Why Your Social Media Interactions Are So Important

Organizations should handle customer service inquiries on social media with the same care and consistency they do incoming calls, chats, and emails.

Articles published March 24, 2017

These days, an online presence is essential to successful business, and that includes playing in the social media spaces where your audience spends time. For many organizations social media has the opportunity to further highlight your product or service, showcase your brand’s personality, and engage directly with consumers — for better or worse.

How you respond, and how quickly, to negative customer feedback can greatly impact your brand’s online reputation. Data in the Gladly Customer Expectations Survey found that 42 percent of consumers will post about a negative experience on social media. And according to the Microsoft Global Customer Service Report, 37 percent of individuals surveyed expect companies to respond to a social media complaint in a day, while 28 percent say the company should respond within an hour. Those are some serious customer expectations for your team to manage. That’s why regular moderation of social media interactions is key to excellent customer care and retention.

Examples of Smart Social Media Management

Not only does social media present the opportunity to provide excellent customer service, but appropriately handling customer complaints and questions can also help boost your brand’s social media reputation and even help in the sales process. According to the Gladly report, 55 percent of consumers say they rely on social media reviews when making purchasing decisions.

So what does savvy social media management look like for a business?

The three organizations below are examples of companies doing a great job handling social media interactions. They respond quickly to tweets and provide second-to-none customer service.

Take the Time to Reply

Alex & Ani, a jewelry brand, makes it a point to respond to every tweet and message they receive on Twitter. It doesn’t matter if it is positive or negative; when someone tweets at them, they make time to reply. In today’s busy world, this is rare, especially when you have thousands of Twitter followers, but their dedicated social customer care shows that the brand listens to and values each of their customers.

Show Your Brand’s Personality

Slack, a communication tool designed for the workplace, is another good example of social media moderation and response. A look at their Twitter feed shows a clever blend of wit, friendliness, helpfulness, and emojis. They reply to many tweets, showing they’re dedicated to helping their customers stay productive with their chat tool. It’s great to respond to your customers’ questions, and it’s even better to do so in a friendly and timely manner. Slack does both.

Set Customer Expectations

KLM has a unique and helpful Twitter profile. They put their estimated response time in their Twitter account header image. While providing an estimated response time is just good practice in customer service, it's not a common sight on social media. The fact that the response time is listed here is a testament to KLM's brand and their desire to keep customers happy. This simple gesture highlights their dedication to exceptional customer service.

The Importance of Social Media Moderation

Social media is becoming a popular method for reporting issues because the experience is easy and doesn’t take the consumer a lot of time — all it takes is a simple tweet or direct message to the company. Organizations should pay as much attention to their consumers on social media as they do incoming calls, chats, and emails. Think of fast, accurate, and warm social media responses as the equivalent of being greeted with a smile and friendly voice when checking into your favorite hotel.

As highlighted by the examples above, timely and consistent responses on your social media platforms can have a positive effect. That consistency is key. To deliver great customer service every single time, social media moderation needs to be done on a consistent basis and every reply needs to accurately represent your brand.

A company should train its customer service team to keep up with social traffic and respond accordingly. This may take extra effort, but in the end, it’s worth it. At the end of the day, we all want our businesses to be successful and our customers to be satisfied with their experience.