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7 Ways for Providing Social Media Customer Service

Contributed article by Dennis Vu

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More than 4.62 billion people now use social media - that’s half of the world. As more people started being active on social networks, brands followed. This resulted in transfer of communication that brands have with their customers from emails and calls to social media.

Social media has redefined what customer support means today and can make or break relationships businesses have with people who use their products or services. Take a look at this example from Netflix:

 Source: Wixanswers 

Taking advantage of social media is an activity that doesn't require a big investment but will pay off well if used correctly. To take your customer service to the next level, focus on the following seven elements.

Track where your customers hang out 

You cannot help your customers if you don't have a strong presence on social networks they use. Your customer support team needs to be available on social media platforms your customers love to use. For most companies, this means Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. To figure out on which ones your target audience spends time, start by asking yourself: Who is your ideal customer? Get as specific as possible - from age, gender, education, work, income, places they live, to hobbies and goals, etc. It’s more probable that if your target audience are 16 year old girls, they will be more active on Instagram than on Linkedin, so pay more attention there.

Note: Don’t forget to include all the information that could help your audience find you - name, contact information, and a link to your website must be there. Add customer hours as well if it's applicable to your type of business.

Be (pro)active on social media

 Source: Pexels 

If you aren’t active on social media, it’s likely you’ll miss opportunities for taking care of your customers. To put it into numbers - 82% of brands say that their social media efforts positively impacted their sales. And interactions with their customers are at the top of the list of reasons.

After you've tried so hard to create a service or a product to make your customers satisfied, it would be a pity not to go the extra mile to reap the benefits that interaction on social media can bring you.

What is important is to have a dedicated person (or a team) that will interact with your customers. When it comes to the choice of social media platform to use for customer support - there is not one correct answer - use the one your audience uses. To see where you should direct most of your efforts, conduct a self-audit to see how many incoming messages you’re getting per platform. Are you dealing with a few per day? Hundreds? Understanding the volume will help you determine where to direct your customer support agents.

Automations are your friend here. For example, chatbots (discussed more below) greetings can take some of the burden from your agents and maintain interaction with your customers in the initial steps.

Be available 24/7 

Your customers will spend from 3 to 20% more in their purchases if you quickly solve their issues without redirecting them to other support channels. But to achieve this, you need to have a dedicated social customer service team.

Why is 24/7 availability important for customer success? Almost half of the customers that reach out to you through social networks expect you to respond in less than one hour. And you should aim to achieve this to keep your customers satisfied. If you’re not able to have someone constantly available to help your customers, post hours when someone will be able to assist them immediately. Also, you can create a knowledgebase on your website and link it to the chat to provide answers to frequently asked questions.

Brands often don't meet customer expectations on social networks because they are not actively engaged with their customers. Because of this, they don't manage to help them on time and recognize their needs. Social media is a great channel to learn about your customer service's shortcomings. It also enables you to increase your sales by engaging with your customers.

However, to reap all these benefits, they have to be able to reach you. And they'll often do that through social media since it seems like the most approachable communication channel.

One way to become available to your customers 24/7 is by setting up automated chatbots. Chatbots are programs that can reply to messages in a human-like manner. - this will ease some pressure from your customer service representatives.

It’s simple to create chatbot automation for social media. For a small monthly fee, you’ll be able to:  

• Deliver instant reply to your customers
• Be at constant service
• Provide information your customers need
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Boost sales
• Boost customer satisfaction  

Note: automations won't be able to solve all your customer issues, so make sure to have a person that can jump in to take care of the things that a chatbot can't.

Set Up Brand Monitoring 

When you establish an online presence for your business, people will start talking about you. Customers love sharing their experiences about the brands they're using, so aim to be a part of those conversations. This is how you’ll build a community and connect with your customers. In addition, when you see what people share about your brand, it will be easier to anticipate their needs. Here are the steps you can take to improve monitoring:

First of all, make sure your customer support team regularly checks social media.

Follow any mention of your company in discussions. You can automate this part by using tools that will notify you each time someone mentions your brand name.

Set up alerts that light up on positive or negative words used with your brand.

Create a couple of filters so you can prioritize mentions by importance and get your attention to urgent issues first.

Make some public conversations private

No matter how hard you try, you will always have unsatisfied customers. Some of them may even leave negative comments online, thereby damaging your brand’s reputation.  Instead of deleting or ignoring such comments, you can use this kind of content to your advantage by learning how to handle negative feedback.

Show that you care about your customers’ satisfaction by answering their complaints publicly, but don't go into too much detail. This is the part you should leave for private conversations with them. From basic talk review of your services, to a simple chat through Messenger, it’s important that you address your customers’ complaints properly.

Even if you receive a positive comment with a request of some sort, take care of it privately. Remember - your focus is on your customers' well-being, not on making yourself look good in public. The reputation will come as a result of your positive interactions.

Be patient in communication

Related to the point above - you will encounter customers who are not the easiest people to deal with, and that's okay.

Sometimes the issue will be a matter of simple miscommunication, and keeping your cool will help you clear things out faster than taking on an aggressive attitude or trying to prove your point at all costs.

The best thing you can do when you see a comment or a post from a customer that triggers you is to give them attention and a thoughtful response.

Set up a separate handle for customer service support

This one is especially important for larger businesses with a lot of inquiries. It is likely that your social media managers receive a lot of messages from your customers about products and services you’re providing. It is also likely that they can’t solve many of those on their own.

Ensure to use various customer support tools to help your customer care team handle all the requests. By having a separate social media account for customer service purposes, you'll be able to keep all your customer requests in one place and address them accordingly. Also, you will make it easier for your customer service team since they will have all interactions centralized.

This way, you will separate support and service issues from your primary business channel. And since you’ll have customer support specialists behind it, the issues your customers are facing will be solved faster.

To ensure that your customers won't write to your main business profile, highlight the help account in your main account description. Simply put a link, it can be a Facebook profile, Twitter handle or LinkedIn url, and direct them to it in case of any requests.

You can still expect to receive some customer requests to your main profile, but you can easily direct them to the profile set up for handling customer concerns.

Conclusion

Customer service through social media may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of developing a successful business. If that is the case, you'll think again after reading our arguments. In the age of the internet, where most of your customers have profiles on social media, being present for them is important. It's an easy win for businesses that are likely already delivering great value to their customers.

About author: 

Dennis Vu is the CEO and Co-founder of Ringblaze, a virtual business phone system company that helps teams to better serve their customers anywhere.