Are you Ignoring Your Customers on Social Media?

Back in 2014, the author and CEO of Altimeter shared a tweet that struck with us for a long time. She tweets, “Twitter is not a technology. It’s a conversation. And it’s happening with or w/out you.” I mean, she described something that stands true now more than ever. Every social media is an interaction of its own. Instagram is like a photo journal, whereas Pinterest is a scrapbook. And in all these places, your customers are looking to be engaged. Social media engagement is no longer just a buzz phrase in the industry. It is actually a strategic process to deliver progress and attract customers.

Customers come in all forms on social media. While some will actively engage, tweet, comment or share, others are just lurking and consuming information. Either way, both parties are seeking value and engagement from your business. Customers are also reading product reviews, checking out influencer sponsorships and other interactive feedbacks about your products. Despite all that, customers are visiting your social pages, and if you are ignoring them, you are missing out on good prospects.

Your social media strategy doesn’t have to be a huge marketing gig. It can be a simple, humanized engagement as well. Something as simple as apologetically responding to negative comments can drive brand reputation up by 20%.

Many companies have their social media growing and their processes are disjointed. These companies often wonder how to have good customer service on social media. Well, it is all about patiently listening, proactively engaging, and delivering relevant messaging.

Why must you prioritize your Social Media Branding?

I cannot preach this enough that social media is the new marketplace. It is an essential extension to whatever platform you are selling your products on. Social media can essentially target potential customers and get them into your sales funnel. Based on personal experience, I usually find a brand on social media, check out their Instagram profile, and end up on their app. It is a common roadmap for many millennial and Gen-Z customers. It actually doesn’t matter whether it is TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook, all of them are extended marketplaces.

Social media allows your brand to exercise all your omnichannel marketing strategies. Every platform has inherent features that bring multiple advantages to all business owners. For example, Instagram allows you to set up a shop on your account and showcase all your products. Facebook does the same as well. Your brand must make use of these channels instead of letting them rot. Customers or prospects who are visiting your profile would expect this engagement without a doubt.

As we move into another year, the usage of social media will only go up. It is a lucrative extension to your business and missing out on it will be a huge novice move. Delivering on social media is cheaper than traditional practices. It is highly efficient, user-friendly, brand-optimized, and perfect for customer service. Good customer service is vital when handling customers in social media as certain posts can go viral and impact the brand’s reputation.

How to have good customer service with Social Media?

Providing good customer service on social media comes in three stages.

1 Observing:

There is a lot of chaos out there in social media. You have to patiently observe and listen to your prospects. You have to look past the trolls and analyze the negative and the positive comments. You have to track their tweets, hashtags, mentions, and other interactions with your brand. The ideal process is to either automate this analysis or dedicate a team for a social audit.

During the social audit, your social media team will also discover how often customers are engaging with your brand and what they think about you. It is always easier to do so with an automated tool. Popular tools like HootSuite, Later, Sprout, and more can easily monitor your accounts.

Once you start observing, ensure to segment the interactions and the audience accordingly. Not every customer will want the same thing. Some might be new visitors whereas others might be repeat customers. You must evaluate their behavior and intent and route them to the correct department.

2. Engaging:

Social media engagement can happen in various formats. From sharing content responding to each customer’s comments, every interaction is important. While some conversations can stay casual, others might need the exchange of sensitive information- in such cases, always route the customer to a more private channel like Direct Message (if possible)…

Despite these, engagement should be customer-centric. This is where you are offering the much-needed customer support in social media. After observing, it will be evident which customers have complaints, which prospects are a dead end, and who are happy. Accordingly, your customer support team can interact and bring home the beacon.

Promptness is highly expected in social media. While customers can wait for a day to get a response to an email, in the social media channels customers expect the response within hours. So a smart social media integration and a prompt team are essential to provide rapid response to your customers over social media.

Many times, customers might not message you but instead tag you on their stories or statuses. Acknowledging them can drive brand advocacy and encourage other lurking customers to take notes.

On social media, everything is public. Your one kind act or generosity will be noticed by millions who will keep your brand in their minds. Hence, it is a priority to be kind, understanding, and helpful on social media even when the customer is angry and frustrated.

3. Integration:

When you are exploring social media, you must consider the fact Mr.X is talking to your brand on Twitter and he might again talk to you on Facebook as well. Keeping your channels disjointed, creates a frictional experience for your customers and your agents. Finding customer information specific to every channel can turn out to be unmanageable as your business grows. Instead, an Omnichannel integration can seamlessly connect the channels on the agent’s dashboard and reveal all the information pertaining to one customer on every channel. The channels can be anything, be it social media or telephony.

With Omnichannel integration, you can generate personalized analytics based on your in-house KPIs and take action on it. Real-time monitoring and historical reporting will allow you to track your operational efficiency, customer well-being levels, and agent performance. All-in-all, this data will bring your team on track.

Conclusion:

Social media is here to stay. In fact, social media is expanding and with the metaverse looming outside the door, brands must establish their digital presence. As these technologies will improve, customers will seek a premium and cushioned experience on any medium they prefer. Lagging behind will only keep you from achieving what you set to achieve, i.e. happy customers.