More smart companies are turning to their Social Media profiles to monitor and resolve customer service issues. Browse through the Facebook or Twitter profiles for some major banks or insurance companies and you are likely to find plenty of examples.
The wait times to speak to someone in customer service for some of our major service providers has become almost intolerable,
yet there might just be a better way than spending 30 minutes or more on hold on your mobile phone.
When you have a legitimate complaint, posting your grievance and tagging the company in questions Twitter handle or directly to their Facebook page is a sure fire way to get a quick response and resolution. On the phone or via email your grievance is private and possibly not a high priority to be dealt with. Yet once that same issue is in the public domain of social media it becomes a public relations problem for the company that must be dealt with FAST.
Of course you will want to ensure you do not reveal personal information in such an open forum, the key is to just create a response in real time. Some care should also be taken to ensure you have lodged your public complaint to the correct profile. Make sure you go to the their website then link to their social media profiles, rather than just doing a search and risk ending up on the wrong companies Twitter or Facebook.
More and more larger companies are admitting they deal with complaints lodged through Facebook and Twitter, as a priority over more conventional methods. Many are now training customer service personnel to constantly monitor these and respond in real time. Failing to get this right becomes a public display of the real issues customers face in their day to day dealings with these businesses. Of course if you are thinking of changing banks, insurance company, energy providers or many of the other companies we have to deal with. Checking their Twitter and Facebook for how well they respond to complaints is another good way of getting a real look at how they perform.
Medium size businesses will not be far behind integrating their social media and customer service. Early adopters will reap the rewards for customer retention and stand out in a crowded market place. Have you considered adopting a pro active approach to customer service through social media for your business?
It is very easy to monitor all of your profiles through dash boards like Hootsuite, consider having a second monitor for one of your customer service personnel to dedicate to a dash board and keep an eye on “mentions” in your feeds. Of course if you are doing a great job then it is highly likely you will receive praise for your good deeds in the same manner as you receive complaints. Responding with a short thank you or share of good comments will further enhance you reputation, brand and customer loyalty in the market place.