A Quick Guide to Social Customer Service: Making The Case

In the last few years, social communication has been a major marketing trend, but how do you leverage it as a customer service channel for your business? In the first of our series of 5 Quick Guides we explain how Social Customer Service is vital to success across multiple areas of your business. We explore how both you and your customers can benefit from a new style of customer care over social media.

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Making the Case for Social Customer Service

Social Customer Service is now fully established as a consumer requirement; millions of people are taking service issues to social channels as their preferred communication route. These questions and complaints are public, and the only real option available for businesses is how, not if, they will respond. The idea of one-way social marketing has become antiquated,

1. You can’t ignore Social Customer Servicebut despite this many businesses still fail to understand just how critical a serious Social Customer Service program has become. Listening is no longer an end, but rather a means to evaluating where you need to engage. If you find yourself justifying the cause for good social care, the best arguments come from your customers.

The first and absolutely most important thing you should do in social media is listen to your consumers/custom-

ers and answer their questions. You should work out how to do this before you figure out how to drive ‘likes’ on

Facebook, what content to produce or how to measure engagement. Because if you do this, consumers will

‘like’ the brand, rather than just the Facebook page

- Richard Stacy, Social Media Trainer, Social Media Architecture

“ “

Consumers Demand Social Customer Service

Social customer careusers who engage

every day

People who think socialmedia will become the next

tier of customer service

People who thinkcompanies should offercustomer support on their profiles

“I want to speak with a real person”

“We want to engage with you on the go”

#listentome

01 04

02 05

03 06

18-24 year olds who use social media for customer care

Social media users whoprefer to reach out to a

brand for customer serviceover social channels

Social customer careusers who engage severaltimes a month

59% 1/3

51%

78%63%

9%

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Due to the public nature of questions and complaints on social media, fear about brand damage and PR crises is one of the primary drivers for the creation of Social Customer Service teams. Social media demands a new approach to crisis, where corporate silence or PR statements fail to satisfy expectations

2. Your Reputation Depends on Social Customer Servicefor social brands. Delivering a high level of personalized engagement is the best way to combat negativity online, which ultimately affects the bottom line. Your social reputation is worth a great deal to your customers, and can affect how much they are worth to you.

Consumers that are affected by other customers’ comments on your page

1 negative customermessage in public can wipe

out the effect of up to 5positive ones

83%

88%

The Consequenses Of Ignoring Social Customer Service

01 04

02 05

06

96.5%

03Consumers who will beless likely to buy from you after seeing unanswered questions

Customers experiencingpositive social care are 4xmore likely to endorse you

than those who don’t

The biggest cause of1 decade of social media

crises was poor customerexperiences shared online

Social media users whohave abandoned a purchaseafter poor customer service

Sources:

NM Incite Report – The State of SocialCustomer Service

Zendesk – Complaining Ain’t Easy

Infosys – Power to The People

Conversocial - The Consequences of Ignoring Your Customers, A Survey of Consumer Expectations for Customer Service

on Social Media Platforms

Clickfox - Social Media as an Emerging Customer Service Channel

Altimeter - Social Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare

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Social Customer Service pays off. Satisfied social customers are more loyal to your brand, increasing lifetime customer value. By managing customers’ issues publicly on social channels, you can expand the reach of your team and reduce your cost to serve. On social media, agents can handle more queries, more rapidly, and customers can find solutions shared with others before they need to ask.

3. Your Customer Relationships will Benefit from Social Customer Service

Social is more efficientEncouraging customers to use social channels for customer care by offering a better experience can help reduce the cost to serve. 70% of consumers who use social media for customer service are likely to do so again if they are satisfied with their experience. But for those who try and have an unsatisfactory experience, only 41% will try again.*

According to a recent report from Gartner, the social CRM agent can manage four to eight times more high-value interactions, compared with a traditional, voice-based contact center agent.**

Sources:

* http://nmincite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/NM-Incite-Report-The-State-of-Social-Customer-Service-2012.pdf

** Use This Beginner’s Guide to Outsourcing Social CRM

† Bain and Company, American Express

http://about.americanexpress.com/news/docs/2012x/AMEX_Service_Infographic.pdf

http://www.social-exposure.com/engaged-customer-spend-more-and-are-more-loyal/

Social increases customer valueCustomers who engage with your company on social channels are likely to spend 20-40% more than those who don’t.† Quality interaction is a major differentiator for most industries, and can set your offering apart from your competitors. While robust social customer care takes hold as the industry norm, companies have a major opportunity to stand out as customer-centric.

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Where are you now?

Elementary Explorer Advocate

Marketing

Inactive

No Resolution

Customer Service

Reactive

First Contact Resolution

Social Engagement Hub

Proactive

Pre-contact Resolution

We developed the Definitive Guide to Social Customer Service to help take your program to Advocate status, no matter where you fall on the maturity scale.

What do the experts say?

Source:

Altimeter: The Evolution of Social Business

The Six Stages of SocialBusiness Transformation.

PlanningListen &

Learn

Understand how customers use social

channels

Prioritize strategic goals where social can have

most impact

PresenceStake our

claim

Amplify existing marketing e�orts

Encourage sharing

EngagementDialog Deepens

Relationships

Drive consideration to

purchase

Provide direct support

Internal employee engagement

ConvergedBusinessis Social

Social drives transformation

Integrates social philosophy into all

aspects of the enterprise

FormalizedOrganiseFor Scale

Set governacefor social

Create discipline& process

Strategic businessgoals

StrategicBecome A

Social Business

Scale across business units

Moves into HR, Sales, Finance & Supply Chain

C-level Involvement

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You can download the complete Definitive Guide to Social Customer Service at: www.conversocial.com/social-customer-service

To find out more about how Conversocial can help you to deliver first-class Social Customer Service, get in touch with: sales@conversocial.com

Powering Social Customer Service

@conversocialwww.conversocial.comsales@conversocial.com