May 10, 2010
H&R Block Preps for Company-Wide Social Media Outreach
By: Teresa Basich
There’s nothing quite like tax time to set people on edge; not only do we potentially have to shell out money to our government, but it’s a slightly nerve-wracking process making sure our paperwork is filled out and filed properly (let alone figuring out what tax laws apply to us).
We all feel the pain of taxes, and H&R Block, one of the world’s largest tax preparation services, is poised to ease some of that pain by offering up the expertise of their tax advisors to the greater online community. But how do you mobilize thousands of experts to get chatting in such a highly regulated industry? It may not be an easy feat, but Director of Social Media Zena Weist and her team are happy to take on this challenge.
The Mission
H&R Block’s goals for social media engagement are simple: Field and answer product inquiries and company-specific questions, and contribute expertise and advice to the larger online community discussion regarding all things tax prep. Unsurprisingly, the simplicity of those goals understates the work it’ll take to achieve them.
Already headed down the social road, H&R Block has established a community called the Get It Right Community, where people can post questions and get advice from one of the company’s many tax advisors. Thousands of people have already joined, but not all tax-related questions and comments are asked within these community walls; a good portion of the larger conversation lives outside the H&R Block community on a variety of touch points that need to be monitored regularly.
Weist and team have been tasked with finding these separate conversations happening outside the H&R Block community, observing the trends of those conversations, and creating a strategy to get involved on a company-wide scale.
How Are They Scaling?
With hundreds of field offices and thousands of employees, how does a company this big scale social media outreach? Weist’s team was created and is structured to thread together all the various-company based activity on the social web, and keep things as organized and cohesive as possible. To get analogous, H&R Block’s social media team is the hub for the company’s social web initiatives, and the various offices and employees involved are the spokes.
The H&R Block social media team consists of four people, including Weist, who oversee the company’s Get It Right Community, own and manage its various social media outposts and partner initiatives, make sure the content H&R Block produces is fresh and relevant to the overarching online conversation, and work to establish a more social form of customer service.
Because of its fairly small size, the social media team at H&R Block relies heavily on its internal partners, and on the unusual but celebration-worthy buy-in from company executives. To some degree, that corporate buy-in and organization-wide enthusiasm for using social media to share company expertise make it easier to keep the hub small and still remain effective.
Why Radian6?
Weist emphasizes that the long-term goal for H&R Block is to shift from a reactive response effort to a proactive one in which they’ll be able to anticipate and answer questions before people run into serious issues that get them nervous or upset. Taking into consideration this long-term goal, Radian6’s trend analysis capabilities and workflow functionality make the platform a perfect fit for H&R Block’s purposes.
The Engagement Console will also be an integral piece of H&R Block’s monitoring and engagement strategy, as the company’s customer service team will be able to tag, assign, and respond to comments and questions around the web quickly and without confusion to keep conversations moving. With the Engagement Console, the executive team will be able to review online content relevant to them without having to get heavily involved in the nitty gritty of sifting through posts or managing responses.
What’s Next?
Because H&R Block is in a heavily regulated industry, the company can only do so much with the social graph information they’ll have access to from their online interactions. Working within these regulations makes future planning for these channels limited until tax laws change, but that won’t keep H&R Block from doing all it can to optimize its use of the social web to help people and build brand reputation.
While Weist and team have quite the task list to manage in the months to come, they have a winning combination of support from their organization and the drive to be the go-to resource for tax preparation, both on- and offline.
Hi Dan,
The social media team at H&R Block is heading up social media initiatives that will include getting those employees you mentioned prepared to start interacting online on behalf of the company. Four people wouldn't be able to handle the kind of response the company hopes to tackle, and these folks aren't tax experts, either. As I said in the post, this team is the hub for monitoring and executing social media strategies that will include getting the spokes (i.e., offices and employees) responding to questions and comments.
Thanks for your comment!
Teresa
Teresa,
Interesting news. H&R Block has such great brand awareness, yet there seems to be a disconnect between the younger taxpayer and their value-added services. Social media could certainly be a channel for them to address this demographic, as we've seen with the Get It Right Community. I was hoping you could contact me via email, I had a couple other questions. I appreciate the help.
Grant
Teresa,
Thanks for including our story in your blog. We are excited to be partnering with Radian6 as we continue to grow our enterprise-wide social media initiatives.
Dan,
You are absolutely right. At the beginning of the year, 1,000 senior tax pros went through social media training and began answering tax-related questions on H&R Block's online community called Get It Right. To date, our tax pros have answered well over 140,000 individual taxpayer's questions. In March, our client service organization began answering customer inquiries on our Facebook page, via Twitter and on our community. Prior to the social media team being created this past January, client inquiries used to be answered by marketing. Well intentioned people in marketing that had stepped up to help…but they didn't have access to systems or knowledge to resolve client inquires. It was a long, tedious process to get the client's inquiry resolved. We agree with you that the associates who can help the clients should be connecting with them 1:1. Social media tools are the best way for our associates to connect directly with our clients. Our focus is is two-pronged: 1) To get associates up-to-speed on the online tools that will help them help our clients; and 2) To be the central social media connection for our organization. Our team works as the traffic coordinators, or as Teresa termed it the social media "hub". We are working to get our 120,000 associate "spokes" out there in the social space doing what they do best.
Grant,
I'm all ears. Ask away via @zenaweist or zena(dot)weist(at)hrblock(dot)com
Hi Dan,
The social media team at H&R Block is heading up social media initiatives that will include getting those employees you mentioned prepared to start interacting online on behalf of the company. Four people wouldn’t be able to handle the kind of response the company hopes to tackle, and these folks aren’t tax experts, either. As I said in the post, this team is the hub for monitoring and executing social media strategies that will include getting the spokes (i.e., offices and employees) responding to questions and comments.
Thanks for your comment!
Teresa
Hi Dan,
The social media team at H&R Block is heading up social media initiatives that will include getting those employees you mentioned prepared to start interacting online on behalf of the company. Four people wouldn’t be able to handle the kind of response the company hopes to tackle, and these folks aren’t tax experts, either. As I said in the post, this team is the hub for monitoring and executing social media strategies that will include getting the spokes (i.e., offices and employees) responding to questions and comments.
Thanks for your comment!
Teresa
Let me throw some cold water on this project right now.
I'm a senior tax professional at HRB in NYC. Last week we had our orientation where the person who was coordinating social media was introduced. When I wanted to set up a contact with him, he didn't have a HRB e-mail.
Also, I cannot access my Linkedin, Facebook, or Twiiter account from a HRB computer. i have to go to the local internet cafe.
You'll have to do better.
Hi Patrick,
I'm sorry to hear you haven't had much success with this. Seeing as we're a vendor working with H&R Block, and not part of the H&R Block social media program, we can listen to you, but we can't step in to figure out what's going on. If possible, share this feedback with folks within your organization so they can act on it.
Let me throw some cold water on this project right now.
I'm a senior tax professional at HRB in NYC. Last week we had our orientation where the person who was coordinating social media was introduced. When I wanted to set up a contact with him, he didn't have a HRB e-mail.
Also, I cannot access my Linkedin, Facebook, or Twiiter account from a HRB computer. i have to go to the local internet cafe.
You'll have to do better.
Hi Patrick,
I'm sorry to hear you haven't had much success with this. Seeing as we're a vendor working with H&R Block, and not part of the H&R Block social media program, we can listen to you, but we can't step in to figure out what's going on. If possible, share this feedback with folks within your organization so they can act on it.
Hi Patrick,
I tried to shoot you an email but couldn't find your email on our system. We have heard that a few regional marketing teams have hired social media coordinators for local social media tactics. Our corporate marketing team is working with them as I type. To discuss any HRB local or corporate social media initiatives (Get It Right Community, etc.), please feel free to reach out to me directly at:
Zena Weist
Director, Social Media
One H&R Block Way
Kansas City, MO 64105
zena.weist@hrblock.com | @zenaweist | 816.854.4323
Also, see MyBlock (our corporate intranet) for our online communication policy.
Thanks,
Zena
Hi Patrick,
I tried to shoot you an email but couldn't find your email on our system. We have heard that a few regional marketing teams have hired social media coordinators for local social media tactics. Our corporate marketing team is working with them as I type. To discuss any HRB local or corporate social media initiatives (Get It Right Community, etc.), please feel free to reach out to me directly at:
Zena Weist
Director, Social Media
One H&R Block Way
Kansas City, MO 64105
zena.weist@hrblock.com | @zenaweist | 816.854.4323
Also, see MyBlock (our corporate intranet) for our online communication policy.
Thanks,
Zena
Hi Dan,
The social media team at H&R Block is heading up social media initiatives that will include getting those employees you mentioned prepared to start interacting online on behalf of the company. Four people wouldn't be able to handle the kind of response the company hopes to tackle, and these folks aren't tax experts, either. As I said in the post, this team is the hub for monitoring and executing social media strategies that will include getting the spokes (i.e., offices and employees) responding to questions and comments.
Thanks for your comment!
Teresa
Hi Dan,
The social media team at H&R Block is heading up social media initiatives that will include getting those employees you mentioned prepared to start interacting online on behalf of the company. Four people wouldn't be able to handle the kind of response the company hopes to tackle, and these folks aren't tax experts, either. As I said in the post, this team is the hub for monitoring and executing social media strategies that will include getting the spokes (i.e., offices and employees) responding to questions and comments.
Thanks for your comment!
Teresa
Teresa,
Interesting news. H&R Block has such great brand awareness, yet there seems to be a disconnect between the younger taxpayer and their value-added services. Social media could certainly be a channel for them to address this demographic, as we've seen with the Get It Right Community. I was hoping you could contact me via email, I had a couple other questions. I appreciate the help.
Grant