Is Social Media The New Customer Service Department?

Have you ever publicly voiced a complaint about a brand on social media just after going through a disappointing experience?

It’s the exact freedom of feedback we are discussing here. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the hot spots where customers mostly interact with businesses to raise their concerns or convey their positive feedback.

Social media has now become an ideal venue for getting companies to respond quickly. Over time it has been evident how people react to such issues. With a group of customers ready to join the protest with powerful posts and tweets, businesses have started considering the social media game seriously. Today, right from the birth of a brand everything it associates with is being social media-judged. Social media has given customers the right to kill or build a brand. For customers, voicing their concerns has never been easier.

So addressing whether social media is the new customer service department seems to be a debatable topic.

The success of every brand depends heavily on how well social media channels are managed and how relationships are cultivated with customers through them. Social media has a favorable impact on brand loyalty and sales. While social media platforms were primarily for personal usage, their increasing popularity has opened the doors to customer service as well. We all have been through a time when in business, customer service was a deeply neglected area. But thanks to social media the situation has become much better today. The customer support department is now accessible through social media channels.

In this blog, we'll talk about the major role social media is playing in customer service.

Content:

 

Through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, contact center agents provide assistance. It enables companies to immediately respond to inquiries and save the scenario from further escalations. There’s nothing more powerful than resolving an issue at the right moment. With social media, the instant communication feature has been enabled worldwide.

Social media platforms have developed to be more than just venues for marketing and advertising. Today, especially with the rise of conversational business, they are also real and significant avenues for consumers to receive trustworthy customer support. Providing omnichannel service via social media can be challenging for businesses in general. Smaller businesses might find it difficult to staff up to meet the ever-growing client demands whereas for large firms with high engagement levels, connecting with every contact can be tiresome. However, as there is a huge rise in queries, the business must adapt to keep up with the level.  Globally, 54% of people had a more favorable view of brands that responded to customer service questions or complaints on social media.

 

Beyond phone calls and emails, with comments, tweets, and live chats, social media is changing the customer experience game. Most of the young generation is available on one or the other social media. So, for them, it is quite natural to interact with brands in the same space. So as the axiom goes – be where your customers are, it becomes prudent to be present and support customers from the social media space. 

Unlike a call or email which is quite private, social media complaints are visible to all the visitors to your social page. So, handling such concerns is even more critical for the brand’s reputation.

C-Zentrix omnichannel contact center solution provides integration with all the popular social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. So, any comment, post, or mention can be routed to the agent. The agent can reply to the comment and guide the future discussion over Direct Message (DM). This ensures that the customer gets a quick response and future conversations are in a private space. Some standard template messages can be created by the brands so that it saves a lot of time for agents to respond.

Any business would benefit greatly from providing timely and helpful customer service, but this is especially true on social media sites. Along with call centers and chatbots, social media has also started showing a strong presence. Regardless of the medium, it’s advised to not miss a chance to interact with your potential clients.

 

The scope of customer service on social media platforms is greater than it is for traditional customer service. It offers a wide range of potential business development opportunities because it is more comprehensive and personalized. However, it requires a social media management platform in order to function correctly and realize its potential.

Publishing posts on social media isn’t it all. If they are not properly followed up, a chance to onboard a client is also lost. Remember how friendly customer service might seem through social media, at the same time it has its risk side too. Thus a comprehensive and well-organized strategy is required for proper management.

A lot of times, the customer who is reaching out over social media may have already reached your contact center over a phone call or email and the concerns were not sorted out. As a last resort, the customer has now posted on your social media page. By deploying C-Zentrix Omnichannel, it becomes a great help. You can view the customer’s previous journey/ past interactions and respond to the customer’s query over the social channel in a more informed way.

 

1. Quick Response

If you're going to offer customer service on social media, at the very least, you should ensure that you never leave a response unattended. A minor fault with customer service can affect your brand's reputation if you ignore it.

2. Don't remove or hide posts or comments

The only exception is when comments are spam or go against community rules that have been made public. Removing a customer's critical comment won't do anything but inflame them and sour the relationship.

3. Be patient

Keep in mind that the client reached out to you, despite being irate. Thank them for alerting you to their problem, expressing your concern, and apologizing for the difficulty.

Make use of technology to assist your contact center agents in sorting out numerous messages and brand mentions rather than relying on your team to manually find and flag issues. Contact center solutions that can be very beneficial here are AI and chatbots. Both can be used as a tool to improve the efficiency of your team. Throughout the journey, AI assists customers by directing them and responding to any inquiries or requests. Furthermore, it appears in the form of chatbots, and self-service for customers, ensuring a smooth customer experience.

 

Conclusion:

On social media, the customer has the most influence over a brand's reputation. On social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, ignoring conversations can have disastrous results. If your social media customer support side is not strong yet, then without a strategy or the right resources, you're inevitably letting the issues and worries raised by your queries mount up further. However, the tools and suggestions provided above can ensure that you're paying close attention to every customer and giving them a prompt response.

Why miss a prospect-filled channel, right?

Choosing where to concentrate and invest your time and resources is one of the first difficulties in offering excellent social media customer service. Your contact center agent must be accessible on the channels that your customers prefer to engage. For answering frequently asked questions and reducing the number of incoming messages, chatbots are fantastic. All you have to do is, integrate these solutions to strengthen your social media presence. The necessity for management and customer service is always there. The key is to be available whenever they need you.