A few short years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable that people would open their lives to total strangers to the extent we now see happen all over. You might have considered crazy, if you said a time was coming when people will take photos of the food they are about to consume and show it to the whole world. If you told someone back then that a day was coming when the most intimate aspects of our lives would be on full display, the one might have asked you to go get your head checked. But that is what the phenomenon called Social Media has brought to us.
The advent of social media has opened cracks that we never knew existed within the fabric of society. Some have argued that the worrying stuff we see on social media have always been there. This new medium just gave us the tools to exhibit those tendencies, and by so doing has gotten all of us hooked like addicts. As a matter of fact, we have become so addicted to social media that there are many who cannot go a day without visiting their social media pages. Social media has become that integral to our lives. It is estimated that we have more about 60% of the world’s population making use of one social media platform or another.
We successfully created the animal called social media and slowly, it has stretched its long tentacles all over our lives. It might have helped with the way we connected to each other but now it has taken up almost every part of our lives, including even the way we now call on our Maker. With such a power over our lives, it was just a matter of time before the beast called Social Media touched our lives as customers.
One would struggle for a single good reason why a business that intends to give its customers consistently great experiences would not make use of social media. As much as social media seems to be created for people to express themselves, the truth is that businesses have benefited a lot from its creation.
The truth is that companies have greatly benefitted from our increased adoption of Social Media. In fact, the more individuals make use of social media, the more excited businesses get. The reason? If there is one thing any business needs to make money, it is to be able to sell its offering to customers. However, successfully selling to customers depends on how much the business knows about that customer. In times past, businesses struggled to get to know enough about their customers. No more. Thanks to Social Media. All a business needs to do is to “follow” its targets on to their social media pages and voila, as much as information about that individual would be available.
The beauty of gleaning vital information from a target’s social media page is that the information is placed there by the targets themselves. Under no compulsion people are telling the whole world their preferences, likes and dislikes and even the names of their pets. Using social media, businesses are segmenting and targeting customers with such efficiency that would make marketing gurus of old green with jealousy.
Another benefit businesses are reaping from this juggernaut of new media is the ability to receive almost instantaneous feedback. In times past, in the world of the phone and snail mail, getting feedback could take anything from a day to days on end. No more. Because we now have social media literally in the palm of our hands, we can relay our impressions about products or services right to the business in a matter of seconds. This cuts research time by less than a quarter of the time it would have taken some time ago.
Businesses are using social media to track the lifestyle changes and subsequent purchasing decisions of their customers. By reviewing what customers say online, businesses are also able to get into the minds of these customers. Such information would have costs an arm and a foot a couple of decades ago. But now, thanks to the magic of social media, organisations have these vital pieces of information available with the click of a button.
With all of these benefits, it is super-important that businesses use social media to enhance the experience of their customers. Because customers are living their lives openly on social media, it makes business sense that businesses use that same medium to give customers great experiences. And many businesses are doing just that!
For starters, businesses use social media to communicate with their customers in way that enhance their experiences. A business can send a send a direct message on a social media platform to a customer on any number of issues. Something as seemingly insignificant as receiving a simple message from a company has the potential of making a customer feel so attached to the brand in question.
The ability to actually have a private conversation with the business is one of the most underrated benefits of social media for customer experience. It is a gift for customers to be able to sit in the comfort of their homes while talking to a business. The back and forth interaction is far better for the customer than the FAQs pages that many website used to have in the early days of the Internet.
Another way by which businesses employ social media to enhance the experiences of their customers is by making products available online for customers to have a look at them before making a decision. Before the advent of social media, that customer might have had to drive all the way to the premises of the business before seeing the product in question. With the right images or even a video, products can be brought right to customers wherever they may be.
Talking of videos, studies attest to the fact that videos have the strongest effect on the sensory experience of customers. Therefore, with a good video production, a business can get its customers into a certain pleasurable mood even before they pay a visit to the brick and mortar premises of the business. The beautiful thing about deploying good videos on social media is that it puts the customer in a great state of mind even before the customer comes in. The customer comes prepped to expect good things.
This is where the phenomenon of Confirmation Bias kicks in. Customers will come looking for clues that what they believed about the business from what they saw in the video is true. Such a customer might even explain away certain mistakes of the business and see them as one-off events. It would take a mistake of cataclysmic proportions to get such a customer to change their minds about the business.
If there is one thing we see about the use of social media, it is the fact that many people go there mainly to have a good time. These days, it is not strange to see individuals watching content on their phones and then bursting out in laughter. Social media has become the place to relax and have some fun. Businesses can easily tap into this trend to enhance the experience of their customers. By producing good, clean content and sharing with its customers, a business endears itself to its customers. Customers would begin to see the brand as a fun brand. This would make the brand a lot more relatable to its customers.
The world of social media is a world of content. Actually, content is king on social media. Businesses that are serious about making an impact on social media must therefore put adequate resources into producing good quality content. Content that promotes the business while at the same time entertaining and informing customers will be a winner.
The packaging of the content is also very important. Presentation is key to win over customers. There is even a study that argues that many times, the presentation of the content might even be more important than the content itself. It is critical therefore that much effort is put into packaging content for social media in as professional a manner as possible.
It is however important to note that social media for customer experience has its limitations. The inability to physically handle products before purchasing is one of the drawbacks of social media as a tool to enhance customer experience. However, even for this apparent disadvantage, there are businesses that have found smart ways around it. There are those businesses that have managed to build such goodwill with their customers to the extent that these customer believe that what the business presents online would definitely meet customer expectations.
The importance of social media means that businesses cannot just treat it lightly. The wrong use of content on social media can lead to undesirable consequences. There are studies that have proven that the experiences customers share on social media has a way of affecting the purchase decisions of other customers. A single word from an aggrieved customer could spell doom for a business.
Therefore, to ask a business to have a full-time unit, or at least an individual, to handle social media issues would not be asking too much. This is because there are many businesses that already have these positions and roles staffed with some of their very best employees. These businesses understand that the customer’s experience is no more only physical. They know that indeed the customer’s experience has gone social.
