Some brands really get how to leverage social media to their advantage. For example, we love Wendy’s playful Twitter sass and Whole Foods’ genuine customer-centric approach to social media platforms. Social media is a critical aspect of any brand’s contemporary customer service action plan. However, it shouldn’t be the only answer to handling these issues.
The Downfalls of Social Media
We’ve written before about why social networks suck. In this day and age, it’s commonplace for brands to include at least one social network in their marketing plan, but it’s unwise to use social channels for much other than brand awareness. There are a few things you need to consider if you primarily rely on social media for your customer service strategy.
1. It’s hard to control the message
With hundreds or thousands of replies or mentions to sift through, the primary message that you want to convey to your target audience is incredibly hard to control on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You may be overwhelmed by the volume of feedback, spam messages or even bots—and your core message will be lost.
2. It’s difficult to stay organized
Say you received a complaint via Twitter two months ago. The same customer returns and is still unhappy with the results. How do you quickly and efficiently track the correspondence you previously had with them? On sites like Twitter and Facebook, you don’t. The best you can do is search the person’s username along with your company name and hope that the user didn’t delete or edit past messages in the meantime.
3. It’s challenging to be thorough
Some customer inquiries require more than 240 characters to address. Or, they may require privacy and confidentiality—neither of which are strong suits of the social media world. Your customers may feel uneasy about airing their grievances for the world to see and may be less likely to accept a suitable compromise if they feel that they are being watched and judged by other users.
SocialMedia.Sucks when it’s your only platform for customer service, so make sure you supplement your presence with other resources.
Customer Service Software
To build a truly effective customer service program that amplifies what you are already doing on social media, software can go a long way. Here are some of our favourite tools:
Reevoo – A tool to help you collect and showcase genuine customer feedback and reviews with a focus on true stories future customers will value and trust.
Feefo – A review platform for collecting honest feedback that can provide insights to transform your business in a customer-focused way.
User Echo – Software to help you easily manage all customer feedback with more functionality and flexibility than a typical forum.
User Report – A set of tools to tell you who your users are and what they want to achieve in order to streamline your product or service.
Get Satisfaction – An online customer community platform that hosts thousands of active communities and over 35 million consumers a month.
Any of these software options can help orient your approach to customer feedback and service.
How .SUCKS Can Help
A customized .SUCKS domain and well-crafted landing page can be leveraged as a useful opportunity for customer service initiatives. Picture this: A disgruntled customer navigates to your brand’s [brand].Sucks page. Here they find a collection of positive customer reviews and feedback, as well as contact information to engage directly with the brand on their issue. We may be a little biased, but this seems like a positive experience for both the brand and the customer!
BadService.Sucks, so don’t let the story end until your customer is 100% satisfied with the results.
The Takeaway
A poorly handled complaint can lose you an otherwise loyal customer, not to mention tarnish your brand’s hard-won reputation. Social media is part of the customer service puzzle but you’ll need a more all-encompassing approach to really stand out as a brand. Combine your use of social media, customer service software or products and a custom .SUCKS domain to make sure all your bases are covered and all your customers are happy.
NotBeingHeard.Sucks, so put in the extra effort to make sure your customers don’t feel that way with a .SUCKS domain tailored to their needs.
Photo Credits: Shutterstock / Vasin Lee, Shutterstock / Rawpixel.Shutterstock / dotshock
