Guest blog from Libby Langley. Coach, mentor, teacher, blogger, marketing and business strategist.
When I was growing up, I used my parents’ home phone to call my friends and make arrangements to meet. We agreed on a time and place and then everyone turned up. No cancelling, no “gonna be late, lol” messages. It was simple.
But the world has changed. The way we communicate has changed. The only person I talk to regularly on the phone is my mum. Everyone else I text, Messenger, WhatsApp or even old-school-email. And I am certainly not alone in that. It’s the way the world is now, and it’s important you know about it so you don’t get left behind.
Technology, and specifically the advent of social media, has made the world of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s completely unrecognisable. Imagine picking up your home phone now and actually making a call! Ha! How delightfully quaint.
“Hang on…” you might be saying now; “I use my home phone”. Yeah, but your customers don’t, I can guarantee you that. No person under the age of 45 in the country will make their home telephone their first port of call for communication. No siree.
And that’s why you need to change too.
Adapt or die; to paraphrase Charles Darwin.
Now, you know about social media. You’ve heard of it. Your kids are on it. They can’t live without it. It probably makes you sad.
You’re probably on Facebook too, so you can connect with some old school friends or family who live overseas, but using it for work? Well, it’s a social thing, isn’t it?
Not so. Not these days. Social media is an essential business tool, particularly if your target audience is a section of society that will never know the importance of having 10p in your pocket in case of emergency.
Social media isn’t a fad; it’s essential if you’re going to survive in business.
The whole point of customer service is to make it as easy as possible for people to get what they need from you. That might be booking a viewing of a property, cancelling an appointment, or just needing to have a question answered. If you insist on your customers picking up a phone and calling you, you are not providing the service they need these days. And you know what? They’ll lose interest pretty damn quickly and go to someone who they can Facebook Message. Or, god forbid, they will start tweeting about you and you will never know because you don’t have a Twitter account…
To make yourself accessible to your customers, you will certainly need to embrace the idea of social media. Yes, you will need to confirm (in proper written English!) any arrangements you have made, but this doesn’t need to be in the way YOU are most comfortable with. It’s about them, remember.
Make yourself available. Embrace Facebook Messenger as a serious business communication tool. That doesn’t mean you need to be Facebook friends with your clients (that’s not a good idea for many reasons), but it does mean you are aware of the way they want to talk to you. Sorry, I mean “talk” to you…
I recently gave a presentation to 50 or so business owners, about using social media. Most of the people there were over 40, which seemed to create a generational divide when it comes to technology and communication. No need for it to though. It’s just about keeping up to date with what your customers want and relaxing the stiff upper lip a bit. I mean, you wouldn’t write a letter these days, would you? It’s just the same thing, except things move oh so quickly, and you need to keep up.
My advice to you is to get yourself a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account and tell your customers that they can contact you via those social media private messaging services. Yeah, you’ll be uncomfortable to start with, but they won’t, and that will make you the coolest damn business owner in the region.
And you know what else that means? They will tweet good stuff about you, and that is the best PR you can get by far.
See, Darwin was right.