Mr Kazama is the only community manager behind the massive corporate social channels for MUJI, where 818,000 Facebook fans, 186,000 Twitter fans and 40,000 Mixi fans gather. As the person in charge of the community, he manages all of MUJI’s social channels and activities. Normally he has other work to do such as campaign planning and management, so he says that he spends about an hour a day on Social Media operations.
He says, “We have so many products in our line up that sometimes some products get missed when customers come to our stores. But if we let them know that they’re there, it would be a good way to sell those products.” Mr Kazama posts recommended products on a daily basis to the three Social Media platforms.
MUJI first started using Social Media in 2009. They started from Twitter, then Facebook. In 2011, the Mixi page was opened. All started by Mr Kazama.
He used to work for a popular theatre company called ‘Gekidanshiki’ as a marketing manager before he came to MUJI in 2007. He’s been managing the online store and doing branding for MUJI since then. In 2009 the company had been running the ‘Monozukuri community (Craft community)’, so starting Twitter wasn’t really a difficult thing. His boss told him to give it a try as soon as he suggested that they start using it.
MUJI has so many products, but for those recommended on the social channels he keeps the price range reasonable, around 100 – 1,000 yen. The important thing is to try to and see products from a customer’s point of view and think about what they want. Sometimes on the day after he recommended a product, the company finds the sales of that particular product increased by 1.5% “I think I’m doing some extra good for the business, with the only cost being my wage.”
MUJI likes to focus on anonymity. Even though famous and well known designers have worked on some product designs, the company usually prefers to keep the designer anonymous. Mr Kazama also treats this rule importantly. He tries not to be too personal on the social spaces, yet this does not mean acting like a robot.
“It’s something like the distance of handshake with the customer.” On the internet we can be friendly and personal with users, but he insists that “our customers are always our customers”.
Some companies suffer from social scandals. But he says “If we don’t forget that they are all our customers, then there’s no possibility of causing any scandal”. At all of our 370 stores, we are constantly dealing with customers. On the internet or at stores, they are always our customers.”
Sometimes users send claims to the company’s social accounts about the products they bought. But on social spaces he feels that there is a lot more positive feedback compared to negative. In the traditional customer centre, customers don’t often give feedback stating how much they enjoyed their products. But Social Media provides them more accessible opportunities to give positive feedback. This positive feedback motivates and encourages the product development department.
Thanks,
Kana & The JAPAN BUZZ Team
Original Source:
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1207/02/news009.html
