Social media currently has about 3.96 billion users, and Statista predicts that number will rise to 4.41 billion by 2025. Not only that, but a whopping 86% of these people follow at least one brand on social media.
Users are more likely to interact with brands on social media, making it a vital channel for customer service and general feedback.
Since social media customer service is becoming increasingly popular, companies need to be prepared to offer this service. There are, however, additional incentives to incorporate social media into your existing approach to customer service.
Why Should You Offer Social Media Support?
Customers now expect much more than just phone and email support, and gone are the days when those were sufficient. One study finds that because consumers’ habits have shifted over the past decade and people spend so much time on social media, it’s natural that customer service is adopting a more social approach.
A customer service strategy
To sum up, a customer care strategy is a well-thought-out plan for organising a process that responds to customers’ inquiries at every stage of the customer journey in order to increase customers’ satisfaction and, in turn, their loyalty and trust in the brand.
Proper execution of this process should yield insights into the efficiency with which your company retains customers, as well as the means by which they can contact you with questions or concerns.
Unless you’re a huge corporation with an army of customer service agents, it’s next to impossible to provide a consistent level of service across every social media platform.
Let’s say you’re active in several online communities. Researching which social media platforms your customer base is most active on can help you direct the attention of your customer service team there.
In order to better understand potential customers, nearly every business with growth aspirations has a portrait of said audience. When deciding which social media channels to use for customer support, it’s important to keep your intended audience in mind.
Seven Tips for Using Social Media to Improve Your Customer Service
While not all businesses put forth the same level of effort into social media customer service, learning from those that do can provide valuable insights. Additionally, it can teach you the fundamentals of a successful social media customer service strategy.
1. Make It Simple for Customers to Reach Out to Your Support Staff Via Social Media
No matter what it is that your company sells, customers will have questions about your offerings at some point in their customer journey. Either before or after making a purchase, customers may have questions or concerns that can be answered by your support team.
Make a dedicated social media profile for answering customer questions
It can be difficult to keep tabs on all of your brand’s social media accounts for customer service issues if you’re not a huge corporation with an in-house team of customer service representatives. Therefore, some companies make distinct profiles for people looking to accomplish various aims. For customer questions, for instance, it’s a good idea to have a separate account.
It’s easier to hire a social media moderator who can keep track of all issues and provide better customer service when you direct your social media followers to use a single channel for customer support.
Third, let customers help themselves via social media platforms
People expect to hear back from you quickly if they have any questions about your business, its offerings, or anything else. If you want to provide better support for your customers, you should consider investing in automated customer service systems that direct customers to answers they can find quickly and easily.
Some tried-and-true methods for facilitating social media-based customer self-service are listed below.
- Put together a chatbot and reference it in your profile’s bio.
- Promote a knowledge base you’ve added to your website.
- Share frequently asked questions on your social media pages.
- Create social media explainer videos
4. Reduce Wait Times in Customer Service
When customers have to wait weeks or days to hear back from a business, they lose interest and begin looking elsewhere, which is bad for brand reputation in the modern era. Faster is better when it comes to responding to inquiries.
Responding quickly on social media is important because 79 percent of customers today say they expect a response to their complaints within 24 hours. In fact, it has the potential to influence the customer relationship and convert social media followers into loyal customers.
5. Give Proactive Support Via Social Media
Providing proactive support via social media is crucial. Reports show that 54% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service now than they did a year ago.
Customers can be wowed more easily if you can read their minds and provide for their wants and needs before they even ask. Providing proactive social media customer care can also aid in problem solving, leading to increased customer loyalty.
Learn more about your customers’ wants and needs first. You can initiate a discussion with your target audience on social media in a number of ways: by posting questions, by chatting with them in private messages, or by using poll stickers in your Stories.
6. Handle Angry Clients in Confidential Ways
There will always be customers who are dissatisfied with your service or product, and it is essential that you learn how to turn them around into satisfied ones. Why?
It’s much easier for negative word of mouth reviews to spread and gain support from other dissatisfied customers.
To better serve your customers, pay attention to their social media comments
Nowadays, honest feedback from customers can be found all over the internet, especially on social media sites. One in two millennials have expressed dissatisfaction with a brand via social media.
It’s great if satisfied customers take advantage of the comments section to share their thoughts about the company. You can learn from the data gathered about your interactions with customers and adjust accordingly.