Minnesota, USA –November 29, 2011 – Time and time again, we emphasize the importance of keeping up with your business’ social networking page; however, a survey by Pitney Bowes attempts to write it off as ‘hype’ and nothing more. According to Pitney Bowes, the social interactions do not do anything to increase customer loyalty for small and big businesses; however, this data comes from a company which is trying to preserve the traditional ways of business instead of keeping up with the current trends. Although there are no data on customer preservation, it is still wise to keep up with your social network pages. After all, multiple ways for customers contact your business will make it more likely that they will reach out –if there’s a problem, you can fix it!
Pitney Bowes states that only 15% of the 5,000 people –from the U.S. and parts of Europe – say that interacting with a small business via social networking makes it likely to make additional purchases from it rather than other businesses. The validity and survey selection is questionable; after all, Pitney Bowes would not want to release anything that would hurt its business. Instead, it more than likely molded the survey to get the results that it wanted to see.
Instead of social networking as being on the list of tactics to maintain customer loyalty, it stated 4 other methods of retention. Although I cannot argue that the list is useful, it probably does not make customers any more loyal than social networking interaction. This list includes: home delivery options, a choice on how to interact with the company, interaction frequency choices, and having influence on the products/services that the company offers. Of all the listed, having influence on what the company does or does not do is definitely of high importance to some customers –we cannot argue against this. After all, some companies reached success only because they got their customers involved in business.
A reason to keep up with social networking is that there is different companies which rate your company’s page; it may seem ‘fun’ or like a ‘game’ but consumers take these ratings seriously. If you receive a bad rating, it could potentially cause your business to go under. As sad as it may seem that social networking could take a thriving business and kill it, it is true. We do not mean to scare anyone, but it’s time to fasten up all parts of your business and get on the new ‘ride’ (aka social networking).
