Creating a social customer strategy is always a good idea in the digital world of today. Most experts would say that it is even critical to the survival and prosperity of the brand. According to recent research, 40% of consumers use social media for customer support and it results in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, according to 61% and 58% survey respondents.
However, the shocking part is that many organizations are not doing enough to keep up with consumers on social media to engage them. The research study, conducted by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and Five9, shows over 68% of businesses recognize social media as a necessary service channel, however, 60% do not support social customer care formally because they do not feel that they have the right tools or resources.
It is high time companies take proactive steps to provide social customer support or risk losing customers to the competition. How to develop an effective social customer support program? Here are the top three best practices a company can easily develop:
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Personalized Customer Service
It is common for customers to use multiple communication channels to resolve a single issue. Therefore, companies need to be sure they are optimizing customer engagement at every stage of the customer journey. Doing so involves creating a complete customer profile, identifying their pain points, values, behaviors, channel preferences, etc.; As well as analyzing every interaction agents have with customers across multiple channels.
Doing so will ensure that your customers get a prompt answer to their queries via their channel of choice. It will give the impression of personalized attention to each customer and increase customer satisfaction.
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Dedicated Resources to Social Customer Service
In the fast-paced digital landscape of recent times, customers expect real-time support from companies. However, many organizations are increasingly falling short of customer expectations. According to a study, 80% of social media responses took an average of 12 hours, compared to an average wait time of just 56 seconds over the phone.
To cater to the needs of the connected customer, organizations should dedicate specific resources to each channel, and social media is no exception. They need to allocate trained customer service agents to handle requests specific to each channel. This process will eventually provide a better service experience for customers.
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Investing in Agent Performance Improvements
To continually grow and manage a team of agents, managers and supervisors should offer ongoing training opportunities, which can make agents feel satisfied with their jobs and keep them committed to their customers. Now, the question remains: How can an organization achieve this?
There are a variety of ways to improve agent performance on a continuous basis, such as speech analytics solutions, workforce optimization software, agent scorecards, and much more. The idea is to approach customer service improvements across each channel, not just on social media, to drive customer engagement optimization all over the customer lifecycle.
Social listening, as well as sentiment analysis, are other ways to evaluate agent and overall company performance. This is done by analyzing positive and negative mentions across social networks. A brand can address a negative mention proactively and turn the public complaint into a sharable solution. It also makes an irate customer see that the brand really cares about their problems and thinks about them.
Social media is a communications channel that is only increasing in importance with customers and becoming an integral part of customer support programs. The sooner companies realize this, the better it is for them.
To create an effective social customer support process, companies need to personalize customer service, dedicate resources to social media and invest in agent performance improvements. All these will ensure a positive customer experience.
