“Social media creates kinship between companies and customers, and kinship equals purchase intent.” – Jay Baer
Every business would like to see all of its customers loyal. However, we know, that is a far-fetched thought and extremely unlikely. Now even more so, loyalty is fleeting and rather short-lived since customers have a large number of options – both in the form of companies and products. At best, companies can work at enhancing customer loyalty through various means. The fact is that companies tend to focus on acquiring customers, as opposed to putting in strategies to retain the existing ones. The most important way to increase customer loyalty is by empathizing with and being wherever the target audience would be – both professionally and personally. This is where social listening plays an important part.
We know that today almost everyone has a presence on social media, and it would therefore be prudent for a company to ‘follow’ their existing and prospective customers on these sites. It would be necessary to remain active by monitoring behaviours and ‘posts’, starting discussions, posting comments on a variety of subjects, directing attention towards the company’s brand, and most importantly contributing to discussions that your target audience would seem most likely to be interested. Social listening enables a company to be somewhat in control over discussions that take place about their products /business, influence behaviours, respond to questions and queries about the company, and other such ‘interactions’. These would let the target audience know that your company is interested in them, and is ready to engage with them whenever and however they deem appropriate.
What is social listening and how can it help a company in enhancing customer loyalty? Simply put, it is another form of monitoring social ‘interactions and discussions’. It is essential for companies to remain part of the ‘discussions’ that revolve around their business, the industry of operation, competitors, and overall industry insights, from the perspective of customers and others. Social media being a highly visible platform enables companies to create awareness and hype about their business and brand, while customers can either praise or condemn companies for whatever reasons. The essential thing is that companies must continually communicate with their target audience, but simultaneously ensure that the ‘audience’ has many opportunities to respond, comment, and control the ‘conversations’. The balance of power has shifted to customers – they are the ones who choose the kind of content they want, when they want to see it, and through which medium they would like to view it. The more companies comply and create messages and strategies around customer preferences, the higher their chances of enhancing customer loyalty.
Humans are inherently social beings and social media is the ‘perfect place’ to interact and socialize without really leaving the comforting environs of one’s home or other familiar places. People connect with strangers and form ‘friendships’ that allow them to discuss subjects of common pursuits, share experiences, talk about brands, and other things that interest them. Brands and companies have been in competition over social media too, for a while now, with several of them conducting studies to understand customer behaviour through their social media activity. The results revealed that customers form perceptions of brands and either like or dislike them based on their ability and willingness to ‘listen’ to their customers. Companies that appear to be listening, by way of speedy and effective responses, are usually the ones to gain customer appreciation and affinity.
Depending on customer preferences, companies must disseminate content, and the good part is that companies can even ‘share’ relevant content from various sources (non-competitive of course), which can help to boost the image of and gain attention towards the company, in the same as original content from the company would help to do. Social listening and interacting are activities that take time and concerted effort, but every effort and resource spent in this direction is worth the resultant customer loyalty and affinity. As people feel drawn towards a brand / company, the ‘traffic’ making its way to the social media profiles of the company is sure to increase. As attention and visibility increases, customers and readers get to know the company better, which in turn enhances trust and helps the company in its efforts towards enhancing customer loyalty.
Enhancing customer loyalty begins with companies putting together strategies to engage customers. In today’s time, social media has gained significance in driving customer attention towards companies and ensuring higher retention rates, and yet several companies are unable to use social media to its optimum capacity. Customers provide feedback all the time via social media, and only companies attuned to social listening would be able to create value for customers, build engagement, and succeed at enhancing customer loyalty. It would be essential for companies to put together a structured strategy that would ‘lock in’ customer attention – promotions, special offers, loyalty bonuses and programs – via their social media pages. These are sure to get attention not just from existing customers, but from prospective customers too.
Creating the right value adds for customers makes it easy for a company to sell more, and gain brand loyalty. Value for customers goes beyond attractive schemes and offers – customers want to see the benefit they can gain through a brand – they want to know that the brand would be there for them, helping them to make life simpler and satisfying their emotional needs. Since customers ‘speak’ a lot through social media, it would make sense for a company to enhance its social listening skills.
Among the top ways to enhancing customer loyalty through social listening is by being attentive and responsive. Since the essence of social media is its immediacy, customers expect that companies would respond to their queries and or feedback almost instantly. However, when companies fail in this regard, customers are put off easily. In fact, customers expect companies to respond within an hour – hence responding slow or not at all would ensure that customers never come back. Companies that respond within the ‘expected’ timeframe, not only gain loyalty from existing customers, but a great deal of positive attention from prospective customers too.
If companies do a good job at monitoring their customer responses, they would know which of their customers were already advocating the company and which ones had the potential to becoming top line customers. By using the social listening tools effectively, a company can find ways to enhance customer loyalty and advocacy of these already delighted customers. Companies must find ways and means to reward them, through both tangible means and via social recognition. Offering enhanced value to these ‘super customers’, will make them feel valued, important, and appreciated. In addition, it would be prudent to gain feedback from these customers on what they feel about the special programs and rewards – a great way for enhancing customer loyalty.
While it does take time for social listening on the part of companies to bear tangible results, it is a powerful tool. Through persistence and concerted efforts, a company would be able to build stronger relationships with customers, and others, who could become customers in the future. Every company today needs long-standing and profitable customers, and it would be prudent to use every tool and method available to ensure this happens. Enhancing customer loyalty through social listening is a proven and effective method – is your company using it yet?
