In this age of advanced technology and information, the emergence of social networking sites (SNS) helps business owners and individuals maintain an effective communication platform to generate leads from a potential customer base and to interact with their existing clients.
Aside from communication purposes, these sites also help increase product and service interests and drive sales through regular engagement between the company and its customer base. If you want to have an exceptional customer service strategy, taking advantage of social media is a practical and effective move to make if you are a business owner.
Continue reading to learn and understand the benefits that social media customer service can give to your business, and how you can make it better.
Social media is defined by Investopedia as a computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and information through virtual networks and communities. Social media engagement is done by users or subscribers with the help of a mobile phone, tablet, or computer. Communication involves sharing of content, personal information, documents, videos, and photos.
There are many social media platforms in the world, but there are the top 10 platforms in the world that have the most users and subscribers each month:
- Youtube
- TikTok
- Facebook Messenger
- Douyin
The list, of course, won’t be complete without the millennial and Gen Z-favorite platforms Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest. See the complete list here.
It is the practice of using social tools to handle, process, and resolve inquiries, concerns, requests, and complaints coming from customers. This is a highly effective strategy since social tools have become more and more popular and are almost considered necessities by people nowadays.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twiter are just two of the most popular platforms that business owners use to communicate with their clients. They also set up online shops and help desks and responsive 24/7 chatbots to receive and answer questions as quickly as possible.
The 5 Benefits of Social Media Customer Service
Having an active social media presence can help your business target new customers and gradually identify its competitive edge in your chosen industry. Through social media, you can follow the latest trends and preferences of people without being physically involved in their purchasing decisions and customer journey.
In addition, the use of artificial intelligence can help you monitor your customer base’s activities – their likes, comments, and suggestions – all of which can help your business grow. Here are some of the benefits that you can enjoy by using social media for your business’ customer service:
Raise brand awareness
One of the major benefits of using social media as a customer service tool is the visible increase in brand awareness. Social media networks often use influencers to promote new and existing brands and entice more people to avail their products and services. Influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy that plays a pivotal role in making sure that people can follow product launches and campaigns, because influencers have a high social media presence and influence.
For example, your influencer friend posted a photo on her Instagram stories wearing your crocheted top. Since your brand is young and unknown, people will be curious about the specific brand of the top that she is wearing. They will look for more photos and even ask the influencer about the brand, making more people aware of your new product. Social media posting to increase brand awareness is a lot easier and cheaper since you no longer have to pay for posters and flyers. All you have to do is to take photos of your item, clear descriptions or specifications, pricing, and instructions on how to buy or order.
If you have extra money, you can try posting pay-per-click ads to make your products more visible on social media.
Real Time Customer Support
If your main goal is to offer high-quality service to your customers, providing round the clock customer support is crucial. This is especially important if your target market and client base is located overseas. With timezone-related barriers, the 24/7 live chat feature of social platforms can help you get in touch with your existing and potential customers anytime, anywhere.
How is this possible? Social networks have built-in custom AI chatbots that you can use before and after their purchase or transaction to answer frequently asked customer questions. Make sure that you only provide your chatbots with accurate and relevant answers so that customers will no longer have to voice their disappointment through negative comments or escalate their concerns.
Social media comments may serve as a positive or negative reference to people who want to avail your products and services, so your top priority should be to make sure that all issues are settled using a private channel.
More Personalization Options
A personalized customer service is the best type of service. In the case of customer service through social media, this is easier.
You may set up a reliable knowledge base, highlight customer feedback, and prepare canned responses to quickly answer customer messages and inquiries. You may also integrate recorded voice responses in different languages or dialects, to encourage a more personalized approach to communicating with your clients. Common issues should be properly collated and organized, and a regular survey should be conducted to know which areas need improvement.
Welcoming complaints caused by negative experiences is one proactive way to improve your products and services. Every bad experience should be an opportunity to serve your clients better. For better customer experience, you might want to consider subscribing to a business suite or an all-in-one social media management platform with additional features, such as ticket fields, canned responses to common questions, and help desk automation.
If you want to focus on live chat and messaging, try a free trial period to help you decide if the platform is right for your business and if you need a chat software.
Read more: 10 Best Shopify Live Chat Apps in 2023 (Pros, Cons, and Pricing)
Encourage client engagements
Effective customer service doesn’t just end with addressing customer requests. The main goal of social customer care is to drive sales and revenue, but the best part is seeing clients engage not only with the content you post but with the products and services you offer.
Regular posting of engaging content like photos, videos, and client testimonials is one way your business can reach out to your target market. It also encourages the creation of user-generated content (UGC) that will allow your existing clients to post photos and talk about your brand.
The higher the engagement rates of you and your clients’ posts are, the better customer service performance you can enjoy.
Quick response times
When dealing with customer inquiries, peak seasons can cause inconvenience on the part of your business and your client. If you have enough budget set aside for your customer service plan, you can hire customer service agents to answer customer questions and give your customers a great customer experience.
However, if you own a startup business, employing an entire team of customer support agents may not be a financially smart move for you. With this, social media customer support can serve as a proactive customer service strategy that can help address customer satisfaction and customer loyalty issues.
The best thing about this app is it can be linked directly to your Facebook profile, so even if you are browsing using your personal account, you can answer customer complaints right away. Customer satisfaction surveys, easy integration, and personalization can help you improve the way you handle incoming messages, and how you respond to common questions.
5 Proven Ways to Improve Social Media Customer Service
1. Set up a dedicated handle for customer support.
Setting up a separate handle for your customer support is a practical move to effectively filter customer interactions. Having a dedicated platform where your customer support team can address and resolve customer service issues and complaints. Along with this, designating a dedicated team to facilitate the said handle is necessary. For example, you may create two Facebook pages: one to post your products and services and answer questions from potential customers, and the other to answer support requests and complaints.
Customer service reps should be knowledgeable in operating different social media platforms and providing different levels of customer service solutions for all types of customers.
To do this, you may choose to subscribe with a social media monitoring tool, but if the budget is tight, manual monitoring is also possible. Social monitoring is important for the following reasons:
- Follow and observe the purchasing behavior and preferences of customers.
- Stay informed about discussions concerning your brand by utilizing social listening. (Check out the best social listening tools for 2023 here.)
- Take note of customer conversations – both positive and negative feedback.
- Stay informed about the latest industry trends and keep a close eye on the activities of your competitors.
- Identify common customer issues and causes of complaints.
- Create a more efficient communication strategy and generate more leads.
Communication channels should be venues for customers to feel that their feedback and opinions about certain products and services are being valued and well noted. While response times are faster, it is more difficult to interact with social media users because there is no face-to-face interaction. The reactions can be either positive or negative.
To guarantee an excellent customer support performance, take note of these factors:
- Consistent tone of voice that fits your branding and identity.
- Average response time for each channel.
- Answers to frequently asked questions.
- Introducing a streamlined protocol for effectively addressing customer concerns at a higher level.
- Safe and reliable permission management system.
4. Be prompt and proactive.
Keeping track of your customers’ buying behavior and listening to their preferences can give you a better idea of what problems your customers are having before, during and after the service. Your social listening tools can help you look into the most common customer pain and give them a friendly user interface to solve it.
One good example is the availability of knowledge bases in websites and social media channels for businesses. When many frustrated customers are asking similar questions from time to time, it should serve as a green light for you to set up a knowledge base that they can refer to when they are in need. The most important business tool that you should consider is a large and easily available knowledge base, especially if you are trying to establish a strong digital footprint and online presence.
Don’t wait for complaints to increase; a good customer support channel can meet the needs of every customer, no matter what their situation is.
5. Choose and use the right channels.
The basic yet most important step to improving a company’s social media customer service is choosing the right channel. When you have a good customer support plan and your strategies are aligned, choosing a social channel to reach out to your existing and potential customers is vital. There is a wide range of cyber market communication channels and software, but if you are on a tight budget, sticking to the popular choices like Facebook & Instagram, Twitter, and even Google My Business will be practical.
Aside from the free features of these social media platforms, these social media platforms are famous for having a simple and user-friendly interface. With millions of active users, some Facebook pages, Twitter and Instagram accounts are created to promote budding businesses and get valuable leads. If you want a customer support channel that can easily be integrated with your other social accounts, these sites are a great way to get started.
Conclusion
Just like any type of technological advancement, the availability of social media paves the way to more convenient communication, social listening, and marketing and promotion. Having an active social networking account can help you maximize the time you spend answering customer queries, providing general assistance to customer service requests, and resolving complaints so that everyone can have an amazing customer experience.
Loyal customers deserve the highest level of service which can be possible through prompt responses to customer care issues, warm and sincere customer support, and a friendly and accessible customer portal.
Digital Minds BPO is equipped with the best technology and human resources to help you deliver top-notch services to your customer base. Hurry and request a quote now, we are excited to build your dreams!
CONTACT US NOW!
Contact us today to learn more about our business process outsourcing services.