Asda is gearing up for the launch of an interactive online forum to engage with customers as it continues its drive for “absolute transparency”.
The Wal-Mart owned grocer, which unveiled its own TV channel on YouTube last weekend, is finalising the details for a spring launch.
An Asda spokesman said the forum will take the grocer’s transparency to the next level.
He said: “The next stage will be to interact with our customers in real time, and we’re working on the best way to have easy discussions and respond to our customers immediately.”
The platform will reinforce Asda’s value message and provide another route to engage with customers. He said while details of the initiative are still being finalised, the most important aspect of it will be to stay true to Asda’s tone of voice and provide a real person for customers to interact with.
He also said other social networking sites such as Twitter could be utilised as part of the launch. Asda signed to Twitter last year but so far only tweets its press releases.
The move follows Waitrose’s social networking initiative last month, Mywaitrose.com, which offers recipe tips and customer interaction.
Other elements of Asda’s transparency drive include its Pulse of the Nation online customer panel and its Tell Asda scheme, as well as the YouTube TV channel.
The TV channel, called Saving You Money TV, offers tips and suggestions generated by customers, plus short films produced by the grocer to help customers save money. The channel is designed to be useful and fun, and customers can send in their video tips by posting, texting or uploading them.
Asda also has a mobile TV crew to scour the UK searching for money-saving tips, and if customers have an idea but are unable to video it the crew can arrange a visit to their homes.
Asda cut another 5,000 prices last weekend and said it will have cut a total of 12,500 prices by Easter. It vowed to ditch bogofs and any promotions that are not substantiated by a price.
No comments yet