There's an old adage in sales that you don't have a business until you have a customer. So why is it that so many brands don't 'talk' to their customers? Because it can be so easy to get swept up in trends and data driving results that good, old fashioned customer feedback gets lost in the noise.
This post covers how to ask for customer feedback
Photo by Giulia May on Unsplash
Read on for ways in which social media and email as marketing channels can be used to engage with your audience or customers. Something to always remember when you are devising a customer outreach strategy: Take the good with the bad. There will be highs and there will be lows in what your customers have to share about your brand or service. Asking them is the best way to be aware of your best points and your pain points for improvement. Be willing to take on feedback and action it, otherwise implementing any customer outreach strategy will be a vanity project and a waste of resources.
Social Media:
A great way to get your customer or audience feedback is to utilize the 'social' element of social media. Let's pretend that you are a company which produces nail polish. You are looking to add a new color to your range. How might you use social media to get insight from your audience? In this example we'll assume that 'social media' is Instagram, for the sake of simplicity.
Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash
Consider that you could post a 'poll' allowing users to vote for their favorite choice. You might be between a lemony yellow or a soft lavender. You can do this one of two ways with a 'Story' (which lasts 24hours) or with a 'grid post' which will be visible well after the voting window closes. You might use a visual que like a photo of lemon beside lavender with the 'poll' option to vote means that your audience can nominate their favorite color easily and without hesitation. While this feedback is hardly scientific, it is a gesture towards customer/audience input that will speak to how they view your brand in the future. It also 'teases' the launch of the new product which makes for a sense of 'recall' when you launch your new product -- lemon yellow or lavender purple polish -- shortly thereafter.
Another way you can use social media to 'speak' to your customers is by engaging with them on your posts. Your audience will let you know what they think about your product or brand marketing on your social media and no response is a bad tactical move on your behalf. Even if a user leaves a negative review, reply! But do so with consideration -- your reply will be public and could influence the decision making of not just one but many future users. While you may have too much going on to read the thousands of comments on a post, your users will make an effort to see what their contemporaries say about the product or service in those comments. But it's not all negative in the comments! There will be some praise and some queries which if you evolve your customer service strategy to include social media means that your brand will be attentive and responsive, lending itself to be 'trustworthy' for current and future customers alike.
Email:
Email can be a great channel not just for sales but for customer feedback. Above was an ecommerce example of a product -- now let's shift focus to a service based business. In this scenario you run a small cafe which is a popular brunch spot. How might you use email to encourage repeat custom?
Photo by Rachel Park on Unsplash
If you take your bookings for the cafe on the website you could trigger an automatic message no less than 24 hours or more than 48 hours after the reservation. It's as easy as that! In your message you can ask the visitor to review their experience of your cafe and brunch offering. Worried they won't 'take the survey'? Make it simple! Give them a star system to rank the experience and/or a single 'Thoughts and feedback' style text input field so that your patron can easily tap out a few words of praise....or critique.
This style of feedback solicitation after a service is not just for the hospitality space and can be transmuted across industry. People generally will give feedback if you ask for it in an unassuming, polite way. The trick is what you do with the feedback.
Summary:
Customers want to feel heard. By developing a customer outreach strategy across your marketing channels you can learn valuable feedback to help shape your business. Social media is a space for engaging directly with your customers while email allows you a longer format to solicit review.
Get in Touch.
Want to learn more about why customers matter for your business? Talk with us today. Email Liz@litirmarketing.com to book a call.
Comments