Improve your customer relationships and reap the benefits

Powerful relationships are the driving force behind your business success. When your customers know, like, and trust you, they are far more likely to buy your products and services and recommend them to friends and family.

But, how do you build these relationships? How do you create real, meaningful rapport?

Twitter offers an interesting solution. The platform’s unique microblogging format keeps exchanges short and makes it easy to tag people, answer tweets and engage in conversation in real-time.

In this post, we’ll share some simple techniques you can use to effectively engage with your customers on Twitter.

Starting the conversation

There are a lot of different ways to start a conversation on Twitter!

Start by sharing relevant content your customers would love and find useful!

You can:

• Share great posts from your blog and add some relevant hashtags so they can be found in a search
• Curate content from other blogs and publications that solve customers’ problems
• Post informative infographics
• Retweet relevant content shared by thought leaders in your field and by your customers! You can generate even more engagement by adding your own twist to the retweet. Instead of just hitting that retweet button, select comment and add a short tweet that highlights why you found this valuable.

Your options are (almost) endless. Just make sure the content you share complements your brand and supports your message.

When you first start, share different types of content and track the analytics for each.

What type gets the highest number of likes, replies, and retweets? Use the metrics to produce more similar content. This shows your customers you are actually paying attention to what they like and want to see more of!

Achieve super engagement with this simple step

Effective social listening can make or break your customer engagement stats.

Use social listening tools like Mention or Twitter advanced search to tap into the conversations going on around you.

On social media, your customers are discussing pain points that your business solves. They may even be talking about you without tagging you. Tap into these conversations and engage in them.

You can offer solutions, answer questions or even share the odd meme.

Let your brand’s personality come through a little bit and show off that human side.

Using a social media dashboard like MavSocial can make it much easier to stay on top of all your Twitter conversations.

You can reply, like, and retweet comments and practice your social listening skills all from the same place. It makes it easy to keep track of conversations and even assign specific questions to various team members.

Dealing with frustrated customers

Unfortunately, not all customer interactions are positive.

No matter how great your team and processes are, sometimes they’ll fail you. You’ll have to deal with frustration, breaks in your process, and poor customer experiences.

How you handle negative customer experiences has a profound impact on how your brand is perceived. Following these three simple steps will help you keep your reputation in the clear.

1. Acknowledging the issue

Approach the issue with a cool head and a helpful attitude. This isn’t the time or place to throw around blame.

Being genuine, calm, and helpful will help you stand out and show who you truly are: a business committed to world class customer care.

Acknowledge the issue and get to the root of the problem. Identify what happened, what went wrong, and how you can fix it.

2. De-escalating the situation

When a customer sends in a specific complaint, emotions are running high.

They bought a product or service with the expectation that it would make things easier for them and things didn’t turn out that way. Maybe they are feeling “buyers remorse” and want to return the purchase. Maybe they got charged twice or the product wasn’t what they expected.

Whatever you do, don’t get defensive.

Remain calm and try and understand where they are coming from. Sometimes just listening to someone as they express their frustrations can help turn a situation around.

Always answer queries quickly and efficiently; allowing complaints or questions to go unanswered for long periods of time just increase their frustrations. That’s not good for your relationship!

3. Moving complaints off Twitter

One hundred and sixty characters just aren’t enough to deal with a genuine complaint. You may need a little more room to run or need to discuss confidential information that’s best kept off social media.

In those cases provide the customer with an alternative email address or phone number where they can reach you and make sure you get back to them promptly!

This is your chance to turn things around and wow them with a customer service experience they will never forget.

Transform customers into brand advocates

You’ve got a few customers that like almost everything you do. They regularly engage with your posts, share your content, and tell their friends and family how great you are!

As a business owner, you want to attract more of these magical unicorns who become vocal advocates for your brand!

But how?

Let’s take a look at a few different ways you can engage with those customers on Twitter!

Reward their loyalty

If someone goes out of his or her way to engage with you and advocate for your brand, then take the time to acknowledge and thank them for it.

Retweet their tweets, answer their questions, and even share some of their content! Reach out to them with a quick, thoughtful thank you note.

If you already have a specific program for brand advocates, then invite your most active Twitter followers to join or consider organizing something special just for them.

Let them know just how much you appreciate them! You can grant them early access to new products, behind-the-scenes information about your latest product launch or even a discount on their next purchase.

Nurture this community by sharing a little more about your process. This will help create natural, organic hype around your products and business.

Remember to keep it social

Twitter gives you a fantastic opportunity to engage with customers in real time. Answer questions and take the time to delight them before you become a reason not to buy.

You can proactively address concerns and issues before they have the chance to become problems.

Most importantly, you can nurture loyal customers and turn them into brand advocates.

Use Twitter to its full potential and build amazing relationships. The results are worth the effort.