Tip #5: Respond to Feedback

Social media also has a built in feedback mechanism, such as comments, ratings, forwarding links, etc.  As soon as you post, your fans and followers will be able to respond in real time.  Embrace this dialogue.  The more your customers talk about your product, the more exposure your product will receive.  And most importantly, join in the dialogue by responding to their feedback.  You don’t have to respond to everything, people don’t expect that.  Think of it like one of those entertainment shows where they pick someone out of the audience to come up on stage.  That person becomes a respresentative of the audience, it’s as if we are all up on stage with that person.  We feel included in the show.  So rather than be overwhelmed with having to repsond to everyone, just pick one or two people and respond to them.  When people see the product owner engaging with their audience, even if it’s not them personally, they will feel more loyalty to the product.

This is true even if people have negative feedback.  There’s nothing worse then sending a customer service email and never getting it retruned.  People complain because they need to be heard and they want things fixed.  For example, I had been having a battery problem with my apple laptop for months and was extremely frustrated.  But the computer was still under warranty and so I went into the genius bar.  They replaced with battery and external power supply cord.  That totally covered the cost of my warranty and all my frustration was gone.  If you listen, respond and do your best to help them out, your customers will continue to stay invested with your product.  People pay for service as much as they do their product.

So what’s the best way to respond?  Agree with them.  It’s an old trick I learned studying improvisational acting called, “Yes, and”.  Things move forward if you agree, stop if you disagree.  So agree with your customers and ad something.  For example, if a customer posts, “Loved seeing those photos of those muffins being baked” you might respond “Glad you liked them – maybe we’ll print them in edible inks as well.”  In my response, I agreed with them and added some humor, which is a great way to also keep things real and personal.  If they send a complaint, such as, “Hey, you’re sending me too many posts.  Stop it!” you might reply, “Yes, we sent to many posts.  We are sorry and are working on reducing our frequency.”  You may not be able to solve the problem right away, but by quickly responding you acknowledge that you heard your customer, are aware and are taking action.  If you are posting publically, this will also be seen by your other customers which can reduce the amount of negative posts as well.