When it came to customer service, we used to spend hours waiting for the response we needed. Instead of being quick and simple, the process required hours of on-hold background music and unhelpful online forms. Thankfully, social media has made customer service more efficient. With no long waiting times or inconvenient opening hours, you’re far more likely to receive a speedy response from a company via social media. To keep up with the crowd, your business needs to provide direct and efficient customer support on social media. But how do you do this? In this article, we explore how to deliver great customer support on social media.

Respond Quickly

To deliver great support, you need to reply to your customers as soon as possible. Whether they’ve complained about something serious or enquired about your opening hours, it’s important to give them a speedy reply. In the past, it was easy for customers to feel unappreciated by their favourite companies as they were palmed off with unanswered telephone calls and emails. Today, it doesn’t have to be this way. Many customers turn to social media after traditional support channels have let them down. Unlike call centres, social media is available 24/7 which makes it easier to receive direct and immediate support. Recent studies suggest that 69% of customers feel that a quick resolution of a problem is important to good service, so make sure you find a way to stay on top.

Reply to Everything

It’s not good enough to pick and choose what you reply to. While some messages may seem unimportant, you need to properly respond to everything to offer good customer support. Whether they’ve left a Tweet, Facebook message or a comment on Instagram, the customer wants to be heard and you need to reply. While this may seem like an impossible concept, there are ways to manage social media support channels and simplify the process. Software such as Hootsuite and TweetDeck can help you to manage multiple social media channels and allow you to respond to comments and messages in real-time. Research shows that customers reach brands across the 7 main social channels, so make sure you’ve got a strong presence on each of these to offer great support.

Make Use of Direct Messages

In certain situations, a private message is more suitable than conversing publicly. When you need to speak with a customer in a less exposed space, direct messages are a great option. This method should always be used when discussing confidential details such as names, addresses and account numbers, and it can also come in handy when you want to speak about an issue in greater detail. When you do decide to direct message a customer, don’t forget the other people who can see your channel. Make sure to reply to the original comment to publicly show that you’re dealing with the issue.

Stay Cool, Calm and Collected

Whether you’re behind the till or in a support centre, customer service often inspires strong opinions from customers. Unfortunately, with this can come rude messages and strong language. Instead of rising to negativity, try to remain neutral and respond to the customer politely and professionally. If the customer is already annoyed, you don’t want to provoke them further and make the issue worse. When you converse on social media, don’t forget that everybody can see what you’re saying. To paint a good picture of your brand, try to remain cool, calm and collected and breeze past strong language and aggressive comments. Regardless of the customer’s attitude, assure them that their issue is important and you’re doing your best to sort it out. To keep your watching customers happy, you need to create a positive environment, even when you feel angry or under pressure.

It can be easy to lose control in the heat of the moment, so note down some positive stock replies that can be used when you’re in a tricky situation.

Listen to Your Customers

When it comes to customer support, one of the most important things is listening to what your customers have to say. During quiet periods, use a social media monitoring tool to search for mentions of your brand name. See what people are saying about your business, even if they’re not saying it directly to you. If it feels right, reply to the mention or send the customer a direct message to discuss the subject in more detail. If the post doesn’t warrant a reply, take the information on board and use it to improve your brand. Collect and analyse activity so you can understand the sorts of issues being raised on social media. You can then use this information to determine what percentage of comments are account-specific questions, how many comments appear to be written in moments of anger, what time of day customers are most active on social media and how many brand mentions would benefit from a response of some sort. The answers to these questions will allow you to be prepared for future comments, define priority criteria and determine whether you’ll be able to handle most of the issues through social media or whether you need to direct users to another line of support.

Today, social media allows customers to reach out to their favourite companies and discuss any issues they may have. To ensure you don’t fall behind your competitors, you need to offer great customer support on social media. Thankfully, following the tips above will help you to achieve this. Above all else, you need to make your customers feel valued. Whether they’re thanking you for a new release or making a serious complaint, respond as soon as possible politely and professionally.