6 tips to flirting with your customer in the digital world

Talking to your customers is very much like playing the dating game, Chai Hui Fung, marketing director of Nando's Chickenland Malaysia said. Chai was speaking at A+M’s recent Digital marketing Malaysia 2016 conference.For Nando's, the flirty tone the brand takes is somewhat cool and subtle.“We want to stay cool. Our communication has never been too direct, it is a little bit subtle with a hint of humour that makes you wonder what it is,” Chai (pictured) explained.But Nandos’ brand personality is also a complicated one, Chai admits.  The brand comes with two contrasting elements to its identity. On one hand it has to be fiery and challenging much like its famous peri-peri sauce but on the other it also needs to be comforting for friends and family to congregate.“We like to discover new ideas and challenge the status quo. So, our communication always pushes the boundaries. It is unpredictable and exciting. Our communication also comes with humourous elements. At the same time, we want to be welcoming and focus on keeping people together. So, as much as we like to push boundaries, we actually don’t want to come across as arrogant and mean,” she added.As such, the brand needs to find the balance between being cheeky and genuine and authentic.“Building emotional connections with our customers is not just about creating a piece of content and posting it on Facebook. It is about establishing a connection with our customers on a day-to-day basis. We want the customers to feel we know and care for them. These result in a lifetime relationship,” she added.Chai shares six different laws of emotional connection the brand swears by in the digital world.Be you. Be natural. Chai said it is important for brands to act like a “real person with emotions” and use the language consumers are familiar with. Her team also actively avoids sounding corporatised. One such way is by changing from responding with “we” to “I”.Nando's also actively stays away from phrases such as “Dear customer” and “We would like to inform you…”.Make the customer your friendYour brand should sound like someone who chose its customer - much like how a person would choose friends. Your online messaging should be warm and friendly and not too serious.  Nando's also chooses to act like a friend by not hard selling or asking consumers directly to come eat at its restaurants directly. Much like how you wouldn’t force a friend to come over if he or she wasn’t interested to.“It is almost like flirting with a girl. Imagine when you want to date a girl, how would you approach it? You want to be sincere, you want to be polite and curious about her. But you don’t want to sound too aggressive and over the top,” Chai said.She urges marketers to think of how they actually want to start a conversation with consumers, just like how they would with a person of romantic interest. Moreover, identify who are your brand lovers and engage with them to build a relationship.“It is just like our personal social network. We have different levels of friends on our social media pages. There are different levels of closeness of friends. Just remember, your engagement with the customer must always make them feel like it is genuine,” she said.Be relevantBrands must stay current and identify topics that resonate with the emotions of community as well as society and expresses its own opinion. This opinion needs to be relevant to the majority of its consumers online and offline.While it is important to not be taking any sides, a brand must be quick to say what the audiences are already thinking.“If you are too slow, you become irrelevant. At the end of the day, we want to be seen as smart and not doing things just for attention,” Chai explains.However, she warns that while being relevant to your customers is important. A brand should not forget its own personality. The trick is to balance between being the brand and what the customers are interested without trying too hard.“Just because your consumers are sharing cat videos doesn’t mean you need to be too. If you can’t turn an interesting content into something relevant for your brand, then that is just a random post which does nothing for your brand,” she said.  The content posted needs to be not only relevant to your customer but also relevant to your brand.“We create content, based on the emotional attributes, think about what are the emotions and feelings you want to be sent out using your content, not based on what we want to sell first,” she said. Having the right content strategy is also vital.“There are some topics that are a no go and we don’t touch on. An important factor for pushing the boundaries is having a game plan and a direction set internally,” Chai added.Delighting our customersDelight our customer with a personal touch, added Chai. Nando's often engages the customers actively in photo-taking, conversations and random surprises.“We observe the conversation, look at what consumers are talking about and sometimes selectively, send them a gift to surprise them,” said Chai. It is important to be aware of what the customer is up to and check if the customer is talking about your brand beyond your own channels.Be available and responsiveWhen the customer is having a problem and tells the brand on its social media platforms, Chai makes sure if a promise to an action is made, it is kept.“Always listen to what the customers are saying and respond with action. Look at what the customers are talking about and act on it. When you truly listen to someone, you’ll gain their trust, and more importantly, their respect,” she said.Nando's also uses social listening tools to listen to what is being talked about, to manage its reputation, and identify gaps that the brand can work on. Moreover, it uses social listening tools to be responsive when crisis hits.“Don’t hide from mistakes. React quickly by being honest, transparent, and consistent and stick to the facts,” she added.Listen.Listen.ListenListening can open up doors for any brand. The opportunity to get noticed in the social media world is small and can change virtually everything.“We need to stay relevant and belong at the customers’ pace. Understand what are your customers’ values and what they lean to,” Chai said.  As such the brand constantly engages on feedback from consumers, staff and management to keep ahead of its competitors and on top of its business.