Not only has social media changed the way we communicate and reconnect with old classmates, family and friends, it’s also changed how companies connect with their customers and audience. Learn the nine steps of the customer service dance as you strut across the social media floor.
1. Make Sure Your Support Teams Are Well Trained
Anyone who is assisting customers should know where to direct customers and the overall responsibilities of each of your company’s departments. This knowledge ensures questions are fully answered and answered in a timely manner. Some companies have created social media profiles devoted to customer support that are separate from their main company profiles, which makes helping customers even more efficient.
2. Consistency Is Key
It’s essential that you have the same individual or team oversee your social media customer services to that customers have a consistent experience. Not only is this a good way to ensure the customer doesn’t feel as if he or she is being passed around, it also helps you to deliver consistent service from customer to customer.
3. Be Prompt
Realize that your customers are expecting their questions to be answered just as quickly as they are expecting to connect to the internet or order food. It’s best to aim for taking care of customers within 60 minutes. If you’re unable to answer a question or address a concern in this amount of time, at least let the customer know you’re working on it.
4. Show Your Human Side
Don’t make customers feel as though they’re talking to a live chat robot. Show videos and images of your employees having fun at work and add some humor to your responses when appropriate. Taking this route is good for generating goodwill and getting a smile from your customers.
5. Take Responsibility
There are times when the customer is clearly at fault for a problem and other times when it’s you who needs to own up. Humans make mistakes, and we should take responsibility for those mistakes, even if there’s a chance of damaging your company’s reputation.
6. Act Rather Than React
Instead of always reacting to customer complaints or questions, take out time to act on customer concerns. Sometimes simply acknowledging a customer is enough to restore their faith in your company. Remember that not everything has to be about the bottom line.
7. Man Your Customer Service Stations
If you have more than one social media profile, make sure you have someone paying attention to each of them in order that questions don’t linger on the vine unanswered. For multiple social media profiles, you can use services such as Hootsuite to manage all of your platforms in one place.
8. Anticipate Questions
Problems are an inevitable part of owning a business. Rather than waiting for customers to ask a question about a website glitch or a product recall, inform your customers of what’s going on and keep them updated on developments.
9. Ensure That the Right Person Is Answering a Question
Just like you wouldn’t take a problem with your cable to your doctor, you should make sure an employee with technical knowledge is answering the more technical questions.
Putting these nine tips to good use on social media is one of the best things you can do to put your business on the fast track to customer service success.
