Customer support, especially when done on a vast platform like social media, can determine one’s business success.
Are you familiar with social media customer service? Social media customer service refers to all kinds of support given to customers on all social media platforms.
In this technologically-driven world, social media plays an indispensable role in doing business. It’s widely used to grow your reach and reputation, sell products and services, communicate with buyers, and offer customer support.
Not to mention that post-pandemic customer service has contributed to the demand for social media customer service. As public interactions increasingly happen on social media spaces, the visibility of those interactions to the public increases too.
Pitfalls or negative experiences aren’t an exception. That’s why delivering superior social media customer service presents a huge opportunity for every brand to give an exceptional digital customer experience.
To help you provide the best customer experience, we’ve listed down the do’s and don’t’s in delivering social media customer service.
DO’s in using social media for customer service
Take note of these positive ways you have to do in delivering social media customer service:
Check your customer’s history of transaction
All customer service support should have the most up-to-date customers’ information on their system.
No matter which channel they use, it’s essential to have your customers’ information so they won’t need to repetitively go over the same process every time they need support.
The most efficient companies have a centralized customer relationship management (CRM) to handle all support channels in one platform.
Knowing your customer’s history, whether it’s from Facebook or Instagram, helps both parties to have a smoother transaction.
Ask how they want to be addressed
If your support team uses a chatbot, make sure that it automatically detects and addresses the customers’ name. Social media users love personalization. They’re way too fed up with templated and automatic replies.
Addressing them the way they want might sound simple, but it makes a difference to the customer. Speaking in the language, they use also shows that you take extra effort to socialize with them on a different level.
We’re not saying you have to incorporate street slang into your replies, but it’s worth checking your responses from a customer perspective. A mixture of friendliness and professionalism won’t hurt.
Follow your brand’s process
Every business is different. Some take conversation and personalization to a whole new level, to the extent of losing their brand identity.
When you know where to draw the line between these two, you can gear your way into responsive and adequate customer support. No matter what service you give, follow your brand’s process to create a unified experience for all your audience.
Because if executed the other way around, customers might find your service unfair and inconsistent. Remember it’s too easy to create a buzz on the internet, so it can even create a misunderstanding when posted publicly.
DON’T in using social media for customer service
Upon joining the digital world, there are things you need to be extra cautious about. Take a look at these don’t’s in delivering social media customer service:
Spam your customer
Never spam your customers—whether it’s a live chat, a chatbot, or in email. Spamming happens when a user sends multiple unsolicited messages to large numbers of recipients for advertising.
No one does this on social media anymore. This creates a bottleneck on your end, and it will topple down customers’ requests in the queue.
Let customers assume your operating hours
All operations in social media might seem 24/7 to some customers. This is because the line of support of accounts and pages is easily accessible. But if your business doesn’t have that availability, you have to inform your customers about it.
Because if your customers don’t know, they will assume that you’re unresponsive, and it takes too long for you to reply (even if your store is closed at the time they messaged.)
Direct your customer to another platform
This is a usual pet peeve for most customers. If they reach out to you on Facebook, try to answer their concern on Facebook. Do not ask them to send the same question on Instagram.
If they ask something in the moment section, answer them directly in the comment section. Do not ask them to perform another step so that they can find an answer to their requests.
It makes the entire process too demanding for them – especially when they have already chosen to use a channel they are comfortable with when reaching out. This lowers your potential to elevate your customer experience.
In search for what you can do
Customer support, especially when done on a vast platform like social media, can determine one’s business success. As this form of communication increases, so do customers’ expectations.
As the demand for better customer service handling increases, the support team needs to learn the nitty-gritty of social media etiquette. This will help you establish a better relationship with your customer and create a better brand reputation.
