Most brands have two or more owned social media channels, which are great for increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic and boosting search engine rankings. But, while brands are investing in content or ads on these channels, many are losing out on one of the most important aspects of their business: customer service. Providing customer support on social media puts you where your customers are, making it easier for them, more cost-effective for you, and saving everyone time and energy.
Superior customer service through social listening
Using social listening tools to track conversations around phrases, keywords or brand names helps you tune into the right conversations, analyze what is being said, and respond in a genuine way. Consider these stats:
- More than half of millennials use social media to ask a customer service question, with 78 percent expecting a response within 24 hours. (source)
- It’s not all negative. More than half of millennials will use social media to praise a brand for its customer service. (source)
- Seventy-one percent of consumers who have had a good social media customer service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. (source)
- Solving a customer issue on social media costs roughly 1/6th the amount of money it would take to solve the same issue via a call center interaction. (source)
Social listening tools, like Sprout Social, Sysomos or Crimson Hexagon, let you look beyond your social media handles, allowing you to provide support even to those who may not be directly asking for it. This is especially important as 96 percent of people discussing brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles.
How to measure performance
As with any element of a marketing plan, measurement is key to determining success and identifying trends. For social programs, most brands typically measure engagements (the number of interactions with posts), impressions (the number of time content was displayed), views (visits to a profile) and clicks (number of clicks on a link within a post). When adding social listening and support elements, companies can benefit from looking deeper into interactions, including:
- Measuring inbound messages or concerns compared to responses
Example: We received 80 messages and responded to 79.
- Measuring sentiment
Example: 75 messages came in throughout the month and were negative in tone. When the same messages were resolved, 70 of them switched to being positive in tone. Therefore, we changed the opinions of 70 people in one month.
- Measuring response time
Example: We responded to 80 percent of inquiries within 30 minutes.
Remember, what makes sense to measure for one company might not make sense for yours. Think of your customer journey, evaluate your individual goals and pick the metrics that can best measure your unique social customer care program.
Brands succeeding in customer service on social
Some brands are doing customer support better than others, making them great examples to learn from. Check out these three companies doing social customer service righ
- As an e-commerce retailer, eyewear company Warby Parker stays true to its cool, modern branding even while responding to incoming questions and concerns. The company also started a hashtag, #WarbyHomeTryOn, to encourage those trying on glasses at home to tweet photos of themselves so the Warby support team can help them decide which pair to purchase.
- The official Spotify support account goes beyond responding to inquiries by providing tips for getting the most of its features. It also humanizes its responses by ending each customer support message with the initials of the person responding.
- GM has a dedicated customer care team online that handles all negative messages while positive interactions are handled by traditional community managers. This allows teams to quickly determine how to respond, close or escalate messages.
Want to join this list of brands who are benefitting from excellent social customer service strategies? Get in touch.
