Being present on social media is something most companies are aware of. Companies produce content and share it on their various social media channels and yet, when it comes to customer service, many still offer nothing but the traditional email, phone number, or a form to fill in.
Why to move your customer service to social media?
In general, answering to customers on social media tends to increase the happiness of people. Who wouldn’t like it when a brand reacts to your tweet about a faced issue and does their best to correct the wrongs you have experienced? Or just in General, allows you to send a message on the platform you are most comfortable with?
The thing is that customers of today are spoiled when it comes to communication with both companies and each other, and they like to contact companies in their own preferred way. 64% of people would rather message than call a company.
Globally, 59% of people have a more favorable view of brands who respond to their customer service questions or complaints online. In addition, 69% of American Facebook users messaging businesses on social media say that it makes them feel more confident about the brand.
Having a customer service presence on social media also helps you to stay updated on what people are talking about your brand, as well as to notice comments, mentions, and tweets. This helps you to react to things faster and sometimes turn bad situations in your favor.
How to do social media customer service?
- Create guidelines to make sure the brand is aligned. What is online, stays online, no matter if it is later deleted. Make sure that people responsible for customer service have clear guidelines and they are educated not only on the services and products but also on the tone of voice and protocols.
- Be on the relevant channels. Based on the research done within your customers – current and potential – choose the right platforms. Keep studying your audience and stay up to date on where they are. Social media trends keep changing and the audience may move to different channels.
- Fix your response times. We all have faced a situation where it has taken days, even weeks, to get an answer to our email sent to a company. On social media, customers expect quick responses. Redesign the way you do customer service to meet the new criteria set by social media. Create F.A.Q.’s and other material to help your customer service staff.
- Move conversations private. Don’t start an open argument online every time a customer is upset. Try to move the conversation to private and solve it with a client, not in front of the online audience. However, always react to the original comment of the customer to pass on a message of reacting to customer complaints.
- Use a social media management tool to help you with customer service. Tools such as Sparkcentral by Hootsuite, Conversocial, and SproutSocial allow you to combine your social media platforms under one platform. This way, your customer service doesn’t have to have every single channel open on a browser or have the company social media channels saved on their personal phone.