Pest Management Professional, July 2015

Social SucceSS Continued From Page 74 into the workforce You can expect businesses to become profoundly social because younger employees expect it Many students in high school and college have a distinctly different view of authority figures than their parents While they respect the authority of these figures and their positions they also expect full access to them This means theyll expect to have as much access to you as a business owner as your customers One way to grant this access is to become personally involved with social media implementation As a result youll learn more about your customers while giving them the opportunity to learn more about you This is what Tom Peters had in mind when he popularized the term management by walking around MBWA in 1982 as the co author of the business book In Search of Excellence Now you have social media to digitally facilitate walking around the communities your business serves Its something your competitors might already be doing Consumers have a voiCe The collective voice of consumers will continue to grow and shape the world of commerce The challenge for businesses is to leverage its power by engaging with it first and then facilitating the conversation to help the community do more of what it wants to do People want to be heard and every business needs to provide a forum for that Many companies are utilize Facebook pages to accomplish this This is smart but only if the company monitors and manages the conversation For example I happen to be a fan of Southwest Airlines When it redesigned its awards program I went to its Facebook page to conduct research about whether to convert my old reward points or keep the free tickets from the previous program There was a lengthy string of hundreds of negative comments without a single response from Southwest This was surprising because Southwest is a well respected company thats known for its friendliness and personal engagement with customers Unfortunately the lack of response only served to fan the flames of customers who were looking for answers but didnt find them The worst thing a business or brand can do is fail to respond If you open a Facebook page or accept comments on your blog you have a responsibility to respond to your audience That expectation doesnt seem to make sense to the same companies that will always answer the telephone if it rings Today those calls might not be coming so much by telephone as they are from the social networks Is your business Approximately 75 percent of consumers dont trust businesses in general especially large corporations answering the call Its an expectation you must build into your standard business practices Customer serviCe is moving online An increasing number of consumers are feeling more comfortable openly expressing their feelings online While this scares most businesses its something with which we are all going to have to come to grips For that to happen your business has to be willing to join the conversation and be prepared to make strong moves Business is no longer the monologue that it used to be when the message of a company was taken at face value Now its a dialogue with increasingly vocal consumers According to most research studies throughout the past several decades approximately 75 percent of all consumers dont trust businesses in general especially large corporations Your company can embrace this reality by using social networking to reach out to customers proactively While taking this approach makes the company somewhat vulnerable its much less risky than erecting perceived barriers where consumers expect transparency Times are changing generally accepted practices are being redefined Social media is democratizing business in general by giving everyone equal access and supporting the expectation that every customer will receive first class service You can wait for this trend to become more prevalent or you can take action now to lead your industry The collective voice of consumers is growing more powerful every day something that forward thinking businesses know they can no longer ignore One innovative approach is to give up control of your brand to consumers Instead of trying to completely manage your brand focus on encouraging community conversations that speak favorably about it PMP Korhan is a former landscape business owner who helps service businesses use social media and Internet marketing to create exceptional customer experiences Learn more at JeffKorhan com Excerpted with permission of the publisher Wiley from Built In Social Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business by Jeff Korhan Copyright 2013 by Jeff Korhan This book is available at most bookstores and online booksellers 76 July 2015 Pest Management Professional mypmp net Photo istock com Petar chernaev