The result of the Software Advice experiment is surprising, when none of the 14 brands selected responded to more than a third of the requests by these alleged clients. Above all, the fact that important companies, all of them of consumer products such as Starbucks or Apple, authentic cult signatures for their customers, ignored their requests and did not deign to respond to a single tweet. Client through social networks?
The companies attribute this inefficiency to the lack of resources, both human and economic. It is true that it is necessary to allocate a budget item to the management of the client in social networks; But in this case the absence of response goes further, denotes a deficiency in online reputation management.
Following the results obtained, we can say that:
Companies are on social networks just to talk about themselves. Their performance shows that they have included social networks in their communication strategy because “they had to be”, since that is where their customers are. In this way they approach them and know their tastes and preferences, they are only interested in responding and attending to what they have to say.
They have shown that they do not know how to listen. They do not monitor the social conversation, nor do they take into account the needs of their clients. They only act according to their interests, when they have something to say. Their egocentrism blinds them, preventing them from seeing beyond.
They have not understood the true essence of social networks, which are a two-way channel, open to conversation, where everyone has the right to speak and be heard. The brands use Social Media as another advertising medium.
Therefore, they should make an examination of conscience, think carefully about what happened and evaluate if their strategy in Social Media is appropriate. That way you can determine if that is the image you want to project or if you are willing to intonate the mea culpa and strive to let clients come to them, with the firm intention of listening to them and showing that they really care. Do you think they will?
