Those of us who are in leadership understand how important the customer experience is and the potential ripple effect that can take place due to a satisfied or unsatisfied customer. Today’s business environment is full of tough competitors. Offering an excellent customer experience is an effective way to compete in the market and stand out amongst competitors as a valued brand to do business with.
No doubt, your organization needs to leverage all means possible to drive effortless customer experience. My experience has shown me that the below six remarkable benefits of using social media can take your organization’s customer satisfaction to the next level.
1: Faster Response Time
Social media platforms can be the best way to respond to a customer because of the combination of speed and reach to the audience. A tweet or Facebook post to the company’s page that answers common questions from your customers, will let you get the message out to your customers in a single action, rather than individual interactions that consume time and resources.
Millennials know the value of social media and they use it as their primary channel to stay connected to the world. Other generations are also aware of social media sites and use it to their advantage, getting the most they can out of it. This makes social media a great platform to communicate with your customers. They will actively view your posts, and read your business page, if you choose to utilize it. So quickly responding to an issue using social media can be an easy win-win result for you and your customers.
Social media platforms understand the importance of rapid response time and always strive to work with you to improve it. For example, the response rate icon of Facebook informs the percentage of your inbox messages that have been answered.
2: Make Relationships Stronger
Customer satisfaction is all about building relationships and trust. If you build better relationships with your customers, you will get honest feedback and finally be able to determine how they feel as a customer. Social media is a great way for your company to establish a constant flow of communication with your customers. If there is a concern, they write to your company. Customers will take advantage of social media to directly give you feedback and if you give a quick response, it shows you care.
Your company can also use social media pages to let customers know about any new developments, products and upcoming events.
Social media can help strengthen your relationships with customers because it consistently drives communication among the two parties. These interactions also build trust which leads to loyalty.
3: You Get a Human Voice
Social media is not strictly canned messages because your customers will not always ask the same questions and thus will require unique answers. Customers tweet with an expectation that he/she will get a human response.
Do you remember the days before the emergence of Social Media?
Customers could only reach brands via phone or in person. As companies started getting more and more customer calls, automation came into the picture and turned the process of customer interaction into a somewhat mechanical one.
However, with social media, you can give a personalized experience to your customers. When you respond to a question on social media, you can use the person’s name to make it relevant to them. With this, customers realize they are speaking to a human being, which helps your CSAT and NPS scores go up.
4: Drives Targeted Communication
Social media is the best platform through which you can reach a specific consumer group instead of all your customers. It is possible to narrow down to your targeted audience by their demographics on all social media platforms. You can use social media to pass on information to a particular group or advertise a product. It will help your customers get relevant information that they can act upon.
5: Better Competition Analysis
Your competitors’ social media pages are the best sources to gather information. It’s easy for you to see the customers’ conversations with your competitors on social media, what is working well, what customers are not satisfied about other brands, etc. Finally, your brand can capitalize on all the gathered information and offer an excellent customer experience.
6: Handle Negative Feedback Effectively
There will be both satisfied and unsatisfied customers of your business. And an unhappy customer might choose to air their discontent with your brand on social media. It can even go viral in a matter of seconds and badly hurt your brand’s reputation. However, if you stay active on social media, you can be the first to notice a negative post and respond accordingly.
In such a scenario, you want to always try to resolve the problem on the same social media platform in which the complaint was raised. Rather than ask the customer to contact you privately, it is better to publicly resolve the issue. Other customers are watching and it’s important to them to see how you handle a disgruntled customer, because one day it may be them who has an issue.
Summing It Up
Undoubtedly, Social Media has the power to keep your customers engaged and happy. In Etech’s blog section, we have discussed how it is possible to take your brand’s contact center operations to the next level with the help of social media. So, make sure you leverage it well and it will definitely help you turn your customers into brand ambassadors who love to promote your brand whenever possible.
