How to Use Social Media for Customer Service

We used to call a hotline phone number or emailed an inquiry to customer service if ever we had concerns about brands. Those ways were okay and quite good but customer support is now on another level of convenience.

Brands have now harnessed the power of social media to entertain clients’ concerns. This bodes well for everyone involved. Customers now have the power to get in touch with companies through their mobile devices and businesses do not have to employ resource-intensive means like call centers and e-mail channels.

We all carry our smartphones and are part of at least one social media platform. If you think about it, calling a hotline or emailing a customer support channel feels like going out of your way. It would be more convenient if we could resolve all our customer support issues through social media. Thank God, that is now a reality.

What Is Social Media Customer Service?

Simply put, it is a customer support system done through various social media platforms.

Social media in customer service is a recent development in both social media and customer service. Social media in customer service assigns a brand’s customer service duties towards social media for the convenience of both the customer and the brand.

Social media customer service is still the same as customer service but is done through social media.

Before this, customers had to dial a hotline and talk to a call center agent about their concerns or send an email and wait for a reply. Now, all your customer issues can be handled on chat by a brand’s social media support team.

This interaction saves a brand a lot of resources and the customer a lot of time. Instead of a business spending a small fortune on outsourcing a call center agency, it can opt to use social media for the cost of peanuts or even for free.

Of course, there is still no substitute for old-fashioned human-to-human interaction for resolving customer complaints and issues, but social media will always be a good idea to complement any brand’s customer strategies.

Social media customer service jobs are becoming quite common because just one or a few people can now do the work of a big customer support team. A vast improvement from the expensive proposition of hiring a whole team of specialists. With the advent of social media as a customer service tool, everybody wins.

Ways to Use Social Media for Customer Service

If customer service on social media is the next best thing for catering to customers’ needs, then how do you as a brand use it? This section demonstrates how your brand can take advantage of this development that any brand big or small can use.

Let this list of social media customer service examples be your guide in how you can maximize social media for customer service:

Interact With Potential Customers

With more than half of the world being on social network apps, you can bet that you will find your ideal customers on social media.

Your brand’s social media account will naturally get customers’ queries now and then. These queries may not be enough for you to extract significant data.

Be sure your social media is set up to incorporate special customer service features that social media platforms offer to businesses.

Users’ engagement on your social media posts can be used as leads to follow. Social media customer support can follow up on users who have questions in the comments section by shooting them the answers through direct messages.

Ask Questions and Research Your Audience

The traffic of your audience directed to your customer service team should be put to optimum use.

With your customers’ consent, you can ask questions about your brand’s concerns. Survey how your customers feel about your product or service through questionnaires and other social media monitoring tools.

Any feedback your customers give should be treated as research to improve your brand.

Chat and other one-on-one interactions with customers are material to extract valuable information about many things surrounding your business. Archive these and make this the basis for your brand’s next move.

Customer service on social media is not only for resolving issues but also for knowing what direction your brand should take. 

Respond to Service Requests

Your brand’s customer support team should be keen on whatever service requests your customers may ask for on social media. 

Customer service on social media should not just be limited to receiving queries. Direct messages by customers are not the only way for you to see what your customers want.

Engagement through users’ comments, whether positive or negative, is a gold mine of information regarding what your clients want from you. All you need is a little insightfulness.

Even like and shares will tell you a lot. A favorable number of likes on a post about your brand means that your services are satisfactory. Take it as your clients’ request for better services if you do not get these likes and shares.

Be Helpful to Your Customers

This is the essence of social media customer service best practices. You set up social media customer support to be helpful before and after your clientele avails of your product or services.

This is how you show them that your brand has a genuine passion for what your brand does. That you care about your customers’ concerns demonstrates that you are not just about sales and conversion rates but also customer satisfaction.

Being helpful to your clientele ensures a lot of positive things for your brand because everybody appreciates excellent customer service.

Analyze Customer Expectations

Your customer interactions with customers hold a lot of clues about what they expect from your brand. All you need is a little understanding, and you will get to uncover many of your clients’ demands.

Customer service interactions with clients contain clear information about what they expect from your brand. Chatting and engagements with your clients are often about them directly telling you what they want. 

Make these interactions work for your brand by treating these chats and comments as your customers honestly telling you what they want from you.

Inspire Your Potential Clients

People who connect with your customer service should be treated as potential clients. Train your customer service to entice these people to try out your product or service.

Remember “ReSuRe” to inspire customer loyalty:

Response time – Always reply promptly.

Support – Have a genuine desire to help your existing and potential customers.

Respectful attitude – Always talk to clients in a respectful tone.

As long as your customer service inspires customer loyalty, your brand always has a shot at converting potential clients into fans that will support your business. 

Customer Service for Genuine Connection

Remember that a strong brand’s foundation is its purpose of helping people achieve their goals. Reliable customer service is paramount for this purpose.

Teach your customer service team the real importance of their job, to never lose sight of connecting and helping your customers. This way, you ensure that your brand gets to help as many people as possible.