The listener wins this year. The company paying attention to customer feedback is on its way to positive growth. Everything about marketing revolves around that right now, and since search engines regard interactions and updates highly, I don’t think that will ever change.
Search engines aren’t interested in your business as much as they want you to try to govern the system with sponsored ads. You’ll spend a lot of money before you make any! Search engines’ main purpose is for the searcher, not your company. If they make the searcher happy, they sell more ad space, more people trust them to deliver, and stock goes flying through the roof.
By itself, that really doesn’t impact your business, even though you’ve been told that it does. Nobody’s out to get you, you’re just not the focus. What DOES impact your business, is your ability to interact with the public so that they recognize you as a personable, knowledgeable, approachable, shareable brand. When you’re doing everything possible to do that, you’re on the right track.
Let me ask you something. How are you going to be a personable, knowledgeable, approachable, and shareable brand if you happen to be wrong about your customer’s concerns, issues, questions, and fears?
If you have any doubt about your customer’s concerns, issues, questions, and fears – there’s several ways you can learn about them.
- Ask them questions in person.
- Ask them questions or survey them using social media. (Facebook has a ‘questions’ tool, and Twitter can provide pretty quick feedback.)
- Ask your front line what they hear from people.
- Talk to suppliers and vendors about trends they see.
- Closely watch your competitors. Are they on it? Are they missing the mark? Where can YOU plug in and do it better?
Everything you post to your blog and share with social media tells people about you. They’re looking to see if you truly ‘get it’ and are paying attention to them. Here are some ways you can proactively add some assurance to your approach:
- Spell out your guarantee, and make it easily accessible on your website.
- Offer easy ways to be reviewed online, right from your website.(Can you say ‘confidence’?)
- Actively participate on your Facebook page. Build your audience, be present. I can’t stress this enough, it is NOT a waste of time in 2012!
If you understand your customer, and want to continue to understand them and meet them where they’re at, you’re going to ROCK your competition right out of the water. Rest assured, very few businesses understand this, and if you’re willing to do what they won’t – you win that hard-earned customer!
