Social Media Customer Support: Best Practices
Social media already became an essential part of our life along with the phone and emails. There we find all the needed news, connections with friends or colleagues, and even build the brands. According to the late statistics, 3.6 billion people worldwide use social media on a daily basis. Until 2025 this number will raise up to 4.41 billion. So, social media may be easily called the new and very powerful tool that can help companies to talk to clients independently of their geographical location.
It’s nothing surprising in the fact that customer support through social media is very widespread nowadays. First of all, this way of communication is sometimes much faster and easier than making a simple phone call. There are also other advantages we will talk about in this article. So, let’s take a look at how modern customer support works on social media. Outsourcing support company supportyourapp.com has shared with us their experience in this field and answered the question of why clients want to get in touch with the brands this particular way.
Statistics
If you still are not sure whether your company needs customer support through social media, just spend a few seconds and read this really exciting piece of research:
- Around 1 billion messages people send to each other in Facebook Messenger every day.
- 70% of respondents said that they are ready to text brands in the future even more.
- More than 60% of people prefer to write than to call.
- More than 15% of the users in the USA recently purchased goods and services without even leaving social media.
- 69% of the Facebook users replied that they feel more comfortable with the brands they can talk to on social media.
- 40% of customers will more likely buy from the brand they can ask a question online than from the brand they can’t reach via social media.
Impressive, isn’t it? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that social media has already become the customer support magic that works really well and already brings good results to the companies using this trend.
More Reasons Why
Support through social media is important not only because a lot of existing and possible clients are already there (it’s one of the main reasons, no doubt) but also because:
- You Will Get More Money
Some recent studies show that customers tend to spend 20-40% more for goods and services provided by companies represented in social media. - It Works Better
Customer support sometimes goes much easier on social media than over the phone. During the call, you are not able to show the customer this or that feature that can help to solve his problem. On the web, you are able to send a link to the video or useful article. - You Will Spend Less
Customer support costs a thing, actually. Companies have to invest quite some money to organize the quality service. And if the company decides to do it without outsourced staff, it becomes even more expensive. But not when it comes to social media where interaction costs only $1.
You Will Have Your People Around
Social media also allows creating a group of people loyal to the brand. It’s very helpful from the marketing point of view. Moreover, fans of the company will repost your publications, like them, and attract more attention to the company and also more leads.
Support Through Social Media: Best Practices
In spite of the fact that communication with clients is relatively easy on the web and via social media, there are still some rules and strategies worth following and implementing. Among them are:
There always should be a plan
Before implementing customer support through social media it’s important to take a look at what your competitors are doing and what approaches they have already taken. Then it’s high time to create something like a guideline that will help agents to work with the requests easily and more efficiently. In this guideline, one should be able to find information about the needed tone of voice, the normal waiting time for the client, answers templates, and other useful info.
Also, remember that social media users not always will mention you in their publications. Sometimes they just post their feedback without any mention. One of the customer support’s tasks in this situation is to monitor this constantly.
No Silence
Customers text or call the company when they need help. So any delay with the answers will irritate clients and also can force them to buy from the competitors. If the company wants to build a positive brand, it’s highly recommended to answer all the questions and quite fast.
Different Levels of Support
According to this research, clients expect to get the level of support they pay for. In other words, it means that those customers who pay more, also want to get better and faster service. It doesn’t mean that the company should put all the power in rich customers and forget about other ones. Definitely, not. But it’s worth thinking about some extra services you can offer.
Be One Step Forward
To become the leader in customer support in social media, follow the trends and be proactive. For example, you can implement chatbots that will not only help to provide fast answers but also will free up time for other tasks.
