There’s just not enough time in the day. With so many important tasks to take care of in both your work day and your personal life, which ones do you mark as a top priority? I am sure some of you have said to yourself...well, that can wait until tomorrow. And just like that, folks...there, we see the power of procrastination.
When it comes to your business, however, there are some things that really can’t wait. One of those being your customers. If you went into a store and asked management a question, you might be pretty upset if there was no one to talk to. You wouldn’t be much happier if you asked a question, and by the time someone responded to you, it didn’t matter anymore.
When it comes to your online brand with social media, it is essentially the same thing as your store or business. It is the quick way to get to you and ask questions without having to physically come to your business or call you. Face it, calling is old news, people. So it is important to always be on. I don’t mean staying awake staring at your computers for 24 hours, but I’ll explain that more later.
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The thing with our generation is that we like things fast, our coffee, our food, our cable...you get the idea. We don’t really have time to wait because we have our own lives and jobs to get back to. People like fast so much, that they will take their business somewhere else, rather than having to wait.
One beneficial function on Facebook for businesses is the option to display your business's response time. What does this mean? Well, you ask a question to a business on Facebook Messenger, someone responds right away, and that business (if they keep it up) will eventually get a pretty badge that shows this:
The thing is, to get that badge, they would have to respond to 90% of the incoming messages with an average response time of 15 minutes. That may seem like a lot, but if you set your Facebook to give you updates whenever there are new messages, it is too easy to jump in there and answer their questions. In doing consistently, you get a badge that proves that you are providing excellent customer service or at least, basic customer service.
According to Facebook, it’s important to note that:
- When it comes to the response rate and time, these are based only on your page's very first reply in a conversation, not any follow-up messages in the same conversation that take place on that day.
- If your page receives messages when your page's messaging status is set to the away status, the responsiveness metrics for any of those messages will not begin until the page is available.
- Immediate replies and messages that are marked as spam will not count toward your page's response rate or time.
So what happens if you don’t get to those messages? Virtually nothing. You or your admin can see the response time badge, but it won’t turn on until, like I mentioned before, you have responded to 90% of the incoming messages with an average response time of 15 minutes. So the customer doesn’t see it, but you do. So you can track your status.
We all want to do well in life and most businesses start with the goal of succeeding, so why wouldn’t you go the extra mile and do whatever it takes to make your business shine? These little things are what make your business successful. I would avoid businesses that don’t seem to consider me a priority and would much rather take my business somewhere that wants to quickly answer my questions or concerns. This new time badge will let me know which is which.
