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Is Customer Service Via Social Media Replacing Phone and Email?

Is Customer Service Via Social Media Replacing Phone and Email?

According to Nielsen’s Social Media Report, approximately half of U.S. consumers use social media for inquiries, report satisfaction, and air complaints. A third of social media users prefer social media customer service compared to phone support.
Social media today is turning customer service and support on its head. Social media sites have evolved to become more than emergent marketing and advertising platforms. Facebook and Twitter especially, have fundamentally changed how, where and to whom customers look for help. Such a trend presents both significant opportunities and challenges for companies looking to succeed in business today.

If this is done right, it will not only convert more sales and bring in regular sales, but also make these customers advocate for brands. Above all, organizations will achieve this while spending less on support and service.

With this new trend one major question most people are asking is: Is Twitter and Facebook replacing phone and email as customer service channels?

When social media customer service first gained momentum, emails and phones were regarded as traditional customer service and most people interpreted seamless customer support as the end of these traditional customer service channels. That sounded so easy, simple and very appealing. Considering how this process has moved from call center to the social pages, this social media customer service has evolved to become more emergent than emails and has reduced the number of calls to the call centers.

Social customer service has changed but not replaced traditional call center channels. Facebook and Twitter are primary customer service channels that are commonly used alongside phone, email, and chat. Companies should not ignore these other channels.

“Social care” presented opportunities to impact customer loyalty and sales positively but also presented real challenges for B2C and B2B companies as well. The reality is that customer service and support expectations are rising frequently and simply interacting and engaging with the customers on Facebook and Twitter is not enough. Creating a seamless experience that extends the showroom floor to the Facebook page is a challenge to many companies.

It turns out that a considerable number of customers still feel the need for live help sometimes. There are times when a chat over the phone is necessary to sort out an issue, and there are customers who still want to be able to compose an email to a company. As Sandeep Periwal, CEO of 31West Gobal Services, a call center outsourcing company says, “We are already handling support over social media for six of our clients and a couple of others have shown an intent to open these channels. So there is gradual pivot towards social media, however, phone and email still remain critical to service delivery”. Despite the social media customer service excitement, we still need traditional customer service channels.

The way a company interacts with its customers can make or break its business. Especially with the seamless customer service, in the age of social media, words spread quicker than you can imagine, and it takes just a few bad experiences to ruin the reputation of your business. The top CRM applications like Zendesk have already incorporated social media support into their software.

Customer issues used to be between the call center and a customer: a one to one relationship with an equitable private exchange. If the customer was satisfied at the end of the conversation, then everyone walked away happily, and if the customers were unhappy, they complained to only a few friends. Today social media customer service has changed all that. Complaints are Tweeted about, posted on your wall or become blogged content for everyone to see, and you are required to address it instantly.

Now that everyone is watching, you may think this means that you no longer have control over your social media customer service but that is not true. There is a proactive and strategic way to handle it, retain a favorable brand image and increase customer satisfaction. You can use social media customer service as a platform for valuable market research and provide incredible customer service.

Not sure where to start? Here is a list of companies that provide startling social media customer service. You could borrow an idea from their lead, and you will be rocking social media customer service in no time.

JetBlue

JetBlue is one company that understands how important it is not only to engage with its customers happily, but to respond quickly and solve problems for customers who could be dissatisfied with their services through Twitter. JetBlue responds not just to customers who @mention them, but also to customers who talk about the brand in general even if the customers did not tag the company in the post. The company could be achieving this through possibly tracking and monitoring keywords and relevant hashtags.

Walmart
Walmart has over 34 million Facebook fans. Although keeping up with comments on the Facebook page might not be easy, if you scroll through the comments thread on Walmart’s posts, you will see frequent responses from the company to both customer complaints and positive feedback. The company always responds in a professional and a friendly manner as often as possible, working with customers to solve their issues or directing them to someone who can provide more assistance.

Starbucks
Starbucks offers astounding customer service both on Facebook and Twitter. The coffee giant is active and quickly responds to customer complaints and questions on its Facebook page, and engages its customers on Twitter too.

Starbucks brings personality to its replies and knows when to hold back and be professional, display an admirable image to customers that its brand is both personable and dynamic. Starbucks also has a separate Twitter account called @MyStarbucksIdea to provide an additional platform to engage with customers. Customers can discuss ideas to make Starbucks as a company and brand better on this new platform.

AirAsia
Airlines are not strangers to complaints from customers, but it surprises how Air Asia manages to deal with these complaints. AirAsia’s Facebook page has close to 3 million fans, and its presence and engagement on Facebook is outstanding. AirAsia goes the extra mile to ensure that it responds to most of the comments on its Facebook page.

AirAsia responds to customer inquiries with supportive advice and Web pages and is always friendly and personable in all its replies. The company also runs a number of promotions such as “Free Seats Challenge,” in which twelve winning customers get free seats on flights.

Nike
With more than 4 million Twitter followers, Nike has a huge social following. The company understands the importance of customer service on social media, which is one of the reasons why Nike created a separate Twitter account dedicated to responding to customer issues and inquiries: @NikeSupport.

Nike Support is very active and very quick to respond. You will see replies on the Twitter feed, every few minutes. This shows its customers that they can trust this company to provide them with the help they need; anytime they need it.

There are so many other companies that have embraced social media customer service and have succeeded.

We cannot ignore the positive impact of Facebook and Twitter in our lives today. Companies need to keep up with social media revolution in order to meet customers’ expectations, but this does not mean throwing away your traditional call center infrastructure and starting all again. What companies need to do, is to integrate social media channels into the broader contact infrastructure instead of replacing the telephone, email, and chat communication channels. In this way, a company can utilize all its communication channels to respond to issues and complaints raised by customers.

To keep up with the trend, it is important for your business to have great customer service, and even more so, develop an engaging social media strategy well equipped to handle customer service issues as well. Make your company’s Twitter account or Facebook page a platform where your customers and readers will feel comfortable to reach you knowing that they will get a timely and professional response.

 

Is Customer Service Via Social Media Replacing Phone and Email?

One comment

  1. I am having trouble getting into my original Facebook account. I do not want to make a new facebook account how can I get into my original Facebook and also to retrieve a new password

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About Mitch Karratti