Delivering Amazing Customer Service With Social Media

By Candi Underwood, Customer Account Manager at Create Ecommerce.

Choosing to offer customer service through your business’s social media profiles is a wise move as it benefits both your customers and your business. In this blog I’ll look at why it’s worth the time and effort and show some examples of social media customer service in action.

First let’s take a look at the aforementioned benefits for your customer and your business:

Benefits for your customer:

• You’re providing an extra (and extra easy) way to get in touch with you. It’s great for existing customers, but also really useful for potential customers, too.
• You’ll be using a social media platform that your audience is comfortable with. Most people have their own social media profiles now and so it’s a great way to ensure your customers feels comfortable when they correspond with you.
• You have the opportunity for a super-fast response. Answering queries on social media can be almost instantaneous and there are no call costs or holding times for the customer.

Benefits for your business:

Offering customer service through your social media profiles shows that you’re:

• Transparent. Customers love to know that companies are being open with them and social media is a great way to show them that in the public eye.
• Honest. With social media there are no hiding places, so you have to show the good with the sometimes-not-so-good. However, this is perfect for showing how quickly and professionally you can turn a negative situation around!
• Approachable. By being so open like this, customers will know that you’re always there to help. This gives them a better opinion of your business and also allows you to build up a rapport with your customers.

Here are some examples of how Create Ecommerce uses customer service in social media:

Twitter

Twitter’s character cap makes it hard to answer a complicated enquiry in detail. However, this doesn’t keep you from providing great customer service. In the below example, the customer required a detailed explanation in answer to her enquiry.

We felt that the best way to deal with this was to email her separately with the detailed response she was looking for. But crucially, we didn’t leave her tweet alone – we replied to let her (and the rest of the world!) know that she would be receiving a detailed answer via email.

This way the customer has the answer they need but you are also acknowledging their tweet in public, showing that you, as a company, are happy to help. The customer above was so happy with this that she not only thanked us but she favourited the tweet too!

Facebook

Facebook gives you the chance to provide more detailed responses, be it through a private message from your Facebook business page or, as in the example below, by replying to a post someone has made on your Facebook wall.

This person was not yet a customer of ours and through Facebook we were able to talk to her about her options with Create Ecommerce. This meant that she received the answer to her enquiry and a positive first impression of our customer service and brand was formed. In fact her customer experience was so positive she joined as a customer almost immediately!

In summary, using social media to boost your customer service not only attracts potential customers and shows that you’re approachable but it really does help your customers, and ultimately there’s no better reason than that!

Candi Underwood is a Customer Account Manager at Brighton-based ecommerce platform provider Create Ecommerce.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk