Why is it that no one ever wants to respond to the bad comments or reviews? Yes, we all hate them. No one wants their customers to be dissatisfied or upset. But when their complaints go unnoticed, your brand is sending a terrible message. If every comment was perfect and every review was radiant then you would have no way of knowing what you need to improve on.
Social media is a gold mine. It gives your company and organization the opportunity to truly give the customer exactly what they want. You essentially have a road map to their buying methods, their likes, dislikes, trends and so much more. The element of surprise is slowly diminishing with the constant access that marketers have to consumers. So use that to your advantage. Listen to what your consumers have to say and use them to create a successful strategy.
We’ve found that setting up guidelines for answering and communicating with your consumers is vital to success. Here are a few tips that we would recommend to help get you started.
1. Identify A customer Service point of contact
Making sure that you have a point of contact that knows the ins and outs of your business is essential. If you don’t have someone on your time that can answer any question that is thrown your way, ask your social media firm/company to monitor for you. They can easily create a plan of action or generate a communication process to work with your team to get your customers/consumers questions answered.
2. Set a Response Time Limit
Customers like to have an answer within one hour. This may not be feasible for every company but try to get back to people that have complaints that are expressed via social media within 24 hours. People really appreciate a prompt response and if you have a team, agency or individual dedicated to the concerns of your customers, it will not go unnoticed.
3. Answer Everything (Within Reason)
We know people can get riled up. But it is better to answer and address their issue instead of ignoring them. Trust us this will go a long way with your customers. We aren’t just talking about the negative comments. The positive comments deserve a response too. Make sure you acknowledge the good and the bad.
4. Generate Guidelines
Make sure you have guidelines for whomever is going to be responding on behalf of your company. You want to make sure that you are setting up your first line of defense for success. Set a time limit. Create generic responses that can be tweaked.
Make sure to interact with your customers on social media. If you aren’t, then start. Customers are extremely important and not interacting with them is doing nothing but hurting your brand. It may not be easy but nothing worth having is!
If you would like help with turning your social media into a platform with more engaging content, please email us at info@theburnetteagency.com or contact us here.