So, what is the big deal about listening in real time? What if you listen in to what your consumers are saying every other day or perhaps during your monthly review meeting? The short answer is that when users are experiencing your brand and engaging with it in real time, they expect the brand to reciprocate. But that’s just the short answer.
Listening to your consumers in real time provides your brand with an edge. Let’s take a look at some common situations and how real time listening makes all the difference:
- Real time listening leads to real time responses. Responsiveness is a virtue that consumers appreciate. Responsiveness, in turn, leads to improved customer loyalty and enhanced brand reputation.
- You’ve discovered a customer who is looking for products and services similar to what your brand offers. Would you want to waste even a minute if you come to know in real time about this prospective client? We should think not!
- There is a crisis in the making. Real time listening can equip you to douse the fire, just in time.
- An issue has already escalated into a crisis. Every minute counts before it snowballs further into a national issue/topic, finding its way to households through mainstream media. Real time listening gives you the few hours or minutes you need to execute your defensive public relations strategy.
- Running a campaign? Well, you can improvise in real time. For example, even in the middle of a campaign, based on what excites your consumers the most, you could tweak the campaign elements and enhance the results.
- Looking for influencers who have recently had a good experience with the brand? Catching them early when their experience is recent, works best.
Any marketer will be happy to be a fly on the wall, if it means having access to customer sentiment or gaining an understanding for the decision-making methods of a prospective client. Big data and Artificial Intelligence have now made this dream come true, without much effort.