And you probably are interacting with your social community already.
Watch what you say.
The trouble with social media, however, is this: although social websites boast of a huge capacity to boost your business, extra precaution must be taken regarding how you position your brand using your online accounts. Posts, whether negative or positive, can quickly go viral. Everything you say reflects upon your reputation as an organization. Thus, all your interaction should be hinged upon your firm’s core principles.
Otherwise, your efforts toward delivering great social customer service will all be in vain.
Empower your customers.
The key to social media customer service is to get to know your market really well. Also, you should learn to listen, take appropriate actions, and turn customers’ insights as a fuel for improvement. Using the right tech and social CRM tools and the right strategies, you can enrich the customer’s experience and establish a distinct social voice of your brand.
To enhance your social strategy, we compiled a list of must-try’s for you.
1. Make a plan.
When it comes to social media customer service, planning is everything. Without a solid plan, you’re only setting yourself up for failure.
First, you should establish a clear, well-defined, and specific social strategy. This phase is about identifying specific action points to support your business objectives while cultivating meaningful relationships with customers.
Second, identify tech tools you’ll need in order to collate, organize, and interpret customer
information. You need these to promptly respond to customer feedback and monitor workflow processes.
And lastly, you need to develop a protocol for dealing with social media crisis. Simple derogatory posts can ruin your entire reputation, so knowing how to handle such complaints can save your firm in the long run.
2. Build a competent team.
Nowadays, more and more companies are finding it hard to find digitally skilled professionals who are also adept in customer service. This poses a huge problem for many brands.
But there is a way to solve this. And that is by training your staff.
Your social team should have a complete understanding of your core principles and social media customer service protocols, not to mention that they need to be knowledgeable about your products and services.
They will also need the following skills:
– knowledge about the infrastructure
– execution of tech and social media tools
– clear and efficient communication
3. Address customer issues and take action.
Before you decide to take your customer service to social media, know that you have to deal with negative feedback from time to time. Don’t be overwhelmed by this.
Instead, your mindset must be to address these complaints and do everything it takes to make it up to a displeased customer. The worst thing you can do is to ignore a negative comment and hope that it goes away.
If a customer raises an issue, the first thing you should do is to investigate the cause of the
problem. And then, if you found that it really is a shortcoming of your brand, apologizing can go a long way. Most importantly, you should take action and provide the service that your customers deserve in the first place.
4. Ask for feedback.
Social media websites are also great platforms to build your reputation. You can connect with customers more easily through online channels, which means that you can also ask them to post a service or product review on your page. Also, almost every social site allows customers to rate a brand or a product by giving “points” or “stars.”
If you focus on providing a rich experience to customers, they sure will be more than happy to give you feedback.
5. Turn customer insights into action plans.
There is no better way to improve your products, services, marketing strategies, and customer service than by listening to what your community has to say. All customer insights are useful as you seek ways to enhance your organization and all its constituents.
Here, you’ll need the following:
– stringent data gathering and analysis
– a detail-oriented team of researchers
– business consultants and legal experts
– a strategic group composed of executives and decision makers
Start your social media journey.
With these tips and advice in mind, you can start preparing for your journey toward providing great customer service through social channels. Tell us what you think by hitting the comment button below!
