Week 2 Part A: Listen First and Never Stop Listening

Illustration from my Art Zine: Hype Kids

 

Social Media makes communication easier between client and business. For the first time ever, businesses can listen in on conversations 24/7/365. Problems customers experience can show up on businesses' feeds instantaneously as they happen. And if the business is savvy in social media, and actively listening to their customers, they can efficiently respond to and hopefully fix the problems the customers experience. Prior to social media, communication happened from customer to business through word of mouth or through reviews via critics in the newspaper or some other form of print. A business could not actively listen to their customer as they do today.

When I leave a post on Yelp or some other platform, I usually try to leave positive reviews and leave a description of the experience I had there. I think there have been only a couple of times when I've had to leave a negative review with a business, and it was when they gave my order to someone else and told me that I had to go chase down the person who accidentally took my order, and when I told them I wasn't going to do that, they got incredibly rude with me. The person was already out the door, anyway.

For my own business, I am trying to get better at actively responding to positive comments. Yesterday, someone asked me if I could put my work up on Etsy, since I didn't currently have a storefront, so I took the time and did that today. If I were to receive any negative comments on my business, I would listen to the problem my customer was having first and try to hear them out in order to figure out what I can do to make things right, whether it be a re-frame, different packaging, or a return/exchange. Working as a manager for other businesses, I would sometimes interact with customers that were either having a bad experience or just a bad day in general. More than often, you would have to let them talk it out, hear what they have to say, and figure out the "what I can do for you to help you solve the problem you are having." I think I am having a harder time on knowing how to respond to positive comments. I get a lot of "That's pretty." and I don't really know what to respond with other than "Thank you."