Brands can no longer afford ignoring conversations on the web and in particular social channels. This seems a very straight forward matter, but surprisingly there are a handful number of businesses and organisations yet to realise the significant consequences of ignored conversations. Customers often find their way to be heard and in this age and day brands may not be able to catch up with the pace of customer voice. People may ignore the interests of a brand if that brand has ignored them at any point. So monitoring customer voice is essential.
Generally speaking, when people have a positive experience they tend not to speak about it often, but it is quite the opposite in the case of having a bad experience with a brand. I often say to my clients or students that “good news travels fast but, bad news travels faster”. No one would like to be in the bad news wagon; so how to eliminate the bad news? Some believe to create good news; but isn’t it a bit artificial if we are to create a ‘good news’?
Brands may wish to consider business ethics and boost their customer service quality; then there is no need to create anything, the good news will organically be generated through customer voice, or word of mouth if you will. Such thinking will encourage press coverage too.
Above might seem a difficult work, but it is undoubtedly sustainable and genuine. Such practice is what customers would like to see and hear, not the one created by brands. So listening is vital, this is perhaps why Coca Cola has recently decided to hire an agency just to listen to Coca Cola’s customer voice.