NEW YORK ? A Thunderhead executive at CXNYC 2015 cautioned marketers to listen to what their customers? demands are, as social media enables a new layer of transparency to highlight complaints.

During the ?Enabling Effortless Customer Engagement? session, the executive provided examples of a fictitious customer journey and loyalty cycle, with tidbits of advice on how best to address problematic situations that may arise with a brand marketing its products or services directly to a consumer. With the prevalence of social media, unhappy customers can easily display their grievances in a public manner and go straight to the CEO of a company with unsatisfied Tweets.

?If this company solves this problem for me easily, they probably have a customer for life,? said Dan Chaparian, vice president of North American marketing at Thunderhead.com, New York. ?If they show me great customer service, it?s going to be all set for them.

?If they fail to engage me properly, we?ll see what happens in that case.?

CXNYC 2015 is a forum for customer experience professionals organized by Forrester Research.

Golden moments
During the sample customer journey, the executive urged marketers to try for that ?golden moment? in the customer cycle as much as possible.

?The golden moment for so many CMOs is when you have established a product position, you have something in the market, and the customer chooses your product and your company,? Mr. Chaparian said.

If a customer happens to have an issue or complaint with a brand, it would be prudent to circumvent the social media approach ? a popular one due to the convenience of having a mobile device accessible at all times ? and instead engage in personal conversation with the consumer.

It is for this reason that Mr. Chaparian cautioned executives against marketing automation systems, which send users general pieces of material with no personalization.

If a customer who has already signed up for an email list or service keeps receiving messages designed for the purpose of retargeting, he or she will likely become frustrated and feel like just a number in the sea of consumers.

?We?re all used to the fact that once you?ve given your information to a business, the marketing automation flow turns on and they start talking to you,? Mr. Chaparian said. ?I think there was a time where marketing automation was novel, and the businesses that were using it stood out, but this has really become status quo.?

Better sales strategies
Follow-up emails and texts will likely prove useful when trying to fix an issue with a customer, especially as consumers frequently have their smartphones on their persons at all times and will be able to respond quickly with valuable feedback for the brand.

?Feedback is gold for a business,? Mr. Chaparian said.

Marketers must understand that if they rely on a campaign management system to dictate their customer service, competitors will soon overtake them and snatch portions of their client base.

Ultimately, the concepts of time, choice, value, knowledge and trust are imperative in the mobile marketing world.

?Businesses that get this right are going to be the businesses that win and will develop happy customers,? Mr. Chaparian said.

Final Take
Alex Samuely is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York