Conversation nowadays is defined by and fueled by social media. There is no limit to the number of potential consumers, clients, and even devoted followers that brands and enterprises may acquire through social media.

Exactly why should a business offer social media customer service?

Smart Insights reports that 58.4% of the global population is active on social media and that more than 35% of those users utilise these platforms to research businesses, their offerings, and their reputations.

One may argue that a company’s prospects are more affected by a command of social media that increases brand exposure and identification, positively engages an audience, and participates in the discussions of the day than by marketing and advertising pushes.

Nonetheless, it is a delicate and changeable environment. Reputations for brands can soar on the wings of positive publicity one day, only to be slagged off and demonised the next. It only takes one slip-up to ruin everything, and blunders like that are seldom forgotten.

The HubSpot poll found that 68 percent of respondents would be willing to spend more for superior customer service, and 89 percent would be more likely to buy from the same firm again if they had a positive experience the first time around. So, it is essential to emphasise efficient social media use for providing customer care.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong with Social Media Management?

But, there are also numerous objective hazards that social media management teams might find themselves slipping into if they aren’t conscious of their behaviour and haven’t learnt from the mistakes made by others.

It’s a good thing that we have enough of instances of terrible social media customer service to study. There seems to be a new brand PR and customer service crisis every day on Twitter.

Refusal to consider criticisms

If a customer hasn’t already tried to contact a business directly for aid or a resolution to their problem, they probably won’t go to social media to air their grievances.

There is no lack of negative feedback about well-known brands on review sites, and these brands sometimes fail to apologise or even notice their consumers’ complaints.

One-third of respondents to a poll on customer service reported feeling ignored or unheard when trying to get in touch with a business about an issue.

A failure in customer service is exposed by such an occurrence. It is the company’s duty to ensure that the issue is handled privately between the customer and the business, that it is addressed as soon as possible through appropriate channels, and that it does not become public knowledge and damage the company’s reputation.

Nonetheless, this elementary rule is often disregarded, with the expected consequences.

Lack of follow-through on commitments made

Even if you have well crafted, legally sound complaint replies ready to go, they will amount to nothing if you don’t follow through with direct interaction and positive corrective action in response to consumer complaints.

With no social media plan in place

With a solid social media plan in place, you can develop a solid basis for reaching your objectives.

You will either be talking to yourself (if you’re lucky) or publishing something that is wildly inappropriate or tone deaf (if you’re unlucky), both of which can severely damage your reputation and get you in trouble if you don’t know what you’re doing.

How Can We Help? Precautions and Measures

Supporting customers well using social media

Good social media customer service replies can be discovered, however they are much more uncommon than bad examples.

Many of the solutions used to prevent or get over these problems may be applied to your organisation and the scenarios in which it may find itself, so it’s worthwhile to look into them.

Listen to what people are saying about you

An essential part of social media customer care is monitoring brand mentions and sentiment online.

Because of the time and effort required, any company that takes social media management seriously will have an employee or employees who are trained particularly to handle the company’s many social media accounts.

This group has to be alert to alerts, mentions, reviews, and the like, but they also need to be aware of cultural norms, nuances, and taboos, and know how to respond to criticisms in a way that is confident without being overbearing.

Repairing Damaged Social Media Reputations

Word gets around quickly. It’s true that people will make fun of you and make headlines about your mistakes. Yet the way you handle the fallout from such gaffes can have a greater impact on your image than the gaffe itself.

Quickly respond, but avoid going into defensive mode at the outset.

The longer your gaffes are on display for all to see, the more people will talk about them, and the more likely they are to be turned into memes and jokes.

Recognize the error has been made. Throw up your hands and own up to your error. Don’t just hit the delete key repeatedly and cross your fingers.

See why this post elicited such a strong reaction. If somebody was offended, who was it, and why? If it was insensitive or tone deaf and only made you appear foolish, just go with the flow and laugh it off to demonstrate you have a good sense of humour.

Clean-up

Take down the content in question and replace it with an explanation of why it was poorly chosen, why it offended others, and what you plan to do to make amends (if any) if this wasn’t already done.