Although many businesses use Twitter and Facebook for marketing activities, many have yet to leverage their power to improve customer service. These social platforms provide a great opportunity for businesses to support and engage with customers and prospects, delivering a fast, personalised response.
Customers like using social channels, so it makes sense to be able to engage and respond to them on the channel of their choice.
- Social media use is expected to increase significantly, growing 125% over the next two years (Deloitte)
- 71% of consumers who experience positive social customer care are likely to recommend the brand to others, compared with just 19% of customers who do not get a response (NM Incite)
- 65% of Consumers feel good when they can handle a customer service issue without having to talk to a person (Aspect Consumer Experience Index Research 2016)
If you’re not already using Facebook and Twitter for social customer service, here’s a few reasons you’ll definitely want to consider it:
#1. Improve your response time
Customers value and appreciate a speedy response when they need help. Social enables real-time conversations, meaning you can be there for people when they need help. There’s no need to wait on hold for an answer. Customers can post or send a private message whenever it suits them, without having to waste time waiting for an answer.
Organise your social channels and workflow into a unified inbox, so your agents can see all social conversations across channels in a single stream.
This greatly improves agent productivity and resolution time, meaning customers get an answer quickly.
#2. Personalise your interactions
People like dealing with other people, rather than interacting with faceless corporations. Customer service on Facebook and Twitter gives you the best of both. People can easily find your brand and reach out for assistance, while knowing there is an actual person at the other end.
- Personalise your profile – let people know your operating hours so they know when to expect a response
- Sign off social messages with a name – this lets people know they’re talking to a real person
- Get your tone right – social has its own tone of voice. Use this to humanise the brand and build trust
- Empower your social support team to have conversations which your customers can relate to
4 in 5 people say agents should be instantly familiar with their contact history.
Use a social customer service app that integrates with your CRM to ensure you have a full interaction history across all channels. This enables agents to see previous conversations and respond accordingly.
#3. Reduce your cost to serve
Social customer service has a positive impact on your bottom line. Traditional service channels are more expensive to operate, so shifting your attention to social care can reduce your cost to serve.
According to Gartner, social costs less than $1 per interaction, compared to $6 per phone call.
By optimising your social workflow and giving agents the right tool for the job, you can increase productivity meaning agents can handle more social enquiries, more efficiently.
#4. Identify your brand mentions
People won’t always remember to use the correct @handle, especially when they are annoyed. Use a social customer service app with listening capabilities to find people who may need help or assistance but perhaps haven’t used your @handle, and might otherwise be invisible to your social team.
Social customer service provides an opportunity for you to be proactive, turn around angry customers, and show you care and want to resolve the situation for them. This can go a long way to fixing an otherwise broken relationship with the customer.
You can also reach out to fans and advocates to get product feedback or test out new ideas.
#5. Highlight your positive customer stories
Customer service isn’t always just about complaints. People will often share good news stories or advocate the brand when they’ve had a good experience.
Express appreciation if a customer goes out of their way to share a positive experience and this will help humanise your brand and build the relationship.
Learn more about how you can use Twitter to improve the customer service experience – download our free guide.
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