This post may shift your perspective and motivate you to invest a bit more time, energy, and passion into your presence on social media if you operate a company and consider it as a necessary evil.

The importance of social media is still often underestimated in the world of small and medium-sized businesses. Reaching the final consumer or business partner is now simpler, often less expensive, and more efficient than ever thanks to social media's possibilities. It is a mistake to ignore this crucial channel or to show inconsistent activity, particularly when it comes to customer care.

The focus on these activities is increasingly being moved to social media, which has developed into a forum for disputes, image issues, or, on the other hand, intriguing marketing initiatives. Incorrectly, many businesses do not prioritize it highly in their strategies, placing a larger focus on community participation, raising awareness, or expanding the reach of their communications.

Why is social media important to customer service?

Consumer behavior and expectations have changed as a consequence of the accessibility and decreasing prices of Internet connection, the rising habit of mobile devices, our familiarity with social media and its expansion into new areas of our life. Since audiences are not known for their patience, they need quick replies from brands. They anticipate the same behavior from the businesses they want to connect with and follow on social media based on their personal interactions there. They also opt to communicate their opinions in this manner because they are aware that their presence on social media will not go ignored. The wide range of interactions available to businesses enables them to enhance their offerings or consistently raise the bar on their customer service and communication standards.

Why should you use social media for customer service?

• social media allow you to precisely reach specific, selected target groups through content targeting and advertising campaigns unlike conventional marketing where you make flyers to reach out to your targeted audience.
• active presence on social media platforms supports brand recognition and its positioning among competitors
• properly developed and managed profiles can also act as the next (and one of the most frequently used by those interested) customer service channel
• social media can be a source of quick opinions about products or services, as well as a treasury of valuable comments and information, allowing for the improvement of the offer
• building a loyal community of customers and leads is faster, easier and more accurate
• thanks to social media, you can also quickly identify topics and products that are currently very popular – and use them for your own purposes

A recipe for effective customer service in SM

Social media customer care has its own set of guidelines. It is good to begin by developing processes. For the purpose of planning a brand's social media presence, response templates, conduct in crisis circumstances, and their prevention are used. Planning cohesive communication and establishing the target audience's "tone of voice" are equally crucial. It's crucial to have up-to-date knowledge about your own goods and services, as well as some of their standards, in order to respond to consumer demands or complaints in a timely yet precise manner.

The employment of chatbots (virtual assistant modules) in the Facebook Messenger program, which, if designed correctly, would operate as a customer helper and lead him through challenging circumstances, may be a more sophisticated option. They should only be used as customer service help, never as a substitute for a live person on the other side of the screen.

How to measure the quality of customer service in social media?

The right analysis of the gathered data and its optimization to guarantee even better contact on the customer-brand line and to spot bottlenecks is a crucial component of operations in the sphere of customer service. Activities won't be successful without a sound plan, and excellent optimization is impossible without precise assessment of those actions.

You should analyze:

1. response rate (frequency of responses to posts)

A number that is too low should prompt you to reconsider your customer service plan or to better teach those handling this area on social media. The lower the value, the poorer and slower the quality of customer service will be.

Work on enabling customer service to use social media freely: designate moderators, disseminate best practices, schedule on-call hours, and choose the tools to assist with a high volume of enquiries.

2. response time

The greater the rate and the shorter the reaction time, the more quickly and effectively you respond to inquiries from your audience.

TIP: Creating defined processes can help you reduce reaction times and boost the quality of your social media material. Along with the aforementioned responsibilities, it is vital to focus on information flow, produce a bundle of materials describing your own goods and services, create response templates, and compile a list of key contacts.

3. negative feedback

shows how many complaints you are receiving from your viewers. It is evaluated based on how many posts users have hidden, how many posts have been reported as spam, and how many people have stopped like the page. A high rate may be the result of insufficient publications or poor communication.

Always evaluate and improve your social media efforts. Test several post formats to see which one yields the greatest outcomes. Don't be scared to drop any of your techniques that are ineffective and driving visitors away from your website.

4. community ranking

The numbers shown in the community ranking make it simple to find the most active and involved fans. This can help you better understand your target audience and discover their interests, enabling you to produce content that converts more effectively and provide greater results.

TIP: Offer activities that your target group is willing to engage in based on your understanding of the group's degree of commitment.

In addition to having excellent marketing potential, social media is crucial for providing excellent customer service and aids in image building. Exemplary customer service is often discussed in public, whether it be on social media, at conferences, in speeches, or in books. But ultimately, it is the client or prospective customer who promotes the brand most loudly, and they become more and more persuaded of it as a result of its well-planned communication and effective problem-solving.

The stick, however, has two ends, and such a person may swiftly and often turn away from the company that did not support him and did not make an effort to get in touch with him. When preparing your complete marketing strategy, keep this in mind. I implore you to take use of social media's possibilities.

You can do it!

One of the most crucial components of every business is its level of customer service. Without it, your clients won't be happy with you and may not use you again in the future. But how can you tell whether social media customer service is successful? Understanding what to anticipate from your audience in this kind of communication is crucial. To make it simple for you to gauge client happiness, we've included some recommendations above.

Thanks to Kinga Edwards at Business 2 Community whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.