How to Optimize the Performance of Your Social Customer Support Service

Communication is vital to the survival of any race, species, or system (whether online or offline). Without communication, things would fall apart and there would be chaos. Just imagine two friends who, for whatever reason, stop communicating with each other. Over time, they become strangers and eventually forget about each other. Or think of a super computer system that depends on input from smaller computer systems to effectively perform its functions. If the smaller computers are unable to communicate with it, the super computer eventually fails. In the context of social media, if you do not communicate with your social customers, you will lose them. They will go elsewhere and cease buying your products or using your services. They may even speak negatively about your customer support structure, damaging the reputation you spent years to build. As such, your business must be equipped with tools that ensure communication between you and your customers is never missing. There are a number of customer service tools that have been created with the explicit purpose of serving your social customer’s needs. These tools will help you to optimize the performance of your social customer support service. The best thing of all is that they can be easily integrated into your website, and your social customers will surely be pleased with their increased ability to communicate with you.

Social Media Monitoring

Social media monitoring tools are a great way of keeping track of when someone says something about you, your business, or brand on social networks. Based on the experiences that your customers have when they do business with you, many of them tend to post their feedback online on Facebook, Twitter, and in forums. If you are aware of the comments that they make, you can go to those websites and respond to their feedback so as to save the reputation of your business, in the event of negative feedback, or just to say thank, in the event of positive feedback. Responding in a timely manner shows your customers that you care and are willing to go the extra mile to make sure that they are happy. Some of the tools that you can use to keep track of the feedback people leave on social networks and other websites about your business include Topsy, Social Mention, Mention.net, and TalkWalker. You can check them out individually and select the one or ones that you feel comfortable working with. Once you have the systems set up, check for alerts on a regular basis so that you can respond to your social customers’ feedback in a timely manner.

Chatting With Your Customers in Real-time

A very effective way of communicating with your customers is by using live chat software on your on your website that allows you to chat to them in real-time, as if they were on the phone with you or talking to you in-person. The benefits of using live chat software include faster response time to your customer’s problems, one-on-one interaction with a live human, saving time and money that may be required to mitigate negative feedback and save your company’s reputation, and giving you the ability to provide excellent customer service right then and there. Some of the live chat software have APIs that allow them to be integrated with the major social networks, making it a lot easier for your social customers to contact you. Some well-known live chat software that you can check out include Live Chat, Velaro, Kayako, and Live!Zilla.

Automatically Sending Social Media Messages to Your Customer Support Team

Trying to keep track of all the feedback that your customers leave on the social networks can be a tedious task if you try to do it manually. Imagine having to stay logged in to four or five social networks at one time, constantly checking for any mention of your business or brand, and then having to respond to each feedback around the clock. In this technologically advanced age, you can make your life a lot easier by using software and online services that have the ability to group customer requests, messages, and feedback from all your social networks and send them to a central location of your choice. That location may be to your customer support team who are ready to respond to those messages as soon as they are received. Some of the more popular solutions for this service include Nimble, SparkCentral, Insightly, and Sprout Social. Analyze each of them to see which one best suits your needs and implement it as soon as possible. You will see how much easier it becomes to respond to your social customers in a timely manner.

Tailor Your Responses Accordingly

The way in which you respond to your customers’ feedback should be based on exactly what it is that they are saying. For example, if the feedback is a complaint, your response should be in the form of an apology where you try to rectify the issue and win over their support once more. If the feedback is a suggestion, acknowledge it and state that you will see how best you can incorporate their suggestion in the future. If the feedback is simply a compliment or message showing their satisfaction of doing business with your company, thank the customers and encourage them to refer your business to their friends. It is not always as easy as that when dealing with customers, as most business people are aware, but the important thing is to always keep the lines of communication between you and your social customers open. Respond in a timely manner and word your responses according to the type of feedback that you receive.