Customer Contact via Social Media is a must for any business that wants to keep up in the coming years.

If Social Media is not yet part of your customer contact vision, then you are missing opportunities such as:

• Promote your sales;
• Increasing customer satisfaction;
• Improve your business processes;

Are you not yet using your social channels for customer contact? Then now is the time to get started. Read on quickly to find out what crucial role social media channels can play in your customer experience.

Why Every Business Should Invest in Customer Contact Through Social Media

A customer contact strategy is a key in long-term success. A well thought out Customer Experience leads your customers to a purchase faster than good marketing.

In fact, study by PwC shows that 73% of buyers cite the Customer Experience as the top reason for making a purchase somewhere.

Why Social Media Belongs in Your Customer Experience

Social Media is one of the most important communication tools for customer contact – currently 75% of people use Social Media to interact with their favorite companies.

And more importantly, 47% of people expect companies to be active on Social Media. Don’t respond? Then at some point that one-way traffic is going to bother them.

The benefits of customer contact through Social Media

In your customer contact strategy, Social Media for call centers have a lot of benefits:

Cost savings

Did you know that the average cost of customer contact through Social Media is about 6 times less than the cost of customer contact over the phone?

This is because you can have multiple Social Media conversations at the same time, something that becomes difficult with phone calls.

We should add here that Social Media platforms also have their limitations. They are great for answering simple questions, but more complex issues you will still have to move to the phone line.

But Social Media is the place to take pressure off your phone lines and lower call center costs.

Customer loyalty

Call centers can use social media to interact with customers and increase their loyalty. This is because they allow you to communicate with them in real time in a personalized way, making your brand a lot more human

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When you continually respond to your customers in a friendly and professional manner, they will have a positive perception of your brand. This can bounce back when you’re not quick enough or suddenly unresponsive, though – which naturally feels like being put on hold.

If you are able to get your customers engaged on social media AND know how to keep them that way, they are more likely to stick with you in the long run.

Make sure you’re ready for negative feedback

We have to be honest. Social media have many benefits, but they also have a downside. Because, unfortunately, people are quick to complain, and Social Media is the outlet.

Negative word-of-mouth on Social Media can be dangerous, because before you know it, you go viral.

And that means only one thing: the Customer Experience and customer satisfaction should always be your top priority.

5 Tips for Excellence in Customer Engagement via Social Media

1. Use an omnichannel approach

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Contact by phone or instant messaging is not enough today. 66% of customers prefer to buy something from companies that use multiple channels for their customer contact.

A omnichannel contact center uses different contact channels and manages to seamlessly blend them together. In practice, that can mean someone sends a message via Facebook, receives a reply via WhatsApp and then responds again via Twitter.

When interacting with customers via social media, it is important to provide the same service across all your channels. With software like Steam-connect you blend all your channels into one interface, so your customer doesn’t notice anything when they switch channels.

2. Seek and reward customer feedback

Customer satisfaction surveys and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) are integral to the success and performance of your contact center. Customer feedback gives you valuable insights into the status of your service delivery and helps your team identify successes and areas for improvement.

You need to collect this information across all your channels, and social media is no exception.

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Send out a survey via direct messaging or post a poll for customers to vote on.

This lets your customers see what’s going on.

This will show your customers that you value them and their opinions matter.

Are you not getting the response you’re hoping for? Then consider creating a rewards program. For example, you could give them a discount on their next purchase.

3. Report your social media activities

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What metrics are in your call center reports? Most call centers focus on KPIs such as abandonment rate, average answer rate and resolve in the first call.

But do you also report your activity on Social Media?

Your customer contact strategy should measure two areas: engagement (views, clicks, responses) and behavior (what kind of posts do they post, positive vs. negative).

Use both qualitative and quantitative data so you can get a more holistic view of your efforts on Social Media and how your customers respond to it.

4. Look closely at your competitors

You really don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Not getting anywhere with your strategy? Then take a look at how your competitors organize their customer contact through Social Media and take notes.

These are some questions to ask yourself:

• What kind of posts do their customers share with them?
• What tone of voice do they use in their customer contact?
• How often do they post something?
• What do they do well and what could they do differently?

It’s also smart to look at other industries, because that’s when you step out of old patterns and set a new standard.

5. Sit on top of your customers’ activities

When a customer has a problem he no longer simply picks up the phone. In most cases, he goes straight to Social Media to share his experience and demands answers.

This is tricky because it means your agents have to solve problems in public. Feedback is essential in your reports and then not just the fact that you collect it, but especially the fact that you acknowledge it – especially when it’s negative feedback.

Thank every customer for their feedback.

Thank every customer for positive feedback. Is it negative? Then apologize and communicate your plans to make amends.

Close the conversation by being clear and friendly. Your public answers should not only reassure the customer in question, they should also be a positive promotion for your brand.

How do you organize customer contact through Social Media?

Social Media channels are popping up like mushrooms and coming on top of all your other channels. Are you struggling to keep up with all those channels and feel like it’s costing your agents more time than it’s generating? Then request a demo of Steam-connect.

Our software blends all channels into one convenient interface so communication is never mixed up again. A must for any company looking to maintain customer contact through Social Media!