Let’s Keep Customer Service Social

Social media and customer service are two things that when done right make customers happy. But things posted to social media can make customers unhappy. A balance has to be found, so let’s explore what works and what doesn’t for customer service on social media.

Any unresolved customer communications on your social platforms are out there for the world to see. If you leave it unattended, a minor customer service issue can become a larger brand image problem.

qualtrics.com

Things to think about…

What’s important when using social media for customer service? Below is a list of things to think about:

• Timeliness! How quickly customer service responds on social media to a customer is important.
• Who is responding/What to say? It is valuable to have designated employees that knows what they should be saying and are able to help the customer with issues they have.
• Keep it real. Even if it is a customer service response on social media it is important to remember that we are all human. Have compassion, don’t just constantly use automated sounding responses.

The Good/The Bad

Everyone wants a quick response; it can be difficult for businesses to keep up. On every list I found about social media/customer service being “proactive” always seems to be on the list. I think a good idea is to avoid sarcasm. Be kind to customers and as helpful as possible. Sarcasm can be misinterpreted. How you come across through text matters! ALL CAPS READ LIKE YELLING! So tone really matters.

A conversational tone is a big part of customer support. You can use the brand’s tone to define how it interacts with its audience and shape your responses to suit this tone. The brand’s tone helps you establish a connection with your audience while reflecting its personality, objectives, values and areas of competence. Often, it’s the customer who establishes the mood of the conversation.

Indeed Editorial Team

Use a program!

Hootsuite is a program to help businesses run their social media pages. It puts everything on one platform, and it looks very useful. They have useful training, and blogs with more useful information. One of the things they recommend is to have a team that has the primary focus of responding to social media concerns. And a business to have a handle for customer service so if a customer has an issue, they post a social media page the customer service handle can be tagged so they respond quickly. There are other programs similar to Hootsuite, so it is important to research what program would work best for your business.

Thoughts on what customer service on social media means to me

When I read on reddit people on the page mildly infuriating love to recommend people to make a post on X (Twitter) to get the companies attention about the issue. I do not use X, but it seems like a lot of people use it to contact companies about issues they have. I do use Facebook, the only way I have seen people maybe contact companies is by leaving reviews. A one-star review is bound to get a comment from the business.

I think a business having means to customer service on social media is important, but I personally would not use social media as a way to contact a company for customer service. I have sent emails and even letters to companies and have gotten a response in a reasonable amount of time. By actually contacting a business instead of just posting on their socials results in a quicker response in my opinion. Instead of yelling into the void why not politely contact using their posted lines of communication?

Conclusion

I feel like this blog comes across as kind of scatter brained since I was jumping around a lot between ideas… but what I really wanted to get across was to have a plan! Employees need a guidebook on what they should be saying for company standards to avoid the wrong thing being said. I understand it is a business’s job to be proactive, but that sounds near impossible to do perfectly. I think more customers should contact the business they have an issue with directly. But I think it is still important for customers to share the negative things on social media, especial safety concerns so they can’t be swept under the rug. I’m not sure there is a perfect way for a business to use social media for customer service… you can’t make everyone happy, but you at least can try.

Sources:
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-customer-service/
https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/social-media-customer-service/
https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/social-media-for-customer-service