The Definitive Guide to Social Media Customer Service
Chapter 2
Once you decide to engage in social media customer service, the next step is coming up with an effective strategy for implementing it. You know the “what” and they “why” of social media support, but who within your company should be the one to own this new platform? Should it be customer service? Marketing? PR? Sales? IT?
If you want a well-rounded, capable, and effective social media customer care team, then the answer is all of the above. Whether you are starting from scratch or hoping to maximize the quality and effectiveness of your current social media outreach, a jointly-owned social media department is the way to go.
This blog post will show you what makes a jointly-owned social media customer service strategy so necessary, and will walk you through how to implement one yourself. By learning these benefits and following the simple steps we’ve laid out for you, your newest support channel will be a hit — not a miss.
Companies often fall into the trap of giving control of social media over to one department — usually Marketing.
On first thought, it seems to make perfect sense – in a world that’s increasingly virtual, social media is an excellent place to develop and implement new marketing schemes that will attract all kinds of customers to your product.
Unfortunately, however, it isn’t that simple. Companies that fall into this mindset overlook the reason that social media exists in the first place – to give people a platform where they can communicate, connect, and engage with people (and companies!), no matter their distance.
An effective social media team shouldn’t just push promotions and advertisements (although those are great and a normal part of social media outreach); they should also answer product questions, address concerns, and help customers when they need it.
A jointly-owned social media support strategy is one where the control of social media isn’t given over to a single department — rather, the company comes up with a social media task force that multiple departments contribute to, or “own” at once. This allows for a well-rounded social media presence, more effective customer service, and a great image for your brand.
Companies without a jointly-owned social media support strategy often suffer in the following ways:
Doesn’t sound like that’s for you? Congrats! Companies with a jointly-owned social media customer service strategy enjoy the following benefits:
“Marketing staff would publish brand content, but they also received customer complaints. They forwarded the complaints by email to customer service agents, who would then process the requests and email them back to marketing to post on social media. Social media response was limited to Monday through Friday. For the new 24/7 cross-functional team, Hertz partnered with a software company to easily connect customer service agents to the software that marketing staff uses to monitor social media conversations. The multidepartment system has enabled Hertz to respond within 75 minutes to more than 1,000 individual customers per week. The company that responds to customers in real time through social media has increased customer loyalty, contributing to customer lifetime value.”
By switching to a jointly-owned social media customer service strategy, the company adopted a social media customer care model that fit its customers’ expectations and need for speed.
This means that 79% of companies still have single-department ownership of their social media channel. That leaves a lot of room for you to develop your jointly-owned social media customer service strategy miles ahead of the bulk of the competition. And as for the 21% of companies who already have a jointly owned strategy – once you join them, you will be making your social media customer care the best it can be. And from there, you can beat them, too!
Preserve the roles of your team and assign specific responsibility for certain types of communications over social media. Do you expect your team to just reply to direct wall posts and things your company is tagged in? Or should they proactively search for comments about your company (and competition) and get more involved in the conversation?
Should you have a remote team, make sure that hours are clear, and — should you have a 24/7 social media response team — that schedules don’t leave any gap of time where customers will go without a response.
Having a jointly-owned social media customer service strategy isn’t the only thing you need for your company’s social media to go above and beyond. It is, however, a necessary part of this process.
With your jointly-owned social media customer support strategy, you will have effective, capable agents, a feedback loop that works, and — most importantly — a better, more fluid online relationship with your customers than you ever thought possible.
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