Have you taken note of the holiday emails frequenting your inbox? I have, and as much as I love a good deal, I’m starting to get a case of “oh boy the holidays are here.” My recognition of the upcoming holiday season usually produces feelings of joy, stress, frustration, and an obsession with order confirmations and delivery notifications. In service of promoting a calmer holiday season and Q4 for everyone, I’m encouraging an activity to support both prospects and customers. This activity is acknowledgment. You might be shaking your head wondering why I’d even mention something that seems like a given. Unfortunately, it isn’t a given and that’s why I’m raising attention for it. Customer acknowledgement creates positive customer experiences and impact for our brands. Let’s all commit to increasing customer acknowledgment and start with these three actions:

  • Acknowledge existing customers on social media. We’re driven to acquire new customers, but we could spend more time acknowledging our existing customers. And customers know it, especially those on social media. According to Jay Baer, only 42 percent of people who complain on social channels expect a reply. Acknowledgement has an impact on the overall brand experience, especially within social media. One study shows that customers are willing to spend up to 20% more on an item from a business that responds to their customer service tweet.

Your Action: Use social listening to locate opportunities across social to both acknowledge and help customers.

  • Exercise mindfulness within your customer acknowledgment. When customers contact you during their time of need on social media, your focus should be on resolving their issue. Don’t use a plethora of words or characters unless it adds value to the interaction. This type of interaction creates a customer’s impression of your brand. Ninety-two percent of customers are likely to continue using a company once their service issues are resolved during the first attempt at resolution versus 51% with no first-call resolution.

Your Action: Feel free to exchange pleasantries, but focus your responses on your customer’s needs.

  • Respond to customer ratings and reviews. Customer ratings and reviews serve as actionable voice-of-customer data points. Are you acknowledging customers as they provide ratings and reviews? Do you elevate this voice-of-customer data within your marketing materials? These are important methods to let your customers know their time and words have meaning to your brand. Also, are you sharing this information across your organization to help drive value internally? Stay tuned for more on this topic in my upcoming report “Ratings And Reviews: The Secret Ingredients To Your Marketing Strategy.”

Your Action: If you don’t have a process to collect ratings and reviews, build one. Make sure acknowledging and thanking your customers for their feedback is a part of this process. Incorporate ratings and review feedback into your CRM or other customer-centric data repository.  And, break down information silos by sharing the data across your organization.

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