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Without a doubt, one of the most important aspects of any social media strategy is to listen to your audience. We're all familiar with being the customer, and having some sort of complaint or issue with a company's service or product. In today's digital age, one of the first courses of action that most people think of is to blast that particular company on social media, in an attempt to try and get it resolved.
When they don't answer, or give a clearly rehearsed response, it's infuriating, isn't it?
In Dave Kerpen's Likeable Social Media, he brings up some very good points in regards to how brands should be listening. He mentions how communication is 50 percent listening, while the other half is all talking. However, for many years, companies of all levels and done way too much talking. (Kerpen, 14)
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Working in Social Media for an agency for the past five years, one of the first problems that we typically (as in "always") see with an oncoming client's current social media campaign is that they're not listening to their community. They're posting, and for the majority of the time, are talking about nothing but the service and/or product they offer, and not connecting with their audience. Their followers and customers are commenting on their posts, engaging with them, and asking questions, and the brand in question is non-responsive. If the brand isn't giving the members of their social community a reason to keep engaging, they won't. Would you?
Dierdre Breakenridge puts it best in Social Media and Public Relations, by saying that "Social Media is revinventing and propelling the public relations industry forward, as well as creating awareness about the greater need for PR education on a higher level." (Breakenridge, 148) It's all about image, and again, if you don't listen to and communicate with your audience in a positive way, then those engagements from the community will slowly begin to disappear.
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One of the best ways to approach this is for the company to put themselves in the shoes of the customer in any given situation. Recently, a flyer with JetBlue Airlines experienced a non-working television on his flight, and tweeted at the company. They responded by saying that "We hate it when that happens. Send us a DM with your confirmation code to get you a credit for the non-working TV." (Haines, 2015)
By customizing the responses to customers, brands can take control of their customer service on social media, and make everything a better overall experience for the customer in question. Often times, brands respond with something clearly rehearsed, such as "We're terribly sorry to hear this. Please send us a DM with your order number so that we can assist you further." Responses like that are too common on social media amongst major brands, and they don't resonate well with the customer.
What's one strategy that you think works best?
Sources:
Breakenridge, D.K. (2012). Social Media and Public Relations - Eight New Practices for the PR Professional. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.
Haines, B. (2015, December 29). 14 Amazing Social Media Customer Service Examples. Retrieved February 01, 2017, from https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-customer-service
Kerpen, D. (2011). Likeable Social Media. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your voice in this blog post. You engaged me especially with your question of, “When they don't answer, or give a clearly rehearsed response, it's infuriating, isn't it?” I agree. A commercial response is probably easier for larger companies, but what does it really say to customers? Maybe that they don’t care.
Thank you for including your professional experience. I see a lot of times companies talking at their customers instead of with their customers. A great way to listen is to talk with your customers –engage them. I think this also helps to be authentic. So to answer your last question, a helpful way for companies to show their genuinely is to ask questions and engage in dialogue. The pro is that it’s makes a wonderful connection and humanity to the company. The con is that marketers need to staff their team appropriately and sometimes resources can be scarce.
Laura
Hi Mike,
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is infuriating not getting a response when making a comment to a company via social media during a problem. It’s interesting, from my experience, how far that expectation has come. What kind of tips would you give to a company who is having trouble engaging their audience at all? They’re continually posting (talking) online, but getting nothing in return. Would you suggest an entire content overhaul to spike more interest?
In Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuk (2013) states that many companies are only half-heartedly paying attention to the on-line conversations people have about them, relinquishing control over how their brand is perceived and allowing the competition to step in and shape the conversation in its favor (p. 87). This couldn’t be truer and speaks to your point on engagement from your community disappearing. Eventually, people will just stop talking.
Vaynerchuk (2013) also noted that, “Twitter is a marketer’s dream because it allows you to initiate a relationship with your customer. It’s the only platform where you can jump into a conversation unannounced and no one thinks you’re a stalker” (p. 87). Companies can take advantage by adding their perspective and humor with the ability to shed a positive light on their brand image during any conversation.
Vaynerchuk, G. (2013). Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.
Hi Mike,
ReplyDeleteGreat post this week. I also enjoyed the tone you used with your post and found it very easy to read and follow. I am 100% at fault for not engaging my customers as much as I should be, just as you described and as our texts describe. For small businesses where administrators wear many hats it's a tough task to constantly be monitoring, listening, engaging, servicing, being HR and the marketing, advertising, graphic, you name it department. Sometimes I only get to social media late at night or early in the morning, so I am sympathetic to us poor social media users. But, I am also a millennial consumer so I understand the consumers need to be heard, listening to and engaged with.
I think that part of the social media interaction we are forgetting is that many of the comments are negative. And thus, the original poster wants to receive something. So, part of being authentic is also being empowered by your company or organization to give things away, discount, and refund. If you do not have the right, or authority from your mangers to issue such things then the stereotypical blanket responses are all that you really can say. Right? So companies are faced with two task, empower personnel to act in the best interest of both the company an the consumer as well as be trained enough to make those right decisions.
Lena