30 Minute Expectations

You might remember the marketing of “30 minutes or it’s free” when it came to pizza delivery. (some people really took advantage of that – flat tires and all)

That service has since been transformed into “real-time” tracking of your pizza online – from the moment it gets placed in the oven, to the moving of your pizza to the delivery car.

The expectations from customers haven’t changed.  Customers are “plugged in” to places like Twitter and Facebook and immediate gratification of what is going on in their world is often assumed.

YOU CAN SET YOURSELF APART from the competition by simply communicating with your customers sooner than later.  On average, it takes 13.7 hours for a company to reply to a Twitter message or Facebook comment.  71% of brands never reply to their customers.  A lot of businesses have gotten better at lowering their response time, but when your customer expects to hear within the hour, you’re falling short.

People are 80% more likely to buy from a business who answers their questions or responds to their comments within 30 minutes of posting their comment or question.

Ask yourself:

• Do I have someone on staff that can respond to customers online within 30 minutes, even on weekends? (the most people are on Facebook evenings and weekends)
• Are they knowledgeable about your product or service?
• Do they have a high level of customer service skills to handle customer complaints? (snarky replies could go viral and compromise your reputation)
• Do they have an understanding of how social media works? (tag, no typos, nested replies, links, emoticons, and terms of service for the given platform)
• Are they empowered to help that person? (this is a big one.  sometimes a simple thumbs up won’t cut it – you have to give them more)

You may have to handle it on your own if that “social media maniac” doesn’t exist in your company.

Here are a few ways to get back to your customers sooner:

• Keep a Facebook tab open on your computer.  Set your notifications so you hear a bell every time there’s a new comment.
• Use your mobile device notifications.  This is useful when you’re not in front of your computer.  Apps for Facebook and Twitter are readily available to enable quick replies.
• Outsource your social media management.  Do the math.  How much would it cost you in time and money to stay on top of it? (see below, shameless plug)

 

No really, (all sales plugs aside) we do this ALL DAY.  Mobloggy understands the strategy behind your content and how to respond to customers, latest platform updates, and we are constantly researching our clients industry (Bonus: we don’t serve your competitors either, but we know all about them).  Let us know if we can help you.  rebecca@mobloggy.com