There have been many conversations surrounding the value of social media. How do we measure a return on investment using these tools? How do we guarantee that the tools are going to work in our favor?
There are a couple of things you should be using social media for in the near future. That will give you an intangible benefit to your company. The first thing is customer service. We will talk about the concept of using social media as a customer service tool in the future. I wanted to focus on the second reason which is reputation management.
Are you listening to what people are saying about you online? I can give you two bad examples and one good example of companies who are listening to what clients and potential clients are discussing.
The first bad example is that of Independent Federal Credit Union in Anderson, IN. I had a bad customer service experience at one of their branches in Anderson. You can read the entire post at An Example Of Terrible Customer Service: IFCU. The problem isn’t necessarily that they had bad customer service. The problem is that they had NO IDEA I had written a blog post about my experience.
When you are not listening to what people are saying about you… how can you change opinions?
The second example is from KSM Business Technology and Digitech in Indianapolis. You can read about the entire experience at the post about KSM Business Technologies Being Worst than Godaddy at customer service. The sad thing about this post is that they are a business technology and hosting company. They had no idea I had a bad experience with a couple of their reps and now it is blasted out over the masses on the Internet. They still have no idea.
This has nothing to do with the size of the company (the offending or the offended). This has everything to do with caring about the customer experience.
You want to know… You NEED to know… You SHOULD know…
If you can think of a reason why you should not be listening to clients and potential clients on the Internet. Please let me know.
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One reason not to listen to commentary on the Internet is that while these words may have authority, they do not necessarily have integrity. On the Internet, nobody really knows who you are, so there is no proof you are a real person. You could be Lyle Kacey, disgruntled former employee, or Lacey Lyle, covert anti-marketing operative working for the competition.
However, as social media becomes more authentic and people begin to associate their real selves with their online avatars, it will be more difficult for companies to dismiss commentary as unimportant. Eventually, no one will be able to escape everything that is ever said about them. Hushed rumors will coalesce into directories of public opinion.
What I really want you to blog about is what happens if Kyle Lacey wants to land a gig doing marketing for KSM or IFCU.
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