The Rise In Social Media Customer Service
From Bebo and MSN to Instagram and Tiktok, social media has come a long way over the years. Taking up hours of our day and becoming a day to day essential for a lot of people, retailers and businesses have had to adapt the way they work and keep up with the times. We’re not just talking about online apps and shopping, businesses, especially the e-commerce sector have now branched out into social customer services, using twitter, instagram and facebook to communicate with their customers.
What Is Social Media Customer Service?
Social media or just social customer service is the process of an organised system, providing customer support through social media platforms. This modern and efficient technique is becoming a huge hit for many industries, allowing customers to reach the service team in a way they know how! Due to the popularity of social media e-commerce, having support online and through mobile apps has become even more critical for a number of brands. Not only is this method quick and easy, but it also saves the hassle of routing for emails, numbers or addresses if something goes wrong. Here you can find an extensive list of general customer service tips.
Most social media platforms have a direct messaging service, meaning you avoid chatbots and automated messages, offering an immediate human response which is more personal to your query.
Tips For Good Social Media Customer Service
Set up an alternative handle
Having a separate account for your socials and customer support team is an essential when it comes to the overall effectiveness and efficiency. By having a designated handle for peoples queries, issues and reports, they won’t then get lost in other messages. This makes it easier for both your employees and customers.
Choose the right platforms
Choosing the right platforms to deliver your services is vital. By doing some customer research, you can quickly find out which socials your audience is a fan of and uses the most.
Set up guidelines
Your guidelines should align with your company values as well as the marketing team. These can cover aspects such as tone of voice, response time, answers to frequent queries, protocols for escalated issues and a permission management system.
Self service resources
Self service has both pros and cons but can be really beneficial when it comes to repeated queries or simple solutions. If you notice a recurring question keeps coming up, making a question and answer section or pinned post would save a lot of time and resources.
Templates for common queries
Similar to the self-service option, having templates for common questions will save a lot of response time as sometimes people still want to have a personal conversation. These are also good if you have certain support times, making them aware when they may expect a reply.
Chat Bots
Although mostly used on webpages, chatbots are another way to get rid of those general queries at the first hurdle. These offer basic replies to simple questions and are normally AI powered.
Public responses
Particularly popular through Twitter, offering a public response can be beneficial for everyone. For instance if you see someone has sent either a serious or rhetorical question and tagged your business, offering your reply on a public timeline will help them, others and attract some attention for your brand.
Choosing The Right Platform
Deciding on your chosen platform will be one of the first steps to starting social media customer service. What platforms is your business already on? Do you want to venture on to others? Which one does your audience use the most? Although a lot of social media platforms do similar things, the process of customer service can differ.
Instagram is one of the most popular ways to offer your support to your customers, the possibilities of reaching them are endless and there’s some key factors to remember if you’re thinking of taking this route.
- Include customer service contact information in your bio
- Have a designated handle
- Feature FAQ’s in your instagram highlights
- Set up templates for quick direct messaging
- Enable notifications
- Move public complains to a private conversation
Ranging from world news to the latest memes, twitter really has it all. Businesses are now using this platform to engage with their audience, host competition, answer questions and respond on the TL.
- Include contact info and links
- Use pinned tweets for commonly asked questions
- Make public tweets
- Customer service on twitter publication
- Twitter stories
Using Facebook can be particularly useful for those who own a Facebook business page. This is a platform which definitely has its highs and lows so customer research is key.
- Facebook Insites
- Two-way communication between businesses and customer
- Reviews
- Encourage people to share
- Targeted advertising
- Generate business leads
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