asda social business case study
DESCRIPTION
ASDA is the British subsidiary of WalMart and holds a large share of the UK grocery market. The company have taken steps in order to become more social and connect with all of their 175,000 employees around the country by launching social business projects. These projects include The Green Room – a staff-focused web portal – as well as Your ASDA – a website that houses the 'happy to help' promise. Read this case study to discover how ASDA have become a well-rounded social business.TRANSCRIPT
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SOCIAL BUSINESS CASE STUDY
ASDA
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• British supermarket chain (subsidiary of WalMart) • 564 stores in the UK • Founded in 1949 • Operating income £638 million • 17.5% share of the UK grocery market • 175,000 employees
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ASDA’s social business aims
Connect employees from around the
country
Speak to ASDA employees directly to gather feedback
and opinions
Discover and share amazing stories
about ASDA and its employees
Inspire everyone, whether customer or member of the team,
to work harder
Share ASDA’s story with the public
What does ASDA want to achieve?
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Social business programmes
MARKETING
SALES
B2B SALES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
PRODUCT PLANNING
HR
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
The Green Room • Website for ASDA staff that’s
open to the public • ASDA employees can come
and share their stories about their working life and the charity work they do on behalf of the company
• Customers can use the portal to tell stories about wonderful in-store experiences and exceptional members of staff
• The Green Room aims to inspire other members of staff to work harder
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Social business programmes
MARKETING
SALES
B2B SALES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
PRODUCT PLANNING
HR
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Connecting the whole company
• The Green Room connects all
employees who can simply log in using their colleague number
• The ‘benefits book’ portion of the website allows employees to collect rewards for being part of the team
• The site incentivises hard work by rewarding staff members who go above and beyond for the company and its associated charities
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Social business programmes
MARKETING
SALES
B2B SALES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
PRODUCT PLANNING
HR
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Something in it for everyone • ASDA staff can get together
to find out what’s happening around the company as well as share their own stories, pictures and videos.
• By sharing colleague stories, the communications team hope to inspire other workers to do amazing things
• The website acts as a host for all important content, from employee stories through to social media policies
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Social business programmes
MARKETING
SALES
B2B SALES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
PRODUCT PLANNING
HR
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Making the most out of social
• ASDA adopt multiple
channels to keep their ‘happy to help’ promise
• The ‘Your ASDA’ website features videos and photos from the company in addition to blogs from senior staff members and customer feedback forums
• The homepage features all of ASDA’s social profiles, including Facebook and Twitter
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Social business programmes
MARKETING
SALES
B2B SALES
CUSTOMER SERVICE
PRODUCT PLANNING
HR
How are departments across the organisation involved in the programme?
Adopting real-time • ASDA owns a multitude of
Twitter channels for different purposes
• @asda acts as a news source and a promotional channel to highlight key offers in-store
• @ASDAServiceTeam respond to consumers complaints and queries in real-time on a one-to-one basis
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Organisational culture and approach
Collaboration • Aiming to connect ASDA employees to each other nationally and share stories with each other
Celebration • Adopted a culture that encourages staff to tell their stories
Openness • Internal staff stories openly shared with the public, invitation to public to contribute too
Customer-centric • Emphasis on customer feedback, involvement and response
Inspirational • The most inspiring staff and customer experiences are incentivised and promoted
What values and approach did ASDA need to adopt to make it happen?
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“At Asda, we try to be as transparent as possible, the Green Room was created on this very premise. We
hear amazing stories about our colleagues on a daily basis, whether that’s a colleague saving the life of a
baby in store, or someone having their head shaved for charity (I’m talking about a female colleague as well!)
Asda colleagues always go above and beyond.”
Steven Murgatroyd, ASDA
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References
" Calum Brannan How Asda tip-toed into social media " Inspire: retail design blog Asda – the green room " Jon Weedon Asda’s Greenroom re-visited " Rachel Miller The Green Room has a facelift