It’s said that poor customer service costs UK businesses £12 billion a year. The rise of social customer service has offered brands a huge opportunity to remedy this, but are they taking advantage?
This new infographic from Sentiment, a social media insights and engagement tool, suggests not. Only 36% of customers that have used social customer service report having their problems solved quickly and effectively.
So where are we going wrong?
Part of the problem seems to lie with the fact that Marketing and PR teams remain the dominant force in social media. Research tells us that 70% of Marketing teams use social media and 69% of PR teams, compared to a lowly 19% of Customer Service teams. As Ronan Gillen, EU Social Customer Service Manager at eBay, said in a Whitepaper on Social Media Monitoring for Customer Service:
“We wouldn’t claim to be able to do the job of the Marketing or PR departments – they have their own skills, such as creating rich content – so we feel that having separated customer service accounts makes the most sense.”
In the same way as Marketing requires its own skillset, so does Customer Service. Yet, it’s often Marketing staff that are engaging with customer queries on social media. This is a wasted opportunity, particularly when you consider that Marketing teams will often lack customer information and crucial details on customer service policy.
Fortunately, effective social customer service isn’t rocket science and is well within reach of most companies. The infographic below highlights how it can be achieved in 10 simple steps (click to enlarge).
10 Steps to Brilliant Social Customer Service Infographic
