Stacey Rudolph — January 6, 2017 The long and short of it is that social media is the future of customer service. Facebook, WhatsAapp, Instagram and twitter have 1.5 billion, 1 billion, 400 million and 300 million users respectively. Facebook, being the most popular social network, has 70% active users who log on on a daily basis, of which 43% do it several times a day. Likewise, 59% of instagram users and 38% of Twitter users log on daily. According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the average Facebook users spend about 40 minutes per day on Facebook.
Infographic Source – http://www.go-globe.com/blog/social-media-customer-service/
What does this tell us? Social media is certainly the future of customer service because most customers spend most of their times on social media networks. Millions of people channel their issues, complaints, complements and inquiries through social media. This has forced companies to not only listen but also respond.
Social media is not an end in itself but a means to an end in customer service journey
Therefore, listening is no longer an end in itself but a means to an end when it comes to dealing with customer issues. In other words, companies have had to respond to customer questions and complaints in public because that is what the customers demand. It is no longer an option. For instance, when a customer asks a question or lodges a complaint on your Facebook fan page and you fail to respond, the message being sent out to others is that you are arrogant and insensitive. Some may take it to mean that you have nothing to offer in terms of providing solutions or you simply take your customers for granted. Definitely, this will erode your reputation, which in turn leads to loss of customers to your competitors.
Social media is the cheaper, faster option
However, it is not entirely accurate or fair to say that all companies have been forced to use social media in customer service. Indeed, many other companies have favored social media as a means of dealing with customer issues out of their own volition because it is cheaper and more transparent compared to traditional customer service solutions such as telephone or when customers have to physically visiting the branch. From a technological perspective, the proliferation of smartphone and multiple messaging apps has enhanced customer service in social media. In other words, social media and messaging apps have many advantages in that it makes it a lot easier to reach customer care representatives, reducing costs in the process, but also users are able to see how other users’ issues have been responded to.
If you haven’t already invested in social media, it is time to do so because that is where most of your customers spend most of their time. Customers are finding it a lot easier and cheaper to bring up issues and complaints via social media than through telephone or email. Hence, it is no longer enough to simply listen. There is need to proactively engage customers on social media to solve their issues.
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