When marketers and business owners think about social media, they often think about the opportunity to sell through the channel, in a fast, cheap and effective way. Many businesses and marketers will consider posting content regularly, managing the insights off the back of this activity and measuring ROI. Undoubtedly many businesses are reaping the benefits of an effective social media strategy, but where they may be missing a trick is when it comes to using social media to complement their customer service (CS) activity.
Any business who carries out social media marketing but doesn’t consider it a channel for managing CS in some way is missing a trick. Fear of giving customers a portal to only talk about the brand in association with a CS complaint often discourages business owners from using channels for this purpose, however below are five reasons why CS can be hugely beneficial for a brand and in fact turn those negatives into positives.
Reason 1: Communication is immediate
When someone is bothered by a product or service, they seek out answers to their questions almost immediately predominantly through social media. No longer (in fact when have they ever) will they be willing to wait 30 minutes on hold to speak to a CS rep.
That’s where effective use of social media for CS can prove extremely beneficial. The minute someone mentions your brand across a social channel, CS admins can see this and react accordingly, often acknowledging the complaint immediately then allowing themselves some time to find a suitable solution. If these brand mentions are found quickly you are more likely to settle the CS issue in less than the time it usually takes for someone to be on hold.
Or in the case of an exchange between virgin trains and a customer who found themselves short when visiting the toilet on a virgin service, they swiftly turned a would-be complaint in to some of the finest customer service ever delivered from a transport company.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/virgin-trains-twitter.jpg alt: virgin trains twitter)
Reason 2: You’re able to provide a personal brand experience
People want to deal with people – they don’t want to listen to an endless list of phone menu’s whist being charged 50p per minute. Instead, reacting to a customer’s dissatisfaction promptly over social media and dealing with it there and then avoids a series of impersonal automatically generated emails. Social media also allows for you to retain your brand voice whilst communicating with your customers like a human.
Reason 3: You can protect your brand
Regardless of whether you use social media for CS or not, it’s inevitable that someone somewhere on a social channel will be talking about your brand. Therefore you need to own some of that conversation to maintain your brand reputation. Using social media to listen and react to product or service complaints will allow you to manage your brand perception and turn those conversations into positive ones.
Reason 4: Build loyal customers
Social media may give customers another voice to air their grievances, but if these are well managed it is proven that a good CS experience via social media can turn complaints into future revenue. Research suggests that those consumers who’ve had a good customer service experience via social media are 71% more likely to recommend a brand to others.
Reason 5: Reduce customer service costs
In terms of output, using social media for CS is more cost effective than traditional CS routes. The fact that consumers often receive a response to their issue within one hour often stops complaints having to be escalated, which often results in compensation of some description.
The above highlights why considering social media support for your CS needs should be deliberated by any business, big or small. To find out how we can help with social media for CS get in contact with us and we can help you build your online reputation, and ensure that you never make a social faux pas like that of ‘Beach body ready’ fame. Protein World…we’ll leave you with that.
(image: https://www.superdream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Capture.jpg alt: Capture)