Mar

30

Enterprises and organizations must be proactive in taking advantage of online social media and networking to reach out to customers and prospects.

Unlike before when not all customer service personnel can expect to serve everyone’s need, managing customers online can make response and rewards to customer concerns simultaneous and seamless. It may seem simple enough; however, it can also be complex.

Here are some approaches to managing customers online that have been effective for others; it could be effective for you too.

Companies today are changing their communications strategies. From traditional media, many now broadcast their new products, services, promos and press releases using Facebook, Twitter, blogs, et cetera. Still, some companies are apprehensive with social media as customers or employees can rant or complain against them.

Entrepreneurs should start with a framework and strategy that can work for them, based on its relevance.

If customer engagement or interaction is important, the popular social network Facebook is one way to go.

Beyond the framework and strategy, there must be capable people delegated to handle the social media.

The entrepreneur can initially manage this or assign just one person. For larger enterprises or companies, you can have 10 to 15 people working this on a shifting basis. For consistency in voice services, a communication guide is necessary for all people involved in customer engagement.

To determine if a return-on-investment comes from social media, relevant performance indicators such as sales or leads must be monitored. This can be done easily with a tracker or click-through monitoring set up on a website being promoted or product being sold online.

Also nowadays, instead of people calling a hotline number to deliver complaints and resolve issues, they relay their grievances through e-mail, private messages or status updates online. For non-sales activity like customer support, success can now be easily and cheaply determined from the number of issues resolved and volume of complaints received.

With the recent developments in location-based services such as Facebook Places and Foursquare.com, establishment owners can now recognize people who check-in regularly and who can be considered as advocates of their brands by awarding them special privileges and incentives.

Full Time Employee Outsourcing – Online Social Media/Chat Support Staff

Reference:

Toral, Janette. “Managing Customers Online.” 23 March 2011. The Sun Star Cebu. Accessed 25 March 2011. Link Here.


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