Social Customer Service Fundamentals

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

There is a growing trend among brands that positions social media as a standard customer service channel, including for use in private communication. In this regard, brands including KLM, Sprint, Xbox, Tesco, and T-Mobile are examples of companies leading the way in embracing social customer care.  

Forrester, a leading global research company, estimated that digital customer service interactions will increase by 40% in 2021, while 1 billion messages are currently exchanged between people and businesses every month on Facebook Messenger. When asked, 70% of people said they expect to message businesses more in the future for customer service questions, while 64% said they would rather message than call a business.

Another trend for marketers to note is the move towards having dedicated community pages that handle customer care on websites. Spotify, for example, has a dedicated in-app community and a dedicated Twitter feed, SpotifyCares, that deals with customer support issues. Staff are highly trained and start off working in email support before moving onto social. Spotify’s social customer service also reflects the brand’s tone and even its function, by sharing links to an appropriate song once the team have solved a customer’s problem. As a result of this approach, the music streaming giant has won a Webby award for its social media customer service.

Customer service social channels

The social channels that are most commonly leveraged for customer service are Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, WeChat, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Reddit, and Snapchat.

And just as various regions have preferences for different customer service social channels, some channels are more likely to resonate with certain audiences. PlayStation, for example, uses YouTube for its how-to tutorials.

In the US, the majority of 18–24-year-olds use Snapchat daily, which means that many brands are using this channel for customer service. Maybelline New York is a great example of a large brand using Snapchat for customer support. It works for Maybelline because users on the platform don’t need to leave the platform to get answers to queries. Maybelline’s customers therefore don’t have to try and find phone numbers and email addresses to get help, and its ‘DMs are open’ banners also show they want to help.

Challenges of social customer service

When providing customer service over social media, there are a number of challenges that contrast with traditional service channels. 

Rapid amplification

There is the risk of rapid amplification, via social platforms, when a customer is dissatisfied. Consider the case of a United Airlines passenger who looked out the window and saw some baggage handlers throwing his guitar across the tarmac. He made a funny video about it, which was very well made, and it went viral. That posed a huge challenge for United because millions of people were ultimately engaging with a video that made fun of the airline and demonstrated a lack of care with customer belongings.

Pace of conversation

Customers also control the pace of conversation on social. 
This is something that you essentially relinquish when you start using social media as a way of delivering customer service. It is the customer who determines when, where, and how they want to interact with you.

High expectations

Finally, there is a high expectation for in-the-moment resolution and exceptional service. On social, customers expect the company to respond within a few minutes of them posting an issue, and they further expect the company to go over and above to satisfy their needs and resolve their complaints.

Models of ownership

There are three models for how your company could ‘own’ customer service within the business:

• Marketing-owned customer service occurs because social media is sometimes seen exclusively as a marketing activity. Despite recognizing that it’s also a tool for wider customer engagement and support, many organizations still keep this function in the marketing department.
• Some organizations have moved this aspect of service into a contact center where, traditionally, the customer complaints team was based.
• Some companies adopt a hybrid or co-owned approach instead, where marketing and the contact center work together to solve problems quickly.

Social best practices

When dealing with difficult customers on social media, it is important to have a separate channel for customer service. This helps to keep customer care and brand promotion as distinct social activities., otherwise your main social page could become cluttered with customer service queries and detract from your core brand messaging and promotions.

Always monitor your brand mentions in other channels, to ensure you are aware of problems as soon as possible, and always respond quickly when a problem occurs.

Have guidelines for teams to follow, and train your teams well. Use template responses for common issues, including Instant Replies in Facebook and Quick Replies in Instagram, or create videos that outline solutions to common problems. 

Manage customer expectations, for example, by saying how long it will be before you will respond, and consider using a chatbot.

Twitter or Facebook are usually the best platforms to use, and it’s best to use their DM features to make conversations private and reduce the risk of negative amplification.

Finally, once the problem has been resolved, it is important to ensure the customer is happy and ideally sharing the resolution details.