Your customers are right here. Why aren’t you?

As you may already know, I am getting married in December. I’m sure most of you who were, even indirectly, involved in planning a wedding know that everything–from choosing a caterer to designing the wedding invitations–is a long and arduous process; so much that you can’t help but be extremely thankful whenever a vendor whose quality of service and rate are acceptable to you and your bride-to-be falls into your lap.

To give you an idea: Two weeks ago, my fiancee and I finalized two key vendors for our wedding: A Caterer and a florist. We were attending a food-tasting event the caterer held so, really, all we’re looking to finalize at that point was the catering service.

What’s interesting is that, in the said event, not only the caterer’s services were put up as an exhibit but also those of photographers, florists, bridal car rental services, make up artists and cake and vendors of souvenir items. They know that most people attending the event were couples who are about to get married. They know that conversations where their services will be mentioned and considered will inevitably take place in the event.

Conversations mentioning your brand and services are taking place. Do you have a presence in these conversations? Are you participating?

A report published by the Society for New Communications Research last year suggests that, with the widespread proliferation and adoption of social media, consumers are using social media channels to share their customer service experiences and learn about other people’s experiences with a particular brand when making their purchase decisions. Some key takeaways:

• 59.1% of respondents use social media to “vent” about a customer care experience
• 72.2% of respondents research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
• 84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care in their decision to do business with a company at least sometimes
• 81% believe that blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously

Jeremiah Owyang writes about how social media has now been adopted in the practice of Customer Relationship Management and how Twitter can become their own CRM system. Steve Rubel, on the other hand writes how companies should adopt SocMed not only for this purpose but also for Customer Service and PR. (See one of my related posts: Customer Service 2.0 and getsatisfaction.com)

To add to what’s already been said, I feel like brand participation in social media is an integral, albeit often neglected aspect of inbound marketing.

If you look at the traditional inbound marketing practices of many e-commerce businesses, you’ll find that budget/effort-wise it is lopsided towards Search Engine Optimization and Content Creation (mostly throuh half-assed blogging, sadly)

What most companies don’t realize is that marketing through social media is better targeted and more permission-driven–mostly because you’re marketing to people who voluntarily subscribe to your brand’s social media channel knowing what sort of content (be it customers following your brand via twitter so they can keep tabs on your latest offers or those who become “fans” of your brand on Facebook) you’ll be churning out.

Compare this to marketing to a rented list–a list consist of people who have been flagged, in an automated way, in a database because of one or two attributes.

My question for you

Are you going to make the transition from Dell Hell to Dell on Twitter? Because you should.

Like the florist I signed in the food-tasting event, are you going to take your brand to where the conversations are happening? Because, again, you should.