Your business needs to have a process in place to deliver exceptional customer service when and where people are looking for it, and that includes on social media.
Every day, consumers post questions about brands and products on their social media profiles, particularly on Twitter and Facebook. Some might even take the time to go to your business’ Facebook Page to post a question or complaint while others might send a tweet directly to your brand’s Twitter Profile.
In fact, according to the data included in the infographic from Headway Capital at the end of this article, 33% of social media users prefer to use social media for customer service than calling a company. Furthermore, customers who receive a response to their service requests via social media actually spend 20-40% more, and 48% of people who receive good service tell their friends about it on social media.
In other words, delivering great social media customer service is not only expected but it can also boost word-of-mouth marketing and sales.
The infographic below includes 10 steps you can take to provide excellent customer service through social media to help you get your own processes up and running.
- Always respond to customers who contact you on social media sites.
- Prioritize messages so it’s easy to identify customers who need quick responses.
- Commit to responding to inquiries within one hour.
- Use customers’ names in your responses and sign your response messages with your own name to make the conversation more personal.
- Retweet or share positive responses or resolved actions (but don’t go overboard).
- Take messages offline and make them private when they involve sensitive topics or information.
- Monitor your brand name so you can find and respond to messages that aren’t sent directly to you.
- Follow up with additional content as part of your content marketing strategy, and turn common questions into a frequently asked questions page on your website.
- Don’t engage with trolls. Ignore them, and they’ll go away.
- Use social media analytics tools to measure what’s working and identify what needs to be changed in your processes.
Believe it or not, 70% of customer complaints published using Twitter actually don’t get answered at all. Considering that 43% of consumers who publish questions and complaints on social media sites expect not just a response but a direct response, failing to respond can easily create a negative perception of your brand that can spread very quickly.
Don’t let that happen to your brand and business. Instead, follow the tips in the infographic below to provide the best social media customer service possible.
In fact, if you don’t know how to handle customer complaints and such, you can easily delegate them to a Virtual Assistant. We are now a team and we work very hard to handle all clients requests quickly and efficiently. Is it something that you are looking for? If yes Schedule a Free Consultation with me.