We don't want to be a bummer already, but even though the holidays are just beginning for many of us, when it comes to your business, it helps to prepare your holiday customer service when the season of giving becomes the season of giving back.
The stockings are emptied, and the tree now stands above a sea of ripped paper, discarded bows, and more than a couple of LEGO men have already lost their heads. The gifts have been handed out, and everyone is wearing their brightest smiles, thankful for friends and family and their excellent presents.
Or so we would all like to imagine.
Unfortunately, and for countless reasons, millions of gifts are returned to the stores they came from in the final week of December and the beginning of January. In fact, according to Forbes, more than a third of all gift recipients expect to return some of their gifts this holiday season.
The past couple of years have been very different and highly challenging, not to mention transformative for e-commerce and online shopping, and we can expect to see this trend continue into 2024.
What this means for your social media customer service teams
We know you don't want to think about this already, but because of these facts and figures, it pays to be prepared for what may come.
As you undoubtedly know, post-Christmas returns can be an absolute deluge for your customer service teams, still reeling from that final wave of last-minute shoppers and procrastinating dads.
Today, around 90% of businesses maintain some form of social media pages, and approximately 77% of messages to a company's social pages are for customer service purposes.
Since your social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, will serve as primary points of contact between your company and your customers, it is essential that customer service can put its best foot forward digitally.
Following Christmas, the process of returning unwanted gifts is generally not a cheery one. Lost gift receipts, no gift receipts, missing chargers, cut tags, and other small and large misfortunes make a frustrating two-or-so-week period all the worse.
The key to succeeding without allowing your customer service teams to become bogged down is working through an optimized moderation process.
And, of course, Facelift is here to help! We've got several ways to help you optimize your day-to-day community management flow, take stock of performance, customer satisfaction, and more - even during peak insanity.
How to help optimize holiday customer service
We've created content with the express purpose of helping your social media community management personnel reach their full potential and make their lives easier.
The first is our community management checklist. With this list, you can have a convenient daily overview of your social media tasks that will help keep your team ahead of the craze this winter and maintain a high degree of quality customer service without getting bogged down or frustrated.
You can download this for free right here.
What can you do if something goes really, really wrong?
First, don't panic. Second, read our guide to crisis management on social media. It's not specific to the holidays, but it can't hurt to be prepared for the worst during one of the most tumultuous times of the year. Grab our guide to crisis management on social media for free here.
You can discover more about how to defend your brand on social media without looking terrible by reading two more guides:
- How to Respond to Negative Comments in Social Media Customer Service
- How Not to Scream at Your Customers on Social Media
Lastly, we created pre-made customer service response templates that your team can use and customize according to your brand tone and values. You can download these customer service templates here for free and copy and paste the responses into your channels as needed. The templates are created by native English speakers and are culturally sensitive.
How Facelift can help
We'll help you keep things clear from the start.
Our number one goal is keeping our readers and clients on track year-round with their social media efforts.
Facelift is an all-in-one social media management solution that will help you take control over your customer service even during the craziest times.
Facelift can help you:
- Manage all incoming messages across your social media platforms from one convenient place and even sort them by responsible team member.
- Our comprehensive analytics dashboard gives you an overall feel for your customers or followers.
- Plan and schedule all content across as many channels as you need.
- Ensure the right people handle holiday customer service on social media at the right times with custom user management settings.
Facelift can do all of this and much more, and to get a better picture of how it could help your business, schedule a demo with one of our product experts.
