Social Media and successful organizations have one common central focus: customers. It doesn’t matter if its a business, a professional practice, a hospital, or a government agency, success comes to those, and only those, who are obsessed with looking after customers!
Recently I heard a talk by Ed Horrell author of The Kindness Revolution. Still to this day we have companies that don’t get the service aspect of business and wonder why sales are flat to falling according to Ed.
Social Media is putting pressure on ALL companies to perform because everyone has a voice that can reach untold numbers of people. Reputations will rise and fall as a result of how they manage Social Media.
Get in the game with Social Media and manage customer expectations.
1. Listen – Actively listen to what is being said about your product or service.
2. Engage – Start a dialogue with your customers and fans. If you stub your toe, apologize and make it right. Do not get into a Flame War.
3. Relationship – Develop stronger and more reliable relationships.
4. Promote – This should be the last step in what you do in Social Media. Remember the word Social…If you are constantly selling or promoting via Social Media, people will leave you in droves. You can still sell and promote however it’s all about the relationships you develop.Products and services are bought.
Here is an example of service gone wrong, and United Airlines lack of response to the situation. David Carroll is a musician who had his guitar broken in travel by United Airlines. David was patient and tried repeatedly to get United Airlines to respond to his complaint and fix his guitar. After months and months of no response and the runaround by United Airlines David decided to produce his own song and record a YouTube Video. David now has over 11 million views and has come out with video #3.
Social Media has now given the consumer a platform to voice their thoughts and concerns. If you as a business choose not to listen and engage, it could be at your peril.
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