Why You Need a Social Business Customer-Care Strategy

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In any given week I review various statistics focused on social media usage, trying to better understand how quickly people are adopting these tools into their everyday lives. The reality is that adoption in the United States continues to increase, as it does in many other areas of the world. Cultural norms, access to technology and governmental legislative efforts will mean varying degrees of worldwide adoption, so always take those variables into account as you review statistics in an effort to understand how well they represent the markets you are in.

According to Nielsen, 17 percent of time spent on the Internet in August 2009 was devoted to social networking and blog sites, This is up from 6 percent the previous year.

According to eConsultancy:

• Customers who experience problems when shopping online are talking about it on social media sites; 13 percent in 2009 compared with 8 percent in 2008.
• Of the respondents, 51 percent said that social media has influenced their online transactions, 75 percent said their choice of retailer was influenced by what they read on social media sites, while 56 percent avoided a particular company after reading a bad review.

Interesting stats, yes, but why should you care?

Customers are spending more time on social networking sites and becoming more comfortable letting their voice be heard, both in regard to positive and negative experiences that they are having in their daily lives.

The influence of this broader sharing is having an impact on the decision-making of other social users. I would go far as to say, based upon other studies, it has the strongest impact on other social users, much more impact than any marketing efforts you are deploying.

Some companies get it while others are still lost in the woods, and the only response is crickets. What kind of company are you going to be?

Contributor:   John Moore

John Moore is the Chief Technology Officer and SVP of Engineering for Swimfish, a provider of crm, document management and business compliance solutions. For the last decade Moore has worked as a senior engineering manager for SAAS applications built upon the Microsoft technology stack. Moore has established the processes and hired the teams that delivered hundreds of updates ranging from weekly patches to longer running full feature releases. Moore’s background as a hands-on developer combined with his strong QA background has enabled him to deliver high quality software on time.

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Report Abuse   psinger 07/15/2010 12:42:49 PM EDT I think we have all heard the chatter about customers using Social Media to great effect. What I would like to know is; what's a company to do about it? Am I in the right industry or do I have the right brand to take advantage of this data? What data should I be looking for? What do I actually do with the data? To develop a strategy you must first answer these top line questions. Then you need to develop a new team to manage this channel and then create the right processes to get the desired outcomes; sales, changing perceptions or modifying customer behaviors. This is a great article and call to action. Thanks. Paul Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment

Report Abuse   SameerPai 07/15/2010 5:27:02 AM EDT Social media has brought the customers closer to the sellers.Most customers used to vent out their problems through word of mouth, rarely giving valuable feedback to the company. Or if they did, the company was just not listening. Now, customers have started using social media as a platform to express themselves and so there is a need for a social business Customer-Care strategy. We recently wrote a blog on how social media was changing the customer service function. I invite you to read that blog http://bit.ly/cMcQri Replies (0) Post a reply Sign in or Sign up to post a comment