Customer retention is a topic that has been studied for decades. The basic idea behind customer retention is to focus on the customers who are more likely to stay with the company and make sure that they are satisfied. Having a solid social listening strategy in place can help your company succeed with customer retention.
Social listening, also called social media listening, is an incredible process to identify and access the thoughts of customers and competitors about an individual, company, brand, or product. By conducting studies and analyzing their comments on social media handles, social listening tools allow us to develop a robust understanding of how we present and what potential customers think about the business. These conversations produce large amounts of unstructured data, which provides insights into analyzing opportunities and threats. By considering this data, we can draft a marketing strategy that enhances customer engagement and retention.
Read Also – What is Social Listening?
Here is a list of ways social listening can provide benefits for a business in customer retention:
-
Product Intelligence
A thorough understanding of the conversation brimming with our brand allows us to choose between right and wrong. It uncovers valuable insights about what works in the market and what does not.
We can say that this information is almost like a gold mine for our marketing and product development team for customer retention. We also get a clear idea about the pitfalls in our current products. We can do further modifications after considering the feedback.
-
Foster strong relationships
Fostering relationships plays a vital role in each of our lives. However, being true to our relationships adds more goodness. Just like in our personal lives, relationships are integral to all businesses for customer retention.
Content creation and posting on social media handles alone won’t add value to the brand or generate traffic. As a result, knowing the audience and cultivating relationships with them is critical for customer retention.
Run thorough research about the targeted audience, understand their preferences, and develop relatable content so that it catches their attention. In the event of dissatisfaction, follow up with their feedback and offer incredible solutions.
-
Interact with the audience
An excellent social media listening strategy gives a clear understanding of what the customers think about the business. For example, a customer is delighted with your product and tweets about the same.
Other potential customers spotting this conversation may be attracted to your products or services. Along with positive feedback, there are negative comments too. So beware of those trying to protect the brand’s value.
-
Understand competition
Our competition can be our most significant threat to customer retention, especially at the top. Social listening is not just about understanding what our customers say about us but social listening is also helpful in competition analysis. In comparison, it has a lot to do with the industry and competition in general. It offers a strong insight into where we fit in the market.
Social media listening gives us a clear understanding of what our customers are planning for today as well as tomorrow. The conversations taking place help to bridge the gap between failure and success.
-
Minimizing crisis
Social listening clearly explains what people think and say about our brand or products in real-time. It further helps to make significant changes that protect our brand’s reputation and customer retention. It’s almost like an alert system that gives us an insight into all the positives and negatives before it’s too late to handle.
If we’re experiencing a lot of attention, it is important to analyze the reason behind it. However, if sentiments are not in the best situation, we must take the necessary steps to protect our existing customer line.
-
Identify opportunities and take timely actions
When we say do not brainstorm with numbers, having a nuanced understanding of them will always work in our favor. Working and not tracking opportunities or threats is like running a brand blindly. Regularly tracking progress is vital as it motivates us to perform better each day.
It is possible to gain a clear understanding of the ongoing changes that have a big impact on your development by keeping an eye on social media conversations about your industry. Building strong communities is also a major part of it. Social listening enables us to look out for brand influencers and build relationships with them. It ultimately contributes to growth, customer retention, and success.
Note: in a group of people, there are always those who love our brand. These are called “organic brand advocates.” Find these cheerleaders and reach out to them to find better opportunities.
Add the right weapon to your arsenal
Konnect Insights is an omnichannel customer experience management suite. It is a unified solution for your customer care and marketing needs. Get all tickets in one place as well as get all analytics in one place as it is a one-stop solution for your brand.
Konnect Insights provides social listening, social analytics, social CRM, online reputation management, social publishing, BI tools and dashboards, surveys and feedback, and crisis management. It allows your team to collaborate and work together rather than working in silos.
What are the steps to retaining customers?
What do we do if we want to retain customers? It’s always a tricky question. However, retaining customers is always better than acquiring new ones. There is a sense of satisfaction in generating new customers; however, our old customers are the brand’s charm and contribute to greater ROI. If we’re looking for a strategy to retain customers, then we need to:
- Keep a close eye on churn metrics.
- Track customer feedback on the loop to improve customer experience.
- Keep a customer communication calendar handy.
- Connect customers through the company’s newsletter.
- Kickstart customer education programs.
- Foster strong relationships with customers.
- Offer end-to-end services for a better customer experience.
- Go for a customer retention program.
How is social listening different from social monitoring?
Social listening and social monitoring might look similar when we analyze them from a distance. However, these two crucial concepts are crucial for any business to grow. Social media monitoring involves data gathering and enables us to comprehend the most recent brand postings using metrics such as brand mentions, competitor mentions, hashtags, and industry trends.
On the other hand, social listening remains a step ahead of numbers or social monitoring. In other words, social monitoring focuses on what has happened, whereas social listening analyzes the data and prepares strategies for a better tomorrow. This is the reason why every brand needs social listening.
Final words
Social media is a powerful tool to strengthen our business in real-time. Today, it has been transformed from a picture-posting platform to a commercial platform conducting millions of businesses daily. Making a place on social media may sometimes seem like a lot of work and overwhelming. However, we can retain customers to grow better with an adequate social listening strategy.
CTA: Get started today for the better!
Tags: customer engagement, customer experience, Digital Marketing, Marketing strategy, Social Listening, Social Listening Tools