Is Your Brand Capable of Listening to Your Community?
Not Just Another Post About Social Media Overload, but Instead About Our Ability to Actually Comprehend
With all the chatter on the Twitter Machine (230 million tweets are sent each day), the constant barrage of Facebook updates (30 billion pieces of content shared monthly), seemingly unstoppable Foursquare check-ins (2 million every 24 hours), eMail SPAM messages (estimated at 262 billion a day), the explosion of blogs (171 million to date) and their respective posts (900,000 articles published daily), are we losing our ability as a society and as brand managers to listen and comprehend? Possibly.
What’s More Important — Hearing or Listening?
A friend Gregg Voss of the BrandEmpire Blog, poses the following question: ‘What’s More Important – Hearing or Listening? He cites the example of a Twitter colleague who recently tweeted a message to a vendor reminding them to “be nice to customers like him because they can hold the key to other opportunities.” The post clearly implied that something had previously gone awry between the two parties. The vendor’s response Tweet contained a “thank-you for the compliment.” The vendor obviously wasn’t listening.
The Definitions of “Hear” and “Listen”
Dictionary.com defines the word “Hear” as:
- to receive information by the ear or otherwise
And defines the word “Listen” as:
- to pay attention
With all of the ways we and the brands we represent can now interact with customers, are we losing our ability to listen, understand and respond appropriately, as in the example above?
Our Ten Commandments for Effective Client Service
Recently we published a post outlining our agency’s “Ten Commandments For Effective Client Service.” Among our ‘Commandments’ are practices we consider essential to fostering and maintaining successful business relationships. However, the concept of “Listening to Clients” was edited out of the list as we thought we’d covered it in other areas. But Gregg’s post illustrated why it was a mistake to leave it out. And it may actually be the most important of all our ‘Commandments.’
Bad Customer Service is Bad Brand Management
Customer service is sorely lacking in brands across the board. Currently, I’m trying to have a dishwasher fixed, for the 4th time. It was purchased at a big box store. A 2nd big box store provided an extended service agreement. And I’ve found the process and customer service offered by this 2nd retailer unacceptable. Now, I’m waiting impatiently for the agreement to expire so I can replace the appliance and be done with them. My frustration with this brand stems from a breakdown in their ability to provide effective customer service, as evidenced by their inability to actually “listen” to issues raised and subsequently resolve them.
Brand Focus Should be on Listening and Comprehension
With a myriad of ways that brands interact with customers via social media, it’s crucial they make the extra effort to actually listen. Listening takes more time and energy than hearing. Because we’re becoming used to hearing in 10 second soundbites and communicating via 140-character mini-messages, the effort required to listen to what is being said in the social world is more important than ever.
Every brand must ensure they’re listening and understanding what they’re hearing from their customers in order to act appropriately on that knowledge.
In a world where Tweets, Updates, Shares, Check-Ins and Stumblings rule, we can’t permit the art of comprehension to slip away from us. Among the endless daily chatter and information overload, it’s up to us as professional brand managers to make sure our efforts are focused in the right direction.
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