In an article for the American Marketing Association (AMA) titled “How Effective Is Social Media Marketing at Driving Brand Loyalty?”, Lawrence Crosby discusses the numerous ways in which social media can be used as a great tool for increasing customer engagement and – hopefully, as a result – customer loyalty. Much of the article deals with customer engagement in terms of creating online communities and serving up useful content to keep customers coming back to your business through its various channels, online and otherwise.
But Crosby also talks about how social media can be used to address customers that have had a negative experience with your company. “Many equate loyalty with repeat purchasing,” Crosby says. “In this regard, social media has a key role to play in dealing with customers who are ‘negatively engaged’.” Crosby accurately points out that not everyone on social media is “a happy camper.” Quite the contrary, in fact. The bane of existence for many businesses is handling the snark that plagues them. In fact, the fear of facing negative commentary keeps many offline entire.
Crosby notes, though, that “it is critical to address the actual problems and complaints that customers express.”
To address negative customer experiences through your social media strategy, Crosby points to the “Five Ps of Social Care.”
Participation
The first step is simply to participate in social media. Have your ear to the ground. If you’re not actively monitoring your social media platforms, or the mention of your business/product name on other online channels, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to hear customer concerns being voiced through these channels.
Platform
Monitoring social media and online chatter is just the starting point. Once customer complaints and concerns are received, you need to have a structure in place to respond and track the interaction through to resolution; you’ll also want to establish a way to measure customer satisfaction with the resolution.
Prioritization
Some complaints are more serious than others. This doesn’t mean that organizations shouldn’t strive to address all customer complaints in a timely manner; however, certain types of complaints may need to be elevated more quickly. Some issues may be more significant to your brand than others; you need to consider which types of comments will require immediate attention and escalation.
Problem Resolution
Feedback is a gift. Sometimes, in the moment, it may be tough to realize this. However, your ability to effectively and regularly monitor customer and consumer feedback can help you identify critical areas of opportunity for improvement—if you’re committed to doing something with the feedback you receive!
Once you have identified a problem, you need to have staff that are experienced and knowledgeable enough to resolve the problems quickly and effectively. They should be customer service oriented as well as technically adept. And, they should use the feedback received to make improvements that will keep the situation from reoccurring.
Process
Finally, it’s important to have a well-crafted and enforced customer service process to ensure your staff are actively monitoring social media and other channels and appropriately prioritizing, addressing and resolving customer issues.
Social media marketers often focus on boosting sales and courting new customers. Even when it comes to retaining existing customers, the focus is often on encouraging them to make more purchases by creating a community or showcasing the positive aspects of the company through content sharing and other means. However, seasoned marketers know they can’t ignore the negative. Every business will have disgruntled customers from time to time. By actively working to seek out, consider, and address consumer concerns, you can go a long way toward developing strong customer loyalty.
In fact, as many savvy customer service experts will tell you a disgruntled customer who you are able to effectively appease will often become one of your most loyal fans!
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About Us
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We are adept at evaluating and analyzing communication efforts and working with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content, through both on- and offline media to achieve desired results. Our background in business journalism, marketing, PR/media relations and online communications makes us well-positioned to serve the needs of 21st-century marketers.
We serve clients who are looking for help creating content for a wide array of channels—from social media posts to full-length manuscripts, and everything in between. We focus primarily on service-related B2B topics and work with a number of independent consultants interested in building their thought leadership through online channels. For ongoing content management, our first step is to fully understand your goals, objectives and competitive landscape.
Then we’ll conduct a thorough analysis and assessment of your digital presence, compared to competitors, and recommend a communication strategy to achieve your goals. But, we also regularly take on individual projects – white papers, blog posts, contributed articles, etc. If you’re interested in learning more, let us know!
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
Recommended Reading
The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement
Tags: appeasing customers, Customer Communication, customer complaints, customer engagement, customer satisfaction, Customer Service, relationship management, social engagement, Social Media