Providing customers with an exceptional customer experience is essential for luxury brands. From the way staff greets customers to all of the efforts made to ensure every customer experience is outstanding, luxury brands have mastered delivering customer care that goes above and beyond. To date, only a handful of brands have figured out how to deliver this same level of care online.
A few of the ways your brand can deliver outstanding care online are highlighted below:
Listen to Online Conversations
Brands that have yet to fully embrace social media and digital marketing should at a very minimum start monitoring online brand conversations. Regularly search your brand online and use Google alerts to monitor conversations. Use Twitter search or free tools such as Twendz to monitor how people are responding to your brand. You should also monitor blogs discussing your brand. Both Technorati and Google Blog search tools are good tools to use for monitoring any brand discussions happening in the blogosphere.
Create Memorable Customer Experiences Online
Most businesses have a strategy in place for providing exceptional customer experiences. This same focus needs to be delivered online. Brands can enhance customer experiences by providing interesting lifestyle content, sharing employee stories, inviting customers to share their own stories and sharing videos and photos that cater to the unique interests of your customers.
Provide unexpected experiences online and aim to delight customers with personalized communications when possible. Avoid broadcast messages and opt for personal messages to each customer.
React to Negative and Positive Feedback
A recent InterGlobe Technologies’ study confirmed that for every 100 customer service calls, airlines attract 96 conversations on social media. The relationship between customer service and social media may not be as strong in all industries, but it does stress the need for businesses to be aware of both good and bad online conversations.
Brands need to thank customers for positive remarks and reach out to customers when they post something negative or complain online. Most consumers will be delighted and surprised that your brand took the time to contact them. When feedback is negative, instead of creating streams of communication online for the entire world to see encourage customers to send a direct message with a phone number so a customer representative can contact them directly. Follow-up with customers after the issue is resolved to ensure they are still satisfied with the resolution.
Act on Customer Feedback
Some of your customer suggestions could be your next new product or service. Use social media to invite customers to provide feedback on their recent stay or brand experience. Invite them to outline things you can do to make their experience even more exceptional. Empower customers to share their stories, pictures and videos on your website or social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. By doing so, your customers can become some of the strongest ambassadors for your brand.
When done right, online marketing and social media provide an additional way for brands to nurture existing relationships and build new ones. It provides customers with an opportunity to share their opinion and ideas direct with the brands they love. The businesses that respond and engage with their customers have a new opportunity to make these relationships even stronger. Ignoring this communication channel is no longer an option, especially since customers are now more engaged online than ever before.