Engendering Loyalty with Social Media
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Written By Dan Kashman | September 27, 2007 | Share This
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In his seminal 1996 book, The Loyalty Effect, Frederick Reicheld wrote,
“By observing the behavior of customers, employees and investors (do they or don’t they come back for more?), you can quite straightforwardly determine where value is being delivered and where it isn’t, and by extension, whether a business is succeeding or failing in its mission to create lasting value.”
Although written well before the advent of blogs, RSS or wikis, Reicheld’s message of retention and engagement as a measure of value has never been more relevant than in today’s hypercompetitive, technology-driven business environment. For companies both big and small, the stakes have never been higher, nor the opportunities more pervasive, as individuals are playing a vital role in evangelizing (or marginalizing) brands. But it’s up to companies to see themselves as collaborators – to have the courage to share their ideas with, and solicit unfiltered feedback from, their customers – or, I should say, co-creators. Social media can help companies both share and listen while accelerating growth and keeping stakeholder interests aligned. In short, social media makes the web a 24/7 focus group, or the world’s largest public suggestion box.
It all sounds good in theory, but when it comes to applying social media to your business, how do you actually weave together these dynamic communication platforms to engender loyalty from your customers, employees, and investors?
I think conversational communication is at the core of all of these strategies, and the findings released by Yahoo yesterday confirm this. Whether this communication means maintaining a blog that is open to honest feedback from customers, investors, and industry watchers, or engaging with an audience that has Facebook at the center of its online universe, companies engaged in social media are telling their stakeholders that they’re open to input and will be responsive to their comments. Their constituencies, in turn, will surface issues sooner, use social platforms for self-service (translating into a lower cost to serve), and will be more likely to act as brand advocates. The ultimate reward for these those companies is increased loyalty.
My hope is that, through a series of posts on the topic, the community will offer new perspectives and a critical examination of emerging best practices in this area.
Topics: Social Media |