Nowadays, businesses have the opportunity to connect with their customers directly, overcoming the barriers of physical interactions and the gaps of time and space.

With the introduction of tools such as online reviews and social media, now, more than ever, SMEs have the possibility of being constantly in contact with their customers and getting their feedback, hearing their opinions, praise, complaints, suggestions questions and eventual requests.

Those feedbacks are the starting point to build long-term relationships with the customers, where the direct interaction with them through answer and replies to their questions creates bonds useful to develop loyalty and increase business relationships. However, sometimes the importance of the online presence is underestimated, with consequent loss of business opportunities and even negative impact on the brand image.

Talking without listening

Too often, small companies use their social media channels to implement marketing campaigns and promote their products and services, instead of considering them as communication channels. When this happens, social media channels are seen as advertisement spaces to publish videos, pictures and messages and the two-ways value of the channel disappears. Some businesses tend to ignore good feedbacks taking them for granted and reply poorly, or sometimes avoid replying, to negative feedbacks.

Negative feedbacks exist, also in the best companies. There can be problems with the product delivered, issues with the delivery times, misunderstandings about the nature of the services acquired. When those happens, the best way is trying to understand how customers feel in order to understand if it is possible to solve the issue or, at least, apologise properly explaining the circumstances that caused the issue.
A bad review can potentially become positive when the answers succeed to retrieve the lost customers’ satisfaction.

That big little thing called Brand Loyalty
Even though most companies come to realise that brand loyalty is a concept developed with time and patience, some of them still believe that it can be acquired in a couple of days. The relationship between companies and customers is not that different from the classic relationship between two individuals. A customer interacts for the first time with a company according to a series of questions:

1) Is it interesting?
Interesting and attractive messages sent by the company with advertisements and marketing activities are essential to create awareness,

2) Is it good looking?
Well made advertisements and a good looking websites attract indeed more customers than bad quality ads and poorly designed web pages.

3) Can I trust it?
Developing a clear and transparent communication is essential to gain trust and confidence with customers. This will be a key point in the establishment of long-term bonds.

4) Does it really care about me?
Just as lovers search for special attentions from their partners, customers want to feel unique for the company they choose. The new media channels, as previously introduced, succeeded in mixing private and business life, offering an opportunity not to be missed by businesses to show how much they care about their customers.

5) So, is it the right one?
Everybody experienced at least once the feeling of being attracted by somebody totally incompatible on paper, while ignoring somebody else supposed to be perfect for him. It happens the same in business. Some companies have specific traits that just attract people. Some companies’ products have better characteristics than their competitors, but still sometimes people choose competitors for reasons apparently inexplicable. The answer is that, when it comes to attraction, individual preferences are their “essentials”. Monitoring the audience and understanding what people seek for, is an essential step to develop bonds. Then, exploiting the new social media channels and using the information acquired to interact with the customers is the next step. Finally, creating a dialogue with customers, and outlining the unique values of our company, is the final step to create strong and resilient relationships with customers.

In a nutshell…

• Sell yourself well and give information about what you do
• Be good looking and take care not only of ‘what you do’ but of ‘how you do’ it as well
• Be honest and transparent to develop trust and confidence
• Take care of your customers: everybody likes to be spoiled, clients are no different
• Try to be the one. Try to be unique and exploit the available ways to explain what it is that makes you different.

Written by: Pietro Paolo Frigenti