Are you listening to your customers online?

While many companies create social media profiles simply to advertise their products and services, some customers will expect to be able to interact and voice any queries with a brand through social networks.

Twitter is one of the most famous ways to communicate with brands online. Some users now tweet questions and problems to companies instead of calling or using email. Due to the fear of receiving negative comments many companies have shied away from online interaction. However what many are forgetting is that even if you aren’t on the network, users will still have the option to complain publically about any problem they have with your product or service. If you’re not able to reply to the customer’s issue you may well lose them, if you can solve the problem quickly and efficiently the customer may be more likely to use your business again.

Dell has taken social interaction to the extreme and has set up a “Social Media Command Centre”. The Nevada-based office tracks mention of the company online and respond in less than 15 minutes to consumer enquiries and issues. The company have stated that they track 22,000 posts related to the company each day and have trained over 5,000 Dell employees in a social media interaction. The company has taken social media very seriously over the past few years and has reported that it earned $3 million from social media interaction in 2009.

Interacting with customers online isn’t something that only large companies should be doing; many small and mid-sized companies are mentioned frequently online and with 2,200 tweets being posted every second do you want to risk not being available to help?

For more information about how your company can interact through social networks online visit our page.