How to get your social media presence set up right so you can deal with customer complaints like a Pro.
With social media being so prevalent, users often take to their favourite channel with their complaints.
75% of users surveyed said they include social media when evaluating a purchase.
32% want a response within 30 minutes and 42% expect a response in under an hour!
When you set up your social media keep that in mind.
How to use social media for customer service
Using social media to manage customer complaints may seem like a burden but the payoff is repeat business and happy customers.
Users often take to the majors like Twitter and Facebook. Dont shy away from either even if youve received some nasty feedback in the past.
When you initially set up your accounts you entered an email to register and youve probably noticed unless you changed the settings you get an email every time someone is active on your page/profile.
If you find this bothersome try creating an email like customerservice@example.com that forwards to your own account or the account of an employee whose job it is to monitor your online presence.
If its directed to your own email create a folder or label specifically for customer service or PR that these emails automatically go to. Dont let it get lost in your emails though or youll miss alerts.
*Depending on your email setup this will vary in execution*
These alerts will let you know when you have a new comment or message on your profile.
When you get one have a response protocol ready. You dont want to jump on a complaint and then have to wait 2 days for a decision-maker to draft their response.
One single meeting with your team on customer service/PR protocol on social platforms can save you a lot of headaches.
Have canned responses ready
Canned responses refer to an automatically generated response that is prompted by the user contacting you. You may have seen these in the past and wondered how they get set up; now you get to set them up for yourself:
Twitter
Twitter rolled out some great tools last year for users who operate their business online: https://business.twitter.com/i/settings/support
That link allows you to upgrade your account with messages that will automatically send to anyone who messages you directly and will show users that you provide this option. You account will show your support hours and users will see that you take their feedback seriously.
This is a great signal to Google too that youre serious about your business and helping customers.
If you want more help using Twitter try our section dedicated to using Twitter for business.
Facebook
Facebook also allows you to set up your account to help communicate with customers via instant messaging. To turn on instant replies to any instant message to your businesss page follow these instructions: