Currently, social networks significantly transform customer service. They fundamentally change the manner, place and persons to which customers use for help. At the same time, they present significant challenges and major opportunities for companies that want to succeed in their business niche.
If you do it right, your clients will not only continue to make transactions with you, but they will also become supporters of our brand. What’s more, you’ll achieve this by spending even less on customer service.
In this mini-guide, we will provide you with the new business prospects in social media. We highlight what is currently happening and what this means for your business. And we will give practical suggestions on what to do next. Therefore, you will get a better idea not only about what happens to your customers market, but also about the precise area which they seek help in. From there, you are able to create a map of places that will take your team in direct contact with the customer, being able to interact with them and offer them help.
Social Media Importance and Strategies
Almost every company finds itself in a different social business trip stage. Some of them are currently active and extremely flourishing. Others are having their first tentative steps. Whatever situation you are in, there are four major areas that will encourage you to focus on to maximize this potential:
Listening – listening will help you set your goals and understand your customers better, but also to identify influential people, supporters and slanderers, and learn to identify a crisis from the earliest stages.
Interaction – interaction help you set your goals, identify the types of conversations that are relevant for your business, provide real-time answers to your customers’ queries, and be consistent.
Assessment – assessment helps you identify the important things that you have to evaluate, extract lessons from your work, tied things taught by business objectives, and adjust your tactics and strategy according to what you have discovered.
Dimensioning – are multi-functional teams social networks, developing relationships with customers by social activities relevant comprehensive set you some directions (but feasible) on social networks, and automate processes where possible.
Each of the areas mentioned above has its particular set of objectives and needs your focus on the things that will give the most value to your business. If you pose a clear perspective on how things are going overall and show a tent of success in customer service on social networks, then you will most likely be able to focus your efforts on different areas of vital importance. Here are a a few ways in which you can expand your social media reach even further:
Customer service on social networks in real time.
Twitter has quickly emerged as one of the main locations of ongoing customer service on social networks. In the past, it was an explosive arena which involved companies that “do not understand how to do online business”, but while providing top-quality examples of customer interaction of those who understand. Although there are many examples of failure, we will focus on the things that you can make to achieve a real success.
“If you post a Twitter comment complaining about the BT broadband speed, in only a few minutes @btcare will contact you ask if they can be of any help to you. Some super agents with proper background and skills monitor social networks to help customers whenever they hear them complain about BT’s services. And it really works. I learned about the BT’s customer service from a friend. I cried about my internet connection online and got instant help from a competent agent.”
Compare this type of experience with the typical call center one. It is an individualized experience that gives prompt response and makes big companies look more human (Chris Brogan’s words come to mind – “how to become one of us”). And most importantly, how to become quickly.
Most customer service issues on Twitter exploded as a result of a delayed response time on the companies’ behalf. Twitter is a medium that provides answers in near real time (more like sms than emails). Thus, customers are expecting to get a quick response.
The most important fact is that you are not required to solve the customer’s problem in 140 characters. You only acknowledge their problem and start the solving process. This may involve directing them to further information located on your web site or provide a phone number where they can call to get help. But you must act quickly.
Self-service on social networks: help your clients to help themselves.
An efficient self-service is often considered the most important part of customer service. Clients are happy because they do not have a problem. You are happy because you have reduced costs and increased customer satisfaction. Thus, everyone wins.
Ideally speaking, customers should be able to find alone the information they need on your website. That means you get the source that they use first. However, to succeed, offering a great user experience is the key. Plenty of internal knowledge bases fail because only internal employees can get the information needed from them. In a near-ideal world, these resources have to be focused focused 100% on the clients – their knowledge, their terminology, their expectations.
Again, social networks can help. Watching and listening to (and asking direct customers) can help improve your company’s self-service abilities. The result is a knowledge base for self-service that provides excellent service at low costs.
