Your customers are like oxygen to your business. They are the reason why your business still breathes. Without them, your business might lose its purpose and break down. So, it would be best if you did everything possible to retain them.
There are many ways to retain your customers, and one of them is by providing reliable customer support.
Most of your customers want to be heard – they need someone that will attend to them when they face any challenge with your product/services, and this is where social media customer support comes into play.
Since everyone, including your customers, are on social media. Why not consider extending your customer service to these platforms to retain and attract more customers?
This article will answer the question ‘what is social media customer support?’ and teach you how to build one as well as cover other critical areas you must know about social media customer support.
What Is Social Media Customer Support?
Social Media Customer Support is a practice or a system set up to provide customer service through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
If you own a company or a brand with a large following or audience, you might find it difficult to follow up with them without a proper customer support strategy.
There are different social media available, and each of them has its unique customer support strategy.
Facebook’s customer support strategy is different from that of Instagram. So, it is crucial to understand the customer support service that works for your business’s social media account.
Aside from that, most people would prefer to seek customer support from their most convenient social media platform.
So, it would help if you were everywhere.
Why Does Your Business Need To Integrate Social Media Customer Support?
Having reliable social media customer support is an excellent way to start a relationship with your prospects and let them know you love and care for them.
Your customers should always have somewhere to go or who to call/chat with whenever they have questions or encounter problems. This way, they find your brand reliable and trustworthy and will be willing to say positive things about your business. Your business gets more exposure while you make more revenue.
Interestingly, a Facebook report confirmed that customers preferred to type their complaints rather than call. So, integrating social media customer support makes that easy for your prospects.
Social media customer support allows you to respond to your customers more quickly and engage better with them.
Crucial Social Media Customer Support Tools
Below are some tools that make customer service easier;
CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a customer support tool that you can use to communicate with your prospect over the cloud using just an internet connection. It has many features like IP telephony, VoIP, etc. With this tool, you don’t have to go through the stress of getting a traditional landline for your business.
Zendesk
This tool makes the creation and editing of tickets easier for your customer support team.
Automat is a bot that handles conversations with your prospects until customer care is available.
There are many other tools to make your customer service more accessible. You only need to identify your ideal needs when choosing them.
How To Build Social Media Customer Support?
It would help if you considered building them since you are now aware of what you gain from building social media customer support.
Creating social media customer support follows a general rule, even if each social media account has its unique approach.
Build A Different Social Media Handle For Your Customer Support
It won’t cost you a dime to dedicate a unique handle for your customer support service.
Doing this will make customer support service more accessible and faster. It would help you filter and quickly track down your clients’/prospects’ queries.
So, it is crucial to have a customer service support team who handles the customer support handles. Also, ensure that all your prospects’ queries are directed to the customer support team.
You can place these customers’ support social media handles on your central brand bio so that customers can always refer to them when they need your assistance.
This process can be repeated on all your brand’s social media platforms.
Monitor Conversation Related To Your Brand
You need to know what people say about your brand or monitor conversations surrounding your brand.
This approach will help you understand your customers better and let you know what they sincerely feel about your brand.
Being aware of this will help quickly identify your business loopholes if there are any. However, you might be wondering how this is possible.
It only requires using social media monitoring tools like Hootsuite Insights, Talkwalker, Mentionlytics, Tweepsmap, Reputology, etc.
These media monitoring tools help you track what people are saying about your brand using keywords, hashtags, and mentions that are relevant to your industry.
Your customer support team can also help you do this manually, but it is not advisable because of time consumption.
Have A Social Media Guideline For Your Customer Support Team
A social media guideline that clearly states how your customer support team should act will save a lot of mess.
For instance, some customers might piss your support team off, but if the guideline states that they should be patient, conflict is avoided, and your brand reputation is protected.
The guideline should also cover important aspects like; the tone of voice, message approval procedure, answer to frequently asked questions, response time, and protocol for escalations, among others.
Overall, you should ensure the guideline aligns with your company’s values.
Always Respond
Many companies still fail to follow this rule, as simple as it sounds.
Even the most stupid questions should be answered because responding to all questions creates an impression that you will always be there for your customers.
Responding to messages doesn’t end your support mailbox but extends to your social media comment section.
You should always do this to avoid losing your prospects to your competitors.
Respond Quickly
I doubt there is a better way to show that you are always available than responding quickly.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you need a product urgently from a vendor, but you move to another vendor just because you didn’t get a response on time?
Yes, it happens to me a lot, and I guess you too,
So, you need to respond fast to avoid losing your clients to your competitors continuously.
If your customer support team cannot be available 24/7, you should try to integrate Chatbots that keep your customer engaged until someone attends to them.
Conclusion
Social Media Customer support is an essential aspect of your business that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Treating your customers right will only attract more customers.
So ensure you use the guide in this article to build excellent social media customer support.
Also, ensure that you share this article with your colleagues online who might be interested in learning about social media customer support.
About the Author
Vibhu Dhariwal is Co-Founder & Director of Marketing at Digital Gratified, a Digital Marketing & Web Development company. He likes sharing his experience in outreach marketing, link building, content marketing, and SEO with readers. To know more about him, you can connect with him on LinkedIn.
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