The bread and butter of every successful, growing business is one that has excellent customer service. If you have social media accounts, then customer care becomes even more important to the successful growth of your business. Most of your customer base, and potential customers, are most likely to find out about you online, whether it’s a review on Yelp or a comment left on Facebook. If you are new to social media customer service, or a seasoned pro, our tips below are perfect for every business to apply in their goal to succeed and grow.
Never assume you are giving great customer service right off the bat. Most companies believe they are providing excellent customer service through social media when in fact, the opposite is true. HelpScout shows that in a survey conducted by Ruby Newell-Legner, 96% of dissatisfied customers don’t even voice a complaint. While you may only hear from roughly 4% or so of dissatisfied customers, assume there is always more and how you can make them satisfied customers based on that.
The majority of customers who need to contact customer service prefer to do so through social media or other means other than by telephone. This makes it important to constantly check your social media platforms and answer customers in a timely manner. The faster you respond to their questions and concerns, the more likely they will be purchasing from you and, become a regular customer.
Make a Priority System
If you are a small business, you may still be able to take care of customer service yourself, or hire someone to do so for you. Make sure to stay organized and develop a system that prioritizes different kinds of customer service requests and one that catches those customer requests that may fall between the cracks. If you are a bigger business, take advantage of customer service software like Sprout Social or Zendesk.
Always Respond
Regardless of whether the customer is happy or infuriated, politely respond to them in a timely manner. In a perfect world, we would only have happy customers, but even those who are frustrated can change their tone when met with sincerity, concern, and kindness. They may even become a loyal customer afterwards!
Get Personal
When responding to customer service requests, use the customer’s name (if provided) and your own name. The customer will see the care you are taking to really get to a solution. It also shows you are friendly and willing to help.
Share the Love
Did you handle an amazing or interesting customer service request? Retweet or share this positive experience with the rest of your customer base. Encourage the customer you helped to share their experience with others. Check out other review platforms and repost those positive comments, however, don’t go overboard with the positive praise.
Do Not Engage with Trolls
There will be times when someone is only looking to start a fight. Do your best to not engage with this type of person (or even a bot), as they are probably not even customers. Trolls use inflammatory language and go off topic often. The best action is inaction. Ignore these sorts of comments or posts once you figure out they are not truly looking for customer service.
We hope you found these tips helpful and getting you into the groove of building great customer service through your social media platforms! Should you need any more assistance, our expert staff is standing by. Send us a message today!
