Thanks to social media, customers now have more choices than before. Even now we often see more people do complain through social media, whether it on Twitter and Facebook.
Previously, when customers want to talk about a product or services, they will contact call center and their problems will be resolved in private.
Only customers and companies that will hear your complaints or compliments. Now, various issues are openly published reaching out to potential buyers within wider public.
At present, a complaint from customers in social media can influence and give a greater effect on the reputation of your company, if your social media do not immediately provide answers and solutions to customers.
Furthermore, conversations in social media can also used as an early warning system for issues that evolve around products and Services Company.
For you, working in customer care division who want to build customer service through social media, I have a few suggestions:
1. Choose the appropriate intermediary for your demographic. Before creating a forum for customer support, first evaluate your target market to determine what social media is best suited to reach them.
Support forum and discussion board are the best way to offer solutions to the public and connects consumers with experts, both in companies and consumers and your supporters.
Twitter has a large volume of less than or 140 characters with a variety of opportunities to connect 1:1 with various parties about the brand, product or service. Social media like Facebook also offers a good opportunity to connect with members of your community. Your customers choose social media networks each and are important to you as a business to reach consumers wherever social media options.
2. Focus your approach. At first, at the global Dell there were only 20 employees who have a Twitter account, not all of them effectively run. When we have a number of employees focused to Twitter to answer questions and forward issues and consumer complaints to the appropriate department, these causes inefficient work hours and not the best way to resolve the problem.
For that Dell launched @ DellCares to help consumers find a way out of their problems and the result, we succeeded in helping more than 1,400 people in the first month after its release. Having a centralized process that tweeting is a key determinant of success and prevents confusion in the company.
3. Personalization is the key. When you connect with consumers, it is very important to connect with them personally. People will respond to people, brand will quickly lose credibility if they know communication that you run from the robot.
Therefore, every customer support representative who runs @ DellCares has the initials names and photos look their faces in profile @ DellCares page and every tweet is marked so that consumers know they are talking to who and their tweet clearly visible.
4. This is a joint venture: Provide customer service through social media require cooperation between customer service, marketing and product development to handle various issues. In order to effectively respond to problems that occur via social media, your customer service team need to be trained by the company's brand messaging and guide consumers to face a whole.
If responses they give are not consistent with bigger brand goals, this can create chaos and consequently consumers will not forget and the impact on customer satisfaction.
5. Using social media as a complement, not substitute. Social media will not replace conventional support tool, this opened the way for businesses to connect in real-time with consumers in places where they already have a conversation.
Although Twitter is great for consumers to find and reach them more closely, 140 characters in it an obstacle to longer dialogue so that sometimes the conversation needs to be moved to a more appropriate medium. Once the issue is resolved, then make conclusions publicly on the previous medium.
6. Determine the response process and make sure to follow up. Just because social media run in real-time does not mean every issue should be followed up immediately.
You should take the time to understand the problem and think of responses to provide an optimal solution. Do not forget to acknowledge consumer complaints and ensure them that you are trying to solve the problem.
Make sure they still have progress throughout the process and after the issue is resolved, contact them directly to make sure they are truly satisfied with its services. This illustrates how you pay attention to the consumer as a person and not just to eliminate the negative public comment.
Through social media, consumers find the means to speak and more incentive to use it as a supporting medium. Issued a tweet asking for help takes steps more easily than by sending an e-mail or call the support services so that they can get faster response.
Social Media - Digital Customer Care Era
