6 Social media customer service blunders to avoid

A recent study by SproutSocial states that 46% of consumers use social media to express how dissatisfied they are with the brands they've transacted with. To address this, brands are directly interacting with their customers using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Since practically anyone online can see their posts, people believe that it forces brands to be accountable, regarding social media's value as much as other service channels.

Social media customer service blunders can be avoided to provide positive customer experience.

 

1.   Ignoring your audience.

Your social media accounts make you accessible, letting you to communicate with your audiences easily. So, you must pay attention to your notifications. Brand accounts require time to ensure that no message is left unanswered. As such, it would be best to assign dedicated employees to monitor your social media moderation. You must go through your feeds constantly to avoid the following:

•     Not responding on time or at all. This looks bad for your brand, especially if your accounts are used primarily for customer service rather than marketing. This deems your customer care efforts useless and ineffective. Reply as soon as possible to your messages and mentions.

•     Ignoring mentions. Do this and you miss out on opportunities to gain insight on what your audiences are saying about your brand, may it be good or bad. You also miss chances to address concerns before they escalate.

•     Ignoring follow-ups. Never fall into this habit. If you have previously unresolved concerns, make sure that you follow through any promised resolution timeline and solve them. Don't wait for your customers to reach out to you again.

 

2.   Being selective.

Selectiveness has no room in customer service, especially on social media where your accounts also serves as a marketing tool.

•     Only acknowledging positive interactions. Responding only to positive comments and ignoring complaints and criticisms makes your brand seem arrogant to admit that your brand makes mistakes. There is much to learn from both kinds of responses, so don't ignore any of them.

•     Deleting responses. This is definitely a blaring no-no on social media customer service. Despite the negative feedback, keep them on your page because the lack of it may make you seem too good to be true. Of course, exercise discretion when content posted on your accounts are offensive, derogatory, and the like.

•     Replying only to notable people. If you do this, don't expect that it'll go unnoticed, especially by other paying customers. Potential leads may also get turned off when they see how you treat your other customers.

 

3.   Overlooking your content.

In social media, content is key. Overlooking your content can be disastrous to your brand and its success. So go over your responses, messages, and posts before you hit send.

•     Tagging the wrong user. This leaves a bad impression for customers. Customers will wonder how you don't have the time to check if you were mentioning the right account.

•     Grammatical errors and typos. Not only can these mistakes cause confusion and mislead your followers, they can make you seem careless.

•     Sending poorly constructed responses. Badly written responses may be perceived as you not giving your customers the attention they need. You may also come off as though you're ill-equipped to to address their customer concerns.

 

4.   Not humanizing your brand.

Humanizing your brand involves dropping your corporate persona and adopting a more human approach to connecting with your customers. This enables your brand to gain your customers' trust and helps you develop a genuine connection with them.

•     Using canned responses. Having a list of ready responses to use in your correspondence may help boost your productivity, it will also make your brand seem robotic and dishonest. Instead, always be sure to personalize your communication with your customers by addressing to them by their name or adding a pinch of spontaneity. Add a dash of sense of humor if you think it's appropriate.

•     The tone should not be ignored. Employing a friendly yet professional tone makes your brand more approachable and accommodating.

•     Start and end calls with genuine greetings. Customers know when you're lifting your greetings from a script. Also, don't leave your conversation open-ended. Offer your assistance should they need further help with some other concern.

•     Ask your customers for feedback. Social media accounts can be a means of collecting informal feedback whether through reviews, mentions, or quick surveys. The information you gather are crucial in your brand's ability to adapt to what the market expects and deserves. You can also ask them if their concerns and questions have been addressed accordingly.

 

5.   Repeatedly asking for contact details.

Brands need to look out for their customers. However, when customers are asked for their contact details repeatedly, the appeal may diminish. The best way to address this is to maintain a customer relationship management (CRM) app or system to help you find all your customer details in one place.

 

6.   Redirecting customer concerns.

Customers get in touch with you via social media because they consider it the easiest and most convenient way to contact you. They expect to resolve their concerns through the same channel where contact was initiated. They dislike being passed around, and it doesn't sit well with clients when you redirect them to other channels of communication. Of course, this may not be averted all the time—especially when the concerns require time to resolve or their concerns may only be resolved using another platform's features.