How to implement world-class social customer service

Often neglected and a huge own goal for many brands is customer service via social media. Many companies are focused on creative campaigns and advertising rather than the consumer first.

I can't for the life of me understand why, but some organisations are quite happy to ignore customers on social media! However, when I ask companies if they would ignore their customers on the phone, they look at me if I am mad?

This whole scenario has been seen by the Montage team time and again in consultancy and training for our clients. It motivated me to present about the subject at our InDigital East Anglia's Connect event in November.

The presentation above highlights the opportunity for socially devoted brands and the disparity of what the consumer expects via social customer service namely:

• 5% of the world's brands are ‘socially devoted’ as measured by Social Bakers
• 19.2 hours is a benchmark for the average response time
• 60% of people want a response within a day - 20% of people on Twitter / Facebook want a response within an hour! Oracle
• The worst industries are food, Electrics, alcohol with typically around a response rate of 20-38% for alcohol. Just imagine only answering three quarters of your telephone calls??

It is vital for brands to address these issues because:

• 79% of Consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and far more than advertisements - Local Consumer Review survey 2013
• 71% of 20,000 people over the age of 18 surveyed said they were more likely to buy from a brand if they received good customer service online - Oracle
• 70% Loyal customers spend on average 67% MORE than new ones with repeat purchases – making them high ROI prospects.

Common mistakes from brands when dealing with social customer service:

• Lack of empowerment or systems to allow staff to deal effectively with enquiries
• PRs or lawyers getting in the way of 'common sense' and good customer service
• PR scripted answers that make a brand sound like a robot as such, rather than allowing the customer service team to show some personality or empathy
• The belief that consumers are out to get a brand and ignoring them is perhaps best (rather than

Some social customer service horror stories seen by the Montage team:

• One delegate on a training sessions described customer complaints as only 'trolls' and if they were important they would call / email!
• A PR agency had created a scripted list of 360 'crisis Q&As' for customer service responses. Staff were expected not to deviate from these...
• A consumer brand described how a PR agency had subcontracted social media services, then provided a weekly report on customer complaints for the client to deal with (so 7 days had past before the client even know about the issues!)

We recommend the following social customer service tools:

• Hootsuite [Cost-effective at entry level] - One of the most popular social media dashboards that has a low entry cost point. Tracking mentions across certain networks (see its app gallery) can be problematic but this covers Twitter and Facebook very well. You are able to assign social media mentions across teams and track conversations (internally) around issues to ensure they are resolved satisfactorily
• UberVu [Medium to large enterprise] (now owned by Hootsuite) An enterprise solution with very accurate social media monitoring. Think of a solution with the monitoring power of Radion6, that is easy to use (unlike Radion6) in a dashboard format. Tagging and tracking of conversations is easy to manage across teams. It also has powerful reporting tools
• Conversocial [Corporate customer service teams] Specifically designed for customer service teams and integrating contact centres with social media. Case tracking and routing of social media communications is easy and well organised via its 'play function'. The system also provides business intelligence reporting (to help identify quality problems for example)*

Summary - How to provide world class social customer service:

Don't turn your back on your customers on social media. Period.

Empower your staff to do what they do best - and don't let marketing or agencies get in the way. Your customer service team is one of the most powerful marketing assets an organisation has, also they can convert customers into powerful social media advocates.

Give staff their freedom with a simple social media policy and this is a great starting point > Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t reveal.

Provide social media training for staff so they understand the technology and understand their remit and what they can say via social media.

Implement the right tools for the job. They need to be able to monitor social media but also work as a team and track the communication flow easily to manager customer relationships.

Be engaging, create a tone of voice and approach to the consumer that fits your brand and above all is human! Remember people tweet not brands!

If you require assistance with social media customer service implementation or training please do get in touch!

Thanks!

We did some social media based research in this presentation into the aviation industry, who are mostly renowned for their social customer service. Thanks to KLM, First Group and Virgin America for being awesome in responding.

*Thanks to the First Group customer service team for making us aware of the Conversocial solution and its benefits.