Over time, digitalization and globalization have made companies' products and services increasingly interchangeable. Companies need to differentiate themselves through innovative business models, unique customer experiences, or superior customer service to gain a competitive advantage.
Today, social media customer service is no longer optional - it is an absolute necessity to run a successful business and build customer relationships. In the world of likes, shares, and comments, social customer service is a critical component of your business success. But why is it so important? Let's take a look!
Why is social customer service important?
In the age of social networking, your customers expect fast, transparent, and customer-focused interaction on a platform they already use every day. This is where social customer service comes in. It's not just a place to solve problems, it's an opportunity to strengthen your brand, build trust, and increase customer loyalty.
Several studies show that customers are most likely to become "fans" of a brand or company and recommend it to others if the customer service experience is right.
Figure 1: Why are you a fan of a company? (Source: PIDAS Benchmark Study)
With the advent of digital transformation, the customer service landscape has changed dramatically. Consumers are constantly online through mobile devices, are predominantly active on social media, and are increasingly using these channels to communicate with companies. They are also demanding that companies extend customer service to these channels and have become increasingly demanding, especially in terms of response and handling times. While Instagram and Facebook used to be the main channels for customer service on social media, more and more customers now expect a problem to be solved on WhatsApp.
We have summarized the most important measures for holistic and successful customer service in social media into three topic blocks:
- Internal Organization - Preparation and Implementation
- Dealing with customers and prospects
- Dealing with networks
For a sneak peek, you can read the first block in this blog post. For a complete overview of social customer care, we recommend that you download the white paper, which contains the other two topic blocks.
Internal organization - Preparation and Implementation
💡Create a strategy
Before adding new channels such as networks and platforms to your existing communication and service channels, it is advisable to develop a strategy for each channel. In this strategy, you define what your goals are, who your target audience is, and how you want your brand to appear on that channel. Also create a resource plan and define clear responsibilities and dependencies. As part of this strategy, it may also be useful to create a phased plan to approach the development of another service channel in a structured way.
🔎Which channels should you build?
As a company, you must answer this question based on your unique needs. The use of social media and service or communication channels depends strongly on your environment and, in particular, on your company's target group. Before integrating new channels into your communication strategy, you should analyze your target group and find out which channels they mainly use. It is also important to understand how and why they use these channels. Conduct these analyses regularly to ensure that your service offering is tailored to your target audience.
💬 Inform your employees
It is important to keep your employees in the loop when developing and then introducing new service and communication channels. Inform them internally about new channels as well as the strategy and objectives on which the respective channel is based. This approach creates a solid basis of understanding for the channels and sets forth a framework for how each individual channel is treated within your communication strategy. Define clear roles and responsibilities and specify contact persons for the different channels.
Moreover, give your employees an insight into the publication plan for your social media channels and campaigns, so that your team can prepare for any questions and reactions.
📚Train your employees
Especially when introducing new service and communication channels, etiquette and language must be adapted and often re-learned or retested. Create a communication framework and train employees on how to use each channel. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and WhatsApp may each have their own tone.
It can be helpful to analyze your competitors' activities and work out do's and don'ts. Regular communication with your employees is important. Find out what works well and what doesn't, and incorporate these findings into future training sessions or workshops.
The results of such trainings and workshops should then be made available to all employees in a central location to promote a common understanding and make interesting insights available to everyone.
📊Measure the Success of Service Channels
Measure the success of your service channels on a regular basis to ensure you are providing the right channels for your customers. This will help you avoid missing trends and developments. You can also use performance measurement to further optimize your channels and improve customer service. Key metrics for measuring success include:
- Volume of inquiries
- Response time per agent
- Inquiry handling time
- Customer satisfaction
You can create short surveys or evaluations to determine customers' opinions.
Conclusion: making social customer service successful
Social media has become hugely important in customer service and is an indispensable tool. Social media is no longer just a place for social interaction, but also a one-stop shop for customer questions, feedback, and support.
Overall, social media is playing a central role in customer service, allowing customers to communicate with companies in a convenient way, while providing companies with the opportunity to better understand their customers and continuously improve their service quality. Companies that recognise this importance and invest in their social media customer service strategies can reap the long-term benefits of happier customers and a positive reputation.
For more tips on social media customer service, check out our blog post: 10+1 tips for successful social customer service.
Or download the full white paper, 'Successfully Designing Digital Customer Service' for free.
Bonus:
Do you want to better organise your entire customer service, structure different social media channels optimally for your employees, use automated response templates and ensure that every request is answered as quickly as possible and without overlap? Then get in touch with Facelift and let us show you what we can do for you.
