How to: Use social listening to enhance customer experience image

Use social listening to enhance customer experience

Businesses need to wake up to the value of social. Customers don’t see social media as just a way of venting complaints or seeing your latest ‘special’ offer. Now they see your social media activity as an extension of your brand.

Arguably, more than any other communication channel, social has become the place where customers judge your company’s personality and values. This means that you need to earn their engagement by providing them with value and a forum in which to share with like-minded others. The key to doing this right is social listening.

1. What is social listening?

Social listening goes beyond simply collecting shares and replying to every comment aimed at your business – it is more nuanced and more powerful.

Imagine you overhear a group of people near you talking about going to see a film, but they don’t know what to watch. You’ve just seen a great film, so you politely interrupt them to tell them about it. They didn’t ask you, but you aren’t acting out of self-interest. You’re just offering friendly advice based on your knowledge and experience because you overheard them. That’s social listening.

2. How does social listening shape your customer experience strategy?

Whereas customer service is more about answering direct enquiries, social listening is about providing the best customer experience. It’s giving valuable and relevant advice without being asked for it. A good analogy would be an attentive waiter who fills your drink when needed without having to be asked. This kind of behaviour builds customer trust.

To succeed at social listening, think beyond your brand name and hashtags. You should monitor brand name misspellings, slang and references to your industry, product or service. For example, a shoe company might listen for ‘sore feet’. The skill is in understanding how your brand can help.

3. What are the expectations on each platform?

The different demographics of each social platform means differing expectations in terms of posting frequency and tone. Here’s a quick guide to the main platforms:

Facebook: Be conversational in tone and post throughout the week.

Twitter: Is tech-savvy and requires more frequent posting. Keep posts short and to the point.

LinkedIn: Provide helpful actionable information and thought leadership in a professional tone.

Instagram: High-quality images and #hashtags are king.

Snapchat: Informal, behind-the-scenes material preferred – no surprises there.

You can understand the expectations of each platform by observation, but if you are helpful, entertaining and not salesy, then you can’t go wrong.

4. The five rules of good social media customer service

Social media is integral to providing great customer service and experience. There are five simple rules to follow:

Monitor constantly and respond quickly

People use social media for fast responses. Never make someone wait hours or days, answer them right away.

Communicate clearly

While social media is mostly conversational, you have to always be supremely professional when it comes to customer service. Listen carefully to their question or complaint and respond thoughtfully.

Remember they’re human

This is easy to forget when communicating digitally with B2B prospects, but remember – you’re talking to a real person. Take their emotions into account and treat them as you would expect to be treated. No canned responses.

Go private

Customer service issues can get ugly quickly. Take these conversations into private messages whenever possible. It keeps excess negativity from the public feed and protects the privacy of your customers.

Exceed expectations

This is how you’ll earn loyalty and turn around bad situations. For example, if a customer is dissatisfied with a product – you may offer them a replacement and a voucher. Try to find a way to thrill them with something they weren’t expecting.

5. Make your personality shine on social media

Brands walk a fine line when it comes to their messaging and tone of voice on social media. You need a written policy spelling out what the boundaries are. Beyond that, try to allow as much personality to come through as possible. No one wants to talk to the shy kid in the corner with no sense of humour. Be bubbly, be serious, be whatever best reflects your brand, just don’t be boring or sound like an auto-responder. Pretend you’re talking to your best friend and your grandmother at the same time – be personable but not offensive.

6. Who are the leaders in social media customer experience and why?

The leaders all follow the guidelines I’ve set out above.

IBM has gone the extra mile in understanding its audience and delivering relevant and engaging content. By creating a suite of dedicated Twitter handles they ensure that each demographic receives personalised attention. 

In terms of leveraging a mundane product, CBRE’s posting of great architecture on Instagram shows a real insight into the platform and their industry.

GE state that they aim to ‘provide a positive, engaging community where forward-thinking individuals can join the conversation around innovation’ on Facebook. This embodies the attitude needed for great customer experience on social media.

In the end, the key to great customer experience remains social listening. The more you listen to your audience, the more you understand them, and the more successfully you can meet their needs.

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