3 Ways Social Customer Care Ties to your B2B Marketing Strategy

Social customer care is more than customer service. It’s more than answering customer questions via social channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s about adapting to the digital landscape where your audience is more informed, more savvy, and more aware of the interactions they have with companies.

If you have a strong social media presence, then you should also have a formal social customer care strategy. For many, this is a new concept, so here are three ways that social customer care ties to your B2B marketing strategy and how to go about it:

Be Proactive and Listen to your Audience

Prospects and customers are talking about you, the question is, are you listening?

One of the biggest mistakes companies make on social media is letting customer comments fall through the cracks. Everything people say online remains visible. Whenever someone asks a question, writes feedback, or makes a complaint, they are waiting to see how well you respond – and they hold high expectations. That’s why any customer interaction with your company should be acknowledged – and fast!

Don’t wait hours to respond. If you’re serious about social customer care, then it’s best you respond within a few minutes. A social listening tool makes it easy to stay afloat of social conversations, allowing you to handle harmful comments and maintain a positive reputation. Another benefit of such a tool is that it enables you to garner valuable feedback, which can be leveraged to improve your product or service.

Regardless of which tool you use, part of implementing a social customer care strategy is to provide meaningful responses. Instead of just writing a simple comment, share a relevant piece of content that offers relevant information or solution.

Deliver a Personalized Customer Experience

We live in an ‘Engagement Economy’ where the only way to win the heart of your prospect or customer is by being personal and authentic. People crave companies that share their values and can connect with them on a one-on-one level. In such an economy, companies must deliver an experience that feels human and stems from trust, care, and commitment.

Think about it – why do people love Uber, Netflix, and Airbnb? Because of the experience they provide. These guys got it right because they were digitally native. They understood the consumer need for personalization and authenticity.

[Tweet “Make people love your company as much as they love @Netflix @Airbnb and @Uber”]

To succeed in this economy, you need to apply the same principles to your B2B marketing. With a proper social customer care strategy, you can humanize your social voice, ensuring that every interaction comes from the right person at the right time. For example, if a prospect asks you on Facebook about pricing, you should be able to efficiently direct this question to a relevant employee – in this case, your sales rep.

Amplify your Customer Success Stories

When a customer says something about your company, the whole world can see it. Depending on what was said, your social media reputation can either flourish or die. With a social customer care strategy, you will be able to prevent the latter. In other words, the quicker a relevant employee can handle a customer’s complaint, the better you will look in the public’s eye.

With this you also have an opportunity to amplify customer success stories, and in turn, trigger more positive talk about your company. Word-of-mouth marketing has always been a powerful strategy. However, a company only earns a customer’s recommendation once it proves its commitment. In the Engagement Economy, you need to first demonstrate your commitment to social customer care in order to keep customers coming back for more and get them to recommend you to other companies.

[Tweet “Earn your customers’ trust with a formal social customer care strategy”]

Bring Social Care to the Forefront of your Customers

Your customers are longing for personal attention, so it’s about time you gave it to them. Social customer care packs proactiveness, authenticity, and customer satisfaction into one strategy, ensuring that the people who truly impact your company are going to trust you, learn from you, and recommend you to others.