Your company has decided to utilize social media to your advantage for customer service and engagement. This decision can ultimately help your brand by keeping a direct line of communication with your customer base. However, getting started can be a challenge, especially if you’re concerned about delivering a positive customer experience. In her recent article, Jennifer Spencer offers six tips for delivering excellent social media customer service.
1) Social Listening
This includes monitoring what people are saying about you to address customer issues before they ask you personally. Instead of only looking at data, actually listen to your customers to understand the big picture and support them with an emotional connection. Social listening can be made easier by setting up social media mention notifications. These notifications enable you to keep track of any discussion of your brand so you never miss an opportunity to help customers. Spencer recommends using tools such as HootSuite and TweetReach to assist you in your social listening strategy.
2) Find The Social Network Your Audience Is In
It’s good to be available on every social media platform, but it’s helpful to know which platform(s) your customers primarily reside. By knowing the most popular social channels among your customer base, you’ll be able to perform a targeted focus and build stronger relationships with them. Discovering where your customers are mostly located takes time and social media outreach, but once you find the strongest channel it becomes easier to start discussions and learn from your customers.
3) Be Consistent
There are companies that only use social media to sell their product. Spencer says that these companies are missing the point of social media, which is to make a connection or community with your customers. In order to be effective on social media, you need to be consistent with your customer engagement.
4) Answer Fast
Just like a traditional contact center agents strive to answer customer calls as soon as possible, social media representatives should respond quickly as well. Customers on social media often expect instantaneous responses from companies, so it’s never too early to engage them.
5) Focus On Helping
Whether the customer requests something big or small from your company, it’s important to treat all inquiries as significant. Spencer says that treating every comment or question on equal levels of importance will make you stand out to people. Whatever the inquiry, always be willing to find a resolution.
6) Remember Who You Represent
It can be easy to take customer comments personally, especially if they’re negative, but the important thing to always remember is that social media represents the company. Social media representatives aren’t simply customer service, they’re the voice of the brand and people don’t separate social media representatives from the brand itself. If social media agents maintain a professional, respectful and helpful demeanor with their responses, the customers will be more likely to respect the company as whole.
This blog post is based on an article from Business 2 Community. To read the original article, please click the link below:
6 Steps to Customer Service Perfection on Social – Jennifer Spencer
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