Long time, no blog!

Recently I have been active in a variety of instances where the question of customer focus and customer service in the digital age has emerged. “Nothing beats good old fashioned face to face service” is an opinion that I hear as often as “It is so hard to reach customers these days”. Both these comments are wide of the mark for modern business in the digital economy. Businesses fear, by and large, opening up a forum for direct conversation with their existing and potential customers, yet welcome it in their bricks and mortar shops. Why? Because when it is online it is there for all to see. What is also there for all to see is how the business deals with online feedback, criticisms, and testimonials. Here the business has the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to customer service in the way in which they treat the comment, response, react, rectify and re-broadcast is the motto I would like to put forward.

One way in which a business can invite customer feedback and encourage customer engagement is via a corporate blog. The benefits of a corporate blog are such marketing key functions as:

• positioning: blogging about the industry or subject of your business product or service category can place you as an authority among the market and industry
• customer engagement: engagement is a deeper level of commitment. If i buy I am committed, but if i talk (or provide feedback) about it, i am engaged
• market intelligence: the comments and conversation of consumers and potential consumers provides a valuable data source for information about the market perceptions of a businesses product or service
• community builder: an effective blog dialogue has the ability to foster a community of consumers or potential consumers around a product or service, an event or region, the community forms social proof that draws attention which can be reflected onto the corporate website leveraging the engagement many-fold
• customer value: related to customer engagement, the higher level interaction between customer and the business within the space and time of the consumer is a powerful addition of value to the experience of the customer that can contribute to the purchasing decision much more than the price of the product or service
• trust: trust is also built into engagement and customer value. Demonstration of product knowledge via a blog post, or of customer service via participation in the comment conversation builds trust in the engaged consumers and interested observers leading to the creation of consumer advocates of your business.

The Australian consumer will more likely purchase because of the person, not the price. Positive peer review and social proof are of significant competitive advantage to businesses. Blogging, including micro-blogging via Twitter, is a key tool for businesses to build a community of advocates around their brand, product range, services, event, or even a geographic region.

Next Post: Business Blogging: The What.