Everyone focuses on social networks thinking of an economic ROI that does not necessarily come soon, and may even never come directly, but indirectly. How can it be? The answer is simple: offering a great customer service through them.
Many have not yet fallen into the true importance of social networks and what users expect from the brands that are in them. People want to interact, learn, comment and above all, listen to what companies have to tell them, not only in terms of news, but also to potential solutions they need.
We all know this, but also a Gartner report of a year ago mentioned it, stating that in two years 30% of the companies that carried out activities on the Internet would include improvements in this sector, and in several cases it is something that, in the first year, it has happened.
And the scope and viability of social CRM (SCRM) is gaining in strength, a technology that is becoming more and more popular and is located almost at the highest point of social software for companies, with widespread adoption expected in the coming years.
Everyone has the same question: Are they really useful and necessary? The management of online reputation is basic. Knowing how to revert bad comments, understand the key words with which we are recognized by others or find opportunities to make improvements in our products, is something that will only increase customer satisfaction and of course, the company’s sales.
In short, the social CRM is what will make us turn the customer service into a powerful marketing tool when we implement it in social networks. Of course, for this it is necessary to carry out some actions to implement it in the correct way, some of them being to project a human image of the brand, listen to users, inform and interact with the market, publish additional information about the products or services that We offer, share customer feedback and customize everything, among a lot of other things.
How to measure its effectiveness? Taking into account the activity and interactions, analyze and understand the particularities of each social platform, recognize others and respond to all direct queries they make us (as this is not just about starting a thread of conversation and forgetting about it, but of active participation), create quality content that adds value to our users, and establish comparative measurements between our actions to improve customer service and the curve that sales will experience.
The social CRM is, more than the future, the present, and companies should wake up this year to not lose the train to improve customer service by enabling the new channels available. There is not much time left for experimentation. It has been a long time and we already have examples of brands that are getting great benefits in addition to being recognized as great innovators, but the niche is slowly closing.
This does not mean that there is no place for those who have not yet ventured into Social Media, but it is time to strengthen it and give priority to not be permanently relegated from competitors.