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It used to be customer service was that desk everybody lined up or that "special" phone number you called when you had an issue with a product or service. For some businesses it still is. Today however these two items have been combined or replaced by social media platforms to allow their customers to interact and receive answers to their problems more quickly. Having social media platform allows your customers to feel they are important to you
(which obviously they are) and it gives them a feeling their voice is being heard. So why does your business need a social customer service platform? Here are a couple of key reasons in my opinion and experience why you need to catch up with the technology. NEW BUSINESS: When your social media team (Be it your own employees or a contracted service) interacts with customers, you create a relationship of happy customers who will tell others. It also allows you to offer special offers to them to make them feel good about contacting you. Also new business is created by offering tips on other products that you can offer by qualifying their needs. BUILDING VALUE: It is no secret if you use social media with your business, you are looking very visible and savvy for doing business. With younger customers who have money to spend, you are tapping into a market which shows that social media interaction creates spending by as much as 40%. Your social customer service platform acts a spring-board. PREVENTIVE MEDICINE: Offering a social customer service platform builds good will with your customers and stops the bleeding of "Nobody will help me" syndrome. This builds your reputation of caring about what your customers think, what you can do to help their situation, and allows word of mouth to spread via their own personal social media outlets that your company is great to deal with and fixing issues. Whether your business is a Mom and Pop or a large operation, developing a customer social platform is not a huge investment. Saving your customer base by offering an outlet for their voice to be heard when an issue crops up will pay dividends in the long run. You can use Twitter, your business Facebook Page , your web site, or run it through your CRM tools. Bottom line, make your customer service social! As I have previously discussed, online social media tools drives business.
How you use them is up to you. Brand awareness now more than ever in this digital age can make or break your company. You may be Joe's handyman shop in rural America or a fortune 500 company in New York City. Either way, social media is being implemented and our society is deeply entrenched in using it. Here are a few more tips I would like to offer as I continue my blogs on social media and it's deployment in your business. Networking Make sure you are out and about meeting people. Networking with people who are in your industry or potential clients is a key factor. They see your face. If you don't have the time, send one of your key employees who knows your business. If you have a marketing person, he or she needs to be at chamber events, leads groups or other social business events handing out business cards, promoting your company, or scheduling presentations to talk about products or services that are relevent to your business. You might be asking yourself "What does this have to do with social media?" Networking is social contact my friend! Create Contact Participation If you do blogs or offer some kind of newsletter within your web site or online community, make sure you do something that allows interaction. Do a contest for a chance to win a prize, solicit nominations for a free service, offer to do a business spotlight, anything that creates interaction. This creates a tighter client-business relationship and makes them feel like you care about them not only as a customer but as a friend. Be Current & Up To Date Keep your social media interaction up and current. Don't post something and forget about it. Nothing is more annoying than having a customer check your website or Twitter feed to find "Happy 4th of July" and it's September. If you do not have time to post, don't post at all. (Find someone who can for you) Link, Link, Link Make sure you link to everything and everywhere. From your website, link to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever you using. Make sure those same sites have links back to everything else you do. It creates more impressions, increases your position on search engines, and allows more "hits". Don't Be Cruel (With Apologies To Elvis) Keep in mind that many of your clients have no clue about landing pages, what a "tweet" is or what those funny boxes called Quick Response Codes are. Help them find you. Help them understand and use social media. It creates word of mouth referrals to your business. I hope this helps you and your business deploy social media to its best potential. If you have questions, visit my website and contact me via my portal. Get Social! Markeing,especially in today's uncertain economy can be at the very least, a "hair
pulling experience." Some of us don't even have any hair left to pull. Here are some tips that I found to be "standards in the industry" that will work if you follow through. These tips in and if you don't you should. I hope you find these useful.Marketing, especially in today's uncertain economy can be at the very least, a "hair pulling experience." Some of us don't even have any hair left to pull. Here are some tips that I found to be "standards in the industry" that will work if you follow through. These tips Listen To The Customer Understand what your customer needs. Look through what they are saying and help build a relationship to gain value in their growth. If you don't understand your customer, how are you going to help them? Don't say "We can do that" when in fact you really can't. Know your Market or Vertical Nothing is worse than going to market and committing business suicide because you dont' know who you are selling to. Select your customers you wish to target, study that vertical they are in, manage your customers professionally. If you don't know their business make-up, how can you expect to be of any value to them? Connect You must have ties with your customers, with your vendors or distributors, and with your staff. Everyone must be in your playbook if you want that home run, touchdown, or winning basket. You are developing a relationship that you want for years to come. If you are looking for a one stop sale, you can stop reading now. Growth Emergence I am going to use this term in the context of your competition. It can be used as a global experience but most of you are focused on your local market growth and your competition. The term "I don't need to worry about what my competition is doing." is insane. Always watch your market and see who is playing in it. As your vertical grows, your customer base grows and if you're not in that circle, you need to find out why. What is your competition doing? Are they getting a larger pieces of that pie? If so, why? An example I can use here is health care. This is a huge vertical right now. Marketing to this industry is on fire right now. Value Every customer wants value. they want to know their ROI with you. What is your value statement? Is it clear and concise to your customers? Do they know doing business with you is going to not only going to help grow their business but it will bring value to them and save them money? If they don't understand this why should they do business with you? Short term-Long Term Investments How you position yourself in the market place as far as investing in your business in this present day economy is tricky. Some look for the short-term due to uncertainty in the business climate yet you can short-change yourself if you don't look at the big picture down the road. I can say this. If you don't do some investing in the tools of your trade for things like lead generation, CRM software and support, you are setting yourself up for a long and difficult climb. I hope the above mentioned items will be of some help to you. Check out my web site, Facebook site, and Twitter feeds for more information. Thanks! |
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