We’ve talked about how social media and inbound marketing can build up your business. It can build your reputation and help increase sales and so much more. We also know that social media sites are today’s breeding ground for public thought. It is where peers congregate to share opinions, ideas, innovations, and experiences. Social media has truly opened up a whole new world for marketing and sales.
It doesn’t just open doors; it creates them.
One of the most important things that social media can help us with is our customer service. If you can utilize social sites and do it well, you can rise to the top of your customer service game.
Social Media Today came up with a list of ten ways social media can improve your customer service and we would like to talk about our six favorites.
~Blog Your Service: Blogs not only record our thoughts and opinions, but also create an atmosphere to communicate, educate and motivate the current and future generations. These short blurbs of info become a new type of education, one based in learning from other peoples’ experiences. As a CMO, this is vital in building up business because people want what they know will work. It makes sense that you use your blog to help your customers. When you have successfully solved a customer problem, blog about it so that others can read about your solution. By utilizing a customer service tag on these types of blogs, your followers can look back at all of your problem solving and resolutions. Social Media Today described this as a FAQ with more personality and storytelling.
~Keep Your Ears Open and Be Proactive: You can’t just sit around and wait for stuff to happen. Social media allows you to see exactly what people are writing about, especially in regards to complaints lodged against you. Social media monitoring software helps to seek out potential issues before they come to you. We know that this is a great way to monitor your brand name, but we should also be searching key words like “issues” and “problems” in order to keep up to date on what the customers are feeling. That way, we can seek them out before they contact us.
~Learn From Repeat Problems: It is always a good idea to keep a list of frequent issues in order to look for patterns. We’ve talked before about how we have to look at failures as learning opportunities. This is no different. If a problem is occurring regularly, it must be addressed as soon as possible. This gives you another reason to monitor social sites so that you remain at the top of your customer service game.
~Keep an Eye on Competitors: Social media sites have made it incredibly easy for us to keep an eye on our competition and learn from the good and bad things they do. When you monitor your competitors for similar customer issues that you are dealing with will show you both good tips for helping and things to avoid. It is also a good idea to check out their customer service streams so you can see issues you have yet to encounter but might in the future. Better to get a head start on fixing the bugs before complaints start flooding your inbox.
~Respond Now: Twitter is incredibly fast and easy to use—same goes with most of the social sites we use. When a customer ask a question or comment with ideas, it is best to respond as quickly as possible. Doing this shows your followers that you care about their voice and want to help fix their issues. You should be responding within 24 hours or less if possible. We live in a world of instant gratification and our customers expect nothing less.
~Ask For and Encourage Feedback: Social media is great for customers telling you what they like and don’t like. If you do not ask for feedback, they won’t give it the way you want it. Regularly asking for customer feedback is a must! When you start to see patterns in the comments, then you know it is time to update or resolve. Basically, the more feedback you can get, the better!
These are just some of the many ways that social media can improve your customer service skills. It is always a good idea to stay up to date on all of the social sites and constantly check for audience comments. You will definitely see positive results.
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