5 Tips to BOOST Customer Service with Social Media

Social media can be a very powerful business tool when harnessed correctly to BOOST Customer Service.

There are so many uses for Social Media for businesses. So many ways to help your small business with its marketing and external communications.

One of its many uses is that social media marketing can be a great way to boost customer service. Whether you handle your customers yourself, or you have an assistant or team member overseeing this for you, social media is an important online channel for boosting your small business’ customer service.

Here are four ways to use social media to improve the quality and Boost customer service.

1. Keep your customers up to date
In some businesses, there is lots of new information that can be communicated, maybe even on a daily basis. Product launches, event dates, promotional offers, company updates etc.

With social media, these updates are free and easy. Plus, social media helps you reach people with the information they are interested in on the platform that they like and use already. Whether your people use Facebook, are big on Twitter, or even use Google+ you can provide value and assistance by keeping everyone updated.

Quick tip: Communicate the information you share on your social media channels. If you use Facebook to give daily updates on your small business, let your customers know that via your online communications. Use this point as a call to action on your website, in your email marketing etc… to get more customers and clients to connect with you.

2. Get a better understanding of people’s wants and needs when it comes to your service or products
Use the information that you glean from social media to direct your small business’ marketing strategy. Listen to what people are asking for. Then fulfil that need. Whether you adjust your offering, or you adjust your communications to include information about topics of interest to your customers.

Quick tip: Use common questions and concerns as topics for blog posts. In this way, you are creating online content that can be used and referenced again and again. It makes it very easy to answer your customers’ questions when you already have the answer online and publicly available.

3. Be more efficient
An important part of any social media strategy is creating compelling content. Information that interests your customers educates them or gives them details they are looking for.

You become more efficient in providing customer service by the whole social media process, creating content and giving people quick and easy access to it. They get what they need and you make things faster and simpler for yourself when questions come through.

Quick tip: On your blog, have you popular posts in the sidebar directing people to posts that answer the most common questions your customer service people (or you) get asked. You might reduce the number of queries you get in the process as the information is easily found online.

4. Find out the problems in your communications
Social media lets your customers quickly and easily inform you if they are having any problems or issues. Many times, the quick customer feedback you get on social media lets you make adjustments to your communications so that no one else has a similar problem. Are people confused? Do they not understand your offering?

Quick tip: When you launch a promotion, monitor your social media accounts to see if there are any problems understanding your communications. Make sure that you address questions that come up in your explanation of the promotion. In many cases, people that don’t understand will simply not bother participating. They will not take the time to let you know that they don’t get it. So it’s important to catch any issues you can.

5. Identify and publicly address complaints and bad reviews
Social media allows you to keep an eye out for any negative issues that are surfacing online about your small business. And it allows you the opportunity to respond and make things right (or as right as possible).

Being active on social media also gives your customers an avenue for communication. They have a place to go to voice their concerns and get in touch with your small business. If you’re not on social media, it doesn’t mean they won’t talk about you. They’ll do this anyway, perhaps without you knowing it.

Quick tip: Use Twitter search to keep tabs of your business mentions in the event that you are not properly tagged.