With 500 million tweets per day, 200 million monthly Pinterest users and 2.07 billion monthly active users on Facebook Social Media is something that cannot be ignored. Like it or not your brand is perceived by the way online users react to it. Gone are the days when customers could be influenced by adverts and brand promotion. Social media is altering customer relationship management in a very dynamic way.

Social Media has become one of the most essential points of contact with customers. Your customers live in Social media and are influenced by it more than anything else. It is the best place to interact with your customers across the world and build a lasting relationship. This anytime-anywhere connection has changed the face of customer relationship management (CRM).

How to build a lasting Customer Relationship using Social Media?

The more the connection with the customers, the more loyal they will be to your brand. Let’s find out a few ways to build a lasting customer relationship with social media.

1. Listen to your Customer

Social listening is an incredibly easy and brilliant way to interpret, understand and respond to your customers. Social listening also helps the brands to know which products and services are being talked about and what are the praises and complaints that need to be encouraged or addressed. Social listening plays a very important role in customer relationship and retention.

2. Communicate Often

Communicate, converse, build an engagement plan with your customers based on your listening. Say thank you when you are praised, address their complaints immediately on a personal level.  Make the conversations revolve around the need of the customer and not your product. When you help your customer, you’re more likely to build a long-lasting relationship — which will in turn push your brand awareness and growth.

3. Reward loyal customers

Identify the active and most loyal customers and offer them with rewards. Offer reward points to people who buy and praise your products and services or offer them with access to unique content that is really valuable.

4. Build a Community

The best way to keep people engaged is to introduce them to like-minded people. Building and guiding communities makes you be aware of the conversations your customers are having and also makes your site an authentic place where people seek information. And most importantly it gives you an easy and open opportunity to converse and pacify dissatisfied customers.

Social Media holds an unparalleled potential for brands to know and understand the customers. Business need to design experiences that deliver real value to customers and embrace this opportunity with open hands.