This post originally appeared on the blog of the crew
.It often takes the perspective of a foreigner to learn new opportunities, whether in the form of defects, insects, or cases of single use. The most valuable opportunities often come from the customers themselves -. People who are hands on your product every day
A new era of tech events began
We're back in New York in November for the 4th edition of our technology event focused on growth.
For those just starting up or starting to realize that your teams and community products could improve their communications, here are six reasons that your whole team needs to be listening to the conversation around your brand.
1. Guide your corporate strategy or the product roadmap (pre- and post-launch)
Many companies are missing a huge opportunity by not building a pre-launch community when the benefits are many. For one, you can gather information about whether or not there is a product market fit.
Ryan Hoover Product Hunt (who just joined Y Combinator) spoke about the benefits of transparency and building a product to the public, such as: increased buy early feedback to identify use problems, and generate excitement around your product.
Another obvious reason is to raise awareness early on. By building a relevant community around your product or service and get people excited about it, the buzz is likely to spread a more open early.
Give your community good reason to share your product. When you receive constructive feedback, stir and leave the source and the public know that your community has helped to improve your product. This creates a true inclusion.
This is a great visual representation of the many opportunities available for community engagement and social listening:
How your community pre and post launch:
- Identify where your community hangs. Use a monitoring tool (like Mention) to track keywords related to your product, brand or service, including competitors. Pay attention to where these conversations occur.
- Identify influencers and potential brand ambassadors. As you watch these discussions, note that directs the conversation and the sharing of new ideas or products.
- reach potential early adopters. Search influencers (with tools like Riffle by CrowdRiff) and look for common interests to start a dialogue. If they seem interested in your product, offer them a free trial. (They will probably enjoy being the first to try something new.)
- Have them talk to each other. Ask your early adopters to join a kind of group -. Hosted a forum, Facebook Group LinkedIn Group, etc. Ask relevant questions to the group and encourage conversation
2. Quickly identify bugs and problems
Our data showed that 31 perecnt of tweets with the name of a company do not understand their grip . Listening carefully to what your customers say about your brand and products - whether or not they speak directly to you -. You are able to answer questions and extinguish fires
More importantly, you will learn what customers questions are, allowing you to make corrections necessary or appropriate adjustments. Some companies use this feedback wide support process by adding questions and answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).
By "scaling," you streamline critical business or find more effective solutions to a problem. In this example, you limit the number of incoming support tickets by making critical information more readily available.
scale process is usually always a good thing, but I found it really interesting to see how Buffer chooses not to expand its customer support. instead, the team listens and responds to each question until they find a solution. in this way, they always have their fingers on the pulse of the problems or bugs or new development opportunities.
going at the source - your customers online (via playback) - and make your support team readily available, you are decreasing the time it takes to gather comments and answer the question This is also known as. the creation of tighter feedback loops .
How to reduce the reaction time :.
- Implement a listener to capture the company states that do not include your grip now or do not come by e-mail
- assign someone or a team to answer questions from the community.
- Strive to answer questions within an hour or two. We strive for about 5 minutes or less. Untouched communications can quickly go awry.
3. Stay ahead
By monitoring what is said about your competitors and all subjects related to your field, you will always be a step ahead of your competitors (especially if they are not listening to the social trend). This is an excellent opportunity to reflect with the whole team - from technology to marketing to management -. On gaps and market opportunities
How to stay one step ahead of the competition:
- Consider assigning a person to compile bi-weekly or monthly reports with a competitive analysis and industry .
- Be sure to report any great opportunities that pop up and assign them to the appropriate team.
- If you are a fan of standup meetings as we are Mention This is a great time to share this information with the entire team so that everyone is in the loop and can jump in if necessary .
4. Listening = better support = retention = more revenue
Take these statistics into account when planning your listening strategies and customer support:
- 80 percent of your future income will come from only 20 percent of existing customers, says Gartner Group (via CMO.com).
- According to Lee Resource Inc. (via Forbes), attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer.
- A discouraged person is 59 percent more likely to share experience with their friends as a happy person, according CMO.com.
Retention is directly correlated to virality, which is important for any startup. Jamie Quint wrote a great blog on this topic. It explains how retention is crucial for sustainable growth, and not to focus on retention results in a large peak in growth followed by a spike in attrition.
If your users do not stick around, they are not able to invite others to your product over a long period of time. Remember, you are there for the long corridor
How to retain customers:
- Listen and answer! Pay attention to your social stream and use a media monitoring tool to catch the meta content such as presentations of the forum, blog comments, etc.
- Make your FAQ and help centers easy to find and navigate. We use UserVoice for it.
- Check with customers and ask for feedback.
5. Turn "bad press" in relations
For the web and social media monitoring through you will find reviews, quotes, articles and unionized positions you can not have otherwise. Each result is an important opportunity to build a relationship with a blogger, journalist, or potential content partner.
Whether positive or negative, be sure to reach out with either thanks or useful information to correct any misunderstanding. Do not hesitate to offer yourself as a resource for future pieces, be it an estimate, data, graphics, etc.
How to build relationships with writers :.
- Monitor what's being said about your brand and related keywords throughout the web
- Connect with writers via Twitter or email. Be causal, friendly and above all helpful.
- Follow valuable information, reveals to be a reliable resource.
6. Know when a change does not work
One of the most difficult things to understand is that the new feature or product changes you've worked for months are not a market adjustment. It is also one of the most important things you can hear. This is avoidable by listening to your audience during development, which is also every reason to keep listening. Needs change, new products enter the market and trends change.
Although it hurts, you must listen to your community and be ready to rotate (change the course of your business plan) to continue to meet the needs of your customers, or find a new market.
How to stay agile to make changes quickly:
- Listen to what is both said and unsaid within your community. A sudden drop (or peak) in communications could mean something is wrong.
- proactively ask your public comment - if they are still happy with your product, always using the same reasons and objectives, etc.
- Always be iterate. If your team is used to test and iterate a pivot may not be as painful as the opposite.
Celebrate the victories
As with any team effort, it is necessary to show the return on investment and celebrate the victories. Encourage your team to share what they find by listening to customers and focus on how it improved your product, workflow, or productivity. This is a great way to achieve buy-in team and motivate everyone to participate.
Nothing we do as a society, Heck as an individual exists in a vacuum. We must become more integrated with our communities. It is not enough to sit on the edge and watch.
This is to be proactive and not reactive. This is about building and maintaining long term healthy relationships. Most of all, this is about growth, innovation and learning from mistakes. The communities we serve say we already have all the answers, the only question is whether or not we are listening.
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