The Garden Centre Group has appointed CrowdControlHQ, the leading social media risk management and compliance business, to manage its social media.

TGCG operates 140 garden centres in England and Wales, including Bournville Garden Centre, Blooms in Solihull and Country Gardens in Aldridge, employing over 5,000 people. 

This created a challenge for the business when seeking to connect with customers on a local level, whilst at the same time ensuring the messages given out through social media were consistent and reflected the ethos of the business.

James Leavesley, CEO of CrowdControlHQ explained the issues The Garden Centre Group faced. “The group is a national brand with a very strong local presence. Social media enables local engagement to take place, which is critical to deliver footfall and revenue. However, to do this successfully the business needed a system which would enable them to have full control of their social media output”.

By using CrowdControlHQ The Garden Centre Group can now:

• Maintain control over all social profiles by securing all usernames and passwords. In a retail environment where there is a high turnover of staff, the ability to add and remove users and keeping account details secure is critical to uphold IT policies and governance. The organisation can now lock down their username and passwords so if an employee leaves their access can be turned off without compromising the usernames and passwords.
• Manage major national campaigns across all its’ centres. National campaigns can be pushed out to all social profiles in just a few clicks saving time as well as ensuring consistency of message.
• Control content. The online team can now control messages across the business to ensure consistency in tone of voice and content in order to build on the brand. Any employee who drifts off message can be identified and then supported with training.
• Identify best content. Best practice can also be shared across the organisation using automated reporting to identify the most popular content and linking this back to an individual.

The system can also be utilised to target new customers. Using the Buzz Monitoring Feature within CrowdControlHQ means that the organisation can set up key word searches around specific geographies to ensure that they capture relevant opportunities to target new customers.

“With a vast number of social profiles, keeping a track of analytics and progress is a time consuming job (a little like painting the Severn bridge).

"Using our platform enables the online team to build reports and then automate these to capture headline information and the most successful activity in just a few clicks, which was originally taking hours to compile.

"This not only makes the organisation more efficient but also reduces costs. I am delighted that The Garden Centre Group chose our product and we look forward to a long partnership," concluded Leavesley.

Pictured: James Leavesley (left), CEO CrowdControlHQ, and Mark Abbot, of The Garden Centre Group.