Why you should be offering customer service on social?
According to Christopher Ratcliff (2014) 42% of leading UK companies say that customer service is the most important skill required for real-time social community engagement. In the digital era that we are living in giving customer service over social is becoming a necessary part of any brand’s social media strategy. Social channels have become the very public face of all brands and if your channel ignores queries or complaints here, everyone else on the platform will know you are not taking care of your customers.
Econsultancy (2014) stated that “more and more social users expect customer service issues to be resolved via social channels, they don’t care that your Twitter account was originally set-up for PR.”
It is interesting to see what motivates a Twitter user to follow a Company.
Apart from being a key tool for a brand’s social media strategy, it has other benefits. According to Christopher Ratcliff (2014) 31% of marketers see increases in customer engagement from the use of social media.
On a last note, 30% of top brands have dedicated Twitter feeds for customer service, and those brands that provide customers with a timely response can expect the following benefits:
•34% of customers are likely to make another purchase.
•43% are likely to recommend the brand to their family and friends.
•38% are more receptive to the brand’s adverts.
•42% are more likely to recommend the brand through social media. (Econsultancy, 2014)
Hopefully this stats are convincing enough to start offering costumer service on social media. If you need further convincing, there’s plenty of persuasive stats here in what social customer service is really worth.
Best Practice Tips:
1. Be personal. This is the main and most important advice you need in order to deliver a great customer service on social media. Customer like to be treated in a direct and personal way, it makes them feel that their opinion is important to your brand and they will appreciate you more.
Virgin Trains in the UK recently used social media to provide personal customer service in a VERY personal way, that went viral, and gave them a great reputation for taking care of their customers. A 16-year-old was on a trip to Glasgow on a Virgin Trains service when he ran out of toilet paper. As a joke, he tweeted Virgin Trains – who responded within two minutes with an offer to help (Hazekamp, 2015)
2. Engage with customers in a friendly way. Even if you get angry complaints or rude questions, ALWAYS BE NICE! That will make the customer have a better image of your brand. If your product had disappointed them, balance it with a friendly reply being sorry about it.
Netflix had a great story with one of their digital customer service employees which went out of his way to combine fun, friendliness and customer service, taking on the role of a Star Trek officer during his troubleshooting session with a customer. The customer played along, and they both pretended to be members of Starfleet for the full conversation. Everyone reacted very positively to to this sense of humor, and the conversantion obviosly went viral.
You can read the full conversation here.
3. Speedy in response. Customers expect a fast response regarding their query, so don’t disappoint them. Even if you have to take a customer onto a different channel (due to sensitivity of information or length of reply), or you can’t answer the query without thorough investigation, it’s important to at least state that you’re looking into it as soon as you can. This is also why it’s important that if you can’t operate a 24 hour customer service, your channel should state its operating hours clearly in the profile.
According to the same study done my Econsultancy (2014) 53% of customers who ask a brand a question on Twitter expect a response within one hour.
4. Going beyond, from service to experience. This can take your brand to a whole new level and earn you widespread recognition as a brand that actually cares about its customers as people instead of revenue sources.
To give a standout example of how a brand went beyond the customer care and made an experience. A woman tweeted the Airline, JetBlue letting them know that she was upset to end her holiday and go back home, and jokingly asked for a parade to greet her at the gate. JetBlue Twitter team, reacted fast, and sent sent the request to the airport that the woman landed in. They held her welcome-home parade!!
As you can see, making a good use of social media to offer customer service is very important, especially as consumers are increasingly expecting a strong brand presence in that sector. Providing customer service over Twitter (and other social channels) has become a necessary part of a brand’s social media presence. Now consumers expect the brand to be active and responsive to their questions and concerns, if it’s not mutual, “they’ve got you!”.
Hope you found the above tips useful and start using your social media channels to take care of your customers and also create moments for them to share and expand your positive reputation.
‘Till the next time!!
Econsultancy. (2014). 10 emerging examples of best practice in social customer service. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/64857-10-emerging-examples-of-best-practice-in-social-customer-service/. Last accessed 25th April 2016.
Econsultancy. (2015). 72% of customers expect complaints on Twitter to be answered in one hour. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63750-72-of-customers-expect-complaints-on-twitter-to-be-answered-in-one-hour. Last accessed 25th April 2016.
Hazekamp, R. (2015). 5 Amazing Examples of Great Online Customer Service. Available: https://www.redandyellow.co.za/5-amazing-examples-great-online-customer-service/. Last accessed 25th April 2016.
Leggett, K. (2014). Trends 2015: The Future Of Customer Service. Available: http://www.nice.com/websites/Perfect_experiences/files/Trends-2015-The-Future-Of-Customer-Service-Forrester.pdf. Last accessed 25th April 2016h.
Ratcliff, C. (2014). How 20 top UK retailers handle social customer service. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/65478-how-20-top-uk-retailers-handle-social-customer-service. Last accessed 25th April 2016.
Ratcliff, C. (2015). What social customer service is really worth: stats. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/65018-what-social-customer-service-is-really-worth-stats. Last accessed 25th April 2016.