Boosting customers service with social media
Customer service, it is the forefront of many marketing strategies. It aims is to provide customer satisfaction by all means. And now more than ever, social media connects businesses with the customers. This makes it easy to both support customers, as well as receive positive feedback.
Due to being so connected with customers customer support has become a very powerful tool. Thus marketers should integrate customer satisfaction as part of thier social media strategy. Customer service is a viable social media strategy for various reasons. Two main reasons are word of mouth and user generated content.
Word of mouth is a powerful tool that can not only provide useful feedback, but also credibility. Being credible forms an impression on other users, thus influencing them to be a customer. UGC creates a massive amount of reach that would normally not be possible.
Why is Social Media so vital for improving customer service
- High demand for quality customer service support
Social media is fast-paced environment, presenting users with large amounts of marketing. Being exposed to so many competitors makes it hard to stand out. That’s why making an effort to stand out is so vital. Customer service is one aspect of a business consumers look for when looking to buy something. As such using the right social media strategy is super important pleasing consumers. - How can social media match the demands of users in fulfilling their customer service needs?
Consumers of social media are in the rapids of never ending content. So it is important that when they take time to stop and engage with your brand, that you respond on time. A timely response is one of the most sought after qualities in a brand and their customer service, regardless if it is urgent or not. Some examples are responding to comments and being helpful where possible. Especially answering private inquiries on direct messages. Comments are super useful as they stay public and can answer other users’ questions. Answering comments goes a long way in saving you time with a private direct message system. This is because it akin to having a FAQ that constantly updates itself. - Impact of social media on customer service
Social media will without a doubt provide customers with a much easier access to the brand. This will ultimately improve customer satisfaction and improve marketing strategies. Bein able to respond with users more quickly can in turn create many benefits. The biggest benefit is that customers become more informed while also feeling like they are more involved with the brand. Furthermore connections with customers are equally as important to you as it is to a customer. This is because each of you profit from the connectivity, both receiving some sort of a benefit.
Developing a Social Media Customer Service Strategy
- Creating effective policies and guidelines
Policies and guidelines are the foundation to running and managing any effective social media brands. These guidelines effectively give your team members a reference for how they should respond to any given customer related situation. (Happyfoxblog)
- Build a support team
Customer service is a media just like any part of a marketing strategy, requires a level of dedication and investment. An effective customer service strategy will require a team behind it that provides quick and responsive support. The team’s principles are based on the guideline which includes the manner in which they should respond to customers, the tone of voice and even the cost the brand is willing to pay to cover any accidental and incorrect business dealings. - Implement effective customer support tools
In order to maintain a high level of customer service it is important to streamline the process of connecting customers and team members alike. Having the necessary tools can make everything much simpler by not overloading your team with unmanageable amounts of people to respond to. Having something like a chatbot on your website or an easy to access FAQ on your social media can answer a lot of common questions that would otherwise strain your support team.
- Train customer service representatives
Every team consists of members and representatives, and each of these representatives carry the obligation of having the right training and skills for their respective departments. In order to effectively carry out proper customer care, every representative should have an appropriate amount of training in how to manage difficult cases that normal guidelines wouldn’t be able to help with. Incompetency in customer service is something that should always be avoided. This is because it will almost always result in a loss of a customer and potentially damage your brand.
How to Provide Effective Social Media Customer Support
- Quick response times
- Personalized and empathetic interactions
- Effective issue resolution
- Transparency and open communication
- Continuously monitoring and improving performance
Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
- Balancing speed and quality
Though providing fast and responsive care is vital to any customer care team, the quality of care should also be factored in. Being able to poorly answer 50 customers a day can often cause team members to neglect the end goal of customer care. The end goal being a satisfying experience. This cannot be achieved if every complex issue is resolved by simply redirecting customers to an FAQ when it is something that is truly important to them. - Dealing with negative feedback
Another issue that new customer service teams face is separating negative feedback into constructive feedback and harmful messages. Negative feedback is the building block to success in business as more often than not, it can be something that the brand needs to fix. Harmful messages on the other hand are typically created with the intent of damaging the business. Every social media has some form of a report button as well as a means to restrict comments. Restricting comments should be done in moderation to avoid being seen as a sham company that hides bad reviews. - Managing privacy and security concerns
In the modern era of cloud based technology, it is important to constantly be well equipped in the battle of privacy and security issues. Knowing that privacy and security is of utmost importance to some individuals, you should implement guidelines that ensure no personal information is ever leaked. Leaking information often occurs when information transactions occur in unsecured situations like comments sections or through websites without up to date SSL encryption. - Keeping up with the constantly evolving social media landscape
Now more than ever, new social media practices and platforms are making their way to the top. So staying on top of this constantly evolving landscape is a must as it ensures you will never be seen as less than any other competitor.
Measuring the Success of Your Social Media Customer Service
- Knowing which metrics to track.
- Effectively using analytics to improve strategies
- Balancing quantitative and qualitative measurements correctly
Conclusion
Boosting customer support with social media is an initiative that companies and brands often take in. This is because maintaining relations with customers should be the highest on every brands agenda. Good relations means maintaining understanding with customers, communication, competence and analytics. Knowing how to improve as well as implementing change to growth is the best step that can be made.
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