Customer Service Lessons that Social Media can Learn from Traditional

You might have heard the saying “customer service isn’t what it used to be”. Technological advances and social media allow us to put a personal spin on customer service today. When marketers and customer service professionals combine technological and take some queues from customer service, the result is a new and improved state of the art version of customer service. Here are some tips to combine the new with the old and make your customers happy over and over again.

The easy fix for this is that the social media team should be empowered to make decisions and fix customer service issues without having to pass on the inquiry to another department. Social media happens in real time, so customers expect answers to their customer service questions on social media in real time. If the complaint or inquiry has to be handed over to the customer service department and it takes them a day or two to respond, the level of satisfaction drops tremendously.

Call centres prepare for spikes and social media should prepare in the same way. Working together with customer service and the call centres can help social media to prepare for the same increases in inquiries.

Opening social media channels means being prepared for everything that comes along with it. The statistics show that if you are on social media, your customers expect an answer. . . . fast. If you don’t have 24 hour support available, it is a good idea to let your customers know that by signing off on your channels for the night. It might be a bit more work, however it is less work than dealing with customers upset that you didn’t answer them on social media when they were expecting it.

New tools or careful logs can ensure that the each customer can be paired with the same customer service agent. Customers don’t want to have to repeat their story over and over again. The business also benefits because the agents spend less time and consistency improves.

Consistency is important and so is accountability. Supervisors and managers can ensure quality and performance when they are checking on the level of customer service delivered. In addition, it also protects the company from false accusations of who said what, etc.

For more tips and details on how to use the old school techniques from traditional marketing to help your social media service, read all 10 tips on the MarketingProfs.com.

Infographic and Images Credit: MarketingProfs