{"id":31630,"date":"2017-11-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/guest-blog-how-to-use-social-media-to-provide-great-customer-service\/"},"modified":"2024-01-22T11:44:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T11:44:48","slug":"use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Blog: How to Use Social Media to Provide Great Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<em>This week we feature an article by Brooke Harper who writes about the importance of using social media to provide great customer service. If you&#8217;re not monitoring what customers are saying about you and your company on social media, what are you waiting for?! \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/meet-shep\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shep Hyken<\/a><\/em><!--more-->\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are you paying attention to what your customers are saying on social media? If you\u2019re not, it\u2019s time to start. There are relevant conversations surrounding your brand across multiple social networks, and if you\u2019re not listening or contributing, then you\u2019re missing out on opportunities to deliver customer service in a timely and relevant fashion. Many of the most successful companies in the world have begun using social media as one of the ways they address and resolve customer concerns\u2014with fantastic results. In fact, when a company engages its customers through social channels in this way, those customers<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bain.com\/publications\/articles\/putting-social-media-to-work.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">go on to spend 20 to 40 percent more<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on products and services from that company. In other words, if you\u2019re not engaging in this practice, you\u2019re losing opportunities and profits alike.<\/span>\r\n<h4><b>It Starts with Effective Social Listening<\/b><\/h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first step to being a great social listener is to figure out which social networks your customers and ideal audience use most, and tailor your approach to fit that. If your services fall under the B2B umbrella, for example, your customers are more likely to engage with you on LinkedIn as opposed to in B2C businesses.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not sure where your customers go when they\u2019re online? Then try asking them, through a survey. Communication is key to great service.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you know where to engage, you can start to collect information through messages, mentions, and more. Are people asking for customer support? Are they providing feedback\u2014and how much is positive versus negative? What is the best way to respond?<\/span>\r\n<h4><b>Timing Is Everything<\/b><\/h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To deliver great social media-based customer service, you have to be able to respond in a timely manner\u2014not in a week, not in a few days, but ideally within a few hours or even within a few minutes. In fact,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nearly half of consumers expect a response within one hour<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of reaching out via social media, so don\u2019t leave them hanging. Having a centralized customer service platform that is<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">integrated directly into your social channels<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a great way to accomplish this, as it empowers you to look at each item from each stream, prioritize them based on seriousness\u2014e.g., technical, account, and payment issues first, followed by more minor concerns\u2014and assign tickets to them. You can also see if there have been previous interactions with the same customers, and how those were resolved, which could save you even more time.<\/span>\r\n<h4><b>Put Great Care into Each Interaction<\/b><\/h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just because a customer interaction happens through Facebook or Twitter doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re allowed to slack or be less professional. Being polite and courteous, as well as making a customer feel cared for, are always key elements in the customer service field, and will never be less important. Provide the same level of service that you would in person or over the phone, take any opportunity to go the extra mile, and who knows\u2014perhaps someday, you\u2019ll be looked at as the prime example of how others should be using social media!<\/span>\r\n<h4><b>Great Social Media Examples<\/b><\/h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You needn\u2019t look far to find terrific examples of how to conduct yourself online, either. Take a look, for example, at Microsoft\u2019s official<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/XboxSupport\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Xbox Support Twitter account<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. They have an entire team dedicated to answering support questions through Twitter, 24\/7\u2014and have actually won a Guinness World Record for \u201cmost responsive corporate account on Twitter.\u201d Does this mean you have to compete with them to be successful? No. But it exemplifies the importance of timely, always-available service.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buffer is<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/buffer\/with_replies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">another great example on Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. A quick look at their feed showcases how each reply is kindly-worded, and personalized with a signature from the individual support worker. This is a simple and effective way to make each customer feel that their time and patronage is valued.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/profile\/Brooke-Harper-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brooke Harper<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0Sales Consultant\u00a0from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tenfold.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><u>Tenfold.com<\/u><\/a> in Austin, Texas. Brooke is one of the top writers on Quora in B2B and her answers get over 100K views a month and growing.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/topic\/sheps-articles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">customerserviceblog.com<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n<p class=\"article-headline ng-binding\"><em>Read Shep\u2019s latest Forbes Article:\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/shephyken\/2017\/11\/19\/ibm-helps-retailers-get-ready-for-this-years-holiday-shopping-experience\/#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IBM Helps Retailers Get Ready For This Year&#8217;s Holiday Shopping Experience<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week we feature an article by Brooke Harper who writes about the importance of using social media to provide great customer service. If you&#8217;re not monitoring what customers are saying about you and your company on social media, what are you waiting for?! \u2013 Shep Hyken<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[5388,5902,5972],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.5 (Yoast SEO v22.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Use Social Media to Provide Great Customer Service<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first step to being a great social listener is to figure out which social networks your customers and ideal audience use most.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Use Social Media to Provide Great Customer Service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first step to being a great social listener is to figure out which social networks your customers and ideal audience use most.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shep Hyken | Customer Service Expert\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ShepHykenSpeaker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ShepHykenSpeaker\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-11-24T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-01-22T11:44:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Shep-Hyken-Website-Card.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"shephyken\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"shephyken\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"shephyken\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b92dbe4f9f734f7c0d600fc8014b7fe2\"},\"headline\":\"Guest Blog: How to Use Social Media to Provide Great Customer Service\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-24T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-01-22T11:44:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\"},\"wordCount\":769,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b92dbe4f9f734f7c0d600fc8014b7fe2\"},\"keywords\":[\"polite to the customer\",\"social listening\",\"deliver great social media-based customer service\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Social Media\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\",\"name\":\"How to Use Social Media to Provide Great Customer Service\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-24T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-01-22T11:44:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"The first step to being a great social listener is to figure out which social networks your customers and ideal audience use most.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/social-media\/use-social-media-provide-great-customer-service\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/hyken.com\/\",\"name\":\"Shep Hyken | Customer Service Expert\",\"description\":\"Award-winning Customer Service &amp; 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