How You Can Use Social Media For Customer Management Like These Brands
Want to get started on social CRM, but looking for a little inspiration?
Most well-known organizations have been leveraging the power of social media to improve their customer management processes.
We live in times when everyone who wants to be heard is using social media to do so successfully. As an entrepreneur, you may have understood that customers are more likely to voice their opinions, appreciation and complaints about your product/service or your business on social media platforms.
As more and more organizations realize this, they become increasingly proactive in addressing customer issues and queries promptly.
Today, we have several social CRM platforms. All you need to do is pick the right one for your organization and formulate strategies and guidelines related to using them.
Want to get started on social CRM, but looking for a little inspiration? Mentioned ahead are a few brands which are well-known for using social media to stay connected with their customers and vice versa through thick and thin (while all these brands use multiple social media platforms to manage their customers, we’ll be talking about their presence on the 2 primary ones – Facebook and Twitter).
JetBlue
This is one brand that understood, early on, how crucial it is to not only make the customers happy, but also keep them engaged. They realized that this can be done by providing quick and effective solutions to customer problems and do away with their dissatisfaction. They do this with the help of their Twitter account.
JetBlue responds not only to customers who mention them directly on Twitter, @JetBlue, but also to customers who talk about them without tagging them in a post. This indicates that JetBlue’s social media team is probably tracking the keywords and relevant hashtags actively, in order to find and respond to more customers.
This helps them excel in responsiveness to customer queries and problems, which can otherwise result in frustration among them. Disgruntled customers can be quite vocal in expressing their frustration when flights are delayed. JetBlue realizes that bad experiences can affect the customer’s loyalty and hence, they respond to and help frustrated customers as quickly as possible, while simultaneously engaging their happy customers.
What does JetBlue teach us? It teaches us the important role that social media can play in providing their customers with what they really want – a quick response.
Several companies hire full-time employees simply to reply to customers and prospects on social media platforms. Make sure you take a leaf out of JetBlue’s book and have a social media plan in place to engage and satisfy customers. Apart from that, also have a plan B in place to deal with times when the inquiries are higher than expected.
AirAsia
Just like every airline, AirAsia has had their share of customer complaints. What is commendable, however, is how they have made use of social media to build customer loyalty.
AirAsia has strong Facebook and Twitter presence and the airline goes the whole hog to make sure they reply to as many customers as they can. They use social media not only to socialize, but also create buzz, augment the brand experience, conduct PR activities, humanize their brand, and decrease marketing costs.
AirAsia capitalizes on social media to deliver real-time updates, which matter a great deal in the travel industry. In fact, each and every employee is made part of the social media conversation, including their top management, pilots, ground staff and station managers.
Nike
Everyone knows Nike has a number of followers on Facebook and Twitter. Nike is another example of a company that values its customers and aims to provide them with service of unmatched standards.
Nike created a separate Twitter account, @NikeSupport, just to be able to respond to customer issues and inquiries addressed directly at them, and their social media platform is very quick to respond.
In fact, if you take a look at their Twitter feeds, you’ll find that questions are replied to every few minutes. This goes a long way in building trust towards the brand in the mind of the customers.
@NikeSupport is a great example of customer service of the finest level. They’re always online and respond to their followers with questions pertaining to all their product lines.
There’s no doubt about the fact that Nike is a huge company manufacturing several types of sports apparel and equipment. While this brand manages a number of Twitter handles to fit in the interests of all their followers, @NikeSupport is meant only for responding to customers in need of help.
At the time of formulating your social media strategy, consider your customers and ways of making it easy for them to get help from you when they need it. Apart from poor service, you can also lose your valuable customers when you complicate your processes.
By having a dedicated social media account to a specific cause, you can make it extremely easy for your customers to reach you. That, in turn, leads to customer delight.
Walmart
It’s no secret that Walmart has millions of fans all over the world. This should give you an idea of how difficult it must be keeping up with them. Nevertheless, Walmart has managed to keep its customers engaged through their Facebook and Twitter pages.
Simply scrolling through their Facebook page will give you an idea of how quick Walmart is in getting back to customer feedback, whether positive or negative. Like all retail giants, Walmart too, receives several complaints, but the company always responds in a friendly and professional manner.
Walmart posts between two to five updates on its Facebook page every day, and most achieve an impressive number of responses from the followers. Pictures of pets and children tend to get the most likes.
Walmart has several Twitter handles with @WalmartHub being the central one that is used only for Retweeting the best performing content from among the other handles. The great thing is the each Twitter handle was created with a specific purpose in mind, which they are serving. Through each of these accounts, Walmart aims to provide information on its key activities and initiatives such as sustainability, diversity, health, food and charity.
Starbucks
This coffee giant is extremely popular on Facebook and Twitter, thanks to its quick responses to customer questions and complaints, as well as the engaging and fun activities on these platforms.
Starbucks interacts with its clients in a humorous, yet professional manner, thereby showing customers that the brand is both vibrant as well as likeable. Like Nike, Starbucks has a separated Twitter account called @MyStarbucksIdea, through which it is constantly connected to its customers.
Although this handle is less active than its main handle (@Starbucks), it is THE platform for customers to submit their opinions and discuss ideas to make Starbucks better.
Starbucks’ strategy is to reach out and connect with its followers on a personal level, than bombard them with unsolicited messages. By maintaining these brand standards, Starbucks has been able to create a memorable online personality that people can easily relate with.
If you look at Starbucks’ Facebook wall, you will see that most posts on their wall get responses from their fans showering them with praise and sharing their experiences and love for their coffee. Such a page works as an effective online community/forum wherein fans can post pictures, comments and stories for others who enjoy their products and services.
Conclusion
By being on social media and creating a distinct online personality for themselves, businesses can get information quickly and respond to their customers accordingly. At the same time, they can also attend to customer complaints and build, maintain, or regain their confidence. Whether you promote/invite ideas related to your current products or future ones, social media can be a very helpful tool. The above examples should inspire you to make social media an integral part of your customer management strategy, plus help you understand how you can leverage it to make your brand stronger.
Original Article
Find out more on the future of Content Marketing at our DLUK - Trends briefing on the 24th September 2015