You might wonder why we’re saying marketers should actively ‘listen’ to customers. We understand the challenges that marketers face today. It is a competitive, chaotic market where millions of brands are vying for customer attention every single day. One way to stand out from competition is by creating highly engaging, hyper-personalized experiences for customers. How can you do that? By paying attention and proactively listening to your customers.
Every business, every brand must strive to not only find out and meet customer expectation, but also figure out ways to surpass it at the right time in the right channel with the right offer.
During and post-COVID, customers have shared so much personal data that marketers now have ample insight into their purchasing behavior. You must use this data to find out ways to close the gap between what you are offering to your customers and what they actually want. No more gimmicks or guesswork. We’re looking at effective, efficient communication that makes every customer feel heard, valued, and important.
Here’s why marketers should actively listen to customers –
You don’t want to miss out on valuable feedback
As marketers, you are empowered to gather specific, unfiltered, and (in many cases) real-time feedback. Whether the feedback is positive or negative, it can help your brand grow if used correctly. Positive feedback shows you that what you’re doing is right. Negative feedback gives you an opportunity to change your tune and strike a chord to better meet your customer’s needs.
When you turn your data into valuable insights, resulting in actionable solutions – you do not base your campaigns on guesswork. Analyze your data to understand your customer’s purchasing behavior. Align your messaging, timing, and channelling based on customer preferences.
Consumption patterns have changed
The post-millennial generation is opting for non-traditional formats. Consumers have moved from reading to watching. This makes it more important for marketers to actively listen, pay attention to customers. Focus on what channels your customers prefer, and which medium. Think TikTok and short videos; LinkedIn and blogs; WhatsApp and Festive wishes + promotional offer messages.
Social listening is music to our ears
When customers like your offers and act on them, in most cases, they talk about it on their social media handles. As a marketer, you should monitor mentions of your brand and track what your customer is saying about you to the rest of the world. This would help you understand customer sentiment and how they feel about your offering.
That’s not all. By social listening, you open up opportunities to collaborate with creators and influencers in the market. Moreover, you can keep an eye on competition and see what’s trending in real-time.
Customer retention and loyalty
It only takes customers one missed expectation for them to switch businesses/brands. Paying attention to what your customers are trying to tell you helps you serve them better. When your campaign and communication is aligned to customer needs, you are able to give your customers what they want. This results in retaining customers and would also help you gain new customers. In the long run, this would also result in creating authentic, long-lasting relationships with your existing customers.
Now that you know why you should actively listen to customers, here is how you can do it –
- Provide opportunities for them to reach out to you –
Think feedback forms and surveys. Monitor comments left on blogs and social media. Send out emails with a link to your offers encouraging them to engage with your brand without putting in too much effort. - Send out regular, relevant, hyper-personalized communication –
Initiate conversations with your customers. Make them feel more connected to the brand. Use automation to schedule your messages/campaigns across different channels to ensure the right content reaches the customer at the right time. - Live chat –
Chatbot popups are a great way to trigger a conversation with a potential customer. This allows live conversations, real-time problem solving, and gives customers a gentle nudge to complete the sale.
Listen. Learn. Leverage.
It is evident that marketers must listen to their customers, learn from the feedback, and leverage it to offer better engagements to customers.
It is easier to tune into customer sentiments than you think. Factoreal enables you to plug and play with a simple, fits-all-budgets Customer Engagement Platform.
