Using social media marketing to win client confidence

I was reading this excellent blog post about obsession with customer service by Chris Brogan today, and it got me thinking about how businesses convey their commercial passions online – in particular, how a company expresses their uniqueness via social media engagement and social media marketing. The blog post from Chris clearly highlights the importance of giving a little bit more to customers, of showing them you actually care, and also (the most significant part for me) of making sure that customers are heard. His brilliant question is a great one to answer: “What’s the hardest part of doing business with you?” The accessibility of social media platforms makes it an amazing and at times hazardous place for companies to engage with existing and potential customers, as this tweet so succinctly highlights: How do you convey your customer service excellence via social media engagement? The usual (conventional) methods) are: * Case studies * Testimonials * Product reviews But, these methods are old-hat, and the average savvy customer looks at these as little more than PR-enhanced techniques. Effective social media engagement, however, means that letting the customers say it for themselves, and then pass it on through their own networks, enables a different kind of voice to get out there – that of your loyal customers, your raving fans. A company saying that they are obsessed with delivering amazing customer service is one thing – but seeing a company such as Zappos using Twitter as a publicly-viewable vehicle for customers to raise queries, issues and complaints on is another level. Now THAT’S what I call a brave and visionary use of social media to clearly and unashamedly highlight to existing and potential customers just how crucially important they are to Zappos as a contemporary, brave, open business. Here are ways I enable my obsession with client service to be seen: * Invite a potential client to speak to any of my current and previous clients. * Ask for client feedback on a regular basis – ideally, quarterly at minimum. * Publish what clients think of me in their own words – see more here. I’ll freely admit that as a long-standing blogging consultant, social media editor and social media marketing consultant in Bristol, client service has always been one of my own personal obsessions. Maybe that’s due to spending a decade in newspaper and magazine newsrooms, where daily deadlines must be met, or a P45 usually follows. One thing I know without doubt is this: being passionate about client service and their social media success above all else means that a client knows they are getting something money can’t buy – the personal attention of a highly motivated solo consultant. And bearing in mind that most clients choose business partners and suppliers for emotive reasons such as word-of-mouth recommendations, it becomes even clearer that being the same as the rest of your competitors simply isn’t an option anymore. How do you use social media engagement and blogging outreach to convey your uniqueness to potential customers, and to win client confidence?