With social media growing quickly, you’re probably tempted to use it as another customer service channel. To help you out, here are seven ways to provide superior social media support:
Be Proactive
Providing great customer service is more than just responding to direct messages and mentions. You should actively search social media for mentions of your brand and its closest competitors. In fact, there are many tools that are able to automate this process for you.
Keep in mind that 37% of all B2B purchasers take to social media to ask for advice throughout the purchasing process. Staying vigilant allows you to respond to many of these queries that you would have missed otherwise.
Focus on Speed
Customers that are having issues don’t want to wait for assistance. They want help right away. On social media, this is especially true. Unfortunately, many customer service teams monitor emails and phones at all times, but only check on social media every couple hours. This leaves your customers even more upset.
Another reason to respond quickly on social media is that your service is public. If you’re able to respond quickly, the user’s entire network will see that you cared enough to help within minutes. You’ll help a customer and build your brand at the same time.
Choose Platforms Strategically and Own Them
Monitoring a dozen different channels strains your CS team and dilutes the quality of service. You need to decide which channels are most important to your particular business and focus on them. If you’re a B2B provider, for example, you might want to follow the footsteps of KLM Airlines. They have a great deal of people traveling on business, so they opened a special LinkedIn support page to serve them.
Separate Marketing and CS Pages
If you’re already managing a busy Twitter page, adding customer support can be a tall order. That’s why many companies, such as Nike, have a separate page dedicated solely to support. This makes the process much clearer for both CS reps and customers. As a bonus, your marketers will be thrilled that your support processes aren’t interfering with the engagement numbers or other KPIs.
Set Clear Expectations
You don’t need to provide 24/7 customer support on social media, especially if the rest of your team isn’t 24/7. A great example of this is American Express. On their Twitter support page, they clearly list the hours of operation for their social media support and have a link for contacting them after hours. Each day, they send out an automatic Tweet letting their followers know they have closed for the evening.
By making their processes clear, customers are less likely to be confused and know where to receive help at all times of the day.
Show Some Personality
Social media is an extremely engaging channel, so you can feel free to show a bit more personality. Have reps mirror each customer’s style, sending emojis back to customers that send them first. You should also have reps sign each message with their initials so customers know that they’re receiving personal care. This also makes it easier to track a particular rep’s performance on social media, ensuring accountability.
Use SMS to Nip Problems in the Bud
The best way to provide customer service is by avoiding problems in the first place. That’s why SMS notifications are such a powerful customer service tool. Using them, you can do things like:
- Update customers when an item they’re waiting for comes in-stock.
- Let customers know when orders process, ship, and arrive.
- Set regular reminders for things like due payments, balance updates, or appointments.
Text messages are opened instantly 98% of the time, so you can be sure your message catches any questions before they occur.
Do you have any tips for providing customer service via social media? Make sure to leave your comments and suggestions below!
What's Next?
How do you keep your customers happy through social media? Make sure to share them with us in the comments below. I would love to read them.
Author Biography
SOPHORN CHHAY
Sophorn is the marketing guy at Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that allows users to customize their one-to-one marketing efforts by interconnecting and optimizing all digital platforms. As an innovator in two-way SMS/MMS marketing, Trumpia's mission is to empower brands and public figures with interactive access to their audiences, reaching targeted affinity groups in a personal way. Trumpia delivers world-class content such as video, ticketing, polling, products sales, contests and giveaways.
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