Customer behavior has changed drastically with the times, with most customers preferring social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., as platforms for researching a company’s products and services, airing complaints, and problem resolution.
With instant access by a global audience of billions, just one social media post can affect a company’s reputation, stock value, and income.
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This is why responding to social media posts and providing customer care immediately and effectively is extremely important. Several levels of escalation and resolution options must be clear to all customer care personnel to effectively answer customer queries and negative reviews.
This blog post will explore the importance of providing seamless social media customer care.
We will also offer some practical tips and best practices and recommend software to help you. You may also want to start with an overview of social media eCommerce marketing.
Source: Pexels
The Survey Said …
Let us look at some current stats. As compiled by Hubspot, one of our approved partners, the following social media stats should make businesses sit up and take notice:
- 34% of customers use social media to learn about or discover new products, services, or brands.
- 51.7% of consumers expect a response to their negative review within 7 days.
- It is 12 times cheaper to handle customer service requests via social media channels than handling them by phone.
- When companies do not respond to social media comments, the churn rate (customers leaving your brand or service) increases by 15%.
- As much as a 25% increase in customer advocacy is achieved by simply answering a social media complaint.
- The effect of online reviews is drastic - 94% of consumers say a negative review has convinced them to avoid a business altogether.
Tips for Social Media Customer Care
The above stats indicate the importance of good social media customer care. The following are some common strategies and best practices for planning and implementing this:
- Canned Response Personalization: Tailoring pre-written customer service responses increases engagement and customer satisfaction.
- Clear Customer Service Expectations: Setting clear expectations for social media customer service hours, response times, and the types of issues your team can address ensures clarity and efficiency.
- Customer Feedback Monitoring: Utilizing social listening tools to identify customer concerns and learn from negative feedback helps you improve your products and services.
- Customer Service Audits (Social): Conducting regular assessments of your social media customer service performance identifies improvement areas and ensures you meet customer needs.
- Customer Service Tracking (Internal): Implementing a system to track all customer interactions on social media and ensure no missed requests often leads to improved customer satisfaction.
- Dedicated Support Channel: Creating a separate social media handle specifically dedicated to customer support makes it easier for customers to identify, access, and interact with.
- Escalation Strategy: Developing a clear plan for handling complex or sensitive customer issues ensures a smooth resolution process, particularly regarding tricky legal or geopolitical issues.
- Personalized Service: Beyond automated responses, offering personalized service can make customers feel valued. You can also apply mindfulness in customer service as a philosophy.
- Quick Inquiry Response: Aiming to respond to customer inquiries and complaints within 1 hour demonstrates that you value their time and concerns.
- Regular Customer Interaction: Regularly interacting with customers on social media helps build trust and relationships and fosters a positive brand image.
- Self-Service Help Center: Offering a resource on your website or social media platform where customers can independently find answers to common questions drastically reduces the burden on your customer service team.
- Social Content Education: Utilizing social media content (e.g., tutorials, FAQs) to educate customers about your products or services empowers them for self-service while reducing support inquiries.
- Social Media Guidelines: Developing clear guidelines for your team on tone, language, and proper responses ensures consistent, professional, and positive customer service interactions.
- Social Media Management Tools: Leveraging social media management tools streamlines workflows for monitoring customer mentions, routing inquiries to appropriate agents, and reporting on customer service performance.
- Standardized Brand Voice: Maintaining a consistent brand voice across all social media interactions helps build brand identity, brand recognition, and trust with your audience.
- Team Training (Social Media): Ensuring your customer service team is well-trained in social media best practices, customer service etiquette, and your brand's specific tone and messaging to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Putting Out Fires - Effective Crisis Management
As we all know, just one negative review can cause 94% of consumers to avoid your business altogether. Imagine how much more damage angry customers and crises can cause to your bottom line!
This happens to all businesses sooner or later—whether complaints are real or contrived, we must always be ready with a plan to put out potential fires.
Interestingly, customer behavior psychology is fast becoming an essential part of the future of psychology careers. Here are some tips and strategies to effectively manage crises:
1. Social media crisis communication plan development
- Team Identification: Identify who will monitor, respond, and escalate messages during a crisis.
- Communication Guidelines Establishment: Set clear protocols for when and how to respond, ensuring consistent messaging and brand voice.
- Pre-Written Response Preparation: Draft templates for common crisis scenarios to expedite communication while allowing for personalization.
2. Social media monitoring for potential issues and negative sentiment
- Social Listening Tool Utilization: Leverage software to track brand mentions, identify emerging issues, and gauge overall sentiment towards your brand.
- Two-Way Communication Encouragement: Respond to comments and messages, even if they're negative. Acknowledge concerns and demonstrate a willingness to listen.
- Trending Topics Awareness: Monitor trending hashtags and discussions to identify potential crises before they escalate.
3. Crisis situation response
- Prompt Issue Address: Don't shy away from negative feedback. Aim for a swift response time to show you take customer concerns seriously.
- Honesty and Transparency: Provide clear and truthful information, even if it's not what customers want to hear. Avoid making excuses or sugarcoating the situation.
- Solution Offering and Ownership: Outline steps you're taking to resolve the issue and demonstrate your commitment to making things right.
4. De-escalation of angry customers and mitigation of negative publicity
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- Empathy and Frustration Acknowledgment: Show understanding of customer emotions and validate their concerns.
- Resolution Focus (Not Defense): Prioritize finding a solution over defending your brand or blaming others.
- Offline Conversation Move (if necessary): For complex or sensitive situations, offer to take the conversation to a private channel (direct message or email) to avoid further public escalation.
5. Social media crisis learning for improved future communication
- Post-Crisis Review Conduct: Analyze how the crisis unfolded and identify areas for improvement in your communication strategy.
- Crisis Communication Plan Update: Refine your plan based on lessons learned to ensure a more effective response in the future.
- Trust Building Through Experience: Demonstrate that you're taking customer feedback seriously and making changes to improve communication.
Source: POWR
Software Tools
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Several software tools, including those from our approved partners, can help you manage social media communication and customer care. You can control the degree of automation and personalization and pattern your responses according to your crisis management plan.
Here are some software from our affiliate partners you can try out:
- Ownr is an all-in-one platform that offers features like registration, incorporation, legal document creation, employee management, and ongoing compliance assistance – all in one place. They also boast affordable pricing, helpful support, and access to exclusive savings programs.
- Social5 uses advanced software and AI-powered content distribution to help small and medium businesses manage their social media presence. Their platform is designed to be scalable and adapt to your needs.
- SocialPilot is an all-in-one solution for various social media platforms that caters to marketers of all sizes and offers a comprehensive suite of social media management and engagement tools. You can connect various accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more, to schedule posts, generate content ideas, analyze performance, and collaborate with your team.
- Predis is an AI-powered marketing tool that creates visually engaging social media content (videos and images) for businesses. It is also an AI-powered content creation and scheduling tool that offers scheduling and analytics tools to help you manage your social media presence across different platforms.
You may also research more software on the market to help you find the best fit for your needs.
For example, if you need more functionalities in contract management, you may be interested in contract management system examples to help you draft both employee and customer contracts.
Conclusion
Customer complaints are a fact of life, and we will always get some sort of complaint at one time or another about our products, services, brand image, employees, and many aspects of our business.
However, it is important to stay on top of these via an efficient and personalized social media customer care strategy. A dedicated team and well-planned responses and options help de-escalate potential problem situations and help keep a positive brand image. Good luck!
Author Bio
Jay is an SEO Specialist with five years of experience, specializing in digital marketing, HTML, keyword optimization, meta descriptions, and Google Analytics. A proven track record of executing high-impact campaigns to enhance the online presence of emerging brands. Adept at collaborating with cross-functional teams and clients to refine content strategy. Currently working with Tecuy Media.
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