Social media has completely revolutionized brand strategies and its communications. Owing to the growing use of social media all over the world, brands are required to change their communication strategies with customers. There are roughly around 2.08 billion social media accounts which make it 29% of the world’s population who are actively using social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.
This increased digital activity has disrupted the original communication landscape entirely. Not only are these sites easily accessible on devices such as cell phones and tablets, these handy devices have made it very convenient for users to access their social media accounts anywhere.
Over the years, social media websites are becoming exceedingly popular. The kinds of services they provide to the users have hooked them to social media. Brands need to be aware of this global movement towards the digital age in order to adapt to the new environment or else risk losing their share in the global consumer market.
Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have allowed customers to share their experience with a particular brand and its product with a mass audience. Also, existing customers and even potential customers can reach out to the brands on their social media pages to post any complaints regarding their product or company. People are reported to lodge their complaints on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, around 879 million times a year.Of these 879 million complaints, 289 million go unanswered, making it a whopping 32.8%.
These unanswered and unresolved complaints have a detrimental effect on the the brand’s reputation and overall business. The reputation of your company is compromised and left in tatters because of the negative publicity that your customer is likely to spread as a result of a bad experience or poor service. As for the overall business, it suffers because customers are less likely to buy from them because of unanswered complaints on social media. In fact, a consumer study reports that if a company ignores its customers on social media or leaves their complaints unanswered, 45% of them said to feel anger while 27.1% went further and claimed that they would stop buying from that brand.
Thus, it is extremely important for brands to respond to their customers and take action as quickly as possible on social media.
Why Customers Are Turning to Social Customer Service
Customer service has long been a part of businesses and organizations. However, the rise of social media culture has resulted in quite some transformation in customer service. In today’s world, where almost everything is only two steps away, customer’s insistence for instant response from brands and their customer service department is totally understandable.
The 21st century customers are extremely smart and clever. Social media and various other online channels, with their vast influence and domination all over the world, have allowed the customers to demand an honest, authentic and above all, quick response from brands. It is no longer a passing fad and needs to be taken seriously.
People today, instantly hop on to their social media accounts or their blogs to post complaints regarding a bad experience with a company or its product or service. Whether it is a poor internet service or stale fries from McDonald’s, customers are quick to locate the company’s Facebook page and Twitter handle and directly complain to them. If not that, customers share their terrible experience with their followers and friends on social media accounts or even post on online groups and forums.
Here are some reasons as to why customers have turned their focus to social media to get an instant response from companies and brands regarding any issues they are facing with their product or service.
1.Social media is convenient:
The most important benefit of seeking social media service is that it offers exceptional convenience to customers. Cell phones have allowed for easy access to connect to social media accounts. Mobile users are estimated to be growing by 12 users every second. This ease of access and convenience is unmatched to any other customer service channel.
2.Social media offers unparalleled influence:
The unparalleled influence of social media has empowered customers. Since the posts are visible to almost everyone, customers can easily gain support from other customers. Especially, a negative experience has the potential to go viral. This pressurizes the representatives of the brands to take a quick and positive action.
3.Social media is quick and effective:
Before social media was introduced, customers had to seek customer service through email, phones or even pay a visit to the customer service centers. Email and telephone response could take a lot of time. However, with social media, responses to customer queries have become quicker and much more effective.
Thus, social media has proven to be an easy and effortless way for customers to gain the attention of brands and their customer service department. This is because brands are left with no other choice other than to cater to customer expectations of a quick and efficient customer service or otherwise risk the effects of bad publicity.
How to Respond to Customers on Social Media
During the time when customer social service was still relatively a new thing customers sought social customer service, they would be pleasantly surprised if the company answered their question or resolved their problems. Today, social customer service is becoming such a norm that if a company fails to answer customer queries on social media, they face a backlash, not only from the customers but the wider community.
Customers have indeed been turning to social media to seek customer service which means that brands need to adjust their strategies and turn to social media as well. While most of the companies do understand the pivotal role of social media tools in the marketing arena and have effectively adopted them, only a mere 41% of those companies use social media for customer service and customer engagement.
It is important to turn to your customers for your marketing and customer service strategies. Thus, all brands and their marketing team needs to keep up with customer service queries on social media platforms.
Having established the importance of a quick and efficient response to customer queries on social media, this article will discuss how your customer service team should respond to the customers on social media, particularly the angry customers.The way you choose to respond to your customers on social media can be the defining factor for your company’s future success.
1.Establish a separate account for customer service:
Many companies and brands have a separate account on social media dedicated to provide support and customer service to customers. For instance, Nike has a separate customer service account on Twitter with a separate Twitter handle called @NikeSupport.
This will not only make it easier for your staff to handle customer queries and complaints, but customers also find it a better and easier way to get in touch. This allows for quick replies and makes the customers realize that they are thought for and cared for by the company.
2.Track complaints and issues to address:
Oftentimes customers do not address their complaints or issues directly to the company or brand. They may prefer to write a review on Amazon, Yelp or some other social media group, depending upon the nature of your business and product.
Anyhow, you need to set up Google Alerts and monitor these social media websites closely. Twitter allows you to track mentions to your brand by customers. Thus, you should use social media to spot negative mentions by customers and resolve them before they become a big fiasco.
3.Respond fast, but not too fast:
A delayed response is likely to cause a fiasco and may leave your brand’s name in shambles. Thus, complaints on social media require you to act quickly. This is because you need to show your customers that they have your attention and that you are looking into ways to resolve their issues. Thanks to social media, customers now expect an instant and immediate response from brands. Ferrari and Xbox are amongst some of the brands that are known to respond to their customers Facebook queries and complaints within an hour on average.
However, a quick response does not mean that you reply to the customers without thinking through and understanding their issues. It will only worsen the problem at hand if your response is not accurate and lacks understanding of the issue at hand. Thus, tell your social media staff to take some time and think of a suitable reply before responding.
4.Show empathy and take responsibility:
When your customers make a complaint on social media, you need to show them genuine empathy as well as apologize on behalf of the company. Saying, ‘we are extremely sorry for the trouble we caused and would look into your issue and resolve it as soon as possible’ or something within these lines is going to pacify your customers and make them feel heard.
Thereby, a little empathy and responsibility makes the customers happy and satisfied that their complaint was heard and is in the process to be resolved. Delta airline is known to apologize to its customers for any inconvenience caused over social media networks such as twitter.
5.Personalize your response:
Having a personal touch to your response on social media is extremely important as it humanizes your brand in the customer’s eyes. Instead of using an automated response, you should train the staff responsible for social media service to respond in a friendly way.
This means that you should use your real name while responding and address the customer complaint with a short greeting as well. This makes your customers realize that they are screaming at a person and not at some faceless company. T-Mobile replies to customer queries on twitter following a very warm and personal strategy.
6.Never get into arguments with the customer:
Even though some complaints may be vile and out of line by the customers, it is important that you keep your head straight. Getting into arguments or responding angrily will only worsen the problem and make your brand look bad. Train your social customer service staff to be polite because ‘the customer is always right’.
7.Acknowledge all sort of feedback:
All kind of feedback needs to be acknowledged and replied to. You shouldn’t only be replying to negative comments while ignoring positive feedback or vice versa. Every customer wants to feel heard and appreciated. Since social media channels are conversational, you should engage and respond to everyone.
Do Brands Respond Quickly on Social Media
There is no doubt that social media has raised the expectations of customers on so many levels. According to a study conducted by Edison research, almost half of the people complaining on social media expect a response within 60 minutes. Companies have no choice other than to meet these expectations and integrate social media effectively to their business plans and strategies.
While some brands have chosen to neglect customer queries and complaints on social media, it is their own loss as they lose the dissatisfied customers and possibly other potential customers. This is because 93% of the customer’s’ buying decision is influenced by what people are saying about the brand on social media.
However, we have indeed seen numerous brands take advantage of the opportunity by improving its social media service. Starbucks, T-Mobile, and Nike are some of the brands that respond to queries made on social media very quickly. In fact, according to a 2012 study by socialbakers, that over a three month period, T-Mobile responded to around 86% of the queries made to them on social media. Furthermore, these brands have a separate social media account where they listen to customer queries, ideas and complaints. These efforts by brands show that they are genuinely interested to meet the customer expectations, and if possible exceed them.
So jump in and join this race to be able to reap out all the benefits out of social media networks. If you play right, you can find huge success and watch your business increase.
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