How important is responding to Facebook messages on business pages Hint: really important

A customer has come into your store to buy a sprocket that you sell. They are having trouble finding the specific sprocket that they need so they look for someone to help them but no one is around. After searching they give up and walk next door to your competitor and buy their sprocket from them. You just lost a sale because you were oblivious to a customer. You’re probably saying to yourself that won’t happen but will it?

While brick and mortar stores may not be quite what they used to be any business owner has a storefront, whether it is with a website or just through a social media account like Facebook. An email is probably sent when someone make an inquiry on your website and you do your best to respond to them quickly. Do you do the same thing with Facebook?

Younger buyers are on social media and use that as their preferred means of communication. If they want to know something they are not going to call your business they are going to send an electronic communication to you and chances are good that will come via social media.

One important component of Facebook is its messenger service. Anyone in the world can send your business a message or question. That question that is asked can turn into a potential sale so if a message on Facebook is ignored that potential sale may wind up going to one of your competitors.

Find any business on Facebook and one of the things that is shown on its page is how responsive they are to messages. The response rate can be from a few minutes to never. While your response rate may not be within a few minutes all of the time (you do need to sleep after all) you should strive to answer any messages as quickly as possible.

Think of it from your customer’s side as well. If they sent you a message and it is ignored how much does that business really care about them and how will they treat something more than just a simple inquiry? No one likes to be ignored and the topic is probably going to come up in conversation, especially if someone referred them to you. It doesn’t look good. And what if it is a customer who is having a problem. While you may have the best customer service skills on the planet if you never respond to their message that customer’s problem will not be addressed and that customer is going to turn into an angry customer.

At the very least making a quick response, even if you need time to look something up, shows that you care enough to acknowledge them. The indicator on Facebook that shows how responsive you are to messages may be what sways a potential customer to do business with you rather than a competitor. Many buyers are looking to buy local or from a small business rather than a mega corporation. They know that you don’t employ an army of call center workers and social media experts and you may just be a one person show. Just taking a moment to answer a question can turn a shopper into a customer or a customer into a loyalist.

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