Using Social Media for Customer Service

When it comes to customer service, there are a few things to keep in mind when using social media.

For modern businesses, social media is an important marketing tool, but it can also improve customer service. Besides, many people who have an issue or a concern use social media for customer service inquiries on a regular basis in the hopes of finding a fast answer.

Social media can be a useful tool for providing customer service. However, to benefit from this strategy, you must do it right. Your business should have plans in place for dealing with customer service issues through social media. With a plan in place, this provides an additional, more convenient means of communicating with customers and vice versa.

If you don’t carefully manage your social media presence, you risk damaging your reputation and losing potential customers. 

1.Create genuine consumer relationships in a timely manner.

Many businesses use social media as a means of self-promotion, and they don’t often respond when consumers leave comments or message them. Engage with people on your social media pages and drive conversations to create real relationships with customers and potential customers. 

While failing to reply at all may clearly harm your brand, you must also respond within a reasonable period of time. Studies show that most consumers expect a response within 30-60 minutes after enquiry. Therefore, it’s important to ensure you are active on your platforms. Delegate the role to someone specific who responds to your customers’ comments and inquiries. 

2.Establish a customer advocate base.

When a customer has a negative experience with a company, one of the first things they are likely to do is leave a negative review on the company’s website. That’s where customer advocacy comes in.

Focus on building a solid, loyal customer base by delivering an outstanding customer service. That way, instead of reacting to negative feedback, your loyal customer base will advocate for your business when someone writes a negative review or a negative comment. 

Your brand advocacy team should include your loyal employees too. Work towards creating a loyal customer base and loyal employees who an push in favor of your brand. 

3.Be responsive.

When responding to a customer complaint, pay careful attention to the customer. It’s important to pay attention and show that you’re paying attention. Poor response is caused by a lack of attention, which reflects poorly on your brand. And besides, your brand’s response to a specific customer is visible to everyone else who has access to your social media platforms (your fans and potential customers).

Additionally, not responding is actually a form of response. Every consumer that makes an inquiry expects a response whether they have made an angry comment or a positive comment. 

The aim should be to keep your fans, including potential customers, informed that your brand is involved on social media and attentive to their needs.

4.Make yourself available.

Customers must first be able to contact you in order for you to react effectively. If you are not consciously listening to consumers or communicating with them, you will fall short on social customer service. 

You need to be there when consumers need you. This is even when they don’t directly message you on your platforms. You need to be able to flag all messages related to your business across all platforms. 

Realistically, you cannot be everywhere all the time. That’s where automation through chatbots comes in. However, you need to balance between chatbots and real customer service agents. This will help you respond more efficiently and effectively to every meaningful conversation related to your business.

When you are inactive or unavailable, you miss opportunities for positive interactions with your customers and potential customers and you miss profits too. 

5.Set up a separate contact info for customer service.

Apart from your main pages, consider having a separate social media page dedicated to customer service. 

By concentrating on one account, the customer service staff will get to work on problems quickly. 

To broaden the reach of this dedicated account, include a link to it in your main account’s bio to guide customers there for help.

Also, even though the customer contacted the wrong customer service account, you can respond to any customer service query or message with your customer service account. 

Create a customer service policy for social media.

When dealing with disappointed customers or any issues or concerns they may have, customer service policies ensure that all staff are on the same page. This is particularly true if you’re using social media to provide customer service. To ensure that your actions are reliable and consistent, establish a separate social media customer service policy for your team.

Employees (especially new ones) should be educated on the policy. Train all customer service staff on how to enforce and adopt this policy and ensure that everybody is on the same page.