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5 Colossal Reasons to Focus on Social Customer Service

The enormous snowball effect of social media has fundamentally transformed the buying cycle. Businesses need to be equipped to answer and discover the best methods for working with today’s customers. Digital innovations coupled with the tremendous increase of social media has driven the evolution of social customer service and the appearance of a new consumer, one who can tumble even the largest brands. This undeniable authority is the social customer. Who is the Social Customer? Social media provides a private, intimate connection between all consumers. More than one million people view tweets about customer service weekly, and roughly 80 percent of all customer service tweets are critical or negative. The social customer is changing everything that businesses thought they knew about establishing customer relations by: Listening to peers Bloging complaints on social media Researching heavily online Expectations are high, and the social customer expects constant connectivity and instant solutions at any hour of the day. Paying Attention to Your Customers The social customer is found everywhere because at least 20 percent of the world’s population uses social media. Here are five colossal reasons that companies should focus on various ways to prioritize social customer services. 1. Social customers listen to their peers, not to your business. Online review sites and forums have replaced marketing and PR efforts, and these reviews are completely out of the hands of business owners. Social customers no longer listen to company messages. They listen to peers instead. The power has shifted from the brand to their customers. 2. Unhappy customers tell their friends, who tell their friends. The words of the customers have become the new trusted voice, so listen to your customers and build relationships with them. On average, one social customer will tell 42 other people about a company. Have a detailed crisis-management plan in place to respond. 3. Ignore the social customer and you’ll lose their business. If a company fails to respond to a question or post on social media, many social customers view this as a breakdown in trust. Select one or more employees to be available 24/7 on social media. 4. Adjust to the social customer’s expectations and you’ll make them happy. The social customer’s expectations are extremely demanding, regardless of whether it’s the weekend, holidays or during peak seasons. Smart companies are scrambling to make necessary adjustments to meet these demands. 5. Actively engage with the social customer and you’ll see better results. Social customers no longer call or email customer support when they have a problem. Now they just post their issues publicly on social media. Intelligent brands that thoroughly acknowledge the authority of the social customer and engage with them can use it to their advantage by providing exceptional customer service. On the average, businesses that engage with customers over social media will see a 20 to 40 percent increase in sales. The Bottom Line Regardless of how you feel when a customer complains about your company on social media, you should always respond. When reacting to the social customer, remember to do it quickly, be human, don’t be defensive, thank the customer and always suggest a solution to the problem.

How Social Media and Customer Service Can Work Together to Provide a Better Customer Experience

Customers are becoming more active in the online space for a variety of reasons such as shopping, social & business networking, online transactions, researching products or services, and booking travel. With consumers increasingly engaged online, their expectations on receiving instant and quality customer services at various touch points has also risen. Online retailers are finding unique ways to provide high quality and instantaneous service for a variety of customer problems through social media. According to a recent survey of worldwide online shoppers conducted by Oracle, 46% of the online users expected companies to provide customer support services through social networking sites like Facebook, 29% wanted companies to provide customer service through a company blog, while 17% expected companies to provide customer service through Twitter accounts. There are several ways in which companies can effectively use the power of social media and customer service to provide a great customer experience. Provide a Platform for Customers to Express Their Opinions Despite best efforts to provide the high quality products, there are times when consumers will not be satisfied with the product. Today many consumers will publicly display their frustration on various social media platforms. Social media provides disgruntled customers an easy and accessible medium to vent their irritation in real-time. According to a new study from the Society for New Communications Research, 59% of respondents said they use social media to “vent” about a customer-care experience. To better monitor complaints and possibly turn them into positive experiences, many companies have created a company page on social media sites where customers can communicate feedback, both positive and not so positive. This strategy provides an opportunity for companies to take immediate measures to correct negative experiences. In the absence of an official company page on a social media site, many consumers will find other options to post complaints. Options include their own profiles, communities, or other forums which can go unseen by the company and create a negative brand image. Responding to consumer complaints and resolving issues quickly can spread a positive image for a company. Satisfied consumers can go viral with their positive experiences and even recommend a company due to the excellent customer service provided. Presence of a company through online social media websites, forums, company blogs, communities, directories, etc helps in easy sharing of positive customer service experiences benefiting both consumers and the company. Leverage Existing Customer Base Good companies come with a following of loyal customers; often this customer base is large. These customers can be leveraged by asking them to ‘like’ the company page or profile or share information about the company forum or community on social media sites to cascade awareness of a company’s customer support on social media sites. Companies can also create custom solutions for their profile pages, forums, groups, and communities to help customers with self servicing. This will not only help bring down customer service costs but also help spread a positive image about the company. Pro-Activeness Social media sites and micro blogging sites such as Twitter allow users to instantly post a message. Many companies have implemented strategies that monitor for any customer complaints, even if the company account name is not mentioned in the post. Companies can increase their brand value if they proactively talk with the customers who are posting any type of complaints or positive comments. According to the survey ‘Consumer Views of Live Help Online 2012: A Global Perspective’ conducted by Oracle, 31% of respondents believed that having direct access to customer service representatives or product experts is important for them to connect to the company via social media. 43% said they connected with companies to get direct response to their questions. Reward Promoters As a part of the customer service strategy involving social media, companies can suitably reward users who act as brand ambassadors and influence other customers by spreading positive information about the company. Rewards can be simple like advanced notification of a promotion, special invitations, asking for a free company visit, etc. Be Unique In order to create an impressive customer experience on social media, companies are creating engaging and unique solutions, apps, text, and much more for their company pages, forums, groups, and social communities. By implementing a progressive social media strategy, businesses can cost effectively provide information, contact their virtual customers real-time, receive real-time voice of the customer feedback, and help solve or at least address the frustrations their customers might encounter. Ensure Quick Action No matter the sector the company operates in, a quick approach to solving consumer questions promotes a positive customer experience like nothing else. Action can be in any form such as replacing a spare part, giving a refund, resuming services, sending a technician, and much more. There are some companies who dedicate full time employees to monitor the web and social media sites for any consumer complaints or questions about the company. These employees can directly contact customers, resolve their issues, and provide real-time satisfactory solutions. Conclusion Companies that maintain an efficient customer support system through social media can reap great benefits in the form of reduced costs, increased credibility, and greater visibility into online customers. However, it is important to remember that while social media development is bringing around some exciting new opportunities to better serve customers, the fact is that any company must still maintain and develop strong traditional customer service channels such as voice, email, and chat.

Improve the Omnichannel Experience; Reduce Customer Effort

Loyal customers are an asset to an organization, and the secret weapon to win them is offering superior customer experiences. When you focus on how customers feel about the services they expect and receive, you will meet their needs and give them the great experiences they are looking for. The key to any experience can be measured by customer effort. Customer effort is the amount of effort a customer has to put in to resolve his or her request. When customers do not expend a lot of energy and effort in receiving a service, they are more satisfied. Of course the opposite is also true. Customers become increasingly more dissatisfied with your services if they have to go through a lot of trouble to receive it. We’ve all been on both ends of this spectrum. Put yourself in their shoes. What type of service do you prefer? You interact with your customers on various channels, and these channels provide an opportunity to reduce customer effort. Some customers will start a conversation on Twitter and follow it up with a phone call. Do you handle each channel as an independent point of contact? Alternatively, do you integrate them to offer a seamless experience? If you want happy customers then you must provide that seamless experience- The Omnichannel experience. Omnichannel is about utilizing your multiple channels to be readily available when and how customers want to interact with your organization. For the customer, however, the same standards of service across the board is critical. A consistent, seamless experience makes the customer feel like they are carrying on with a conversation despite the channel they started it; he or she does not have to start from scratch every time they interact with you. Customer experience has an inverse relationship with customer effort: when it increases the other decreases. Therefore, it is essential to keep improving those experiences with every interaction in order to brand your business as one that is able to provide the Omnichannel experience effortlessly, time and time again. Here are a few tips on how you can improve Omnichannel experience and reduce customer effort. Senior Management Commitment The journey starts with the executives. An Omnichannel experience requires an entire organizational transformation. When the leadership initiates it, the rest of the company will adopt it. With the company vision in mind executives are in a good position to tell how the organization is doing, whether they are heading in the right direction, and the pace at which they are getting there. To change the way the entire organization handles customers requires more than sitting down to draft the strategies; it needs a complete commitment to the process. It should be a priority and necessary resources should be set aside to facilitate the implementation of an Omnichannel experience strategy. Break down Barriers All departments take part in delivering customer service in one way or the other, and how they approach it affects the results. When units support each other, share information promptly, and talk to each other to get solutions, you create a team dynamic focused on the implementation of a seamless experience. Not all organizations enjoy this. Some corporate cultures have built barriers between departments over the years. You should work at breaking these barriers down by making them understand their role and impact in the customer satisfaction journey. Create an open communication and transparent culture where each department feels comfortable to provide constructive dialogue with reducing customer effort in mind. If you can’t provide that reduction within your own organization, it will be almost impossible to provide it outside of it. Leverage Technology Once Senior management is on board and departments understand their roles and responsibility in the customer’s journey, it is time to leverage technology for efficient information sharing. You need to put an infrastructure in place to capture data, analyze, centralize it, and send it to the right people at the right time. The communications department, led by the CIO, should prioritize data analysis and information sharing. Another important thing to do is ensure that when the data gets to the final users they can understand it and take action. Leverage available technology for a consistent and seamless service delivery. Improving your Omnichannel experience is a continuous process that you have to be deliberate and dedicated to doing. When there is a commitment from senior management, no barriers between departments and you leverage technology, you will effortlessly offer a seamless service. It starts with the organization and spreads to the customer. Customers will receive the same excellent service at whatever channel they contact you on, and reduce their effort throughout the experience. After all, we should be willing to do what is necessary to provide the same service we ourselves are wanting whenever we are on the end of the customer experience. This blog was written by David Carrizales, Assistant Vice President for Etech Global Services.

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