(hubze) As a marketer on Facebook, do you know what your customers want?  Do you have an idea of what they expect from you when they like your page? You may think you do, but it seems that even the most seasoned experts are wrong about knowing what their customers want from them.

The latest research results from the CMO Council show that there is a disconnect between what business owners and their customers think.  The CMO Council asked more than 130 marketers and more than 1,300 consumers about their thoughts on liking a business page on Facebook.

The results for the customer’s part of the survey is not surprising at all.  When asked about why they liked a company or a business on Facebook, the top three answers are:

• I’m a loyal customer.
• I want to track news on the brand and products.
• I’m looking for incentives or rewards for engaging with the brand.

These reasons are consistent with what the hubze squad had seen from customers and from our previous research.

What is surprising, however, is that the marketers think otherwise.  When asked what they thought was the reason why their customers liked their brand on Facebook, they agreed only on one thing: their customers want to track news on their product or brand.  Their top two reasons are:

• The content is agreeable, and
• They want to be heard.

In fact, less than 1 out of 4 senior marketers thought that their likers were loyal customers, while only 1 out of 3 thought that they were looking for incentives or rewards.

It looks like that while more loyal customers become fans on Facebook, this kind of loyalty is being ignored by business owners.

We guess that it is easy to be misled.  We have also been getting more content out and we have repeatedly underscored the importance of putting up good content on your Facebook page to keep people coming back to your page and to engage them.  But it seems that what customers want is to be rewarded for their loyalty by getting rewards and information about your products.

Furthermore, a customer expects that when he or she likes your product or company on Facebook, that he or she would:

• Be eligible for exclusive offers.
• Interact with other customers and share my experiences
• Be able to find games, contests and other unique experiences.

Provide Great Customer Service

But don’t think that you could escape from giving great customer service via your Facebook page.  The CMO Council found out that close to half of customers expect to get great customer service, while 33% of customers become or remain loyal to your brand if you give great customer service.

What’s more, great customer service should be provided FAST.  Close to half of the customers indicated that a support issue has to be responded to within 24 hours, with 41% saying that it should be resolved immediately or within an hour.

The CMO Council study may be found online at http://www.cmocouncil.org/images/uploads/216.pdf