In any business, no matter how big or small, customer service should always be a top priority. The quality of your customer service can make or break your business, regardless of how great your product or service is.
Microsoft found that 61 percent of people who have had a bad customer service experience will look elsewhere for their needs. In the same poll, 95% of people said that good customer service was important to them when choosing and sticking with a particular brand.
A definition of “social media customer service”
Customer service in the age of social media means responding to inquiries and solving problems for clients in real time through platforms like Twitter and Instagram.
However, in order to be successful at social media customer service, brands need to be quick to respond to their customers’ questions and concerns. Simply responding to customers’ inquiries here and there isn’t enough. When a customer mentions your company or sends you a direct message, you must respond promptly.
Guidelines for providing excellent customer service via social media
Customers will be drawn to your company if you offer high-quality goods, but you’ll need to provide exceptional service if you want to keep them coming back.
Use the following advice to create an effective plan for responding to customer inquiries via social media.
Keep an eye on feedback and mentions of your brand in all forms of media.
Keep an eye on your brand’s social media interactions with its audience so that you never miss a chance to provide assistance to customers.
Quickly address concerns raised by customers
Most businesses approach customer service on social media individually. It’s a problem because it’s not clear to customers which channels you’re putting more effort into. As a result, they will contact you via whichever method they deem most appropriate at the time they need help.
Provide appropriate responses to customers
When responding to a customer on social media, especially in a public setting, keep in mind that you are communicating with more than just the person who originally asked the question. In this speech, you are addressing both current and potential clients. Thus, demonstrating excellent customer service is crucial.
If other customers see that you responded to their complaint and helped them figure out a solution, they’ll have more faith in doing business with you in the future.
Feedback
Excellent comments from patrons are priceless and can be used as social proof by the marketing team. However, the truth is that not all comments will be favourable. There will always be people who find fault with your product or service and leave negative reviews on your social media pages.
Instead of taking the criticism personally, you’ll use it to show how much you care about your customers and how you’re working to make things better for them.
Maintain a consistent tone of voice when interacting with customers
Your brand’s voice should be reflected in and maintained by the tone of voice used by your customer service representatives across all social media platforms. Customer service agents are the face of the company and its voice to the outside world. What would your brand say to you if you had a conversation with it? one of solemnity and formality, or one of lightheartedness and
Establishing a brand voice that conveys the values of your company is essential
A voice strategy should be developed and documented if your company has more than one customer service representative.
Integrate chatbots for time saving automation
The use of chatbots for social media customer service has shown promising results. As a matter of fact, Facebook Messenger hosts over 300,000 active business chatbots. It’s no wonder why, considering chatbots enable businesses to provide support to customers around the clock. Automated programmes will mimic human interactions with customers to avoid alienating them.
A chatbot can help you save money and time by handling routine customer service inquiries in the digital age.
Examine how well you’re serving customers via social media
In order to evaluate the efficacy of your social media customer service, you must first isolate the relevant metrics to analyse. It will also show you where you can hone your skills to better serve your clientele.
Here are some metrics related to support that you should monitor:
Hourly customer demand is a useful indicator of when your brand is experiencing a peak in interest from consumers. When it comes to customer service, for example, online retailers typically see a spike in activity around the holidays.
Cases closed by support agents: This metric measures how many issues have been solved by your agents. You can see who is performing well and who needs more coaching.
The ART measures how long it takes, on average, for a customer service representative to respond to a customer’s inquiry after they’ve contacted your company with a problem or question. How long it takes your team to respond in a given time period is proportional to the number of responses received during that time.
The average first response time (AFRT) measures how long it takes, on average, for one of your service representatives to respond to a customer’s initial inquiry during a given time frame. How should most people react at first? Zendesk has found that customers expect a response time of two hours or less on social media.
In conclusion
There’s no denying the importance of good customer service to a company’s bottom line. Best practises for brands to use when responding to customers on social media are outlined in this article. Agents dealing with customers should be well-informed, prompt, and pleasant.
Your support staff must also be sensitive to customers’ feelings and know how to respond appropriately. In the case of a dissatisfied customer, for instance, the representative should reply formally and with empathy.