Best Social Media Customer Service Strategy

What exactly is social media customer service? Simply put, it’s the Twitter account you follow, or the Facebook page you hit up when your electricity is down, againL. Customer service support online can deal with innumerable issues, seeing as the world is a global village, with everything centered online. Statistics show that upwards of 150 million people use Instagram Direct for customer service support; in a month! If that’s not enough reason to believe your business needs to up its game providing peace of mind for clients, your business may be doomed.

With that said, the influx of customers on social media customer support pages implies a crucial need for apt customer service. This means a business has to be deliberate in providing sound customer support. So what exactly does a good customer service strategy entail?

5 Best Social Media Customer Service Strategy.

A sound strategy takes into account widely used netwoks. For starters, it requires companies to find out which social media accounts, for example, Twitter or Instagram, their clients are based on. Below are a few insightful tips on what this strategy ought to incorporate.

1. Select Active Channels

If you deal with footwear, clothing, or home appliances, your business may have more clients on Instagram than say, Twitter. A logical approach would be to pick whichever channel draws in a majority of your clients and dedicate that as your main, customer service support platform.

2. Points of Escalation

At which point does one have to call the manager? Ensure there is a point man (or woman) for every instance that a complaint cannot be handled, due to hierarchy or experience. This will enable faster responses to customer complaints, and less back and forth between support staff and customers.

3. Link Social Accounts with CRM

Quite simply, this implies that you follow your customers. Once a complaint is lodged, have the customer’s details updated and their social media account followed. Most customers leave feedback reviews on social media pages. The support staff will trace future complaints or malicious intent on social media pages. 

4. Support Hours – Flexible or Fixed?

Let clients know your support hours. Some businesses offer 24/7 customer support online and limited hours in physical offices. Certain businesses need full-time support due to the nature of their service provision. Communicate well regarding work hours and give customers confidence in your products.

5. Experienced Communication Staff

Nothing is more infuriating than customer service staff who cannot communicate well. It’s frustrating enough that a product doesn’t work, but dealing with someone aloof or uninformed is annoying. This can be devastating for a company’s reputation, and profit margins. Hire experienced mass communicators to deal with your clients.

Now that you have a handy guideline on social media customer service strategies, what about optimal practices to ensure it all pans out?

Social Media Customer Service Best Practices.

• Keep certain aspects of a complaint private. Ever notice how one query can lead to a thread about nothing, involving people who know nothing? Only respond once or twice regarding an issue, on the public platform. Once things get technical, or wordy, use direct messaging.
• Pick out conversations that need service responses, meaning they are urgent. This can be done via a dedicated channel, separate from the popular Instagram page for example. Responding to a purchase inquiry quicker than a service request implies you are money-oriented.
• Imagine getting criticized for your products constantly, on social media. Have people in place to diffuse such situations, using de-escalating procedures. This could be personnel hired specifically to peruse your web pages for malicious content regarding your business.
• Use links to re-direct customers to pages related to their complaint. Offer numbered tickets and have them join a different page, or forum, to clear up complaint logs. This also keeps clients who are known to be perpetually bitter, off the radar of potential new clients.

These social media customer service best practices facilitate customer satisfaction, using social media pages. Some companies seem to have perfected this art.

Social Media Customer Service Examples

It comes as no surprise that this giant not only made it to this list, they hold a world record as the “most responsive brand on Twitter’. How about that for the quickest response time of fewer than 13 minutes – consistently. The algorithms skeptics referred to as spying mechanisms are used to trace users “talking” about a certain product on social media. This sends dedicated teams calling to any FB or Twitter feed discussing ins and outs of a product. Talk about due diligence to marinating satisfied customers.

These guys upped the ante in terms of competition for most supportive, going above and beyond customer support. They are known to find shoes for clients who check onto the social media pages claiming they are shoeless, at a wedding. This personal type of response is responsible for 75 percent of their sales being from returning customers. Incidentally, they have a 100 percent response rate and response time is fewer than 20 minutes.

Imagine if your comments made a difference? How many times do we wish we could drop something in the comments/suggestion box that would make an impact? My Starbucks Idea takes in comments from millions of satisfied, and dissatisfied customers, turning them into tangible results. Some unique concepts have been turned in by customers, paving way for over 300 improved products, and services.

Bottom Line

A sound social media customer service strategy simply takes into account the ubiquity of the internet. It capitalizes on the worldwide web to shorten the time spent between receipt of complaints and resolutions. Drawing from the examples above, any company can create its strategic customer service approach. No one uses customer service hotlines anymore. Those who do may have serious technical issues to deal with or had infuriating experiences using social media customer service. In a nutshell, find your customer’s digital print on social media; navigate to said platform and reach out to as many clients as possible.