Here's The Level of Service Your Customers Expect From Your Social Media Channels

In this series we’re looking at how businesses with social media can leverage this channel to win at customer service.

If your company has active social media channels, you needs to treat those channels like your digital customer service counter.

Here's why:

• 40% of customers expect to be able to reach a business from their channel of choice.
• 93% of customers expect a brand to response to their service inquiry within 24 hours.
• 50% of consumers say that a timely response to their customer service questions influences whether they'll buy from a company

As the business world continues to head towards digital integration, customers are expecting your brand to be timely, responsive, and available across social media.

Yet, the ways companies navigate customer interactions on social is still widely varied. That is, if they handle interactions in the first place.

Gone are the days when posting on social media was simply a line item on your marketing plan. In reality social media has evolved and will continue to do so.

Expectations for brand social engagement have evolved to the point where customers expect to have the same level of customer service in store and online.

This is a huge boon for small businesses.

Think about it.

Social media give you all of this in one place:

• A place to build customer relationships.
• A digital customer service counter to answer questions and concerns.
• A way to hear the good and bad things customers are saying about your business (known as "social listening").
• Free access to potentially hundreds or thousands of customers.

When social media is used as a two-way communication tool, it becomes a powerful asset rather than a waste of precious resources (because whether your strategy is chaotic or strategic, social media demands time, attention, and energy).

When customers know they can message your Instagram or Facebook and receive a quick response, you've already cut ahead of the competition who are still figuring out how to use this tool, or who don't take it seriously.

Come back next week for ways to use built-in social media tools to create a stand-out customer service experience across social. These tools work for solopreneurs, small businesses, and larger enterprises.