Social media can be a game-changer for your business, especially when it comes to customer service.
However, it's essential to tread carefully, as a single mistake can be disastrous.
On the other hand, if done right, social media can help you build an intimate and sincere connection with your customers, leading to greater loyalty and sales.
In this article, I'll share ten best practices that can help improve your company's customer service skills using social media:
- Have dedicated customer service channels
- Keep your blog updated
- Keep your eyes open and be proactive
- Learn from previous mistakes
- Monitor your competitors
- Assign conversations to the right team
- Improve response times
- Ask for and encourage feedback
- Avoid TMPI
- Adjust the tone of communication
1. Have dedicated customer service channels
Using your business profile for social media customer service inquiries is perfectly fine.
In fact, it's a great opportunity to build trust by responding to comments and solving problems in a timely manner.
However, it's always a good idea to outline other options such as a Facebook Group, chat, or interactive helpdesk for users needing additional assistance instead of social media customer service.
This approach allows for transparency in customer service requests without unnecessarily advertising issues to other followers who may not be aware of them.
Remember, there's no need to hide customer issues, but there's also no need to advertise them on all of your social media channels.
2. Keep your blog and social media updated
Make sure to keep your blog updated with relevant and interesting content for your followers.
When you successfully resolve a customer issue, especially if it's not a common one, consider writing a blog post about it.
You can use a customer service tag to create a library of issues and resolutions, similar to an FAQ but with more storytelling and personality.
This will also help with customer engagement and managing customer queries.
This way, you can share customer service stories with your followers without involving them in the complaint and resolution process, which can sometimes be unpleasant.
Plus, by addressing their issues before they even contact you, you may prevent future complaints from arising and improve customer satisfaction.
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3. Keep your eyes open and provide them with the best possible solution
It's always a good idea to stay proactive and not just wait for complaints to come to you.
By using social media management software, you can catch potential issues before they become bigger problems and improve your company's customer service performance.
Your customers will appreciate that you care enough to listen before they've even spoken to you.
4. Learn from previous mistakes
It's also a good idea for customer service reps to keep track of any recurring issues that arise and look for patterns.
This can help you update your website's FAQ and provide additional keywords to monitor social media and reach out to customers on other customer service channels.
If a problem occurs more than once or twice, it's essential to address it within the company to improve your product or service.
This will help you better understand what your customers expect.
Remember, it's not about placing blame but rather finding solutions to make things better for your customers and improve customer interactions.
The Ultimate Guide to Being a Community Manager.
5. Monitor your competitors
It's always beneficial to keep an eye on your competitors and learn from their successes and mistakes.
By monitoring their customer service approach, you can gather new ideas to help your own customers and avoid any pitfalls they may have encountered.
Additionally, you may come across new issues that you haven't faced yet, giving you a chance to address them before they become bigger problems.
This proactive approach can save you time and effort in the long run.
6. Assign conversations to the right team
One of the key aspects of effective social media customer service is responding quickly to incoming messages and comments.
This not only shows that you value your customers and their concerns, but also increases engagement and helps build a positive reputation for your brand.
To ensure that all messages are addressed in a timely manner, it's important to delegate specific types of messages to the appropriate team members.
For example, Sendible's Priority Inbox offers a handy solution which allows you to assign conversations to appropriate team members. If a member of your social media community struggles with a product feature, it might be best to have someone from the customer support team provide them with a detailed, how-to solution. On the other hand, a sales team member might be a better choice if they're looking into buying your product or services.
This helps ensure that each message is responded to by someone with the appropriate expertise, leading to more efficient and effective customer service.
7. Improve response times
It's important to respond to customer feedback on social media promptly.
Waiting for a week to check for issues and customer complaints and responding days later is no longer acceptable.
You should aim to reply within 24 hours, and ideally within a few hours.
Responding to customer complaints in a timely manner is one key way to show customers that their feedback matters.
You can even use the lessons you learn from quick social media responses to improve your real-world customer service at physical locations.
8. Ask for and encourage customer feedback
If you don't ask for feedback, people will think you don't care.
Any and every sale should offer the customer a customer satisfaction survey or other form of feedback opportunity to voice their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Even without a sale, regularly posting comments asking for customer feedback is a great idea.
The customer may not always be right, but enough of them with the same advice or complaint usually are.
Additionally, social media trend reports suggest that the new generation of users greatly appreciates two-way communication.
The more customer feedback you get, the better your product or service can improve.
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9. Avoid TMPI
TMPI is my own acronym for 'too much Public information'.
Dealing with negative comments on social media can be challenging, as some people may not always be polite.
It's important to address positive or negative words promptly, but it's best to take the conversation offline to email or private messaging.
This should be included in your social media compliance policy.
If you come across negative comments, don't delete them right away unless they are completely unacceptable.
Instead, focus on resolving the issue and ask customers if they would mind removing the comment once it's resolved.
If they don't, respond to the comment with a message expressing your gratitude for their patience and explaining how you were able to address their concern.
10. Adjust the tone of communication
Remember to maintain a social and engaging tone on your customer service channels, just like you would on your marketing channels. This is one of the foundational steps for excellent customer service.
The key is to keep the conversation going and avoid turning it into a one-way broadcast.
Social media is all about building relationships with your customers, and you don't want to lose them by neglecting their needs.
So, make sure to stay social and responsive to their inquiries and feedback.
If you're unsure whether your tone of communication matches your brand or your client's brand, don't worry!
We've got you covered.
Download our social media audit templates or community management checklist from the resource center to ensure that your communication is on point and in line with your brand's personality.
Keeping a tab on customer service progress
Now that you have started incorporating the right customer service techniques, it is extremely important to monitor how customers engage with your brand.
This directly connects to customer retention and satisfaction.
You can do this by using Sendible' social media analytics report, for example. The report will allow you to better understand how customer are engaging with your responses, and posts.
It will also help you understand sentiment analysis to better interpret customer feedback.
Besides this, consider having regular check-in meetings with your customer service team where you can discuss brand image, response time, and customer engagement.
The key is to never stop improving your customer satisfaction and focusing on increasing brand loyalty.
