How Brands can Increase Customer Loyalty

Customers are at the heart of your business. Understanding your customer is key to connecting with them in a meaningful way.

Social listening is a guiding strategy brands can use to better connect with their customers. Developing relationships with your customer can improve revenue and customer loyalty. Sprout Social surveyed more than 1,000 consumers and found that “when customers feel connected to a brand, 57% will increase their spending and 76% will purchase from them over a competitor.”

What’s Social Listening?

Social listening is the monitoring of your brand’s social media channels for any customer feedback and direct mentions of your brand regarding specific keywords, topics and competitor. After this information is captured, the next step is to analyze it to get insights and be proactive.

Discover how Airbnb used social listening to transform a group of stranded travelers from being devastated to delighted.

Alix Earle, a recent graduate at the University of Miami and one of TikTok’s top creators with a following of 5.3 million went on a trip to Europe with 11 friends. After arriving in Italy, Earle and her friends discovered the house they reserved through Booking.com was a scam. It didn’t exist.

In the intense and searing summer heat, Earle and her friends were stranded with no place to stay. What did Earle do next? She posted a video about it on TikTok. This video not only got 3.9 million views but also got the attention of the social media team at Airbnb. Airbnb quickly went into action mode.

In 24 hours, Airbnb contacted Earle and made arrangements for her and her friends to stay at a luxurious villa nearby. Earle accepted and made a follow-up video on TikTok. In this video she shared about how Airbnb reached out to help and she also gave a tour of the gorgeous villa. Earle and her friends stayed in this villa for the rest of their stay in Italy.?

Earle’s follow-up video received over 3.8 million views on TikTok. As a result of Airbnb’s social listening and prompt action, they received nearly 4 million impressions from Earle’s post on social media.

A few days after Earle’s first post about being stranded, Booking.com responded by asking them to reach out to them on their Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to resolve the issue. In addition to this, Booking.com investigated and found the reservation was made to a fake website and requested that the fake web site be taken down. However, their response to Earle was still the same.

In this case, Airbnb used social listening and was proactive to help a customer. While Booking.com appeared to be reactive. They provided a standard response instead of a solution.

?