How Social Media is Changing Customer Service

1. How Social Media is
Changing Customer
Service

2. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Businesses have been relatively quick to adopt social media for marketing and public relations, but
have been slower in realizing its role as a hub for customer support and maintaining customer
relationships. While the concept of social service is not new, too few organizations have truly
harnessed the power of social customer service, even though nearly a third of tweets to brands are
support-related.
Social media is slowly taking more of the workload historically reserved for email and telephone and is
being used for everything from product evangelism to sales inquiries and support requests. Social
channels are becoming more and more favored as a communication channel of choice by consumers.
Twitter, Facebook and mobile technologies give consumers the easiest, most direct approach for
support, but it’s the one businesses are least prepared to handle. In fact, a variety of studies have
found that somewhere between 25-55% of customer service inquiries on Facebook and Twitter go
completely ignored.
In a recent American Express survey1, social media savvy consumers reported that they’d spend 21%
more with a business that delivered great service, compared to the general population at 13%. What’s
more is that these consumers were also three times as likely to share positive service experiences than
the average customer. Is your business leaving money (and loyalty) on the table by ignoring customers’
comments and issues on the web?
Knowing how to use social media channels to provide answers can help your company gain valuable
feedback, build customer loyalty and drive sales. But how does a business effectively use social media
for customer support? And what factors should be considered when starting out?
Build a Team of Brand Advocates
The single most important part of using social media for customer service is to choose passionate,
considerate people and train them thoroughly with social media tools. They will be interacting with
everyone from current and potential customers to online influencers. Trusting in their ability to respond
in a timely and appropriate manner is paramount to your company’s social media success.
While social media doesn’t fit neatly into one department, it’s
important to choose people who are passionate about the
Your employees should be brand
customer to handle your company’s support channels. Look to
leverage the customer service team you currently have in place. advocates too. Their passion and
Are any of your employees already using social media? If enthusiasm will be reflected in
properly trained to represent the brand on all social platforms, the level of service they provide.
these employees become the linchpin to maintaining and
growing your customer base.
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3. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Using a social media management tool to organize your social accounts and team member tasks can
help ensure that each comment is handled properly. Your social media team will be able to monitor
brand mentions, review conversation histories between customers and the brand, and seamlessly
manage support tickets from one platform. Take advantage of the opportunity to connect personally
with consumers, turning the casual customer into a loyal brand advocate.
Ensure Your Social Team Is Equipped to Solve Problems
Social is an unprecedented opportunity to deliver great service, but it is also a potential source of
frustration for your customers if the team manning your social media accounts is not equipped or able
to solve problems.
Just as consumers have grown impatient with phone trees and hold time, there is growing frustration
when requests for help through social media are met with an initial response but nothing further. The
pitfall here is that these individuals have already proven to be vocal in their need for assistance, and
getting the run-around can quickly turn them against you.
A common approach to social media is to put marketing and PR professionals behind the wheel, which
may be the right choice, but if they are not equipped to solve problems, the efforts can do more harm
than good.
More important than having all the answers is being able to incite action in your organization to drive
the issue toward resolution. Your team should be equally versed in quick response, empathy and
follow-through and possess the authority to get resolution for your customers.
Customers have increasing expectations of social support and given the advantages technology
provides, business should strive to make this the most efficient support channel available. Social
media is already the most convenient channel of communication for customers, and the volume and
importance of this channel will only increase.
Put the Social in Social Media
When it comes to social media, organizations tend to focus on the message rather than the
relationship. As Frank Eliason noted in @YourService2, social media is “an incredibly personal space
built with human connections.” So give your social media team the opportunity to inject their
personality into responses and interactions with customers. Your clients will not only get the help they
need, but know that someone is genuinely listening and responding to their concerns.
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4. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Additionally, communication shouldn’t be one-sided. If your customers take the time to reach out,
make sure your team returns the favor and responds – even if it’s just to say thank you. Take a look at
Zappos.com’s Twitter page for examples of personable responses to customer comments. Tweets by
customers, whether positive or negative, are met with a response. A satisfied customer posted, “I love
zappos.com! One day shipping for free!” Minutes later, a Zappos team member responded with, “Isn’t
that the greatest? We love you, too!” Taking the time to just say thank you or share in the excitement of
your customers’ positive experiences can help your customer service go from expected to exceptional.
Monitoring brand mentions and industry keywords is another great way to show your customers that
you’re listening and available to help. As illustrated in the example above, Zappos not only replied to a
customer’s tweet, but did so even though the user hadn’t directly tagged them in the message. By
being proactive and playful, the company was able to connect with the customer, by focusing on the
person, not the sales pitch.
It’s important that your chosen tools also maintain a record of
interaction so your social team has the context and history “Social media is an incredibly
needed to effectively help the customer. Your team should personal space built with human
have access to past conversations and know exactly who on
connections.”
your team has interacted with the customer. Having access to
this context and knowledge of all responses is essential to Frank Eliason, @YourService
avoid making customers repeat themselves or feel like they are
dealing with robots.
Everyone loves being remembered and social technology gives us an opportunity for 100% recall of past
interactions, which when coupled with empathy and personality, can make for an excellent support experience.
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5. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Conversation history allowed for seamless communication
with a customer over a two month period.
Engage Publicly and Promptly
While there’s no way to control what people say about your company, simply ignoring a customer will
not solve the problem or make it disappear. Would you turn your back toward a customer who walked
into your store or hang up on them if they called? Unlikely. Social media should be no different.
No company is immune to dissatisfied customers, but the
way in which unflattering reviews or critical comments are
According to a recent report,
handled – especially online – can be the differentiator between
a small blip on the radar and a social media crisis. There will 25% of social media users expect
be times that a customer posts negative comments about a response from a brand within
your company, no matter how much you’ve gone out of your one hour, while 6% expect one
way to try to help them. The key to keeping this under control
within 10 minutes.3
is to show that you’re listening and responding in a
professional, helpful and friendly way.
By quickly and publicly replying to negative comments online, you can help illustrate to other
customers that your organization is committed to excellent service. In a recent STELLAService study4
of the top 25 online retailers, only 44% of customer service questions asked were replied to within 24
hours. Take advantage of this opportunity to not only ‘WOW’ your customers, but also outdo your
competition.
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6. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Using a social media management tool with help desk features can also assist in handling these types
of situations. The right tool can allow your social team to stay up-to-date with known support issues
and task online posts to appropriate team members or departments for immediate resolution. In
addition, service representatives will be able to review comprehensive customer history profiles to
avoid duplicate questions - all from within one dashboard.
Setting Expectations
The worst thing a brand can do in terms of social media is to
ignore all comments and questions that come in through
Nearly one third of tweets to
established social channels. Social media is “open” seven major brands are support-related.5
days a week, 365 days a year, and customers expect
businesses to be available around-the-clock to provide
real-time customer support.
While this isn’t feasible for all businesses, providing other ways to get help (e.g. a customer support
email address, phone number, or forum) and posting when social accounts will be staffed can give
customers realistic expectations about response time. Though not all customers check feeds before
messaging a business, being upfront about when you’ll be online can illustrate that your business is
making every effort to provide service.
If negative comments filling your company’s Twitter profile are a concern, creating a separate customer
support profile can be an easy solution. By using a different Twitter account to handle questions or
complaints, your customers will also get the answers they need as well as know where to go for the
most timely and helpful answers should future cases arise.
Know When to Take It Offline
Social media is best used for simple customer service questions. Since many customer service
questions and answers are personal in nature, identify which types of questions, issues, and concerns
should be taken offline.
Jamie Lynn Morgan, social media manager for Food Services of America (Spokane), advises her clients
to “handle every complaint delicately, but to always respond publicly”. She encourages businesses to
try and take the situation offline by asking the customer if they can call or email to resolve the issue.
This allows the company to assist the upset customer in the best way possible, without filling social
profiles with negative comments, while still showing other customers that the brand is responsive.
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7. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Delta Airlines has a few standard tweets that are used to lead
conversations offline. Scroll through the @DeltaAssist timeline
and you’ll likely find posts that say, “Let me see what I can do.
Can you DM the confirmation code?” or tweets that direct “Handle every complaint
people to specific phone numbers to get help from different delicately, but always respond
Delta departments. publicly.”
Trying to direct a customer to resolve an issue offline is a Jamie Lynn Morgan
great way to reduce the amount of negative or unfavorable
comments about your company online. However, it’s
important to assist customers as best you can online, if that’s
the platform in which they feel most comfortable communicating.
Everyone is an Influencer
For as long as there have been ways to measure someone’s online “influence”, brands have focused at
least part of their efforts on keeping the influential customers happy. While this can’t hurt, it’s
increasingly important that this strategy not come at the expense of everyone else.
Social Media influence measurement is not an exact science, and offline and online influence do not
correlate directly. Allowing your social team to make assumptions about someone’s worth to your
company based on these measures can be very problematic.
While keeping people with a loud online “voice” happy is a good idea, any attempts at prioritization
should consider the value a person represents as a customer first, and online influencer second. The
best rule of thumb is to treat everyone like an influencer, secret shopper, or “Undercover Boss”. Give
everyone an exceptional experience.
Chances are your influential customers do not significantly outspend the less socially celebrated, so the
cost of losing either is high, but collectively we do not act accordingly.
Summary
When developing your digital strategy, incorporating a strong social media team and putting processes
in place to handle delicate situations is a necessity. You want to ensure you are giving your customers
a reason to be brand advocates.
Here are some key points to make sure your company stands out from the competition when it comes
to using social media for customer support:
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8. How Social Media is Changing Customer Service
Train your team. Make sure they are brand advocates themselves, they know how to respond to
customer inquiries, and they have the necessary resources to solve problems.
Use the right tools. A social media management tool with help desk integration will ensure that
your team is well organized, aware of every mention, and has the right resources to respond.
Respond promptly. While some inquiries require more research than others, let your customers
know you’re looking into an issue. Leave those lines of communication open, rather than keep
your customers guessing.
Be human. The true power of social media lies in the fact that consumers can have closer
interactions with businesses. Your team’s personalities will be your greatest asset. Your
customers will respond best when they know they’re talking to a real person.
Treat everyone like an online influencer. Give all of your current and potential customers
exceptional service, regardless of online scores of influence.
Social media presents an incredible opportunity to connect with customers on a level never seen
before. Customers will only continue to use social media as a customer support platform and you
need to make sure your business is prepared to handle it.
For more information or to start your free 30-day trial, visit sproutsocial.com.
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FOOTNOTES:
1 http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2012/gcsb.aspx
2 http://www.amazon.com/At-Your-Service-Customers-Techniques/dp/1118217225/
ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340303848&sr=8-1&keywords=%40yourservice
3 http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/229000566
4 http://happycustomer.stellaservice.com/2012/05/30/most-customer-service-tweet
s-go-unanswered-within-24-hours/
5
Independent Study by Sprout Social

9. How Social
Media is
Changing
Customer
Service.