There are many types of businesses that can offer customer support via social media – it’s not just for the big brands.
The secret to doing it right is making a plan for how and who will look after this channel of support and being clear to customers how it will work.
Here are my top tips for making a Social Media Customer Support Plan:
- Create a process for your staff. This is after you have found someone who is comfortable with social media and knows how to use it professionally for business (and FYI this is NOT your 14 year old niece who ‘uses Facebook’). The support people need to have a process to follow with complaints. A flow chart of where all inquiries lead and how they are responded to and timelines as well.
- Clarify how it works publicly. State this on your Twitter background or Facebook Page “About” area. Make certain clients and others see how the system works.
- Use Social Media as a lead to your other channels. In many cases, people complain on Twitter to get your attention. Continuing the support issue publicly is not how you want to go. You need to have a system where people using social media can be funneled into a more private way of dealing with the issue. Do this only if a quick response cannot solve the issue at hand (i.e., “Can I get your email address and send you the info?”)
- Man the Channels of Support. It is useless to take a complaint for social media and place it in a long queue on the phone. This will only anger the already angry clients and can also place someone who was not upset into a state of anger / frustration that they were not headed for.
- RESPOND. RESPOND. RESPOND. (It is in All Caps because I AM yelling it.) The best thing you can do to tarnish your image in the eyes of your clients – and very publicly – is to ignore them online. If this happens, it can quickly turn into something ugly. People are posting tweets and notes on Facebook looking for help – don’t ignore them. At a minimum you make a note that you will reach out via email or private message to sort out the issue. It does not all have to stay online but at least post a “We will help you” so others can see you do indeed stay true to your word and offer the support. And, FYI, a response is not something posted three weeks after the clients asks or posts a note.
You also want to supplement it all by going beyond just a tweet – think about adding in extras to pump up clients should be part of this process too. Customer Service is not all complaints, there are many good things that happen too!
- Promote your clients
- Say thank you to them
- Do something extra for them, on occasion
- Ask for feedback
- Just be Real and Be Social
Follow these steps as a start to making a plan if you are going to use social media for customer service support.
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