Customer experience (CX) programs encompass every touchpoint that a customer has with a brand. Everything from in-store experiences, customer support, and even social media. Social media has taken the 21st century by storm! It has changed everything from the way we communicate, share information and how we connect with friends, family and brands. It is constantly evolving and changing, forcing brands to evolve and change with it. According to LyfeMarketing “Customers who have enjoyed positive social media interactions with brands recommend the brand to social contacts at a rate of 71%“. It is increasingly more important to ensure your customers have a positive experience with your brand through social media.
In this blog post we discuss tips on how to leverage social media to become an integral part of your customer experience program.
1. Listen
It is essential to listen to your customers through social media. This is where they will share feedback, give opinions and talk about experiences with your brand. Monitoring social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), allows you to determine how your customers feel about your brand. It also gives you an opportunity to respond to feedback, mitigate customer complaints, and have conversations with your customers about products. This will help give you ideas to improve your brand, and improve the customer experience.
2. Respond
Responding to customers through social media channels is a great way to interact with customers outside of your business. Ensure you respond to them promptly, as customers expect responses outside of normal businesses hours through social media. By responding in a timely manner you show you customers that you care about their feedback. According to a study by SproutSocial “social media trends show that over a third (of responders) will talk about their experience with their family and friends.“. This means that social media users will discuss positive and negative experiences with family and friends, spreading by word of mouth how effective your business is at social media.
3. Engage
Engagement is one of the most important social metrics to track. It indicates how frequently your customers are interacting with your brand online. As often as they interact with you, it is important to ensure you engage with them as well. This could be sharing social media posts they make, liking comments they make about your brand or asking to share their photos of your brand on social media. This enables customers to feel like they have been seen, and increases customer loyalty, and the overall customer experience.
4. Showcase
Having a great social media experience for customers allows you to showcase everything you do in your CX program. This is a great way to show off how much you care about your customers and their experiences within your brand. This could be everything from sharing reviews, customer feedback, photos of customers (with their permission of course), success stories and anything else that you consider part of your CX program! This shows potential customers that you care, and shows your current customers why they should continue to be loyal to your brand.
Learning to leverage social media can be a powerful tool for improving your customer experience program. By listening to your customers, responding to their comments/ questions, engaging with their posts and showcases their experiences, you can utilize social media to build a strong customer experience program.
