Ignorance is no defence – Connect with your Customers on Social Media

What happens in your business when a client emails or calls you and compliments you and your team on a job well done or refers you?  Do you call or email and acknowledge the thoughtful comments?  Do you reward the referrer?  Most businesses do this as a logical part of nurturing the relationships with their clients and most businesses have a written policy around this process.

But what if, a client liked your facebook page, commented on a blog, promoted your business on social media, retweeted your tweet, or registered an enquiry on-line?

And most businesses have a documented complaints handling system – so that when a client calls or emails with a complaint or concern a nominated person deals with this in an agreed manner.  What if, a client registered their complaint or concern on facebook or twitter?

Ask yourself…

1.  Would you know that you are being talked about on social media?  Who have you nominated to monitor your digital presence and to follow the conversations that are taking place about you?

2.  Have you extended your client contact process (nurturing, enquiry and complaints) through to the social media or digital space?

The majority of customers who leave and choose to shop with your competitors do so because of perceived indifference.  In the digitally connected customers mind, there is an expectation that you will see their digital comment and respond.  If you don’t, there will be a perception that you do not care, that they are not important enough to garner a reaction.

And you can be assured that they are being influenced by your competitors who have recognised social media as a valid and relevant means of communicating.

Ignorance is no defence.  Extend your complaints handling, enquiry response, and customer referral and nurturing policies into the digital space now.  Don’t leave the on-line experience your customers are having with you either to chance, or in the hands of your competitors.

 

I recently attended the Interactive Minds Digital Summit and took away some serious value – here are some of the insights I gained from the brilliant presenters on the day (this is my take on what was presented, with my own additional personal thoughts):

1.  Be clear on who your customers are and where they are researching, buying, connecting?

2.  Have a marketing objective for each campaign and associated KPIs.  For example – it might be to obtain 100 email addresses each week.

3.  What is our “do you want fries with that” offering?

4.  Measure & test & tweak – learn more about the shopping habits of your customers & prospects.  For example – when is the best time to contact them ie. the moment when they are most likely to connect and to respond to your call to action.

5.  Is there an opportunity to sponsor the thank you pages of those businesses which your potential customers have connected with?

6.  Integrate your digital strategy with your business strategy – (This is something I am adamant must happen in all businesses).  One layer on another and remember it is critical to align your business strategy with your life plan!!

7.  Careful with the digital plan – the objectives may not change but the way of getting there may change overnight – be prepared to be flexible

8.  Question – “The Death Plan” – if I die which parts of the business am I holding up?  How do I mitigate this risk?

9.  Test your content and the “look” of your digital documents by measuring the customer response – and then go with the one that worked best

10.  ROMI – return on marketing investment – how do you measure yours?

11.  When posting content consider > location, time, type of content, length of content, social media source, frequency of posts

12.  How do we “listen” to what our market is saying about what we do?

13.  Measure the value of your content pieces – not by what you want to write about but by what people are asking for >The intersection > the point of relevance – thank you Emma Cornwell of NRMA.

 

14.  Beware the creation of silos > on-line versus bricks & mortar > it is one business.

15.  Increase your wallet share with focused selling – know your target and what they will be wanting

16.  So much was said about BIG DATA and Sean Sutherland of Flight Centre defined it in his own unique way – it is like high school sex > everyone is talking about it, not many are doing it and not many of those that are, do it well! Data is not good to anyone unless it is used in a meaningful, timely and relevant way.

17.  Many customers come into your store with their smart phone – what is your policy around price matching? Before deciding to match on price be sure that the service offering is the same.

18.  80% of Pinterest users are women.  Are you engaging with your market using the most relevant platform?

19.  It is important to balance convenience with security – more security, more layers = less convenience.  Be clear on what your customers want.

20.  Passwords will go (thank goodness!) – we will see second factor authentication and/or finger print technology (according to Michael Weeding of Citibank)

21.  Digital disruption will occur when the innovation is introduced at the right time – right product right time works – great product wrong time can be a costly misjudgment.

22.  We are becoming emotionally attached to our mobile phones – so much so that the icons we have on our home screen say alot about our personality and our behaviours.

23.  If you maximise the first engagement with your customer – the customer will be encouraged to buy more often and to maintain the relationship longer = increased loyalty.

Thank you Interactive Minds – great concept – see you next year!