By Hagen Weiss
Everybody is using social media nowadays. With the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and more, the choices of online platforms are plentiful.
But, how important is social media to customer experience? Should your company be investing time and money into social media?
Read on to find out more.
Social Media and Customer Experiences
In a Harvard Business Review poll, 86% of businesses strongly agreed that superior customer experience is vital to an organization’s success. Interestingly enough, when asked if their organization has the tools and skills (like utilizing social media) to deliver superior customer experience, only 34% say they strongly agreed.
Furthermore, the study separated businesses into three groups:
- Leaders: Companies who fully integrate social media into their customer experience
- Followers: Companies who integrate some aspect of social media into their customer experience
- Laggards: Companies who don’t integrate social media at all
The survey shows that leaders who invest heavily in social media have significantly stronger customer experiences compared to their competitors. Moreover, a strong social media presence not only improves brand awareness, but it also improves sales and other bottom-line activities.
Ways Social Media Enhance Customer Experiences
As you can see, utilizing social media has real tangible benefits – namely, improving your bottom-line. But, it’s not immediate. It’s a process.
Social media enhances customer engagement experiences so that they ultimately gain that trust to purchase from you. Here are some ways that social media gains this trust.
1. Better Customer Service through Customer Experiences
Today, social media is the norm. As a business, you need to meet your customers where they’re at. By being available, you can address your customer’s concerns and questions much more quickly. You can utilize AI technology (i.e. chatbots) or even live person chats to better enhance customer service.
2. Humanizing Your Brand
In a world of ‘fake news’ and spammy offers, people are craving authenticity. Social media is a vehicle in which you can humanize your business. Customers are not only interested in your products, but the story behind your products. How it came to be, the underlying mission, and the team behind your product or services matters to your customers. Social media allows you to express yourselves in a more personalized manner, helping you better engage with your customers.
3. Researching for Trends and Other Opportunities
Being active on social media allows you to discover trends and opportunities to improve your business. Often customers will unabashedly air their grievances on social media platforms. Conversely, happy customers will offer glowing reviews of your services. Either way, leverage social media to discover what your customers are thinking and to stay ahead of your competitors.
4. Increase Customer Engagement
It’s not uncommon for businesses to focus primarily on the number of followers on social media platforms. However, quantity is not everything. The old adage of quality over quantity applies here. Quality engagement on social media is key to building relationships and trust with your customers. It allows you to offer valuable content while interacting with your customers to keep them engaged with your business.
To Wrap Up
Social media is not going anywhere anytime soon. Businesses who learn to leverage social media effectively will undoubtedly enhance the customer experience and by that their revenue.
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