Best Practices for Social Media-Driven Customer Service

Today’s consumer expects to connect with companies online for customer service, and they’re not just using phone calls and emails to reach out. Social networks have become major outlets for customer compliments, questions, and complaints.

Keeping up with customer service queries that come to your social media inboxes can be overwhelming on top of the emails and calls you receive. Add to that overload are the comments that are on display for everyone to see on your Facebook page or other social media accounts that create a greater sense of urgency to handle.

Here are some ways to manage customer service activities more efficiently and effectively on your social media accounts.

1. Use a social media dashboard. If you are managing multiple social media channels, a dashboard tool such as Hootsuite or Social Sprout can help you see all the messages in one place. Their pro versions let you bring in additional team member to monitor and respond as well as assign tasks to others and track the status of each issue.
   
2. Compile and publish an FAQ. As you get messages from customers, look for questions or comments that keep coming up. Use that information to craft a Frequently Asked Questions page and publish it on your website.
   
3. Add an autoresponder. Facebook lets you add an autoresponder to your page’s inbox. Use it to provide your hours or operation when you might be checking messages, the approximate amount of time it will take for you to respond to set expectations, and link to your FAQ to help answer commonly asked questions. Make sure you have the resources to respond within the timeframe you’ve outlined in your autoresponder.
   
4. Assess public comments. Look over the comments you are seeing on your social media posts or Facebook Wall and determine which need a response of some kind versus which require further action. Hit the Like button on positive comments to acknowledge you’ve seen it. For negative comments, acknowledge them respectfully and ask them to connect with you in private messages. The sooner you can communicate with them privately and directly, the better customer service you can provide.
   
5. Establish a procedure for escalation. Some customer service queries can be handled by simply providing the information requested. For complaints, you need a clear way of determining which need additional attention or a specific remedy. If you have others on your team helping with customer service, provide a training with clear instructions on how to respond to an unhappy customer.

The interactions you and your team have while providing customer service online can provide valuable insights into your company’s products and services. Analyze what issues are cropping up most often and determine if there are ways to address the issues. This could be anything from improving product features to refining the services you offer or any other change you can make that increases efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.

In summary, to manage customer service activities in social media successfully, you should:

• Set up a clear process for handling questions, comments, and complaints.
• Write and distribute a document outlining procedures for handling issues.
• Use the right tool including a social media dashboard for monitoring and managing communications.
• Establish remedies for issues, especially those that require escalation.

The main goal of your social media-based customer service activities is to supplement your efforts to respond to customer needs in an efficient and timely manner. More than anything, you should be looking to turn negative experiences into positive ones, or better yet, use social media to help keep small issues from becoming bigger ones.