Customer Service
One of the earliest and best business applications of social media was customer service. The category is still growing, and evolving, as social media channels mature, and companies gain experience with how to put them to their best use.
Social media quickly became a key component of the self-service model that has been enabled by the Internet, and by IVR (interactive voice response) telephone technology before that. The idea is that consumers can get faster and more satisfying solutions to product and service problems if they can take some control of the process—do it themselves, and companies will save money in their live-assistance and field service functions.
According to industry observer Allen Bonde, as much as 40% of customer interactions today are self-service based. While some argue that self-service is not necessarily a source of full satisfaction for consumers, the concept continues to grow and expand. And social media is its newest enabler.
Social customer service involves several aspects:
- Listening and responding to complaints published by consumers on social media. Research by Convergys Corp. has shown that a negative customer review on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook can cost a company as many as 30 customers.
- Knowledge management, which pre-dates the Internet, but seeks to make problem-solving information available to consumers quickly and easily. Social media are being used to promulgate “knowledge-base” content, in the form of “alerts” or campaign offers.
- Community exchange on social platforms, which encourages users to help solve each others’ problems via question-and-answer sites. Outbound social media channels can be used to help recruit contributors to community forums, as well as publicize their answers.
Consumers appear to be very comfortable using social media for service-related communications. A 2010 study showed that 46% of social media users expect to use the channel to solve customer service problems, and 39% plan to use it to provide feedback on products and services.
Social media for customer service is easiest to implement if the customer base is already comfortable using self-service online, and when the company has an active presence in social media, as judged by number of followers and fans, and levels of employee involvement in social networks and outreach.
Case examples of the power of social media as a customer service tool
Lenovo jumped into social media quickly after acquiring the IBM personal computing business. Realizing that customers were already talking about their PCs online, Lenovo created a peer-to-peer community site that eventually reduced laptop service call volumes by 20% while concurrently increasing call-center agent productivity. One of the secrets to their success was the involvement of multiple Lenovo departments in interfacing with the community. The site was managed by the customer service function, but active participation was encouraged from legal, marketing public relations, engineering and product development. The result was deeper knowledge of customer issues across the company, and opportunities to improve not only service but the product itself.
InfusionSoft, a provider of marketing automation software-as-a-service, guarantees its customers—businesses with fewer than 25 employees—that the software will double their sales without increasing their staff—quite a promise. To help customers get the most value out of the product, InfusionSoft created a community portal. The outcome was a vast reduction in customer service costs, moving its agent-to-customer ratio from 1 in 55 to 1 in 172, while at the same time improving customer satisfaction rates from 77% to 87%.
Perhaps the most vivid case examples, however, come from individual consumers, who have quickly learned that many companies are fast to respond to complaints put out there via social media channels. Nick Chase, for example, blogged recently about a problem he had getting a car from Enterprise, his favorite car rental company. Having tweeted his frustration that no car was available, he was surprised and pleased to be contacted almost immediately by a customer service rep who patiently helped him find a vehicle. Such stories are so common today that many people are using Twitter and Facebook as their first line of communication for customer service issues.
12 ways to enhance customer service using social media
The NYU marketing professor Heidi Cohen has identified 12 ways marketers can apply social media to the mission of improving customer service.
1. Humanize your company. Responding through social media makes your firm more personable, and builds customer trust.
2. Gather customer input. Social media monitoring tools provide low-cost access to customer feedback.
3. Proactively engage with customers and prospects. Another channel for 2-way communication.
4. Provide broader access to product-related content. Video, blogs, research reports and case studies helps educate customers on product usage and benefits.
5. Answer product-related questions. Fast, inexpensive answers to customer questions.
6. Broaden media access to customers. People use whatever medium they have available, so marketers must follow.
7. Offer peer-to-peer interaction. Customers helping each other is not only economical, it also enhances product loyalty.
8. Syndicate customer feedback. Ratings and reviews from customers help you sell more effectively.
9. Celebrate your customers. Shining a spotlight on your customers makes them—and prospects—feel good about themselves and about you.
10. Expand customer understanding of your brand. Video, blogs, photo-sharing sites and shared presentations help customers gain insight into your company and your products.
11. Make attractive offers. Social-media only deals can deepen relationships as well as move inventory.
12. Sell directly through new channels. Facebook now offers an e-commerce capability, and other social media platforms are likely to follow suit.