Author: Julie Morse / Source: Business 2 Community
When your customers want to reach you, where do they go? Chances are, they head to your social media accounts. While phone and email are still critical support channels, it’s no surprise that nearly 70 percent of consumers have used social media for customer service on at least one occasion: why would they spend 10 minutes listening to hold music when they can just send a quick tweet to get what they need and be on their merry way?
Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other channel, your customers want to reach you there, so it’s important to treat social media support requests as an integral part of your customer service program. Here are six practical ways you can listen thoughtfully, address concerns, and learn from customer feedback on social media.
1. Monitor your mentions
The first step to offering great social media support is actively listening for mentions of your brand. There are a range of social media monitoring tools (some of them free!) like Keyhole, Hootsuite, Buzzsumo, and Digimind that you can use to track discussion of your brand on social media. These tools can notify you whenever your brand name is mentioned, so you can catch chatter that’s related to you, even if you’re not tagged in it. Don’t forget to monitor phrases related to your products or promotions, plus any hidden mentions, such as misspellings of your brand name.
2. Meet your customers where they are
When your customers contact you on social media, it’s important that you give an initial response over that same channel. For example, if your customers ask a question on Facebook, they don’t want an email or phone call in response — they’re expecting you to reply directly on Facebook. Doing so helps you keep the flow of the conversation and maintain accountability for every message you receive.
If your customer’s question involves something personal, or if you think you can answer better over an email or phone call, let them know you want to transition to another medium, and assure them that you’ll take care of the issue there. Try sending something like this: “Thanks for your question. Can you direct message us your email so I can send you some resources that will help with this issue?”
Sending this type of response benefits you in two ways: your customer…
Peter Bordes Jr
Founder & Managing Partner Trajectory Ventures. Lifetime entrepreneur, CEO, Board Member, mentor, advisor and investor.
Obsessed with the infinite realm of possibility in disruptive innovation driving global digital transformation in technology, cloud-based infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data, DevOps, fintech, robotics, aerospace, blockchain and digital media and advertising.