Social media is on the tip of everyone’s tongues. It is in fact, said by some, to be the new marketing. So many have already adopted it, for the last few years, even building departments dedicated to it. I spoke to the guys at Go Daddy about it.
Shawna Tregunna – Founder of ReSoMe.com has discovered that you can learn from the customers and the feedback they give. “Just being present and compassionate, friendly and helpful – even if you can’t solve the problem or at least right away – has a huge impact. Listen to your audience, anticipate questions and concerns and be proactive. We would miss a lot of opportunities to improve the customer experience (and win prospects over from the competition or during sales processes) if we didn’t run constant monitoring on our keywords and just monitored our mentions so that is a lesson any business can take away. Follow up can blow clients away – usually they are not used to brands being helpful and proactive on line so when you are, then solve their problem then touch base with them a few days later just to say hi (maybe even throw an #FF their way) you can easily turn an originally upset client into a fan. We schedule follow ups for 2-3 days after resolution.”
Twitter recently launched their business feature that allows companies to go the extra step in connecting with their customers. It shows that twitter has learned what their users are doing with the 140 micro blogging site.
You can use the speed and isnatnt gratification of social customer service to give a great customer experience. Matt Gratt at BuzzStream.com said “We’ve learned that responding promptly really impresses and helps customers. In fact, if someone asks a question and you can respond with a personalized screencast in less than 15 minutes, you’ve given that person an amazing experience and they’re likely to talk about you in the future. With social customer service, you’re not just helping the customer – you’re showing their followers and your community that you care about customer success.”
Brad Jashinsky , Digital Producer of Summertime Entertainment has discovered that the social aspect can actually involve the customers. This method of crowdsourcing can help you give the power to the customer and create evangelists of your brand. Other customers seeing that there are happy customers can instill lifetime of loyalty. “We have been surprised by how great our fans have been in helping us answer customer service inquiries. Fans will consistently answer questions before we can and our incredibly happy to help out other fans. On the first day our game was launched a player even created an unofficial fan page to help with support requests and to help create a community around our game. We have had very few negative interactions. When a fan has posted something negative on our page our other fans have defended us.”
It seems you can also have fun with this tool, which again goes to using social as marketing tool for your customer service department.
Taylor Aldredge , Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshopper said “Personally, I’ve learned that it helps get things done fast if you need them done fast. Social media, especially Twitter, is immediate. Thus, you have to think on your feet when you’re handling an issue via social media.”
What can I say I’ve learned from using social media as a tool for customer service? I have learned that you can learn from your customers. You can improve the product and service based on the feedback you gain organically through twitter and Facebook, and show the good side of your business with this ever powerful tool. I predict it will only get better for customers.
