Social Media and Customer Care 

Social Media is booming and many businesses large and small are actively promoting and selling their products and services via social media platforms.   This type of social engagement has seen huge growth during the pandemic as lockdown has forced us all to explore new ways of staying engaged with family, friends, communities, and businesses.

Many retail businesses have moved into these social spaces quickly as they reacted to lockdown without thinking of the wider service implications.   Selling and engaging with customers in a social environment creates an expectation from consumers.   The whole dynamics of the customer experience in social channels can change and often customers expectations are that they can engage with you on all aspects of your business within the social platform and not be limited. For many businesses this can pose a real problem in terms of expertise and resource.

‘Social Customer Care’ is the term being used for the way we deal with customer enquiries, complaints and after service issues with the social media space.  Unfortunately, many businesses embark on social media campaigns and promotions without a strategy in place for handling complaints, enquiries and comments, which are often left unanswered leaving customers frustration and reputations damaged.

If you’re selling and engaging with customers via social media sites, then you need to devise a social media customer care plan.   You should gear your business and staff up to monitoring and engaging with customers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. in real time so you build online loyalty and a strong following and reduce the risk of alienating customers.

Social Media Customer Care Tips

1. Respond to all customer social media messages promptly
2. Always be polite when responding
3. Use names and make it feel personal and not automated.
4. Remember to switch to direct messaging where appropriate to keeps things private and limit bad publicity.
5. Share or retweet positive responses
6. Monitor your brand mentions as not all feedback will come to you directly.
7. Use what you learn from social media feedback to provide access to better advice and improve your service.

Consider Social Media Management to help you run your social media activity

For many businesses, outsourcing social media marketing and customer care is their preferred option.    Having trained and experienced people who post and engage with customers in social spaces on your behalf can be more successful, efficient and cost effective.     If you’d like to know more about our social media management services and how it can add real value to what you do, then give us call on 01670 785786 or email hello@retoxdigital.com