Social media is all the buzz in the customer experience world. But you’ll find there are more effective ways to connect with customers to further your relationship with them.
We know: Your customers are on social media, so you need to be on social media. It’s a reasonable strategy.
Yet, you still need to connect on levels beyond a tweet, like or share.
Customers are still human and need personal reasons — not just technical reasons — to stick with a company. In fact, customers want to patronize and be part of organizations that share common ground with them, not just provide a service or product they sometimes need.
That’s why it’s important to connect with customers on these proven levels:
1. In person
Because of the Internet and social media, customers have fewer personal interactions with real people inside your organization. That amounts to opportunities lost to help people connect with other people.
So it’s more important than ever to give front-line service and sales pros as much time as they need to build rapport with customers during phone conversations. Plus, empower them to handle gripes and make things right with upset customers on the spot.
2. As part of their passions
Your customers all have at least a little in common just for the fact that they use the same product or service. They likely also have similar concerns and interests — i.e., passions. And if you support those passions, you can connect with customers on a different level.
For instance, CLIF Bar has joined the PeopleForBikes Initiative — a movement to get more people on bikes. To get more people active, which is exactly what most CLIF Bar customers are. Thus, when CLIF sponsors or shows up at an event, employees have an opportunity to connect face-to-face with customers who share a similar passion.
3. As a connector
Sometimes you can make a deeper connection with customers by being the conduit through which customers connect with each other.
For instance, J&P Cycles maintains information and a link to its community on its website with short details on the latest conversation and action in the forum. Customers who want to hear what others are talking about, or ask like-minded people questions, can access the information there.
J&P can monitor it to find out what’s important to customers and jump in when extra help is needed.
4. At their functions
Go where your customers to. They’re at industry events, conferences that cover the topics your products and services support and in their community helping their customers.
If you can’t be there, sponsor those events. Even better, create those events. For instance, Allegiance, a company that offers customer feedback solutions, created an industry leading Voice of the Customer conference. They provide speakers, learning sessions and networking opportunities without overdoing company promotion.
