A new survey has revealed how customers want to interact with businesses via social media - their top preferences include discount offers and help with customer service issues.
According to the Customer Experience Report from RightNow Technologies, customers wish for the following from businesses on social media:
Discounts and offers - 61%
Responses to their positive comments - 37%
Responses to their negative comments - 34%
Resolve customer service issues - 31%
The sale of services and products - 30%
The report also revealed that 24% of respondents had bought a product after reading about it on social media.
“If you’re a company that doesn’t have a social media policy and don’t have social media engagement happening right now, then you’re falling behind your competitors. This is a really important space to play in,” said Quantitative Director Neil Stollznow from Stollznow Research at the launch of the report yesterday.
Paula-Jane Buckland (pictured above), owner of online vintage reproduction store
Moxie Minx, was initially skeptical of Facebook, until she was eventually talked into it by her friends and saw an increase in sales, shortly after launching her own fanpage.
Buckland uses her page to upload photos of new items she has added to the collection, as well as images of discounted pieces, which attract clicks and comments from the brand’s fans, often resulting in sales. In fact, Buckland believes that 90% of her sales are via Facebook, as she uses it as her main vehicle of advertising.
Recently, Moxie Minx hit 6,000 Facebook fans and to thank them for their support, she offered them all a discount code on the Moxie Minx website.
“I’ve said to other friends who have brands or are artists or whatever they do, you just can’t beat the free advertising on Facebook,” she told
Smarter Business Ideas.
“It is time-consuming and you have to be wiling to put that effort in and to keep at it constantly. You can’t have a page if you’re going into it once a week. To get the most positive reaction, you have to use it every day, or every couple of days and not bombard people, because if you put up too much crap, people will delete you.”
Customers often leave questions on the fanpage about customer service issues and according to Buckland, it’s important that her interactions with customers are kept transparent, so others can see that their queries are being addressed in a timely manner.
“It’s only been a couple of times that people have written something negative. I don’t delete the comments, but I will answer it in a positive manner, and with detail. You’ve got to be on the ball,” she said.