Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The customer now has a voice

It used to be the phrase that happy customers told 2 people, but unhappy customers told 10.  Now, the lone customer with an opinion has all the channels they need to combine their opinions with other like-minded individuals across the globe.... and in new and exciting ways. Complaining 2.0 has arrived.

Furthermore, with blogs and other commenting sites now providing a free and perpetual record of actions and thoughts, the negative actions of companies don’t just fade away overnight….they linger around for anyone to subsequently find (just type “Dell Hell” into Google to see how a groundswell of opinion changed one PC makers approach to Social Media several years back).

So what do you do when your customer has a voice? Listen.

Tuning in to what your audience is saying isn't that difficult. There are even a number of free tools to help you listen , from basic notifications such as Google Alerts through to tools such as Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com and Google Realtime Search http://www.google.co.uk/realtime

There really is no excuse now for listening to the online customer voice.

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