How social media can boost omnichannel customer service

Have you ever complained about a brand on social media or asked a query – that too not through DMs or the inbox but publicly?

The chances are - yes.

From AM to PM – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the happening places, and where consumers reach out to businesses at all hours of the day for customer care needs.

The quickfire, public nature of posts and tweets makes social media the perfect platform for getting businesses to respond promptly with a resolution – leaving both you and your customers happy. However, a delayed response or an incorrect resolution can land your business in a trend storm – with not only the disgruntled customer, but several others joining the bandwagon.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently.” - Warren Buffet

We’ve all been witness to those viral social media storms that start off small, but slowly escalate into a trending media crisis and ultimately effecting your brand reputation. A single bad review or an unaddressed customer complaint can put off not only existing customers but also cause prospects to think twice before doing business with you.

How can you convert critics into fans?

While the above demonstrates the dark side, social media when done right can be extremely beneficial in increasing brand loyalty and delivering better results. By turning every complaint into a positive resolution and every inquiry into an opportunity – you can shape your social narrative, build long-lasting customer relationships, and ultimately bolster your brand reputation.

However, with a constant focus on marketing, brands still have not fully leveraged social media as a customer care platform.

How can quick responses unlock meaningful customer connections?

Social media has long been used by marketers as a channel for building customer relationships, with numerous stories of brands delighting customers who air grievances with freebies or inspire followers with ideas and campaigns.

But adding Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to your contact center can help improve customer service – by connecting with them on a channel that is personal and popularly used.

Why do people go to social media for customer service?

While ease of access is an important component of a positive customer experience, response time is the key to unlocking meaningful connections on social. Customers expect quicker responses than if they use other channels of communication.

Along with that, messaging a brand on social media gives a sense of human connection and conversations with agents give customers the confidence to convert.

• 1bn messages are exchanged between customers and businesses every month
• 70 percent of people expect to message businesses for customer service questions
• 59 percent of brand replies to user Tweets occur within 15 minutes
• 64 percent of people would rather message than call a business

After all, as mentioned in Forrester’s CX Essentials 2020: “CX is customers’ perceptions of their interactions with a brand. Customers alone get to judge the quality of their experiences.”

Does omnichannel customer service begin with social media?

Yes. It is not just digital natives, but other age groups as well, that are turning to social media as they expect your business to be online and available.

Why do customers message brands on social media?

Having an agent on standby who is constantly listening and monitoring to social media queries, complaints and reviews will help:

• Build loyalty and trust: By responding quickly, your customers can be assured of always-on support and service. The advantage of the replies being public means you address one-to-many and proactively answer another customer query. This leads to greater trust and, in return, increased sales.
  
  
• Provide proactive service: Besides being personal social media allows your agents to be proactive in their responses by preempting situations. For example: If there was a service outage or an issue with your checkout facility, Facebook and Twitter would be the perfect channels to share that information and update customers.
  
  
• Enable private problem resolution: Some queries may require requesting personal details or maybe uncomfortable. Transferring the conversation to Messenger, Twitter inbox, or Instagram DMs is, seamless and allows the customer to stay on their channel of choice.
  
  
• Manage reviews: Helping your agents manage your brands’ credibility, they can monitor customer reviews and respond to unfavorable ones on time while delighting customers who have left good reviews – thereby influencing future purchase decisions.

What does social media customer service mean for businesses?

1. Savings:

• $1 – the cost to solve a customer issue on social media.
• 1/6th of the cost of call center interactions.

2. Satisfaction:

• 19 percent improvement in customer satisfaction.

3. Sales:

• 7 percent year-on-year revenue improvement per contact.
• 20-40 percent of customers spend more based on social media interactions.

Source: McKinsey & Company

An omnichannel cloud contact center solution provides agents with a single view of your customer’s history and interactions. Similarly, your social media channel forms that single window for your customers – giving them an insight into how you’ve handled previous issues and queries. This affects their perception before they interact with you and also determine their satisfaction rate.

The added value of integrating your social media channels into your contact center solutions include:

• Efficient management of social media directly from contact center solution
• Fast customer service
• No missed comments due to volume of posts
• Improved customer experience across all touchpoints and increased satisfaction
• Increased brand reputation and value

Social media channels within your contact center

Dependent on your organization’s size, you must assign at least one agent to each social media channel – to monitor activity, filter out the unhappy customers and respond to them promptly.

When it comes to social media – the time is of the essence – with Facebook marking anything over 5 minutes a slow response rate.

Once you have integrated your social media channels into your contact center – it’s important to train your agents to address customer queries in the same way they would through other channels such as Email, WhatsApp, SMS, and Voice, Chats Apps, or Live Chat. Remember, social media posts are available for everyone to see; hence the quality of interactions should meet customer expectations.

Does building relationships through social conversations work?

Yes. The addition of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram boosts that omnichannel customer experience further – along with allowing you to protect your brand reputation.

Social media empowers you to take ownership, solve problems and build trust.

And if that is not reason enough over 3.6bn people use social media today, and the number is only projected to increase to 4.41bn in 2025.

For more information on how you can Infobip can help you drive better customer experiences, access the Infobip content hub