What do you feel is the most important factor in building relationships? How you make customers feel is the most important factor …hands down in our opinion. Like making new friends. It is becoming the most important element of social commerce.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
–Maya Angelou
Business is a people activity; people like to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Ones with whom they have relationships are at the top of the desirable business option list. The stronger the relationships with your customers, the greater will be their trust and loyalty in your business. So it is very logical for businesses in establishing customer relationships.
Studies show time and again, your best, most loyal customers are the aptest to tell their friends about your business, creating strong word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is the most important element of any marketing campaign.
Related post: Customer Experience Optimization … 10 Employee Actions that Lower It
Have you ever used checklists to improve your attitude toward establishing customer relationships? How did they work for you? We often use checklists to achieve our goal to create the best in building new customer relationships. (See our article on what matters most in preparing for each new day.)
After college, I spent almost 2 years training as a naval aviator. An important element of that training was the use of checklists in the learning and refresher process. Checklist utilization remains an important part of my business life. It is always a good idea to have a helpful checklist for reminders of improvements for your business or your personal life.
I keep a stack of 10 or so checklists that I rotate and update occasionally. I pull out one checklist to read and contemplate for five minutes as a way to start each day. I find it puts my thinking in the right frame of mind.
Creating positive experiences for building customer relationships often will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?
Let’s examine the customer relationship checklist of 20 items that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:
Building relationships … remember their name
Always a good thing … but don’t guess. It is worse if you get it wrong.
Listen before talking and listen more than you talk
Store and use what you learn. Good customer insights are worth their weight in gold.
Surprising them with things can make a huge impact. Want to know one of the most effective ways that any company can use to build its brand and create reciprocity with its customers?
By surprising them!
People like getting things for free and like them, even more, when they are viewed as ‘favors’. But even more, they love receiving these favors as surprises.
Related post: Positive Attitude Is Everything for Customer Engagement
Make them feel special
Let me describe a recent episode where I was a customer at a Marriott Hotel. My wife and I were staying in celebration of our 20th anniversary. On our arrival at check-in, the front desk welcomed us with a warm anniversary congratulations and welcome. They said they were able to find us a very nice ocean-view room. We certainly were not disappointed.
Later, after getting back from an afternoon of sightseeing and dinner on the bay, we returned to the room to receive a very nice bottle of champagne and fresh strawberries from the front desk and hotel chef. What a great surprise and ‘wow’ customer experience. Great job making us feel very special.
Exceed expectations
Always do your best to go above and beyond … even on the little things.
Lend an ear
Customers are just people and many times they need to vent or tell a story about something in their lives. Listen like it was someone in your family.
Offer without being asked
Learn to anticipate. When you can, solve their problem without being asked. Note you will reuse insights many times, so this will become easier than you think.
Make them look good
Whatever you can do in this regard will be remembered and talked about. The foundation of the best marketing … word of mouth marketing.
Follow through on every commitment
No choice on this one. If you are not going to deliver, then don’t promise you will. Broken promises will be much worse.
Build relationships … show that you care
Gathering customer insights over time will lead you to a good understanding. They work best in showing you care. An example? A florist we worked with always took flower vases to the car for customers so that could strap them down so they wouldn’t be overturned.
Reach out if they’re in need
Spot customers that are in need of help or need. Reach out with help and support.
Never sacrifice a long-term relationship for a short-term gain
Always a big no-no without question.
Remain calm, cool, and collected during difficult times
Your lack of stress will be easily noticed and transferable.
Do what’s right
No matter what or even when no one is watching.
Admit quickly when you’re wrong
Everyone makes mistakes … so fess up, apologize, and move on.
Learn how to disagree without being disagreeable
No one likes to be around a negative, disagreeable person. Avoid this attitude at all costs.
Related post: Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success
Share the credit
Give collaboration a try when dealing with customers. It may be as simple as asking their opinions. When done, share the credit and make them look good.
Let me share a great experience and story about establishing customer relationships from a recent trip:
A landscape gardener ran a business that had been in the family for two or three generations. The staff was happy, and customers loved to visit the store, or to have the staff work on their gardens or make deliveries – anything from bedding plants to ride-on mowers.
For as long as anyone could remember, the current owner and previous generations of owners were extremely positive happy people.
Most folks assumed it was because they ran a successful business.
In fact, it was the other way around…
A tradition in the business was that the owner always wore a big lapel badge, saying Business Is Great!
The business was indeed generally great, although it went through tough times like any other. What never changed, however, was the owner’s attitude, and the badge saying Business Is Great!
Everyone who saw the button for the first time invariably asked, “What’s so great about business?” Sometimes people would also comment that their own business was miserable, or even that they were unhappy or stressed.
Anyhow, the Business Is Great! Badge always tended to start a conversation, which typically involved the owner talking about lots of positive aspects of business and work, for example:
the pleasure of meeting and talking with different people every day
the reward that comes from helping staff take on new challenges and experiences
the fun and laughter in a relaxed and healthy work environment
the fascination in the work itself, and in the other people’s work and businesses
the great feeling when you finish a job and do it to the best of your capabilities
the new things you learn every day – even without looking to do so
and the thought that everyone in business is blessed – because there are many millions of people who would swap their own situation to have the same opportunities of doing a productive meaningful job, in a civilized well-fed country, where we have no real worries.
And so the list went on. And no matter how miserable a person was, they’d usually end up feeling a lot happier after just a couple of minutes of listening to all this infectious enthusiasm and positivity.
It is impossible to quantify or measure attitude like this, but to one extent or another it’s probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, on which point if asked about the badge in a quiet moment, the business owner would confide:
The badge came first. The customer relationships and great business followed.
REMEMBER, trust and credibility, the foundation of establishing customer relationships, take years to develop but can be lost in seconds
These are not things that we do not already know, of course.
Yet the little things on this checklist simply remind us of what we already know but may have forgotten. Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
Client Satisfaction …10 Secrets to Improve Customer Experience
Facing many new challenges? You bet. Marketplace clutter. New marketing channels. Much more competition. Some that you may not have yet even noticed. And more on the way. Requiring leaders who are more attuned to shaping the future? Absolutely.
If you do not change the direction you may end up where you are heading.
Lao Tzu
One of the most significant challenges facing businesses today is the need to attract and retain the best talent. The talent pool is simply not growing at the rate at which the demand will continue to accelerate. Certainly, a challenge facing businesses big and small.
To meet the challenges ahead new leadership skills and behaviors are essential. We believe today’s business leaders require five key imperatives. These imperatives include the ability to:
Build Relationships
Leaders need to be able to establish and maintain good, effective relationships with their peers, with their employees, with customers, and within their communities. All are of critical importance to a business.
Good relationships can create a boundary-less flow of capability that can be channeled to customers’ highest priorities.
Create Teamwork
Leaders need to create a positive team environment where people are excited about the contribution they can make. Where they are inspired to be actively engaged. Where they understand exactly what is expected of them. They know the bar is set high. These leaders value diversity and foster inclusion and they know how to communicate with force and effect, both inside and outside the business.
Shape the Future
Leaders must be forward-thinkers who are able to envision a future state, set the direction, and then lead others toward that goal. Shaping the future is not just about the internal processes, it also means shaping the courses of action we have available to us in the markets. Expanding our markets, moving adjacently, and dealing directly with customers as well as potential business partners.
Deliver Results
Leaders are ultimately responsible for delivering results and that means continually driving operational excellence, adapting with agility to changing circumstances. The challenge will be to carry that strength forward with future leadership.
Leaders need to be stellar role models. Be completely accountable for all their actions. Be mentors and coaches for all around them… Leaders need to take the high road in pursuit of better performance.
Deliver Results
Leaders are ultimately responsible for delivering results. Quite simply, that means continually driving operational excellence and adapting with agility to changing circumstances. An additional challenge will be to carry that strength forward to the next future leaders
Employees are the most important discriminator in the success of any business. As leaders, we need to ensure that we are creating an environment where employees feel valued and know they are making a contribution to the business.
The bottom line
There’s a passage in Ernest Hemingway’s 1925 novel, The Sun Also Rises, in which a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.” The quote has since become emblematic of how a crisis takes shape. First with small signs you hardly notice and then with shocking impact. Pay attention to this.
What we learned from the experience is that you can’t plan your way out of problems. If we were able to plan effectively, we wouldn’t have been in a crisis in the first place. Our success wasn’t the product of our own brilliance, but our willingness to experiment. That’s how we came across the “happy accident” that led to the events business.
The truth is that it takes some bad luck to get into a crisis and it takes some good luck to get out of one. Sound management can help stem the bleeding, but if you are ever going to rebuild a successful business, you have to experiment and allow for the unexpected.
More reading on social media platforms from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
The networked consumers know more than most companies about their own products and services. Whether the facts are good or bad, they tell everybody about what they know. Have you had this experience with networked consumers? Certainly motivates you to know about small business social marketing, doesn’t it?
“Social media” is a way for people to communicate and interact online. While it has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, in the last 10 years or so we’ve seen a surge in both the number and popularity of social media sites. It’s called social media because users engage with (and around) it in a social context, which can include conversations, commentary, and other user-generated annotations and engagement interactions.
Publishing content has become exponentially simpler over the last several years, which has helped skyrocket the use of social media. Non-technical web users are now able to easily create content on a rapidly growing number of platforms, including those that are owned (hosted communities, blogs, etc.), rented (social networks or third-party communities), and occupied (commenting, contributing, etc.).
“What’s that word again that you used for stealing content,” my newspaper editor friend asked me? “Curation,” I said, “and it’s not stealing content.”
It seems to me that at the heart of the controversy is a fundamental shift in the value of information. It used to be scarce, but now we’re drowning in it. That’s creating a fundamental shift in the economics of media. Therefore, the answer lies not only in product innovation, but business model innovation, which is even harder.
For businesses, the shift in web consumerism and an accompanying rise in social media brings excellent opportunity. The real magic lies in the ability to grow lasting and scalable relationships with your organization’s customer base through social media.
Whether your business is listening and engaging or not, customers are having conversations relevant to your operations. It’s better to be part of the conversation, right?
Why does my company need social media?
Whether you are running a small, local operation, or heading a global, enterprise-level effort, the statistics above make it clear: Your customers are online. They are interacting in social channels with their friends, colleagues, and other brands in search of information, recommendations, and entertainment. If your company is not around to answer, a competitor will be. In doing so, your competitor will quite likely take away the customer at hand, along with anyone else listening.
Using social media for marketing can enable small business looking to further their reach to more customers. Your customers are interacting with brands through social media, therefore, having a strong social media presence on the web is the key to tap into their interest. If implemented correctly, marketing with social media can bring remarkable success to your business.
Social media community engagement? What does it mean to your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? We believe it is all of these things.
Have you ever thought about how you should build positive social media community engagement?
This task starts with what customers want and need. Most people want to: feel needed, be valued, be appreciated, be fulfilled, share emotions, laugh and be happy, succeed and be inspired. Make them feel something that feels unique to what other brands are blasting at them. To do this you must know who your community is. You must know how to catch and hold their attention.
So let’s examine our recommended game plan to build a positive social media community engagement:
Social marketing examples …win the first impression battle
What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform useful and worth their attention? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.
Be human
Humanize your brand. Realize that your brand is everything about you from what you tweet to how you respond to comments on Facebook. Don’t hide your employees. Let them shine and be a living, breathing representation of your brand.
Small business social media marketing … Be patient yet persistent
You aren’t going to capture your community overnight or on the first day you launch any social media site. Building and launching an integrated online community takes time. Give yourself and your team the time to do it right.
Have patience and persistence. Slow down and do it right and at the end of the game, you’ll be the winner, guaranteed.
Connect emotionally
Make them feel. If you want to grab my attention on G+, make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me feel something, anything. When I have a super busy day and I am replying to posts I have no choice due to the amount of them and time constraints but to choose where and when I am going to respond.
It is an easy choice for me. I respond to the people who grab my attention. The people who are nice, who make me feel good. The people who are genuine. The people who make me laugh, playing the emotional card.
Focus on relationships
The life of social media is people. People like you and me. People who laugh, cry, get mad, go crazy, get married, divorced, have kids, lose family members, win jobs, lose jobs, get promotions, win new clients, get new opportunities, have fun, play hard and work hard.
Offer value to the people in your community with a goal of building real relationships. Offer value and knowledge.
Inspire them
Inspire your communities to connect with you with a foundational goal of achieving their objectives. Inspire, Connect, Achieve. To do this you must know their objectives and goals. You must know them. When you know your audience then you can know how you can help them be better.
How can you help them learn? How can you help them go faster? Work smarter? Be smarter? Share more valuable information with their colleagues, clients, partners, and friends? Figure these answers out and use them to help.
Teach them
What knowledge can you share with them that will make them smarter? How can your knowledge drive real efficiency in their life or business? Share your best stuff, not just the same old, same old you wrote two years ago that is overused and oversold, by everyone everywhere.
Make it easy
People want to connect. They don’t want to be spammed at every opportunity. Give them an opportunity to engage with you, your brand, and your team. Be available. Open up your comment stream on your blog. Listen and be relevant and responsive.
Listen
The most important thing you can do to create a positive engagement is to listen carefully. Listen with a goal to understand. Bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen.
In summary, building a positive social media community engagement is very similar to making friends. Keep it simple and be genuine.
Small business social media marketing … use engagement to build relationships
And social media and commerce are all about building relationships. Social media gives a business or brand the ability to turn communication into interactive social conversations. Anyone eager to create an online presence can take static or one-way communication and turn it into a vibrant, dynamic and energetic conversation. Ones that trust and relationships are built from.
Social media opens the door to deeper, more meaningful conversations; allowing businesses to share meaningful, relevant messages consumers seek and all in real-time.
Before we get to these great ideas to create or improve social conversations, lets first review some frequent misconceptions about social media. Social media is NOT:
About being on Facebook. Or Twitter. Those are platforms and not the end state. The end state is about customer engagement.
About being a big brand. When creating social conversations, the size of the business doesn’t matter.
About being the first mover in adopting new technology. That has value, but is it what you want your customers to talk about? We think not.
In order to create meaningful social conversations, you must first open the lines of communication. Below are 15 ideas for creating social media conversations that captivate and inspire your online community!
Customer retention
It is less costly to keep existing customers than finding new ones. So focus conversations on current customers. They are not all alike either, so watch for your priorities.
Think stories
Think about the stories that you were told as children. They are etched into our subconscious. Use pictures and videos to tell your stories in creative new ways. Ways that will be remembered and talked about. Stories are sticky.
Think service
Always put your priority on your service, not your products.
Company culture
Every successful brand has a specific culture. One that relates to the brand’s personality. And yes, of course, a brand has a distinctive personality. Decide what personality you want for your brand and build your culture around it.
Keep it simple
It is difficult to be heard above all the noise in the marketplace. So grab attention and hold it with simple messages.
What do you want customers to remember?
Plan your conversation topics on the interests of your most important customers. It’s not about you and rarely about your business. Will your conversations be remarkable enough to be talked about? That is your goal.
Monetary value or conversation value?
Here is the question. Who are your most valuable customers? The ones that spend the most? Or the ones that create the newest customers for you? It turns out that both are needed. Target both.
Random acts of kindness
Nothing works better than a simple surprise act of kindness. Do something that will make a difference and be talked about.
Relationships are key
Social media is all about building and exploring customer relationships. Continually look for new ways to engage. Remember engagement is a two-way street.
Happy customers
Turns out that the happiest customers drive retention and conversations. Are you committed to making your customers happy?
Offline conversations
Remember that 80-90 % of conversations happen offline. So pay attention to customer conversations in the store.
Manage expectations
Do more than customers expect … but don’t go overboard.
Everything business is conversations
Create interesting topics that are conversation worthy. Plan ahead and stay up on interesting and current topics in the media.
Facilitate
Use techniques that permit customer collaboration. Ask for their explicit opinions and recommendations. Set up simple polls and opinion surveys on topics of customer interest.
Pilot projects
Try new ideas as pilot projects on a small scale often. What works build out in scale.
Employee traits and skills you will need
The most important part of social media marketing? It is being social … hands down. A difference maker for future success, no doubt.
What skills, though, do successful social media marketers have that put these individuals above the average social media user, and better yet, above the traditional marketer? Authenticity? Personality? Market knowledge?
Your personality traits have a lot to say about your social ability. Just as your personality as well as social ability have a lot to say about your social media marketing.
Our vote for the most important type of marketing? Word of mouth marketing, hands down. And the best channels to create word of mouth marketing? Social media, again hands down. A great way to get attention in a crowded marketplace. Seth knows.
To us, it’s clear that it takes a certain type of person to manage social channels. From managing attacks on your brand/company to interacting with people on a daily basis, being in social media requires some specific traits.
Here are 14 traits, skills, and/or characteristics of highly effective social media marketers and some tips to help you rock like them:
Curious
From constantly reading about new trends and happenings in your industry to learning about your audience, curiosity is key for a successful social media marketer.
In this type of position, it’s important to know as much as you possibly can about your brand, your industry and the audience you’re catering to.
Build trust
Be honest in your communications at all cost. Trust is very hard to earn back once lost. It is a basis of good relationship building.
Innovative
Innovation adds ‘flavor’ to your skills and makes them adaptable. Be innovative to stand out above the noise.
Sense of humor
Adding humor to marketing is a cool way of saying “we are a friendly business”. It makes your marketing memorable. Gives your brand a distinct personality and yields priceless results.
Patient
Never be pushy, and know the path to the social media community takes time. Be patient yet persistent with all your marketing goals.
Newsworthy
Demonstrate both the ability to make news as well as create effective curation; rarely be predictable yet always consistently adding value.
Unpretentious
Don’t create a feeling of ego. Be genuine and humble at all times.
Nurturing style
Avoid a selling style. Always aim to be relentlessly helpful to customers.
Engaging
Practice continuous networking, both online and off. Use many channels to connect. Your goal is to optimize relationship building.
Listener and learner
People usually have something to say, so listen and show appreciation or let them know you are working on it. Never put down or ignore negative feedback.
Listen, asks good questions, then listen intently some more. Continuously study and learn from customer insights.
Responsive
Recognize the consistency of engaging customers promptly. Right on it when customers ask questions or give comments.
Sharer
Stay open-minded and always eager to recognize and share the work of others.
Natural leader
Be the person that makes all the people around you better. Empower people to act. And build a tribe of like-minded professionals.
Newsworthy
Show your ability to make news, but also be an effective curator. Be a person who is rarely predictable and always adding value.
Most of these traits aren’t rocket science, are they? Create a checklist of these traits to keep in the forefront of your thinking.
Social engagement design usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. Company messages, stories, and helpful information spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it provides relevant, interesting and/or useful information.
We think of social media as just another marketing channel when we need to instead think of it as the influencer of all channels.
To improve your social media design, you must improve social networking and customer engagement. We have found 9 ways to accomplish these improvements that we use with our clients:
Know as much or more than your audience … valuable content is essential
It is all about quality … quality is much more valuable than quantity
It is about building relationships … meaning conversation is required. Don’t add to the noise
A picture or image … is worth 1000 words. Visual marketing is growing rapidly
Keep you messages … short, simple, and relevant
Define … specific objectives for your campaigns
Measure your accomplishments … against your objectives. Learn and apply learning.
There are NO shortcuts … it requires time and energy
It requires persistence and patience … don’t give up
We are finding more and more businesses are defining meaningful initiatives to use social media. And guess what … the best uses aren’t to sell.
Let’s examine some of the more popular customer engagement design initiatives many businesses are using:
Soliciting Opinions
What charities to support
Asking favorite flavors or products
What they would like to see on social media pages
Likes and dislikes
Collaborating on product/service design
Voting on Most Favorite Things
A moment in Michael Jordan career
The scariest roller coaster
Donuts
New design features
Pictures of Customers with Products
New Application Introduction / Usage
Creating customized holiday cheer cards
Ordering products (even for local delivery)
Local store locator
Use of Videos
Live events, such as fashion shows
Product demo’s, do it yourself tips
Game clips
Local, regional activities
Promotions
Weekly giveaways
Coupons
Free products to entice Facebook fan signup
Special rates for Facebook fans
Content
Menus
New product introduction
Share product/articles from magazines
Targeted messages to customer groups/segments
Special business events
There is considerable creativity in the use of social media by many businesses, with very good engagement results.
If you are not taking advantage of social media marketing strategy for consumer engagement, you are missing a great opportunity to create/build customer relationships for you and your brand. Why not put some of these ideas to use and gain valuable feedback and customer insights?
Guidelines for staff
The greatest danger of participating in online social media? Just like Stephen Hawking says … it is the illusion of knowing what you are doing. And that can be very dangerous, yes? Therefore we believe it is critical to provide guidance to all employees by means of a social media employee handbook. Here we create some employee guideline tips for your consideration.
Every day, people discuss and debate our company and brand in online conversations. We recognize the vital importance of participating in these online conversations and are committed to ensuring that we participate in online social media with excellence.
This Social Media Employee Guide has been developed to help empower employees to participate in this new marketing and communications, represent our company, and share the optimistic and positive spirits of our brand. It is intended to outline how employees should be engaged in the online social media space and to guide their participation. , both when you are participating personally, as well as when you are acting on behalf of the company.
We encourage all employees to explore and engage in social media communities at a level at which they feel comfortable. Have fun, but be smart.The best advice is to approach online worlds in the same way we do the physical one – by using sound judgmentand common sense, by adhering to our values, and by following a Code of Business Conduct.
Remember that local posts can have wide significance
The way that you answer an online question might be accurate in some parts of the world, but inaccurate (or even illegal) in others. Keep that “worldview” in mind when you are participating in online conversations.
Don’t share business confidential information
Do not publish, post, or release information that is considered confidential or not public. If it seems confidential, it probably is. Do not discuss numbers and other sales figures (non-public financial or operational information), strategies and forecasts, legal issues or future promotions/activities. Do not post any merchandise pricing information or comparisons.
When in doubt, do not post
Employees are personally responsible for their words and actions, wherever they are. As online spokespeople, you must ensure that your posts are completely accurate and not misleading.
Exercise sound judgment and common sense, and if there is any doubt, DO NOT POST IT. In any circumstance in which you are uncertain about how to respond to a post, ask someone responsible for social media and communications.
The company understands that employees engage in online social media activities at work for legitimate purposes and that these activities may be helpful for the business.
However, the business encourages all employees to exercise sound judgment and common sense to prevent online social media sites from becoming a distraction at work.
Give credit where credit is due and don’t violate others’ rights
DO NOT claim authorship of something that is not yours. If you are using another party’s content, make certain that they are credited for it in your post and that they approve of you utilizing their content.
Do not use the copyrights, trademarks, publicity rights, or other rights of others without the necessary permissions of the authors.
Be mindful that you are representing the business
As a representative of the business, it is important that your posts convey the same positive, optimistic spirit that the company instills in all of its communications.
Be respectful of all individuals, races, religions, and cultures; how you conduct yourself in the online social media space not only reflects on you – it is a direct reflection on the company.
Fully disclose your affiliation with the company
The business requires all employees who are communicating on behalf of the company to always disclose their name and their affiliation. It is never acceptable to use aliases or otherwise deceive people.
State your relationship with the Company from the outset, e.g., “Hi, I’m Mike Schoultz and I work for Digital Spark Marketing.” This disclosure is equally important for any agency/vendor/partner/third party who is representing the company online. They must disclose that they work “with Digital Spark Marketing Agency.”
Follow the Code of Business Conduct and all other company policies
The Code of Business Conduct provides the foundation for these Online Social Media Principles: “As a representative of [the Company], you must act with honesty and integrity in all matters.” This commitment is true for all forms of social media.
In addition, several other policies govern your behavior as a Company spokesperson in the online social media space, including the Information Protection Policy and the Insider Trading Policy.
Let the subject matter experts respond to negative posts
You may come across negative or disparaging posts about the company or brand, or see third parties trying to spark negative conversations.
Unless you are a certified online spokesperson, avoid the temptation to react yourself. Pass the post(s) along to company spokespersons that are trained to address such comments.
Be conscious when mixing your business and personal lives
Online, your personal and business personas are likely to intersect. The business respects the free speech rights of all of its employees, but you must remember that customers, colleagues, and supervisors often have access to the online content you post.
Keep this in mind when publishing information online that can be seen by more than friends and family, and know that information originally intended just for friends and family can be forwarded on. Remember to be aware that taking public positions online that are counter to the business’s interests might cause conflict.
In conclusion, remember this:
The purpose for you to become more actively involved with social media is to find additional opportunities to connect with customers and share information with them that they enjoy receiving.
As a front-line salesperson, or any employee for that matter, this should just be another valuable tool that will help you further accomplish that goal—but it shouldn’t take away from the very important person-to-person contacts that you will continue to make each day.
Above all, remember to have fun and be yourself!
Responding to negative comments
Do you have a response strategy for customer crisis? It is logical that you occasionally deal with negative customers, no matter how good you are. How well you deal with these customers will determine whether you are dealing with a crisis or a non-issue. Response time in these situations is critical also.
So it is wise to prepare a response plan how you would respond before you receive any such comments. Note that part of the response plan requires action prior to receiving negative comments from customers. Here is the response plan we recommend to our clients:
Humanize your brand
Always create a personality through laughter and having fun in the workplace. Be able to laugh at yourself. Wear your enthusiasm and your passion at all times.
Related post: Social Media Campaign … How to Create an Eye-popping One
Listen and accept
Avoid censoring at all costs. Listen carefully and try to understand your customers’ viewpoints.
Respond directly
Respond directly and early response time matters. Time is critical and you have very little.
Be transparent
Always explain without offering excuses. Remain calm under fire at all costs.
Fix the problem
Fix problems if they are present. Acknowledge the issue and communicate your solution.
Funnel comments/concerns
Provide all information to your staff. Keep everyone in the loop and up to speed.
Build a community
Build followers of passionate defenders. Let them defend you with their views.
Create an opportunity
Try to turn the problem into an opportunity. Don’t neglect to spend time finding the opportunity from your adversity … it often will not jump out at you, will it?
Know when to walk away
If it is a lose-lose situation and you see you are not making headway, be prepared to walk away. When is the issue over? Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not … but monitor closely for a while.
Your customers are not always right, but they always have the right to choose. And when they do, they will tell their friends about their experiences and their choices.
In conclusion, remember this:
The purpose for you to become more actively involved with social media is to find additional opportunities to connect with customers and share information with them that they enjoy receiving.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media design from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
One of the most beautiful compensations of life is that no man can help another without helping himself.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keep learning: Small Company … 20 Struggles that Are Easily Understood
Why giving back to the community?
Some people claim their success has been justly earned without help from others along the way. But yet, this attitude is selfish, egotistical, and naive. Study results show that the zip code of your birth is more predictive of success than IQ, college grades, or genetics.
These results were detailed in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers.” Nobody makes it through life entirely on his or her own merits, even if help is not obvious. As a consequence, everyone has a debt to repay – and a reason to give back.
Businesses that encourage and support community involvement distinguish themselves from their competitors. From this, they see many benefits, including loyal customers and happier employees.
82 percent of U.S. consumers consider corporate social responsibility (CSR). This is according to a May 2013 study by Cone Communications and Echo Research. Theses consumers apply CSR when deciding which products or services to buy and where to shop.
Giving back to the community by donating your time can be beneficial for many reasons. Not the least of which it is a win-win proposition for both you and your business, but also your community. Win-win decisions are the best. Not only can volunteering create a sense of achievement, but it can also help your business grow.
Here are a few of the areas where you may see value from your contributions and efforts to give back:
Expand your skills and experience
Even if you donate time doing the same type of work, volunteering provides an opportunity to try something new. You get to see more and experience more. You never know where you might learn a new skill, discover new ways, or expand your experience.
Ways to give back to the world.
Strengthen your networks and build new relationships
Getting out there and volunteering in your community puts you in a great position to meet new people. These new relationships are good for networking. They also help to create a group of people to consult with outside of your immediate business network.
Being active as a volunteer gives you a chance to continue collaborating with existing colleagues. Teaming up for a greater good is a powerful way to strengthen bonds and relationships.
Giving back to the community … build relationships within your community
Look at your community to see what’s important. Are the schools struggling? Does the animal shelter need donations?
As an example, Pizza Ranch franchises host “community impact” nights. Such events are where friends and family members bus tables to support a local cause. Pizza Ranch donates the night’s tips and 5 to 20 percent of the profits to the cause. Also, community members often provide extra donations.
The business benefits because it fills the restaurant on a typically slow night. Building relationships start by making genuine connections with your customers. They then find ways everyone can contribute.
Adding balance to life
Volunteering makes you more well-rounded as a person and a well-rounded business owner. When you volunteer, you have an opportunity to improve many different life areas.
Personal growth makes you a better, more fulfilled person. It also can identify more productive goals in your business. Both ultimately become more successful.
Marketing exposure
Sometimes the best marketing is marketing that happens naturally.
This can happen when you are focused on tasks involving collaboration and teamwork. It is natural for discussion about what you do in business to come up with a volunteer opportunity.
The people you’re working with may not be your ideal customers. They may remember you and your business the next time they interact with someone.
Ways to give back to society … improved employee morale
One prominent benefit of a business giving back to a community is the response from employees. When employees see their employer commitment to a community, they gain more respect. A work environment with a highly respected leader results in more communication and efficiency.
The morale is likelier to be improved in a work environment where the leader is trusted and respected.
Similarly, when a business gives employees opportunity to give back, employees feel more fulfilled. According to philanthropy consultant Erin Giles, the ability to volunteer provides employees with leadership opportunities. These can increase staff performance and provide a better sense of fulfillment
Benefits of giving back to the community … adding a brand plank
Everything you do on and off the job impacts your business brand. Giving back is one way to position yourself in a good light with everyone in the community. Spending effort for others, you are telling clients and colleagues that you are empathetic. That kind of positive action tends to be remembered over the long haul. Particularly if you are active and lead.
Go all in
If you’re going to do something, do it. Go all in. Doing it half in makes no sense at all to us. When a business has so many rules about sales that you wonder if they want to be bothered to sell you anything at all.
There is time
While not taking a lot of time, giving back can be the best thing you do to strengthen the business foundation. And it may even be something you enjoy and get a great deal of personal satisfaction from doing.
Clay Shirky has noticed the trend of talented people putting five or six hours an evening to work. Add that up across a million or ten million people, and the output is astonishing. He calls it cognitive surplus. He believes it’s one of the underappreciated world-changing stories of our time. We suggest that you and your business add to Clay’s list of talented people.
Do it, don’t procrastinate
We feel the words of Martin Luther King Junior spoken about a half a lifetime ago, apply well here:
“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”
More connections
Philanthropy can be a wonderful gateway into a network of professionals and leads alike. Each can help elevate a business from obscurity to prolific success. Philanthropy organizations include the “who’s who” of corporate bigwigs on their board of directors.
They understand how integral philanthropy is to a business’ success and public perception. If a business owner works with these types, they have the opportunity to grow their business at a rapid pace.
Similarly, giving to their community can provide a business with connections to local leaders. These include government or religious figures. They can rapidly make a business the local “go-to” for that specific niche.
A great example was Facebook donating $120 million to schools in their local community. This resulted in easing residents’ negative fears. Now, because of its local connections and giving, Facebook is revered in the community.
The lessons
It is a beautiful life compensation when man sincerely tries to help another without trying to help himself.
Goodness has a way of coming back; that is the nature of the beast. One doesn’t have to do good deeds for a return. It just happens.
Continuous learning for small business: Most Frequent Startup Companies Cardinal Sins
The lessons out of good deeds remain to inspire everyone to do same. One act of unselfishness stands out as a beacon for others to follow.
Have you found additional ways to focus and motivate good deeds?
Please share one of your stories on helping another with this community.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer base?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job of growing customer insights and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on small business from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Business Partnership …13 Insightful Examples of Partnership Ideas
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Peter Drucker was quoted: The customer never buys what you think you sell. Drucker certainly understood the basics of improving customer intelligence techniques, didn’t he?
The end state quality of what the customer received is what counts. And the better you know the customer and what drives his decisions; the better off you’ll be to winning his business.
We categorize customers into four basic groups: prospects, customers, advocates, and former clients. The most important group is the proponents.
You should be paying special attention to them and those in the customer group that you believe could become advocates. So their insights are most valuable, by far.
What are customer insights?
Customer insights are associations between objects, actions, and communications that solve or help solve new customer problems.
There are 3 key reasons customers are reluctant to give inputs to business: business makes it difficult and inconvenient; there is no mutual equitable exchange of value for the input, and employees act like they don’t care.
Your job is to eliminate this reluctance by fixing these issues as soon as you can.
Putting a priority on searching for change and opportunities that arise from change? Customer insight is a great place to start. A simple analysis of these ideas can be a great way to improve your business.
Yet many businesses either don’t put a priority on collecting inputs from their customers or don’t know how.
Now before I give you some of your clients’ ways to achieve smashing concern insights, let me give you an example of ways these insights can aid your marketing.
Just before Labor Day, I was in a local restaurant for breakfast. Since there was a short line, I was reading the bulletin board to kill the time.
On the board, someone named Nancy was advertising her services as a babysitter.
I’d give this ad a “B-” because Nancy did a good job — but she could have dramatically increased her chances of getting hired and added a minimum of 20% to her hourly rate.
The GOOD
She includes the fact that she is a student, which is good since parents need flexibility.
She notes that she has CPR experience, which is great and is willing to cook and do light cleaning. The perfect way to add to your value.
She does not include her hourly rate, which would have been pointless. With babysitters, first get them to love and trust you, then discuss price.
THE BAD
She wastes space by saying things like “I love children.” Of course, you do. I love oxygen, but I don’t tell people about it.
More importantly — and now we’re getting into the psychology of this flyer — what do parents care about? Care about? What’s their #1 fear?
#1 fear: Safety and security of their children. #2 fear: That you’ll be IRRESPONSIBLE, like missing an obligation and, leaving them stranded.
If you had developed excellent customer insights, you perhaps could have solved those two concerns and made price necessarily become a mere triviality.
99% of babysitters will waste time talking things that customers care very little about their love of children, their college major, or their interests.
Remember you need to talk to customers about their interests and not yours and that is where insights take center stage, eh?
Nancy has hints of a terrific banner — but she falls short where it counts.
For example, she talks about how she has six years’ experience. Where are the testimonials from past clients?
Where are the specific things she helped prior kids do (e.g., learn to read, take them to swimming lessons, coordinate their weekly meals)?
Where is the testimonial from her boss, which says “Nancy is the most responsible aide I have ever worked with…she has never missed a commitment.”
Do you see the point?
This is just a FLYER right now. It’s not true, full marketing. It’s not bad, but it’s not GREAT because she hasn’t thought carefully about who she wants to reach out to.
She’s targeting “everyone,” when she should be targeting a VERY specific list of people. Moms, who have kids (which age?), are upper-middle class, and are looking for their (first-ever?) babysitter. Each of these characteristics subtly changes the way she approaches her marketing.
Once she’s clear on who EXACTLY she’s looking for, all tactics fall from that. For example, once she knows precisely who she’s targeting (not “everyone,”) she would probably reconsider hanging flyers in local restaurants that these clients frequent.
The bottom line:
With training and experience in obtaining customer insights, you can start to see psychology — or the lack of it — everywhere.
And with some subtle tweaks, you can dramatically increase your chances of better earnings with better clients who pay more.
Customer intelligence tools: ways to achieve smashing consumer insights
Listen, observe, and draw conclusions
Not rocket science here. Pay attention to what customers are saying and what they are doing.
You will then be in an excellent position to draw real insight conclusions.
Customer collaboration
Instead of asking customers to watch and just passively consume, try getting them to participate actively, create and collaborate in activities related to your business.
For example, ask them to define what would make shopping easier for them.
Listen to the right ideas. Pick the best ones and act quickly to implement.
Show customers you are listening by publicizing the change with simple recognition of the basis of change.
Customer intelligence examples, two-way dialog on decisions
Ultimately focus customer conversation on helping them with purchase decisions. Listen and learn from what the customer has to say.
Connect more and different information
Connect the dots on all the bits and pieces of information you are gathering. The more connections you can make, the more insights you can find.
Integrate social media monitoring
More and more business is moving online. And customer communication as well.
Pick some tools to help you monitor customer feedback (both intended and casual) on social media channels.
Connect
Connect and always try to move closer to all your customers and especially your best customers.
You learn most when you build close relationships with them.
Immerse your perspective
Change your perspective and consider alternative roles.
Try and eliminate the single character perspective at all costs and view things from as many angles as possible.
Never overlook details
There are no details you should consider as ‘unimportant.’
Until you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, it ‘s hard to know the importance of each of these customer needs and priorities.
Look for connections
Do you consider connections between seemingly unrelated observations? Try and connect the dots between different facts and observations?
It is crucial to continue iterating and building the puzzle of events and their relationships.
Always dig deeper
Digging deeper is essential for uncovering more details. Can you think of ‘just one more question’?
Use all of your curiosity and imagination. Each new fact that you discover often generates new information needs.
Use your personal experience
Use what you have learned previously, but don’t be biased by it.
Don’t let your values and views take charge of getting the real picture.
Validate and continually refine
Always look for evidence to prove regularly and improve the insights you have gained.
Communicate in new ways
Lots of new communication channels exist today, particularly online. Put more of these channels to work.
Do some experimenting to find which ones work best for you.
Everyone’s responsibility
Make collecting customer inputs and converting them to insights everyone’s responsibility.
Get the employee staff together every few weeks to exchange information.
The bottom line
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s a new way of running a business.
Many small businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer insights to grow their business rapidly.
The truth is that creative marketing is hard work. There are no silver bullets. The only way to create success is to get your ideas out there, find the flaws and get to work fixing them.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help increase your client base?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job of growing customer insights and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have gained.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
