Tag Archives: social media and customer service

The State of Social Media Customer Support – Statistics and Trends

Social Media Customer Support – Statistics and Trends

Social Media Customer Support – Statistics and TrendsIf you’re not using social media as a customer support tool to connect with people already buying your products or those likely to buy in the future, you’re missing out big time.

With about 3.6 billion combined users, social media offers an excellent platform to meet your customers, engage them, answer their questions, and thank them for their loyalty. It’s also the perfect place to run a few loyalty programs.

If you’re still in doubt, INVESP has done extensive research on the role of social media in customer support today. The findings are eye-opening!

Social Media Engagement

The research shows that about 80% of consumers use social media to engage with brands. Of these people, 69% say they feel more confident in a brand they can directly message. Social media is arguably the best platform to message and perhaps chat with brands directly.

It’s not all about confidence, though. When the brand answers those direct messages, there’s a great chance of a repeat purchase. At least 91% of the respondents say that they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to become a repeat customer to a brand that answers their questions. Another 25% say they are likely to become the brand’s advocates.

Check out the rest of the research findings to learn how else you could benefit from offering customer support services via social media.

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How to Deal with Fake Negative Reviews

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How-to-deal-with-fake-negative-reviews-315Consumer power is everything. All of your hard work marketing your product online can be quickly undermined by a web backlash or a series of negative reviews that are not dealt with professionally. That’s why empty marketing is useless if you don’t have the goods and the customer service to back it up. It’s also why you need to be on top of fake bad reviews before they happen. As well, learn to deal with what transpires when they do.

You can prepare yourself in advance by making sure you’re on top of your web presence. That includes being part of the conversation around your company. Set up Google alerts to get an inbox notification every time the search engine picks up a new mention of your company or product name. Switch on your notifications in Yellow Pages and Yelp. Search Facebook and Twitter daily for ‘sub-Tweets’ – mentions of your brand in which you’ve not been tagged. Then deal with negative reviews with calm professionalism.

Spotting a Fake Negative Review

Fake complaints require a particular manner of handling. In the first place, you need to make sure it’s fake. Ask yourself:

  • Is the tone of the review unusually vicious and unreasonable?
  • Does the complaint seem vague – and can you verify the transaction?
  • Has the review left multiple bad reviews for other sites or good reviews for one particular competitor?

If you’re sure it’s a hoax, report it to the host company (Yelp, Twitter, Amazon or whoever). Make a note of the occurrence in an Excel sheet so you can track a hate campaign if it should continue. In the meantime, leave a polite comment explaining that you can’t verify the transaction and that you’d be happy to continue the discussion by email or phone.

And follow-up by letting your genuine followers know that there’s been an incident. Make light of it and don’t get personal. Additionally, invite your real fans to leave genuine positive reviews to put the balance back in your favor.

Sounds doable? If your business is attracting attention, dealing with fake bad reviews is something you’ll likely have to do again in the future. Save this new step-by-step guide to squashing bad fake reviews to your desktop, and you’ll always be armed to defend the good name of your business.

Thanks to HeadwayCapital.com for this helpful infographic.

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9 Ways to Make Your Customers Happy

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When making a purchase, people want to get more than a product or service. They want experience and a great one at that. Thus, it’s important to focus on making your customers happy.

Remember, happy customers make loyal customers. Fortunately, there are practical ways to achieve customer satisfaction. Here are a few examples:

1) Deliver on your promises

When you say you’ll do something, then do it within the expected time frame. Unmet expectations lead to disappointment, and that’s not something you want customers to feel about your brand.

To avoid letting people down, stick to realistic commitments. There’s no point in luring people in with grandiose promises only to break them later on.

2) Hold yourself accountable

Behind brands are people, and people make mistakes. But it’s how you handle them that makes a world of difference. If you commit a mistake, own up to it and do your best to rectify it.

Doing the opposite — running away from the problem, acting defensively, or denying everything — will make customers less forgiving.

3) Involve your customers

Feedback from your customers is valuable, so ask for what they want to see more from your brand, when they expect these changes to take effect, and how else you can improve your customer service.

Once you’ve applied your suggestions, don’t forget to let your customers know right away.

Thanks to our friends at Headway Capital for this great infographic on ways to provide stellar customer service.

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Customer Care via Social Media [Infographic]

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A-Guide-to-Social-Media-Customer-Care-infographic-315Communicating with customers via social media allows companies to respond to customer concerns in real time, build brand loyalty, and receive useful feedback. A well managed social media account can turn a negative customer experience into a positive interaction and improve a company’s reputation with consumers.

However, the opposite is also true and a mismanaged account can have a lasting negative impact. A key part of social media interaction is how a company handles the initial response. Here are three tips to start the process off on a positive note.

Three Steps For Positive Customer Interaction

Respond Quickly:

First and foremost a company should respond to customer complaints or questions in a timely fashion (within an hour). Being ignored only increases customer frustration. Also, many social media complaints go ignored so by being responsive a company stands out for the better.

Use Names:

A company should address a customer by their name (or username) and also sign their postings as well. This helps frame the conversation in a friendly tone. By referring to a customer by name it shows a company cares about them as an individual.

Communication Channels:

Not all customers want their conversations with a company made public. A business should always be aware of a customer’s comfort level with a conversation and offer to it move it direct messaging if desired.

Excellent infographic! Thanks, HeadwayCapital.com

A Guide to Social Media Customer Care

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How to Use Social Media for Customer Service [Infographic]

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How to Use Social Media for Customer Service-Infographic-315With practically everyone on social media nowadays, it’s not surprising why many people use social media to connect with businesses whenever they have questions, suggestions, or complaints.

What the numbers say

As many as 90% of social media users have initiated communication with a brand through social media. Among all current channels for customer service, social media gets the highest preference at 34.5%, followed by live chat at 24.7% and email at 19.4%. Phone calls — the oldest channel of them all — are at the bottom with only 16.1%. It’s not a surprise why 63% of customers expect brands to deliver customer service on social media.

How to use social media for customer service

A quick response for first contact resolution is the key to successful CS on social media. The average response time for brands is five hours, but customers expect more. Around 42%  want a response within an hour, while 32% want one within half an hour. More than 10% expect immediate responses!

Instant replies aren’t always feasible, but be as quick whenever possible. Poor response time leads to 15% customer attrition rate. No response? Expect at third of your customers to switch to a competitor, and a half of your customers to drop their advocacy for your brand. Worse, 31% will go online and share their bad CS experience for everyone to see.
Websitebuilder.org.uk created this infographic filled with great info on Customer Service.

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