Guest Post: Here Are The Do’s & Don’ts of Social Media Customer Service

This week we feature an article by Devin Pickell, Growth Marketer at Nextiva. He writes about the do’s and don’ts of social media customer service.

We already know more brands are using social media as a customer service channel for answering FAQs, customer complaints, and general support questions. 

While social media is a great channel for facilitating customer inquiries, there is a right and a wrong way to use the channel. It’s time to review the do’s and don’ts of social media customer service. 

4 Do’s of Social Media Customer Service 

1. Nail down a workflow for handling customer questions

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of actual customer service, you need to figure out a workflow for handling inquiries. That takes answering some of the questions below: 

What is the volume of inquiries in your social media inboxes? Does your social media specialist have the autonomy to answer FAQs, or will there be a different point person? How will your brand standards for customer service work into social media?  

Layout a customer service workflow before implementing it. You can use a variety of project management tools for keeping this workflow organized in a single space. 

2. Determine your most frequently asked questions

Are you finding any patterns in questions or concerns stated over social media? Compile the most frequently asked questions in a shared document, determine the best possible answers, and distribute the document to your customer service team. 

This document will act as a single source of truth your team can reference. It also ensures the service they provide is on-brand and doesn’t deviate much from what your customers expect. Finally, these FAQs can be automated in the next section. 

3. Use automation when necessary

Some social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow brands to automate customer service through a button-based chatbot. See the example below from Macy’s: 

Chatbots like these are a great way to answer simple questions and offer customers a self-service option. Based on data from Harvard Business Review, we know that 8 in 10 consumers are open to resolving issues themselves. 

But these chatbots, like any chatbots, should still be able to escalate to a human agent in case a more complex question arises or the chatbot faces a technical error. You can even leave a number to your inbound call center in case they require phone support. 

4. Provide speedy support

Response time is everything when it comes to social media customer service, especially on platforms like Twitter where a users’ content feed speeds by them.  

According to the Sprout Social Index report, 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within the first hour of reaching out on social media, while 79% expect a response in the first 24 hours. 

Failing to resolve complaints quickly will make a customer think twice about doing business with your brand, due to fractured trust. 

4 Don’ts of Social Media Customer Service 

1. Don’t ignore customer complaints 

A cardinal sin of social media customer service is ignoring your customer complaints. It’s one thing to not interact with spammy accounts, it’s another thing to completely avoid confrontation on social media. In fact, 88% of consumers said they were less likely to buy from a brand in the future if their complaints went ignored on social media.  

Get in front of complaints. You don’t need to answer them in a public forum setting. Instead, you can ask the customer to DM you more details about the issue so they can get it resolved quickly. 

2. Don’t engage with spam accounts 

Spam accounts, bot accounts, and what are referred to as “trolls” are all over social media these days. In fact, an estimated half of all Twitter accounts aren’t people – they’re bots, according to a CNBC study. 

These accounts exist to give you a hard time, so it’s best not to engage with them and fill up your customer service queue.  

Be on the lookout for accounts that look fake, have little-to-no engagement, and are overly aggressive on social media. When in doubt, ask for an order number to cross-reference their account and see if they’re an actual customer. 

3. Don’t get defensive or upset 

It can be easy to get caught up in a customer service interaction that is frustrating you personally. But don’t budge. Acting outside your brand standards for customer service could hurt your brand and may even get you in trouble.  

Be professional, take a deep breath, and keep it cool. One way to do this is by empathizing with the customer on the other side of the interaction. They could be facing issues with your return policy, missing an order, or even going through something personal that you wouldn’t be aware of over social media. 

Taking the high road and prioritizing their problem is the key to better customer service. 

4. Don’t promise service you can’t provide 

Finally, don’t promise customer service you know you can’t provide. For example, don’t claim you offer 24/7 support if you don’t have a chatbot or a distributed team able to take support requests outside of your working hours. 

We all want to provide the best service possible, but missing the mark on your promises is yet another way to hurt your brand. It fractures your customers’ trust the next time they need an issue resolved. 

If your main brand social media account is facing too many support requests, try creating an account solely for customer service. Brands like HubSpot, Uber, Coinbase employ this tactic successfully. 

Devin Pickell is a Growth Marketer at Nextiva. He combines his skills in content marketing, SEO, data analysis, and marketing strategy to meet customers at the right moment in their journey.