Business communication GROUP PROJECT PROPOSAL Members Hoàng Thùy Dung Quách Thùy Linh Nguyễn Quang Huy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Situation 1. The 19 Club fashion Brand Back ground in formation: The 19 Club is a women clothes label established in 2016 and located at 87 D, Tho Nhuom, Tran Hung Dao Ward, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. The Brand proclaims itself as “the house of muses” as the outfits are designed with neutral tone and sheer, light materials to bring the elegant and dreamy concept. Like numerous clothing retailers, they sell both online (platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Shopee) and offline (2 stores). Controversial situations regarding communications with customers In contrary to its gentle and graceful fashion products, the business is notorious for the unacceptable attitude towards its customers. Recently, a customer shared an unhappy experience when using the services of the 19 Club. Unsure about the confusing sale program of the brand, a loyal customer messaged their Facebook fanpage to confirm. Instead of giving a concise answer, the brand beat around the brush and somewhat criticize the woman for not understanding their post about the sale program. Moreover, she even got blocked on Facebook by the brand. After this customer shared her disappointing experience, several customers who had interacted with the brand showed their sympathy as they were all once mistreated with rude attitude when communicating either online or offline. Many shared to be replied with mean words and superior attitude. The brand even humiliated one customer’s career in the comment section on Facebook. Especially, the founder of the label is said to often gossip about the customers who either did not purchase or tried on too many outfits on his Instagram story with offensive and mean words. This has provoked anger among the netizens. 1 day after the customer shared the post complaining about the brand which had reachd 8,5k like, 4,9k comment và approximately 2k share, T.19.C officially apologize to all the disappointed customers on its fanpage. Moreover, for customers who have experienced poor customer service, this brand offers to give them voucher if they inbox their fanpage. However, hardly any customer accepted their apology but they rather consider it to be hypocritical and not enough to ease the customers’ anger. Reason for choosing those topics: To highlight the importance of communication with customers in business: Quality and content are the core of the business but without a good ability to communicate with customers, it all fails. To caution businesses about the influence of social media: The Social network is a double-edge sword. On one hand, it could be one of the most effective tools to build brand awareness. On the other hand, so rapidly could information be communicated on the internet that any incident could be shared to the public and stay online forever. Therefore, the online businesses need to pay close attention to any message that they share on all the platforms. Analyze the situations Although everyone has the freedom of speech on their social network account, as a founder of a brand who also represents his own brand, it is important to be cautious with the words. It is obviously not wise of the founder to targeting his customers with offensive words in the Instagram story. This not only failed to gain any sympathy but also trigger the anger in netizens. The incident was also the main reason the brand got boycotted. As they chose the wrong CHANNEL to apology the brand was unable to regain the trust in the customers. Asking them to inbox the fanpage for voucher but not actively sending them is little inappropriate. Moreover, the small gift and insincere apology is not enough to compensate for the customers. What our group learns from these situations In order to not upset the customers, the brand should divide the human resource reasonable to reply all the comments and massages in a more proper way. Moreover, they should response to their customers in a more gentle and professional manner instead of mocking at them. The answer should be concise and decent to provide they the information they need. All in all, it is important that all the customers be treated with respect. The founder should adjust the way he does social media as the image of the brand will directly affected by his action. He should consider about the content and the language to share online. As a leader of the company, he has great influence on the ways the business system operate the way his staffs work. The man should manage his own personal account wiser as well as train the staffs to be more professional. When an unwanted incident occurred, the situation should be thoroughly discussed among the staffs and managers to sort out the most suitable ways to response to their customers without hurting people’s feelings. Blocking is definitely never the best way to solve a conflict between the business and its customers. It is the way to convey a sincere apology that matter rather than the compensating gift itself. To be more specific, the brand should actively inbox or send the customers email and gift to show their sincerity instead of waiting for the customers to message the fanpage. Situation 2: Meeting culture with Chinese company At the end of 2018, 21sturban cooperated with a Chinese design agency which has a branch in Hanoi for its campaign. Since they are all East Asian countries and share the same working styles, this cooperation went quite smoothly. After its first successful collaboration, 21sturban wanted to continue working with this agency on future projects. The 21sturban’s human resources team was assigned to prepare a present for the manager of this agency to show its gratefulness in the campaign closing meeting. When opening the gift, the manager became upset. It turned out that the present committed some taboos in Chinese culture. As a result, the 21sturban’s manager faced embarrassment and had to apologize for his staffs’ mistakes. Why we chose to study this problem? We want to illustrate situations in 21sturban due to its noticeable characteristics in business communication. 21sturban local brand is more and more popular in the Vietnamese market as well as attracting more attention from foreign agencies. Working with foreign colleagues also brings great benefits for a pure Vietnamese brand in catching up with trends and reaching more market segments. The lack of understanding about the culture and violating that culture’s taboos can cause bad views of the partners about that brand in particular and the Vietnamese brands in general. Moreover, this situation can adversely affect the cooperation of the two parties in the future. Brief analysis Due to the lack of understanding about the Chinese culture, the 21sturban’s manager had to faced embarrassment and apologize to the counterpart’s manager. The present consisted of four things: a handembroidered handkerchief, a wallet and two limited edition products of the campaign. Firstly, people always avoid gifts that come in sets of four because the word for the number four is very similar to the word for death in Chinese and is considered unlucky. Next, a handkerchief is considered a gift of parting and so if given it is often assumed that you are saying goodbye forever which can cause misunderstanding about the chance to collaborate in the future. And the last o ne, Chinese believes that giving wallet is similar to giving away your “wealth chamber”. If you give someone wallet as a gift, it is likely that you bring bad luck to your wealth fortune, face leakage of financial or difficulty in recovering debts. However, for Vietnamese people, giving those things as presents is regarded as showing the closeness of relationships. What we learn from these situations In order to work effectively together, both parties have to try their best to put up with other party’s cultures and put aside their ego as much as possible to finally carry out a campaign as successful as possible: China is a high-context country whose culture is so substantive in content and comprehensive in varieties. We should consider finding what should be appropriate or avoided to do the best in business communication. Every company's staff should be trained to learn about not only Chinese culture but also have to research every country's business cultures and how to adapt to them. Situation 3. She by Shj fashion Brand: This situation is not relevant to business communication. It is rather a marketing blunder. Back ground in formation: Shebyshj is a local Vietnamese clothing brand established in 2013. With the motto “Lead the trend”, Shebyshj desires to bring customers products with trendy style, good quality and reasonable prices. Problem * Recently, Shebyshj hired Tran Thanh Tam - a micro influencer with rising popularity to promote their new product line. However, Tran Thanh Tam was actually renowned for her ridiculous videos on Tiktok and shocking speeches. * Indeed, when the advertisement featuring Thanh Tam was published, Shebyshj received a wave of opposition. In the comment section, all of them were harsh criticism on Shebyshj’s KOL selection. * Among opponents of that advertisement, there were both loyal customers, potential customers and bystanders. Many of stated that Shebyshe just “destroyed both their own image and love from customers” * Less than a day later, Shebyshj posted a public apology on their social account. But regarding the advertisement featuring Thanh Tam, the brand did not delete it and explained “Shebyshj respects and embraces every difference in the hope that all girls can have the confidence to show them true selves”. * This apology did calm the netizens down. However, many of them still felt unsatisfied and remained biased against the brand Reason for choosing those topics: • To highlight the importance of communication with customers in business: Businesses have to understand their customers and be careful when dealing with media crisis • To caution businesses about the influence of brand’s representative: The representatives significantly affect the brand’s image. Especially in the present time when the social media is having a rising dominance, and a person or an organization’s reputation can be destroyed within a blink. Therefore, the online businesses need to pay close attention to any message that they share on all the platforms. Analyze the situations • It’s common for a fashion brand to choose a trendy figure to represent their brand with a view to gain popularity . But a young influencer with bad reputation is actually a bad choice for this fashion brand. Shebyshj has long built their image as a mid-end clothing brand for classy, modern girl. On the contrary, Thanh Tam seemed like a careless, immature, scandalous girl. Indeed, Shebyshj’s target customers don’t want themselves to have Tam as their role model. As a result, this advertisement provoked anger among the netizens. • Although everyone has the freedom of speech and it is important to be truthful, the brand has to be cautious with the words in order to achieve their purpose. It is not very wise of the brand to defend their faulty decision with fancy words. This not only failed to gain any sympathy but also trigger the anger in netizens. The incident was also the main reason the brand got boycotted. What our group learns from these situations • In order to protect their image, the brand should think carefully before choosing a KOL • The brand should adjust the way they communicate with the public • When an unwanted incident occurred, the situation should be thoroughly discussed among the staffs and managers to sort out the most suitable ways to response to their customers without hurting people’s feelings. More effort should be made to please their customer as well as to gain positive assessment from the netizens
