pride [32]. Unlike authors who have used multidimensional perspectives, van Doorn et al. [36] focus only on the behavioural dimension of customer engagement. According

to these scholars, customer engagement consists of behaviours, which go beyond transactions. This definition highlights that behavioural manifestations do not only mean purchases, but also include other activities of the customer such as word of mouth, customer co-creation and complaining behaviour [37] recommendations, helping other customers, blogging, writing reviews and even engaging in legal actions [36]. Customer engagement also incorporates customer cocreation [36]. Value co-creation is defined as the mutual collaborative activities by stakeholders participating in direct interactions aspiring to add to the value that materializes for either one or both parties [38]. Customers can participate in the invention of the offering, or the design and production of related products. Hence, co-creation happens when the customer contributes through spontaneous, discretionary behaviours that personalise the customer-to-brand experience [36]. In virtual communities, conversations occur on prices, performance, quality and personal experiences with specific brands [39]. These conversations in virtual communities illustrate customer empowerment and value co-creation [39]. Interventions of marketers are accepted in online communities only if they contribute to the community [39]. Customers tend to react negatively when marketers have commercially driven communications. This research reveals that customer engagement increases satisfaction, loyalty, empowerment, emotional bonding, connection, trust and commitment. Social media enable customers to connect and interact with other customers and non-customers in their social networks and influence them [40]. Customers with strong emotional bonds can become advocates for sellers in peerto-peer interactions with other customers and non-customers and play an important role in the value adding process as cocreators of value. However, when organisations fail to engage customers they have to face the potential threat of customer enragement [41], a situation where customers can easily become value destroyers instead of value creators for companies [42] [43]. The open-comment platform of Facebook and the anonymity offered by the Internet produce the ideal conditions for public outrage to be vented on corporate walls [44]. Furthermore, t social media have empowered customers and the public by giving them a voice and weakened the position of companies by rendering them vulnerable to customer attacks, negative publicity and corporate reputation damage [45]. Additionally, social media users can generate huge waves of outrage within a short period of time when reacting to questionable activity or statement of an organisation [46]. They qualify such a phenomenon as an online firestorm, which they define “as the sudden discharge of large quantities of messages

containing negative WOM and complaint behavior against a person, company, or group in social media networks” [46]. Similarly, these repetitive and systematic customer attacks are referred to as shitstorm [45]. “A shitstorm denotes emotional and often irrational criticisms carried out by many consumers. Rational negative opinions usually form the basis for shitstorms, which eventually grow through irrational and assertive content added by other dissatisfied users.” [45]. Likewise, customers tend to express strong emotions on the Internet more readily and easily owing to the anonymity offered via this medium of communication [44]. III. METHODOLOGY To gain an understanding of the types of customer engagement occurring on the Facebook pages of grocery stores, a netnographic study was undertaken. Netnography, developed by Dr. Robert V. Kozinets in the late nineties, is a participant-observation research used for data collection to research online communities. It is an interpretive method formulated specifically to investigate the consumer behaviour of communities and cultures present on the Internet [47]. Netnography provides insights into virtual communities similar to the ways that anthropologists try to understand the norms, cultures and practices of traditional offline communities. Virtual communities consist of online gatherings of customers expressing interest in similar lifestyles, brands, products and services [47]. Similar to ethnographic research, netnography tries to provide understanding of a community and the interactions and communications within the community [48]. The purpose of this netnographic research is to observe the interactions between hypermarkets and supermarkets with their customers within a Web 2.0 platform. In order to undertake netnographic research, the researchers have observed interactions on the official Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. Facebook has been selected as it is the social platform, which is the most widely used by companies to interact with their customers. The researcher has opted for a non-participation observation during the netnographic research similar to studies carried out by other researchers [48] ,[49]. To ensure a rigorous and reliable research approach, the researchers have followed the five stages and procedures recommended by Kozinets [47]. The five sequential steps are (1) making entrée, (2) data collection and analysis, (3) providing trustworthy interpretation, (4) research ethics, and finally (5) member checks. For the entrée, the researchers have selected Tesco and Walmart, the leading supermarkets and hypermarkets in the world based on the March 2013 Global Food Retail report. Moreover, both Tesco and Walmart have set up their official Facebook pages where the language used is mainly English. Another reason why these two grocery stores have been

selected is that they both have adopted an international strategy and are operating in several countries. The official Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart meet the criteria that have been set by Kozinets [47] in that they are relevant to the topic of the research. On both Facebook pages there are high traffic of postings and a large number of discrete posters. More detailed and rich data are available on both Facebook pages. And finally the two Facebook pages meet the last criteria by enabling companies to communicate to customers, customers to communicate back to the company, and also customers communicating to other customers. Data has been collected for a one-month period during which saturation of data was reached as recommended by Kozinets [47]. During this one-month data collection period, the researcher downloaded conversations occurring on the official Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. The data were analysed using the qualitative software NVivo 7.0. Therefore the researcher used qualitative content analysis to elicit themes from the datasets. Similar to previous research in social media in other sectors [50] [51], the unit of analysis consisted of the content of the Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart and the coding units were the individual posts and comments by customers of these grocery stores. The third step of netnography is to provide trustworthy interpretation [47]. Research is deemed to be reasonable and trustworthy when conventional procedures of netnography are followed while collecting and analysing data [47]. There has been triangulation of data to enhance credibility of the study. Triangulation involved the use of a wide range of customers who have posted comments [52]. Viewpoints and experiences of customers could be verified against opinions and beliefs of other customers, thus building a rich picture of needs, attitudes and behaviours of the users under scrutiny [53]. Additionally the researcher has achieved site triangulation by the participation of customers from two distinct organisations (Tesco and Walmart) in order to reduce the effect on the research of particular local factors peculiar to one grocery store. Findings may be perceived as more credible when similar findings emerge from two or more different sites [53]. In this study, the ethical procedure recommended by Langer and Beckman [54]) has been adopted because the comments posted by customers of Tesco and Walmart on the official Facebook page are not password restricted and are available to the public. The researchers did not carry out member checks in their study as they argued that it was unnecessary to present the findings back to members of the community who participated in the research when it was conducted entirely unobtrusively. IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Customers react to messages posted by companies in various ways on Facebook pages of companies. Customer

behaviours such as liking, sharing and commenting on social media pages are now used as measurements of consumer engagement in social media [36] [55]. All three dimensions of customer engagement have been observed on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart. A. Cognitive Engagement From a cognitive standpoint, engagement is a positive state of mind that is represented by high commitment, energy, and loyalty towards a firm [34], for e.g. the person's level of concentration or engrossment in the brand [32]. Cognitive engagement occurs at Tesco and Walmart, whenever customers post comments in which they provide information and help to other customers, or when they give advice to other customers. Customers post comments on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart when they want to share some information to other members of the brand community. For e.g. a happy customer posted a comment to inform about the gift he got. “Found a plane in my sons [sic] kinder surprise” . This is consistent with findings of a previous study, which observed that customers gain social benefits by sharing their experiences with other customers on the social network, which is essentially a social venue [56]. Another form of cognitive engagement is when customers post comments about their loyalty towards the stores. A customer of Walmart posted a comment in which she expresses her loyalty to the store by mentioning that Walmart is her favourite store: “Walmart the best store in the whole world, everything that I need is there, yeah [sic] because after looking in the other stores website comparing prices at end Walmart is the my favourite and I finished my day in Walmart.” Prolonged customer engagement with a brand can result in customer loyalty [57]. Additionally, customer loyalty is triggered in several ways for e.g. through positive online interactions with the brand and the community members, or by actively defending the company when faced with negative user generated content, or by getting good customer care service after having experienced a bad service [28]. B. Emotional Engagement From an emotional perspective, customer engagement may be characterised by feelings of an individual towards a brand [35]. In this study, four main emotions have been identified: enthusiasm, humour, sarcasm and skepticism. Enthusiasm mirrors an individual’s intrinsic level of interest and excitement about the online brand community while enjoyment indicates the level of pleasure and happiness derived by the customer when interacting with the virtual community and its members [57]. Enthusiasm is

linked to positive emotions felt by customers who post enthusiastic comments when they are happy or excited. Thus they convey in words their hedonic shopping value [33]. For instance customers of Tesco have expressed happiness and excitement for the game it launched for Easter. The following posts reveal the positive emotions felt by customers who were very happy and excited to have won after participating in the egg hunt organised by Tesco: “Thank you tesco [sic] for running the competition! I won a hudl from egg #17! Very excited for it to arrive” Customers use humour in their comments when they find an event or a situation amusing or funny. Walmart posted an advertisement for yoghurt with a picture showing a lady putting the yoghurt in her bag and the copy of the advertisement reads as “Meet your new office buddy - delicious Chobani Greek Yogurt (5.3 oz.). Now only $1 on Rollback.” (Walmart, posted on 9 April 2014, Walmart, Facebook page). In response to this advertisement, a customer posted the following comment: “SHE'S STEALING YOGURT! LITERALLY PUTTING IT IN HER PURSE AND NOT IN THE GROCERY KART [sic]” These humorous comments posted by customers are ways by which they engage with companies. This form of customer engagement brings positive value to the online community [28]. However there are times when customers express negative emotions, hence damaging the image of the company. Comments are labeled as sarcastic when irony is used to mock or to convey contempt. Customers post such comments to express their anger and/or disappointment following an action of the company or an event that has occurred. This form of emotion brings negative value and so can potentially harm the relationship between the two parties. This study reveals that sarcasm is the form of emotional expression mostly used by customers both on Tesco and Walmart Facebook pages. Following a company post in which Tesco asked about the most exotic food that customers had not tasted yet, several customers posted sarcastic comments referring to the horsemeat scandal as illustrated below: “Was going to say horsemeat but then I remembered, I had it last year in place of beef !!! [sic]” (TDW, posted on 7 April 2014, Tesco Facebook page). These findings are consistent with another study which showed that information broadcast by a third party through social media exacerbates publics’ emotions such as disgust,

anger, and contempt when the reason for the crisis is internal [58]. Furthermore, some customers seem to have lost trust, which is one of the pillars of relationship marketing Sarcastic comments may indicate that the relationship between Tesco/Walmart and its customers have been damaged. Sceptic comments are those comments that incorporate an element of doubt or lack of conviction about something. Customers let companies know that they remain dubious or have a feeling of incredulity about promises made by companies. Sceptic comments are posted when customers have lost trust in the company and this may damage or have already damaged the relationship between the customer and the company. At Walmart, customers post sceptical comments whenever Walmart post comments, which they consider to be dubious. For e.g. Walmart shared a link praising the action of a Walmart employee. One customer posted two comments to let the other members of the community know that she has doubts about the truth of this article. “This is bogus!!!!” (WAB, posted on 23 April 2014, Walmart Facebook page). “This is the second article I've seen that a [sic] employee of Walmart supposedly done something good. Like I said before Bogus” (WAB, posted on 23 April 2014, Walmart Facebook page). When customers are emotionally engaged, the nature of the relationship changes ([31]. Positive emotions associated with enthusiasm and humour, tend to enhance the relationship between the company and the customer, while negative emotions associated with sarcasm and scepticism may harm the relationship between the two parties. C. Behavioural Engagement From a behavioural viewpoint, engagement refers to actions toward a firm that go beyond transactions [34], for e.g. participation, vigour and interaction with the focal brand [33]. This study reveals that customers engage with the grocery stores by communicating back (C2B communication) to seek for more information i.e. customer query, for entertainment, to get additional incentives and to participate by responding to posts of the stores. Additionally, this study uncovers that customers converse with other customers (C2C communication) on Facebook, share advertisement, give advice to other customers, get or provide feedback to other customers, criticise other customers, help other customers, make themselves or someone else known to other customers i.e. reputation and also provide support and encouragement to other customers. These forms of behavioural engagement add value to the relationship. These types of customer behaviour are consistent with findings of van Doorn et al. [36] who categorise it as a form of behavioural customer engagement, which incorporates customer co-creation.

Hence, co-creation happens when the customer contributes through spontaneous, discretionary behaviours that personalise the customer-to-brand experience [36]. Examples of customer engagement behaviours are when customers suggest how to enhance the customer experience, helping and training service providers, or simply helping other customers to enjoy their customer experience [36]. For e.g. a customer of Walmart posted a comment to advise customers how to keep fresh strawberries for a longer period of time: “I found a better way for them to last longer, put them in a bowl of water and a cup of vinegar and soak for 10 min. and then rinse off and put in refrigerator. They stay fresh LONGER AND THEY ARE CLEAN AND PESTICIDE FREE!!! [sic]” Furthermore, the researchers have identified five positive actions resulting from comments posted by customers which add value to the organisation: customer referral, customer suggestions, customer defending the company, customer defending employees of the company and finally promotion by customer. Customers post positive comments to recommend the brand or the company to their friends. This type of customer behaviour is consistent with findings of Sashi [40] who refer to these customers as advocates. Advocacy is a form of consumer engagement, which happens when consumers actively recommend specific brands, and/or ways of using these brands [39]. Similarly, customer referral is a form of customer engagement and is termed as endorsing [57]. Endorsing is a form of behavioural customer engagement in which the customer proactively recommends products and services to the members of the online community ([57]. Customers at times make suggestions to the company and these suggestions turn customers into co-creators of value for the organisation [43]. These types of comments are very valuable for any organisation as the customers are readily informing the company about their needs and wants, providing competitive intelligence for free, and tell companies how to solve problems that they have encountered. Another form of behavioural customer engagement is when customers defend the company or employees of the company on the Facebook page. This is highly appealing for the organisation as it shows high level of customer loyalty [57]. In this study there are several occasions when the company has posted on its official Facebook page and have been criticised by its customers. Other customers who do not agree with the latters have replied back to these customers and defended the company. These findings are consistent with researchers who argue that very often customers respond to complaints before the companies do by giving the company the benefit of the doubt [49]. For example when Tesco posted a comment to gain insight into

the type of exotic food that its customers had not yet consumed, several customers posted sarcastic comments referring to the horsemeat scandal, which Tesco had allegedly been selling in the past. A customer defended the company by posting the following comment: “Sick of hearing about horse meat comedy, I don't think Tesco's would knowingly sell you anything that you did not want... The supplier is at fault not Tesco Analysis of data also shows that customers post comments that are negative and unfavourable for the company in five main instances: to complain, to criticise, to provide information about competitors, to warn customers against a product/service, and lastly to retaliate i.e. to inform of actions they have taken or are about to take because of their dissatisfaction. These forms of negative comments are referred to as negative word of mouth [49]. Complaints are the most common form of customer post containing an unfavourable message in this study. Customers use the Facebook page of the company to voice out their dissatisfaction and discontent with the product or service of the company. Customers post messages on the Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart to criticise actions taken by the respective companies. When Walmart posted about its initiative of empowering women in different parts of the world, a customer posted a negative comment to inform Walmart and the Facebook community that she does not believe this company post, which she describes as hogwash i.e. insincere speech or meaningless talk as Walmart does not pay its employees decent wages “What a bunch of hog wash [sic] !!!! Walmart you are one of the hugest reasons the working poor stay poor!!!! Shame on u [sic]!!! Pay living wages and give health benefits and then you can make claims like this!!!!” Such type of customer engagement activities may have negative consequences for the organisation [36]. When customers post negative reviews, the reputation of the company may be damaged. Thus, co-destruction of value arises during interactions between the company and its customers where instead of creating value for both parties, value is destroyed either for all parties or for one party [60]. V. CONCLUSION The aim of this study was to analyse the various forms of customer engagement by examining the reactions of customers to company initiated messages on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart. From the extant literature and the findings of the study on the use of Facebook in the hypermarket and supermarket sector, it is clear that Facebook is influencing the way businesses are being managed today. Within the hypermarket and supermarket sector, co-creation in terms of new product development or improving existing products are limited since these businesses are merely selling products manufactured or produced by suppliers. Nonetheless, this study has revealed that customers do create value for the organisation by interacting on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart,

thus adding to the literature on co-creation of value by customers. Customers become co-creators of value when they offer advice or help other customers within the community, when they refer products or services to other customers, when they make suggestions to the grocery stores, when they defend the company and its employees.

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The findings of this study provide considerable support to customers destroying value for the grocery stores on their Facebook pages. This study has revealed that customers mainly use the Facebook pages of grocery stores to post complaints and criticisms. Furthermore, they actively recommend customers to boycott the grocery stores and to patronise stores of competitors. Additionally, customers provide information about products and services of competitors, thus encouraging the other customers to shop in other outlets. These actions of customers harm the organisation as they destroy value [41] [42]. This study therefore contributes to the body of literature in that it has compiled various ways that customers can threaten and harm grocery stores on Facebook.

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The limitation of the study is linked to the nature of the netnography method, which restricted the analysis to those customers who have posted comments online, thus neglecting other sources such as offline customer feedback. Despite choosing two main grocery stores, the researcher has not done a comparative analysis of the use of Facebook within the two grocery stores as the aim of the study was to gain an understanding of the types of customer engagement occurring within the grocery sector on Facebook. For future research. a comparative analysis of the use of Facebook by grocery stores may be undertaken to analyse the social media strategies adopted by these firms. An additional avenue for future research could be to carry out research by focusing on one grocery store operating in different countries. This would help the identification of differences and similarities between social media communication in various country contexts. Furthermore, this will allow the researcher to look at how communication is tailored to specific locations i.e. the importance of place and culture. REFERENCES [1]

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