Twitter: Using Social Media as a Customer Retention Strategy

Just read a post on Dennis Snow’s site in which he reminds us that social media now allows unhappy customers to tell millions about their bad service as it happens.  In the past the negative word of mouth would extend to 7 or 9 or 15 people and now in a blink of a text our mistakes, mis-steps and ineffective service can be communicated round the world!

Dennis suggests that we train our front line employees to ask themselves:

“In every customer interaction you have, imagine the customer is going to immediately ‘tweet’ about their experience. What would they communicate instantly to all of their contacts about their interaction with you?”

How would that change your approach to building customer relationships?  Should social media be added to your customer retention strategy?  When we think of social media in general or rather Twitter in particular; we say “I don’t see the value” or “I don’t have time for that” or “How can it help my business?”

We dismiss Twitter as a silly thing the young people do to waste time and miss altogether the fact that it doesn’t matter if WE USE social media.  Our customers DO!  And very effectively.

Although customer service ENDS at the customer/sales associate interaction – it BEGINS with management.  In this economy companies are down sizing.  In some cases they are treating their employees like an expense item on their P&L rather than as the greatest asset in their arsenal.  Bosses let employees know they should be grateful they have a job rather than encouraging, training and thanking them for hanging in there during the tough times.

Fewer employees are having to cover a greater number of tasks and all of this leads to declining customer service.  In an age when customer service should be the number one focus; with increased competition and fewer spendable dollars, we should be doing everything we can to help customers spend with us! 

Yet -if the employees who actually interact with customers are beaten down, feeling overworked and under valued – they aren’t going to see the need to do anything extra with each customer experience.

The combination of declining customer service and increased communication abilities through Twitter is a disaster waiting to happen.

As a manager – an owner – an entrepreneur – we need to recognize Twitter for the opportunity it is to create awareness and build customer retention. 

Not long ago I talked about Ramon DeLeon - the owner of several pizza shops in Chicago and how he stays connected with his customers via Twitter and other social media venues.  Through the use of Google Alerts and Twitter search plug-ins – you can stay connected and learn when people are talking about you.  At the very least make sure you follow conversations about your business so that you can respond.

However, a more proactive customer retention strategy would be to actively engage your customers in conversation via social media. For more information about using social media to connect with customers, check out Becky Carroll’s post called Where Does Social Media fit in?

At the very least – go back to Dennis’ question and ask yourself – just what is the customer I’m talking with RIGHT NOW going to Tweet about this experience?