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Summary.
The increasing availability of location-based data presents marketers with more intricate opportunities for customer service. Integrating location information with social media posts can help firms better understand consumer journeys and also address consumer needs in the moment, provided that consumer privacy and security concerns are adequately addressed. For example, following 100,000 customers on Foursquare can inform a brand when customers visit specific stores and complain about wait times or products that are out of stock. The company can then open a new checkout counter or activate an inventory transfer between stores. Tracking social media posts from customers can augment existing reports on store performance and help better forecast customers’ likelihood of delivering negative or positive word of mouth. To use this type of location data most effectively, companies need to monitor business locations for shared social media content, identify topics of conversation and the sentiments expressed, follow temporal patterns, and either promote positive remarks from customers with the help of PR teams or enable targeted recovery procedures with customer service teams.The pervasive adoption of mobile devices has driven an explosion of contextual user information, including geolocation data, which has become a valuable resource for marketers. However, a lack of technical skill sets among marketers has made it difficult for them to use this data (when they have access to it) effectively. Plus, changing regulations mean it’s more important than ever for marketers to understand what data they have access to and how to properly leverage it.