Why Social Media Customer Service? Because if you’re not in it, you’ll be left behind…no, that’s not credible. Because everybody wants their customer service through Twitter or Facebook…uh…no they don’t. Because in this day and age, all your customers are constantly in Social Media…well, not really.
In your personal life, I sure hope you don’t do things for the sake of doing them. You don’t quit your job to create a startup just because all your buddies are doing so. You don’t drop out of college because Gates and Jobs did so. You don’t skydive without a parachute because someone told you what “an awesome rush” it is.
When you do something significant in life or in business, do it with a purpose.
Getting into Social Media Customer Service is no different. Companies who are investing in consulting, resources, and technology to get into Social Media Customer Service typically do it for several reasons including (1) To protect their brand, (2) To reduce cost/unit of providing customer service, (3) To be more responsive, (4) To meet their Social Media-savvy customers where they’re located and/or where they’ve purchased, (5) To improve retention and sales.
You have to have a reason to enter Social Media Customer Service, because the people, process, technology, and cultural costs will be expended upfront before the benefits are realized down the road.
One aspect of Social Media Customer Service that everyone should agree on is this – get your current customer service processes, policy, and training in place and effective before you migrate them to Social Media. If your back office support functions are slow and of poor quality, Social Media will just speed up how quickly the customer realizes those shortcomings. If your people are poorly trained, Social Media creates more real-time interactions where that training is less masked by slower Q&A processes. If your policies are unclear, Social Media will facilitate the spread of misinformation more quickly.
Before diving into Social Media Customer Service, get your current customer service house in order.
Read our New Book – “Ask Yourself…Am I GREAT at Customer Service?” http://www.amigreatat.com/
Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/
Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more at our new website! http://www.cssamerica.com/
