Using your Monitoring Program
So you’ve decided to implement a monitoring program. Whether you went with a small entity like Trackur or Hubspot, or a mega-engine like Google News or IceRocket, you are on the right path by monitoring what is being said about your business and what is trending in your industry. Now that you are onboard, your work is not done. Consider this the largest of all customer service arenas—where your reputation can flourish or sour depending upon how you choose to play. We’d love to share some winning tips with you:
Don’t Come up Empty-Handed
Say, “So long!” to the old days of no news is good news. Today, no news is a message to people that your company is irrelevant or non-existent. Think about how you use the Internet. You likely look up hotels and restaurants where you plan to vacation, and compare airline prices and rental deals to get you there. You may even search for local stores and service providers by typing “lawn service, Atlanta” or “dentist, Tucson” into your search bar. Once you come up with a few choices, you’ll likely research their reputation and ratings. You hardly have to stroke a key to do that anymore, because so many rating services are tacked onto search results these days that it’s there before you ask for it! If there’s NO buzz about your business, try to generate some. This leads us to our next point:
Invite People to Connect
Invite people to share their positive experiences about you on social media. You can do this by asking them to “Like” you on Facebook or suggesting they share their experience on your industry’s review sites. If they aren’t inclined to do this out of the kindness of their hearts, reward customers through a contest, a freebie, or a coupon—Facebook is the perfect place to run promos like these and generate buzz. Bonus? You’ll have a strong list of your customer base to send future promotions and news.
Use It or Lose It
There is no sense in a monitoring program if you don’t utilize the findings. Once you learn about your company on the Internet, work your findings. Use positive press to generate more press, and quash negative press by killing them with kindness, apologies, explanations, a “thank you” for the feedback, and a promise to do better—and then do so.
Monitor Your Competition
Learn not only what’s being said about your brand, but about the industry as a whole, so that you can proactively respond to positive or negative press. If there’s been a new development in your industry, take the opportunity to weigh in on what’s happening and how it will or won’t affect your business. If your competitor did something to garner negative press, consider staying on the high road by not adding to the negativity, but do combat any transfer of credibility issues if they exist.
Accept this New Groove
Social media is here to stay, much to the chagrin of traditionalists who miss their now defunct local newspaper and resist technological addiction unlike many of their younger counterparts. Instead of detesting media’s rapid evolution, embrace its possibilities. A good Internet solution provider can help you customize and focus your goals so you’ll soon be a leader in your market. Talk to your media expert or website designer about how to integrate and use a monitoring program to cultivate social media topics and stay in touch with your consumer base.
Are you Ready to Start a Monitoring Program?
You’ll likely hear about two kinds of “monitoring programs” in the Internet world. The first is a program that allows people to monitor computer usage. It’s generally used in an office setting to monitor employees’ computer habits or by parents to monitor their children’s whereabouts on the Internet. The second is a program that delivers people up-to-the-minute information about what is trending in their particular areas of interest. That’s the one we’re here to talk about today. A monitoring program is an essential tool to any business, but only if you use it right. If you are interested in using a monitoring program, we’d encourage you to first:
Understand Your Goals
Do you want to catch the buzz about latest trends so your company can follow suit? Are you interested in learning about breakthroughs in your industry? What about just listening to what’s being said about your company so you can proactively respond to the buzz? Deciding what you want to achieve through your monitoring program before implementing one is the key to its success.
Define What You Want to Monitor
Now that you’ve identified your goals, hone in on the exact subject matter you want to monitor. Once you start receiving updates, you’ll be able to judge the information and refine your information flow by adjusting your key words.
Be Prepared to Take the Good with the Bad
Monitoring programs will likely turn up criticisms about your company or your industry at large. Criticism is an opportunity for improvement. Now more than ever, customers don’t just have a bad experience and talk about it to a few colleagues around the water cooler; they talk about it to the world. Additionally, people are more likely to go on a rant when they get fired up about poor service or a faulty product than they are to take the time to brag about a great company. So what can you do when you are the recipient of these criticisms? Use it as an opportunity to correct the issue, and then release good press to that effect. If, for instance, someone blogs about poor service in your restaurant, take the time to publicly respond using positive communication. You can apologize for his or her bad experience and invite the customer in for another try. Be sure to use it as an opportunity to connect with phrases like, “Please ask for me when you arrive.” This demonstrates that you are listening and want to make things right with your customers, and that mediocre or bad service is NOT okay with you. Now the onus is on the person who put out the criticism and not on the restaurant, and you earn people’s trust that you will always try to do right by them.
Stay tuned for our next blog where we’ll share tips with you on how to use your monitoring program.