An examination and taste How to improve social customer service. Social Media is the new podium for customer service. On one hand where it presents major challenges for the companies, on the other it also brings major opportunities for them to elevate their service level.
If companies get social customer service right, then nothing’s going to stop them from making it big in their industry. Not only will their customers get satisfied but also turn into advocates for the brand. (How wonderful is that?)
And all this will happen at a much lesser spending on service & support.
So what do the stats suggest? How successfully are companies delivering social customer service?
Sadly, too many businesses are getting it wrong. Wrong perception, incompetent policies, and ineffective implementation – multiple factors are contributing together to a failed social customer service.
In this blog, we’re going to present an overall idea of social customer service and suggest ideas about what you should do.
To realize the full potential of your social customer service, understand the three main tenets of it. Implementing them will empower you to proceed systematically and make a real tangible difference to your customer relationships.
#1 Listening
You can’t serve customers without knowing who they are and what they are talking – (it’s as simple as that)
So before you jump into the bandwagon excitedly, listen first. That will help you to get to know your customers better; identify your industry influencers, advocates and detractors
Remember, the temptation can be very high when you see your customers complaining about your product or acknowledging it on Twitter – but do not straight away dive in
Listening to your customers first will always pay dividends in the long run.
For instance, by merely listening to the customers you can understand:
• What are your customers posting on social media?
• Are there any specific groups/forums of your brand or industry?
With all these insights, you can proactively create a map of what you need to do in different social media platforms.
#2 Engaging
Determine the types of conversation that are important and respond to them in real-time. Remember social media is all about TIMELINESS
If you are not agile enough to provide the reply fast, – things are ought to go out of the hand.
In fact, a leading survey states that most of the customer service issues that blow up on social media are because of the sluggishness of the companies.
So make your service fast and responsive. Don’t panic, when we say fast customer service, it doesn’t mean that you have to solve the entire issue in 5 minutes. You just need to acknowledge the issue and begin the process of addressing it.
Tip: Use web CRM solution with active social media management capabilities. Using this tool will empower your team to keep a 24/7 tab on posts and reply to them via the CRM solution. Most importantly it will kill all the corporate silos. Since social media monitoring will be tightly integrated with your customer service system, your team can easily refer to the CRM data and get back to the customers with the correct replies. In short, not only does your team provide fast but correct service too.
With all these benefits – do you need anything else?
#3 Measurement
Let’s make it clear: you cannot have a forward-thinking social media strategy unless you do not measure and evaluate what you have done till now. So extract insights from your activity measure them and relate the results with your business goals. Adjust your strategy and establish social media guidelines accordingly.
Tip: You can get flabbergasted with ample metrics. Focus on only those that really matter.
Final Thoughts
In many ways, social customer service is way more effective from traditional customer service. It offers the easiest way to solve customers’ problems and make your ‘good’ customer service known to all.
And when you have your ‘good’ customer service promoted, you create evangelists who proactively market your products and services.
So act now. Remember almost every company is building its social business journey. Some are already active while others are taking their first preliminary steps. If you do not buck up – chances of lagging in the race can be very high.
