You’re a small business owner. You work to offer the best service to every customer. You have a great small business website built by a local Melbourne Florida web designer and a page on Facebook and Twitter. You’ve done everything you need to get business from the web and social media, but what are you doing to keep on top of it?

Great Online Communication

A new study by eDigitalResearch shows that almost twice as many people are contacting businesses by email rather than by phone. It’s incredibly important that you’re checking your business email at least once, if not a few times, a day. If an email goes unanswered for a day or two, the opportunity is almost guaranteed to be lost to a competitor.

We’ve seen first hand with our clients. The ones who stay on top of their email and respond promptly, often immediately, see a lot of business coming from their website. Simply by being the first to respond – an indicator of good service – they often get the business.

Social Media Service

The study also says that one out of ten consumers now expect to get support and service from social media. This segment will only grow as more customers turn to online ways to rate and review services and products. Your small business can take advantage of the growth in this area. Social media gives you a chance to help customers and offer services in a public forum, giving other potential clients a way to see your business in action.

Even bad experiences can be turned around if handled promptly. People respond better to transparency. Everyone makes mistakes, fixing them honestly and openly will often earn you more goodwill than trying to cover up unhappy customers. Of course, just as with email, you need to be on top of things. If you don’t see a complaint on your Facebook page for a week, your chance to fix the issue and create a positive customer service experience is long gone.

As an extreme example of how to turn a bad social media experience into great publicity, check out this article where a Groupon manager threatens a restaurant with bad Yelp reviews. The restaurant posted the threatening email to their Facebook and ended up getting more positive reviews from the exposure.

Need help with your online and social media strategy? Effex Agency can give you the tools and expertise you need to dominate social media and online search in your area. Just give us a call at 321-872-8932 or use the contact form below.

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