Social Networking Has Nailed Customer Satisfaction, Next Stop: Loyalty

You have to admire the social networking evangelists in industries that have high maintenance customer bases, but dove headfirst into the social networking pool anyway.  That took courage.  And many of them are turning it into a success.  They are redefining how service is done. Challenging their competitors to keep up that are NOT involved in social networking is turning their customer satisfaction into a competitive strength.  You have to specifically admire Comcast, a cable company, for biting the bullet and getting on Twitter, and the airlines who go after customer satisfaction in real time through social networking.

These companies are nailing customer satisfaction using social networking.  They are responding promptly to customer concerns, have a single point of contact for solving problems, have mentioned a process for managing customer problems and their escalation and attempt over and over again to set realistic customer expectations.  Many of them have all these strategies going at the same time.  One wonders how social networking is making the customer satisfaction needle move – and over and above the quantification of it, you can see it online every day.

Making the Transition from Satisfaction to Loyalty

Given how loyalty has become a code word in this economic downturn for financial viability and recurring revenue, and customer expectations seem to be going up rapidly – expecting more for less, - I started digging into this area to learn more.  A video of Dr. Gail McGovern of Harvard Business School, who is speaking on Customer Satisfaction Traps illustrates what appears to be happening with social networking’s’ impact on customer satisfaction. She makes the point that expectations of postal service were met – and tolerated – with the U.S. Postal Service.  Yet Federal Express redefined expectations and led to delighted customers, re-ordering this service industry in the process. It’s only 4 minutes and worth checking out. 

I’ve also been reading Answering the Ultimate Question by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, PhD.  It’s an excellent book for providing insights into how loyalty impacts profitability, providing pragmatic examples of how to integrate Net Promoter Scores into organizations.  What I find most fascinating about this book are the strategies the authors discuss about turning around detractors. The results achieved and then measured are worth checking out.  You can read the authors’ blog here. 

 

Potential Areas Where Social Networking Strategies Can Impact Customer Loyalty

First, social networking is great for going out and finding detractors – in fact social networking must be like a magnet for those dissatisfied with products or services.  Transforming these customers is even more critical to long-term customer loyally as it stops potentially damaging trends in ones’ customer base. 

Can social networking alone transform a detractor into a promoter? I’m sure the outstanding customer service efforts of those on Facebook and especially Twitter are making an impact.  Yet from what the experts seem to be saying is that any customer satisfied will still leave.

So how can social networking lead to customer loyalty?  From the initial research I’ve done on this, and I’m no expert, here are the key take-aways from what I’ve learned from reading what Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, PhD have found:

• Even the most satisfied customers leave.  It’s apparent that if customers are satisfied, they still leave.  If there is a correlation between behavioral loyalty and satisfaction, it is weak.

• The Net Promoter Score (NPS) delivers valuable insights into who detractors are, their relative weight on customer satisfaction, and influence on Promoters. As was mentioned earlier, getting to know your detractors could be even more important than finding out who Promoters are.  This was one of the most valuable insights from the book, including the strategies companies are using to transform these customers into Promoters.

• Delighting customers with exceptional experiences is far more important than getting rid of their reasons for being detractors.  The book Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs by Craig Stull, Phil Myers and David Meerman Scott discusses some critically important areas in this area.  Personas of customers and the discovery of resonators are two of the many excellent concepts in this book.  It’s worth adding to your reading list this year as is their blog.   

How social networking can serve as a catalyst for customer loyalty is fascinating.  No doubt the authors mentioned in this post already have or will have frameworks that show how companies can get the most out of the accountability and transparency provides. 

Bottom line: Loyalty cannot be earned by satisfying customers, there has to be a focused, intense effort to transform them into Promoters. 

Flickr credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/serialkitten/78631537/sizes/m/

Courtesy – Louis Columbus