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The ability to respond to your customer’s messages quickly and efficiently is what makes great customer care. Consumers today are passive and have choices when it comes to service channels.
Social media is an essential marketing tool for modern businesses to communicate with their customers or gain new customers, but it can also elevate companies’ customer service. As a brand you need to have a strategy that can help you manage your social media presence carefully because if it is not managed very well it can damage your brand and drive potential paying customers far away.
As a brand you need to have a unique strategy in handling customer service issues through social media, as it serves as another, more convenient way to get in touch with customers and vice versa. This can also boost your brand’s reputation and, if you do it right, it increases your opportunity to go viral.
No response is also considered a poor response. “Whether it’s an angry comment or a positive comment, people love being acknowledged and heard,” Patton-Carson said.
How to use social media for customer service
Build Real Customer Relationships.
Many businesses think having social media is having another channel for self-promotion and does not always reply to their customers’ comments and messages. Use your social media pages to build real relationships by responding to your customer in real-time. Not responding at all can have a negative impact on your brand.
Focus on Building a Loyal Customer Base.
If a customer has a good experience with a company, one of the first things they are likely to do is write a positive review online and if a customer has a bad experience with your company they will write a negative review online. A negative review that can label your brand as a brand that does not care about its customer but care about the profit.
Your business’s strategy should involve providing such excellent customer service that can create a strong, loyal customer base that will advocate for your brand if someone has something bad to say. Hootsuite describes a customer advocacy base as a group of loyal, trusted customers and employees who can speak out in favour of your brand. This data is often unused, as many organisations overlook the power of loyal brand advocates.
Be responsive in real time.
Customers are impatient to wait so long to get a response from you. To give your customer the best customer care you should respond to them in real time and when you respond to a customer complaint, listen closely to that customer before you respond to them so that you can give them the right response. If their query or complaint will take time also acknowledge them that you have relayed their query to the relevant people and you will get back to them as soon as possible than just keep quiet and read their comment and messages. A lack of attentiveness contributes to a poor response, which reflects negatively on your brand. After all, when your brand replies to an individual user, it’s not just your followers who can see it but other people also see it, even your competitor.
Thanking your customer for their comment or replying with a like or emoji can have a huge impact on your customer as this shows that you saw their comment and you recognise or appreciate them and their opinion and input on your brand either is an angry comment, or a positive comment let the customer know that your brand is listening and receptive. The goal is to maintain activity and assure your followers, including potential customers, that your brand is active on social media and responsive to your audience.
68% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for products and services from a brand known to offer good customer service experiences. (HubSpot)
Be available.
For your business to respond effectively to customers, they have to be able to reach you in the first place. It Is no surprise that social media is a staple of customer care today and can help to improve an individual’s sense of connectedness with real or online communities. As a brand you do not want to fall short on social customer service because you are not engaging with your customer and you are not active on social media. If you want to deliver effective customer service on social media, you should have a good community management team to respond, engage with your consumers and keep your social media pages active and available.
Take public conversations private.
Many angry or frustrated customers leave public comments on your social media pages. This can be a bad look for your company, especially if people repost or share these comments. While you absolutely shouldn’t ignore these messages, you should not handle the entire encounter publicly.
Show other customers that you value their input by sending an initial response publicly, requesting to continue the conversation privately. For example, if a customer comments about their bad experience with your app or receiving the wrong product from you, reply to them, apologise and tell them that a member of your customer service team reached out to them in their direct messages and take the time to foster a more personal customer service experience by speaking with customers one on one in private.
Consistency across teams is the key to success. Whatever your brand’s unique voice maybe, that voice needs to carry over into every message you send, regardless of if you’re responding to a complaint or a question or a compliment. Consumers will expect a consistent experience when interacting with brands across any channel. Learning how to inject that brand voice into every interaction is one best practice every brand needs to take In order to give good online customer care
