7 Best Practises for Great Social Media Customer Service

Every business today shouldn’t even question the importance of a social media presence, rather they should think about how they can improve their customer’s experience through their social media presence. It’s not about if you should listen to your customers, it’s a question of how you listen, and, more important, how you respond. Neal Schaffer once said, “Remember during your interactions that social media was made for people, not businesses” and it is how any business should manage their social media customer service. By catering to the people and not just their business.

In fact, answering a social media complaint can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%. Which is why it’s important to practise your social media service well. So, we present you the best 7 best practises for great social media customer service for your business to succussed.

1. Pick the social media where your customers at.

If you are not where your customers are then how can you even help them? It’s important to find the perfect social media platform for your business through proper research. In fact according to business 2 community, approximately one in three (34%) use social media to learn about or discover new products, services, or brands. So, when you go to where your customers actually are, you can deliver a support experience that’s native to their preferred network. Never make the mistake of assuming that the popular one is the best fit for you, always do your research and go with the result.

2. Maintain speed even in social media customer services.

Did you know that according to the social habit, 32% of social media users who contact a brand expect a response within 30 minutes, and 42% expect a response within 60 minutes? Well, it’s obvious that speed is very important in customer services even when it’s on social media. Your customers want you to respond as fast as you as but with accurate solutions as well. So, next time you see a complaint, try to process it as soon as you can. In fact, Review trackers say that, 51.7% of consumers expect businesses to respond to their negative review within seven days.

3. Make the best use of your knowledge base.

Use your social media platform to guide your customers to good knowledge base articles so that they can help themselves whenever possible. It will also help you deliver better customer service. Under Lyfe Marketing, research on social media marketing statistics shows that roughly 59% of Americans with social media accounts believe that social media has made customer service easier. So, next time use your platform you can save time for yourself and make life easier for your customers. Rather than having to explain multi-step processes over social media, you can provide them with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides built to help.

4. Use of appropriate tone.

It’s a fact the tone of your voice plays an important role in customer service and when it comes to social media it can be tricky to guess which tone is the best. In fact, according to RightNow, 73% of customers fall in love with a brand because of friendly customer service representatives. The right tone depends on your customer, and the simple way to get tone right is to adjust your tone to match the customer. Tailor your tone according to your customer, match their energy and your tone is good to go.

5. Lookout of social media mentions along with the not so obvious ones.

Mistakes happen all the time! Your customers can misspell your business/product name or even forget to tag it. So, always search for your product or business name, along with misspelled variations, on a regular basis to catch people who are having trouble. In fact according to Gartner, If you don’t respond to comments on social media, it can lead to a 15% increase in churn rate. Even Ledgeview Partners says that Globally, 54% of people had a more favourable view of brands that responded to customer service questions or complaints on social media.

6. Ask for feedback and engagement every now and then.

According to Ledgeview Partners, 89% of respondents want to provide feedback. So, use your social media platforms to engage with your customers well. Take part in trends that suit your business and ask your customers for feedback. Getting customer feedback should be an empowering experience for customer service reps and customers alike and these feedbacks should be valued as constructive opportunities for improvement.

7. Create a bunch of social media guidelines.

Customer service reps can often face difficulty to find the right way to interact with customers. So, to avoid such inconveniences for customer proper guidelines should be set for better customer service. In fact according to Sprout Social Index, 59% of consumers message a brand to share a great experience, followed by 37% for customer service issues. Therefore, it’s important to answer to your customers in a way that satisfies them and never offends them. Setting a proper set of guidelines can a great way to ensure proper customer services.

As Jeff Bezos said, “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends”. So, always make sure that your social media customer service is up to mark and it satisfies your customers to the fullest. You can do so by using the above-mentioned practices and ace the social media game!