The Power of Listening

Posted by Nathan in Social Strategy on 11 4th, 2009 | View Comments

listening

One of the most underrated ways to use social media is to use it as a tool to hear what others are saying about you and your niche.

We’re used to talking about ourselves and trying to evangelize our brand, but many of us do a poor job of listening.

Never before has there been a better opportunity for businesses to capture news, both good and bad, straight from the horse’s mouth.

If you do this properly, you can not only stop bad situations before they spread, but you also have an opportunity to turn a lukewarm customer into another evangelist.

For instance, I was staying at the Las Vegas Hilton recently and I had a bad experience. I sent a Tweet to their Twitter account, but never heard back.

This left me with a bad taste in my mouth and upon looking at their profile I realized that it served only one purpose, which was to talk, rather than listen.

On the other side of the equation, take a look at how HR Block uses Twitter. They spend more time listening and helping than they do talking about themselves. This is a company that gets it.

You see, there’s a huge opportunity for companies to spin bad customer experiences into a win-win situation for everyone. After all, when people complain they aren’t really expecting a miracle, they just want to know that someone cares.

It’s for the little guys too

And it doesn’t apply to only big brands either. Everyone from the local coffee shop to the solopreneur trying to sell information products can benefit from this strategy. It doesn’t require a lot of effort, and can be set up on autopilot so that you don’t have to hire someone to sit at the computer all day.

I’m not suggesting that listening stations take the place of customer service, I’m simply implying that they should be a part of the strategy. Use Twitter, Facebook, and Google Blog Search to see what your customers are saying about you and find out how you can serve them better.

If you don’t hear anything, then start listening to other conversations to see what people in your niche are talking about. Sometimes, it might surprise you.

There’s magic in listening

Furthermore, by listening to the conversations in your niche, you will have a chance to survey the market without spending a dime on market research. There are people out there, many of them power users, that are telling you exactly what they want from you. You’ve only got to listen so that you can provide it to them.

This is a powerful opportunity for entrepreneurs that are trying to stretch dollars and need a way to improve their customer experience. It’s how you can turn first time buyers into long time customers, and better yet, how you can prevent bad reviews from spreading like wildfire.

The companies that get ahead of this and start listening will have a chance to blow their competition out of the water. When people know you care, they will have no problem coming back for more, even if the experience wasn’t right the first time. For most of us, just knowing that you are listening makes all the difference in the world.

For those of you that understand but don’t know how to implement this strategy, drop me a line. I’d love to help you out.

Image Credit: Clar@Bell

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