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Social media

Social media Listen to the conversation

Q. Why should I use social media?

A. Customer loyalty is at the heart of every business. A Harvard Business Review study demonstrated that recovering only 5% of abandoning customers could increase profitability by 30% to 85%.

Soaring use of social media is creating an interesting dynamic by creating a dramatic shift in power to the customer. Customers now have the ability to broadcast their views about the services they receive from a provider to thousands of people instantly.

However, it is apparent that a large percentage of HME providers are not taking advantage of these tools. Here are a few tips to get started:

Listen To The Conversation

Small businesses can't truly understand how to engage customers if they don't know what their customers care about. Customers have the platform they need to make their views known, and providers need to be social to hear and disseminate this information.

Get Social

Social is not nearly as scary as one might think. In fact, after opening Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and creating a Facebook page, business owners may in fact discover that social is a lot of fun. Posting is key, as you need to keep it social on a frequent basis.

Engage Customers

Lastly, it is important to actively participate and communicate with customers (e.g., respond to a bad review, thank them for a good one). This is a great opportunity to engage your customers who are active online.

The bottom line: Online conversations are happening and continue to increase in volume. The good news is that this trend presents providers with a great opportunity to listen, learn and engage with their customers on a scale previously not possible.

Dave Bargmann is a social media consultant with Duckridge Advisors. He can be reached at [email protected].

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