Did you know that a Social media customer service plan is important? Well, you should. It’s a fact that social media marketing practices have taken over all other conventional marketing mediums from the past few years, and brands and constantly working towards improving their social media marketing. Not only is it convenient and cost-effective, but it also lets the brand interact with the customer directly.
Social media marketing has enabled brands to enhance their communication with direct engagement, which has also empowered customers around the globe. People can now ask questions, post queries, contact, and get information within seconds about any brand or product that they are interested in.
For customers, it is convenient to reach out to brands using social media channels as it is accessible and immediate. Having a social media customer plan isn’t entirely similar to a social media marketing plan, and most people tend to overlook this aspect.
Having a good relationship with your customer and responding to their queries can help your brand succeed massively. Your customer is your most prized entity in a business, which is why you must work on providing adequate customer support for your audience.
Let’s have a look at a few stats highlighting the importance of customer engagement:
1. More than 80% of customers use social to engage with brands. (Forrester)
2. About 60% of customers who put a query on social media expect a response within an hour. (Go Globe)
3. You can increase the churn rate by 15% if you don’t respond to customer queries on social media.
Importance of Social Customer Care
The way you interact and respond to your customers defines your brand image and determines the success rate of a brand. The customer experience defines a lot of things for a business, including a direct impact on sales, churn rate, popularity, etc.
A customer is always going to remember the way they got treated at any grocery store or a shoe store, which is now similar on social media in terms of customer queries and emails. When a customer walks into your store, you try to assist them as well as you can and answer their queries similarly; on social media, if people are inquiring information, then you must be actively responding to them.
As per stats, only half of the queries are answered on social media, which causes dissatisfaction of customers or loss of a potential client base. Answering customer queries showcases how you value your customers and gives them a feeling of being heard.
If you answer only a few queries on your social media, then that conveys a message that you are least interested in your customers and is considered poor customer service. You definitely don’t want to put your brand’s reputation at risk.
What Kind Of Tools Are Available For Customer Services?
There are several online tools available; however, the choice you make about the tools entirely depends on the size of your business and the number of queries you receive. There are several tools that are free of cost but only have a limited number of features, so that would be suitable for a new or small business.
However, if you’re a well-known, established brand and receive frequent queries on a daily basis, then you must invest in better tools.
Social Media Management Tools
Manually answering all the queries and looking for each message on different platforms can be time-consuming and ineffective. This is why you must look for tools that can help you monitor all the incoming queries in one place so they can be responded to as soon as possible.
Recently Facebook has introduced a new feature that merges all your inbox so you can have a look without having to switch apps. You can now have a look at your Facebook posts, Instagram Direct, Instagram comments, and Messenger in a single view, which makes the job easier.
For Facebook Messenger, you can also set up a chatbot depending on the type of queries you receive. An automated message can also be sent to your audience if you’re away or if the query has been made in times other than working hours.
Having a Team
Although there are multiple tools and bots to manage the FAQs, to give your customers a better experience, you can hire a team of individuals who can respond to customer queries. No robot or AI system can replace real human beings and the way they can accommodate queries.
However, you must first analyze the number of queries you receive daily before hiring a team to respond to the questions. If the number of queries is high, then a team could be helpful in resolving the matters.
Guidelines
If multiple people are managing your social media platforms, then it is essential to train them on handling the queries. It is possible that each individual treats queries differently, which can create a mess for your business.
You must create a standard guideline for the team so they are all on the same page. You may include the following aspects in your guideline:
1. The voice and tone to be used
2. Response time for each social channel
3. How to answer FAQs
4. Standardized protocols on specific customer complaints
Implementation of Social Media Customer Service
The audience of today is smarter than before, and people notice how brands deal with their customers online. The customer is empowered enough to defame your brand on social media in case they face an issue unresolved.
Other than that, people now share their opinions publicly and convey them to their friends, family, or social media followers if they are not satisfied with the services of a particular brand. This is why you must stay aware of the consequences that you might have to face in case of poor social media customer service.
You must also keep in mind that there are a few issues that you cannot address or resolve over DMs or post comments. Identify when you need to take the matter off social media and respond to it via email or a phone call.
Wrapping it up
Whether you have an app that tell prayer timings or an E-commerce store, you need customer service. If you are currently not following a social media customer service plan, then now is the time to work on one as it is super important for the growth of your business and will help you improve your relationship with your clients.
Watch this space for updates in the Hacks category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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