Social Care
New Ways to Improve Customer Service on Twitter
Some recent changes have made it possible to really improve customer service on Twitter.
Customer service has long been an area where Twitter has proven to be a valuable asset. The ability to communicate directly with clients (or prospects) in real time has made it possible to satisfy even more customers on a very public stage. That said, at 140 characters, there have been some limitations to what can be voiced.
That has all changed.
Twitter recently announced the lifting of those limits to allow users to communicate via direct message the same way they would via text: without any limits to how long a message might be.
Why are they doing this?
It is no secret that Twitter has been looking for ways to improve its business performance. Everyone loves using Twitter; the network is simple, it has proven to be extremely effective for brands and it can be quite versatile.
But that has not translated into huge sales or skyrocketing stock prices. The result has been a number of efforts to change, including the recent resignation of CEO Dick Costolo, and now, some changes to the platform itself.
80% of Twitter users are active on mobile, and finding a way to increase the native value of the social network (particularly on mobile) is crucial. The difference between Twitter and, say, WhatsApp? Character limits. People love (and sometimes hate) that about Twitter. Your feed is easily digestible, but when you want to go into more detail, it can become tedious. You need to use the direct messaging capability to exchange phone numbers or emails, then communicate off-network.
Twitter is now trying to change that by lifting those character limits in direct messages.
How does this impact brands?
For brands, this change means a lot more time can be spent dealing with customer service issues on the network itself, without asking customers to take a conversation off-network or offline.
In a lot of cases, customers simply want to have their issues heard. People (for the most part) are realists. They know that an issue might not be resolved (perfectly or immediately) but they still want a place to vent and an acknowledgment that they are being listened to by the brand. By opening up the direct messaging in this way, Twitter is providing a space for exactly that.
Now, customer service conversations that do not involve personal or financial information can take place entirely on the network. This allows brands an opportunity to communicate more thoroughly, as opposed to simply using Twitter as a starting point.
This also presents a new opportunity for Twitter.
Where will Twitter go with this?
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Twitter make a move into a pseudo-SaaS space with a customer service platform separate from its existing direct messaging space. This would have to be carefully calculated by Twitter, as this is a fairly crowded space with some big players (think Desk, Zendesk, Zoho, Capterra, etc.). But Twitter has one thing going for it that others do not – it’s Twitter.
By creating a customer service portal that businesses can subscribe to, brands can begin to offer in-network service that essentially makes the process of communicating with brands seamless. This is similar to what Facebook is trying to do with Messenger, and it will be an interesting experiment (from which Twitter might be able to build).
Conclusion
There is, of course, the possibility that Twitter is simply trying to make the communication between parties a little easier (when they move into a more private setting) in an effort to compete with the plethora of messaging apps that currently dominate the market (mostly owned by Facebook).
What comes of this is anybody’s guess, but in the meantime, it makes servicing customers a little bit easier for brands.
Introducing CPR: Cost-Per-Retention
Introducing a whole new concept to the world of social business and social care: cost-per-retention. What exactly is it and why is it so important?
It has long been said (and shown through some pretty simple calculations) that it is far less expensive to keep existing clients than it is to acquire new clients. In fact, last year, Merchant Warehouse put together a great little infographic that showcases exactly that. This infographic showed that it is, on average, six times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain one, and that is due in large part to efforts such as loyalty programs.
But to say that acquiring a new customer is six times more expensive does not mean to imply that the cost of retaining a customer is minimal. While we often talk about the CPA or Cost Per Acquisition of a new customer, social media in particular gives us the ability to start placing more emphasis on CPR or Cost Per Retention (ironically, CPR is an appropriate term as companies often struggle to keep their customer base alive).
In order to understand your cost-per-retention, we need to start at the beginning and look at things like CPA and LTV (Life Time Value of a customer).
What Is CPA?
CPA, or Cost Per Acquisition, refers to the cost a brand incurs in order to acquire a new client. Now you can either look at that from the perspective of total average cost-per-acquisition, or you can break that down into cost-per-acquisition-per-initiative. The two are distinctly different and lead to differences in your operations efficiency.
Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.
To start, let’s take a look at overall CPA. This is a pretty simple calculation. First, select a period; for argument’s sake, let’s take a month. Now look at how many new clients you have acquired in that month. Next, look at how much you invested in all of your marketing and advertising initiatives. This includes PPC campaigns on social media or Google AdWords, media buys in traditional media, specific campaigns or promotions, and anything else you did in an effort to sign new clients. Now divide that total investment (let’s not get into the more complex issue of factoring in overhead and operating expenses for this example) and divide it by the number of new clients you acquired. The result is your CPA. (For the sake of this discussion, we assume a direct correlation between the clients you acquired in the month and the expenditures you incurred in that same month.)
If you were to look at initiative-specific CPA, you would need to evaluate each of those customer acquisition campaigns individually, see what led to new customers, how much was invested, and conduct the same calculation (investment divided by the number of new signups) to determine your CPA on each initiative. Don’t be surprised if your CPA appears high. This is where the relationship between CPA and LTV starts to come into focus.
What Is LTV?
LTV, CLTV or Customer Lifetime Value, is the total value of a customer over the course of their relationship with your business. Let’s say, for example, that you run an enterprise SaaS organization. Each month, subscribers pay $500 to access your software and the average customer uses the software for five years. This would mean that your LTV is $30,000. Assuming a 3 to 1 ratio of LTV to CPA, this means that spending about $10,000 to acquire a new customer isn’t completely absurd.
Of course, the goal of any business should be to decrease CPA and increase LTV. That is why companies – particularly subscription-based companies – are constantly making changes and introducing new features in an effort to keep customers around a little bit longer. And therein lies the concept of cost-per-retention.
What is CPR, or Cost-Per-Retention?
The name alone seems more or less self-explanatory; cost-per-retention is the amount of money that your brand must invest in order to retain clients. As noted above, just because it is, according to some reports, six times more expensive to acquire a new client, that does not mean that it is ‘free’ or even all that inexpensive to retain clients.
Quite a bit of an investment has to be made in order to keep clients coming back. Attrition – the loss of clients – is going to happen in any industry. In some industries, particularly those where brand or product differentiation is minimal, it is going to happen at a much higher and faster rate than others. So, what kind of an investment needs to be made in order to retain clients?
Cost-per-retention is going to be an amalgam of a number of initiatives. There are superficial efforts, like loyalty clubs, specials and rewards programs that are clearly seen by the audience, and then there are those investments that are less visible. First, let’s look at the cost-per-retention of some of those externally visible initiatives.
Running a loyalty program or offering returning clients discounts, special pricing or freebies; those costs need to be calculated. In other words, what are the ‘lost revenues’ so to speak of offering these kinds of benefits? And how much greater is the LTV of the customers that participate in these initiatives? Determine those two figures and make the same calculations as we did for the CPA and original LTV, but limit it to each retention-specific initiative. Now, what about those internal costs?
Let’s take a look at an example such as social care. (If you’re not familiar with the concept of social care, you can read up on it here. Essentially, it is the practice of offering customer service on social media.) Social care can be a hugely cost-effective practice. Some of the benefits can include improved response time, higher volume of customer issues addressed, decreased customer service overhead, and much more. But there is still a cost to offering social care.
While it might be perceived as a differentiating value added that retains a greater number of clients, there is still a cost to operating a social care team (or customer service in the traditional sense). This is an area where that cost will have to be determined, then weighed against the ratio of client retention versus attrition. Determine how much more you are making from the extended LTV as a result of offering this service.
There are also other initiatives that might seem like your average marketing practice, but also contribute to cost-per-retention. Take your company newsletter, for example. Operating a newsletter or running email marketing initiatives is, in part, a way to drive conversions. But there are plenty of instances where a newsletter is designed to maintain interest in a product or retain a client’s subscription, or promote one of the aforementioned retention-based programs.
The same holds true for activities on social networks. Maintaining brand awareness and driving engagement from existing clients is crucial to brand differentiation. How can these kinds of initiatives be measured? The practice remains more or less constant. Determine which of these initiatives, or what ratio of these initiatives, rather, are designed to retain clients. Then associate the relative cost of the overall initiative to the retention-based ratio of initiatives. Determine retention rates from individual practices, and calculate whether or not your efforts are generating profits.
Conclusion
Superficially, retention might not seem quite as expensive as acquisition, and for the most part that is true. But the important thing to keep in mind is the fact that we need to determine if the cost-per-retention outweighs the extended lifetime value, or ELTV.
Let’s go back to the initial example, where the initial LTV was $30,000, and the cost per acquisition, for argument’s sake, was $10,000. If we are running a retention program that costs us $1,800 for each user retained, that might look pretty good. But if the average ELTV is three months, or $1,500, we’re actually losing money on that investment.
It’s important to take a step back and evaluate how your marketing, customer service and client retention programs are helping drive additional revenues, because those reviews and studies don’t always take these kinds of issues into account.
What have you found to be the most successful retention program for your business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
The Steps to Managing a Social Media Crisis
We all fear the dreaded social media crisis, and it is important to have a clear cut policy in place when it comes to managing the situation.
Have you ever looked at your overall social business strategy and asked yourself if you have a clear-cut set of steps to follow in the event of a social media crisis? Few brands do. No one likes to think about the devastating social media crisis but it is imperative that we do. After all, we have all seen cases of brands that have no strategy in place and what that can lead to.
There are a few steps that need to be taken in order to effectively manage a social media crisis. How you handle a situation will, of course, be at your discretion. But before you act, take a step back, take a deep breath and follow these instructions.
1. Figure Out What Happened
In the American political system use of the word “coup” to describe civil unrest in another region has some pretty severe consequences. That is why, when something does break out, politicians are very hesitant to use the word. On a much, much smaller scale, you need to have the same approach to a social media crisis.
One or two negative reviews on Yelp! or Trip Advisor does not a crisis make. If you open your social profiles to find a few negative comments, figure out where they originated, to what they are referring and determine whether or not this constitutes a real social media crisis.
In the strategy you create for handling crises it’s crucial that you outline what constitutes a social media crisis. When something does erupt on your social channels, trace it back to the origin and determine if you need to be in full panic mode or if this is something that can be handled easily.
2. Assign Priority Steps
Now, for argument’s sake, let’s say this is a crisis of epic proportions. What you’ll need to do is determine the order of actions determined by priority. If a crisis has reached major news outlets, maybe a press release should take precedent before reaching out to your social audience. If you are facing a barrage of criticism on Facebook, maybe you should focus your efforts on quelling the situation there before moving on to less active networks.
One thing to keep in mind at this point is that there is a notable difference between social crisis and social media engagement.
When engaging with your audience on a day-to-day basis, you want to give equal attention to your most influential audience members as well as those with very few followers and little social clout. While it might seem like a harsh reality, the same does not hold true for crises. In a social media crisis, not every one of your followers can be treated equally. Of course, over time you are going to want to address all comments (or as many as possible) in order to maintain your brand’s integrity. But at the beginning stages, you are going to have to order your individual responses in terms of influence.
The repercussions of a major industry influencer tweeting that they despise your brand are far greater than the repercussions of the negative tweet from a user who created an account simply to spite you. Keep in mind that in the time of a crisis, it is not business as usual.
3. Determine Appropriate Responses
OK – so you have laid out the exact order in which you plan on responding to this crisis, now it’s time to decide how you are going to respond.
There are two ways to go about responding to the crisis: you can either be on the defense (not in the conventional sense), apologizing to your fans and assuring them that this will never happen again, or on the offense, defending your product and explaining, calmly and with a sound argument, why the crisis does not reflect your overall business. Let’s look at a few examples.
Defense
A little while back, Home Depot tweeted an image that was largely seen to be racist and tasteless. While the brand made it clear that it was a third party that was responsible for sharing the message, they had no choice but to take responsibility for what had happened and assure the public that this did not reflect the values of the brand.
This was a clear example of a crisis. And this probably did some damage to the brand’s integrity. But by owning up to the incident, explaining what had taken place and trying to fix it, people eventually forgave them.
Offense
Let’s preface this by saying that going on the offense in the event of a crisis is a 1-for-100 case. Rarely will your brand succeed by standing by your position, particularly when you are in the wrong. That said, when done correctly and, more importantly, under the right circumstances, it can be an excellent way of quelling a crisis.
During the most recent Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Under Armour came under fire when the American speed skating team, for whom Under Armour had designed the ‘fastest’ suits ever made, failed to win or even place.
Instead of apologizing and assuring the world that they would try harder on the next go around, Under Armour decided to defend their product and explain that they were not to blame. Essentially, the brand did not levy the blame elsewhere (as they easily could have) but instead stood by their product, explained the reality of the sport and came out on top, with more long-term contracts being signed in the aftermath.
Going on the offensive is a risky move. If it works it is bold and genius. If it flops, your brand may never recover. Make the choice wisely.
4. Assign Tasks
Now you know that it is a crisis, you know the priority of responding and you have determined how you want to respond. It’s time to assign tasks to different teams.
As noted above, a crisis is not business as usual. Your customer service team is on apology duty, your social media team is an engagement team and your PR team is reaching out to any and all services to try and prevent the story from growing any bigger. And keep in mind that all of this is happening in seconds. You need to assign tasks and roles.
Again, this is a feature that needs to be included in your crisis management strategy. Figure out who approves outgoing messages. Make sure your teams are all working toward a specific goal and not flying by the seat of their pants. Instinct might be a great thing when creating a new campaign, but a crisis requires knowledge and logic.
This is where the prioritization is going to be extremely valuable. When there is a checklist of items that a team is responsible for (in order) it becomes much easier to get a handle on a situation.
5. Take Ownership
Of course, over the entirety of the crisis management process you have been taking ownership of the situation. At no point did you deny that anything had happened or told your unhappy followers that they were being too sensitive. (NOTE: Do not do that.) But once the highest-rising flames have been extinguished, it’s time to get out there, clearly explain what had happened and convey your sincerest apologies.
We’ve all seen examples of CEOs and VPs posting videos to blogs, YouTube and other social channels explaining a situation. A branded apology is much better than a quote in a news publication. You want people to see that you are taking ownership of a mistake and, more important learning from it.
6. Know When You Can’t Win
According to Jay Baer, “Never send a third reply. A third reply is an argument, not an answer. On the third reply, you take it offline.” Put simply, you can’t please everyone. There are some times when you simply aren’t going to give an audience member what he or she wants. You need to know when to walk away.
Continually responding doesn’t look good. Your brand does not need to get the last word in. When responding to individuals, send the apology, maybe send a follow up explaining what had happened, but don’t start going in circles. Accept that a crisis means you might lose a fan or two. It’s a reality of doing business on a large, public and social scale.
Conclusion
Your brand should learn from what has happened. A crisis is a great opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t. Learn what makes you audience tick and what they dislike. This will help generate brand loyalists down the road and keep you from encountering another crisis.
How does your brand handle crises? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
Op-Ed: You’re Only as Good as Your Worst Interaction
Managing your reputation on social media is an integral part of any comprehensive social business strategy.
If you are not paying attention to the perception of your brand by audiences, then you are forgetting about one of the most important features that makes a social business successful. The management of your reputation on social media is a living organism, and you need to pay it regular attention.
One of the realities of doing business is that the larger we grow, the more likely we are to encounter that individual that doesn’t like our product, our service, or simply has a bad experience. And what happens then? Well, a recent study by ZenDesk shows that 95% of customers who have a bad experience tell someone about it, compared to 87% who shared a good experience. Maybe we just like to tell others about our suffering, but the fact remains that you can be sure that a customer who has a poor experience with your company is going to go out there and tell the world. And it is now much easier than ever before.
And so we come to the title of this article: your brand is only as good as your worst public interaction. What did an angry customer have to say about your brand? How did you handle it? Your reputation on social media – on every platform from Facebook to Yelp! – is going to be affected in a much greater way by how you handle your unhappy customers than how you handle the satisfied ones.
The Intelligent Traveler
Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Let’s say you are planning a trip and you are considering staying at one of two hotels. Assume the prices and amenities are all the same. Well, if you are like 65% of online travellers, then seeing a management’s response to comments on a social channel like TripAdvisor would sway you to book with the responding hotel. (Google, January, 2013)
People like the idea of accountability, and when you avoid dealing with issues head on, you are hurting your reputation on social media. Owning up to your brand’s mistakes, and showing people that you are taking strides to both remedy situations as they arise and prevent them from ever occurring again goes a very long way.
Nobody Cares What You Did Right
When you are buying a product on eBay, and you see that a seller has a rating of 99% from 100 buyers, are you going to care about the 99 people that said, “Great job! Fast delivery! Recommend seller!”? Or would you be more concerned with finding that one comment that reads, “Item was not as described. Seller did not respond to questions. Would not recommend.”? Probably the second one.
You can do something right a thousand times, but that one time that things go wrong, people will remember it. It is here that you need to shine. It is easy to handle happy customers. How you handle unhappy customers on public forums is what is going to influence future buyers.
The Ostrich Never Dealt with Social Media
Burying your head in the sand while people speak out against your service or brand might have worked back in the days of phone and mail. But now, when people can reach out to networks of thousands, you had better be ready to respond. Clearly, ostriches never had to deal with issues on social media.
Have a plan in place for every plausible scenario. You need to know the Dos and Do Nots for handling crises and unhappy customers before you have to deal with crises and unhappy customers. The last thing you want to do is learn from your mistakes when your mistakes have already resulted in consumers making up their minds. Read up and do the research on the mistakes of others and devise strategies for managing your reputation on social media from these.
It might not be an ideal situation, but the fact is that your brand is only as good as it’s worst interaction on social media. This is where people are going to do their research; consumers trust each other, not your brand. But you can change that by properly managing your brand’s reputation on social media!
Find out more about becoming a social business and managing your reputation on social media here.
Do you research products and services on social channels before making a decision? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
3 Departments to Involve in Your Social Business
Has your social business involved every department it can?
We all know that the marketing department is going to be among the first to adopt new media when it comes to social business, but what other departments can contribute to it? These three departments are generally forgotten when it comes to social business, and it is easy to understand why: a lot of people don’t know how they can be social!
Customer Service
Now, this is a little paradoxical. Yes, your customer service department is inherently a ‘social’ department per se. After all, it spends the day dealing with people. But when becoming a social business, your customer service department is going to become much more public then ever before. And that’s a good thing.
Social Care – or, customer service on social channels – is increasing in popularity and becoming a favorite among consumers. When evolving into a social business, you are certainly going to want to get your customer service team on the front lines. Just be sure you have a strategy in place for every possible scenario! Now, with social in the mix, your customer service team is a pseudo PR department. They are a direct reflection of how your company treats clients, so make sure they are doing it right.
Tech/Support
Has there ever been a department more suited for conversing on the web? Your tech and support teams need to be able to show that they can help with anything at any time. They are like an extension of your customer service team. In fact, they are your customer service team.
Think about it. When you call a customer service line, they are generally going to connect you with the department most able to assist you with your problem. By making these departments as easily accessible as your customer service team, you can help cut out the middle man and save time on all fronts. Let people deal with matters in the most efficient way possible, and your business will be functioning at optimal capacity.
Sales
If your sales team is not already on social, get them on there! You never know where you might find a new client, but you can rest assured that wherever you might find that client, there is a pretty good chance you will find them on social channels, too.
Your sales team should be listening to the conversation around your industry and involving themselves in the conversation when and where it is appropriate. Take a look at this blog post about cell phone carriers to see some great examples of Dos and Don’ts when it comes to social selling.
What other departments do you think would benefit from a presence on social media when you become a social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
5 Original Ways to Engage Your Fans and Followers
You should always aim to engage your fans on social channels, but it is much more fun to do it in a creative way!
One of the most important goals of your brand on social media should be to engage your fans and followers. While this is a great quality for any brand to have, it is made a lot better when it is done in a creative way! Engagement, remember, is not just about responding to comments left by your fans; engagement is often about starting the conversation.
Below is a quick set of new, fun ways to engage your fans and followers on social media that can make the customer experience much more enjoyable!
Devise a Weekly Segment
Consistency is key on social media. Not only does it remind your fans that you are there and help keep your brand top of mind, but it can also be a great way to increase your engagement rates.
Consider having a weekly segment wherein you encourage fans to tune in to see what each week’s instalment is. For example, on the t2 Facebook page, we regularly end each week with a #DogWeekend picture to usher in the end of the work week!
Ask a Question
Not only do people love answering questions, they also help provide you with some great insights into the tastes and preferences of your audience. Think of the answers your fans give as small responses to a poll you put out.
“Caption This!”
The “Caption This” post is a great one for Facebook engagement. These posts regularly lead to a ton of engagement and can be a lot of fun for both your fans and your brand.
Compare and Share
The ‘Like’ for A and ‘Share’ for B approach can be a good one for two reasons. First, it once again can generate a lot of engagement with the right content. Second, like the questions, it can give you some valuable insights into what your fans and followers like and in which direction your branding and marketing initiatives should go.
Jump Into Conversation
It is always fun for a brand to see comments start to fill up on a social network. The mistake that a lot of brands make, however, is not jumping in there with their fans.
Involve yourself in the conversation and help it along. Nobody likes to have a comment go unnoticed – whether it is by other fans or the brand itself. By engaging with your fans’ comments, you not only help them feel good about leaving the comment, but you encourage them and others to continue engaging with your brand in the future.
These are just a few great ways to engage fans without a “hard sell”. Try some of these out and see what works for your brand!
Tell us what you do to engage your fans and followers in the comments below or on Twitter!
4 Social Media Quotes and Responses to Them
Below are some popular social media quotes and my reactions and responses to them.
Like any popular social phenomenon, social media has spawned a number of great minds to share their words of wisdom with tweet-appropriate brevity. Below are four social media quotes from industry leaders and observers and my reactions, interpretations or responses to them.
“Social media has infected the world with a sickening virus called vanity.” -Kellie Elmore
Yes – it’s true that social has further engrossed the ego of the already self-absorbed Generation Y (among others). But I can’t agree with the fact that vanity is a product of social media.
Vanity has long been in existence. Consider The Portrait of Dorian Gray when considering vanity. Surely, Oscar Wilde was not all that active on Twitter. What social media has done, however, is provided the world with a self-publishing tool. The results are often going to be self-absorption. But is that always such a terrible thing?
People can now showcase talents, reach broad audiences and education is a tweet away. Social media has also shrunk the business world so significantly, that the largest brands in the world can now devote seemingly undivided attention to customers in need.
“Distracted from distraction by distraction.” -T.S. Eliot
Fine, so T.S. Eliot wasn’t talking about StumbleUpon when he wrote this. But can you think of a more fitting reference?
As noted above, the world is a much smaller place thanks in large part to the advent of social media. That does not mean, however, that there is any less activity taking place within it. Take a minute to research an article online, and you find yourself having devoted three hours to becoming the world’s leading expert on sounds foxes make.
Though we can easily waste days sifting through the endless sea of content shared to social channels, I like to think of it as the world’s most comprehensive library. Every article, page, blog or video offers something we have not seen before. (Or, in some cases, something we have seen many, many times before and just need to see again.)
“You are what you share.” -Charles Leadbeater
Few things are truer than this when it comes to social media. A perfect example of this ringing true is the polarity the world witnessed as a result of Facebook status updates reflecting political preferences during the last American election.
Reputation management, Social Care and content strategies are all infinitely more important than ever before when it comes to social media. One misstep could land you in water hot enough to burn away all the hard work you have put into building your brand. Companies and individuals need to remember that they are participating in conversations on a megaphone, and everyone can hear them.
“Create more value than you capture.” -Tim O’Reilly
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
What are some of your favorite quotes when it comes to social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
4 Tips for Handling Social Care on Twitter
Social Care on Twitter is becoming increasingly popular with brands of all sizes.
What exactly is Social Care on Twitter? Today, one-third of online adults prefer to engage with brands through new media – like Twitter or a live chat service – than through conventional forms of customer service – like the phone, or even email. People want their issues addressed right away. The practice of helping customers on these networks is called “Social Care”.
By providing Social Care on Twitter, for example, your brand is offering an added value that many competitors may not yet offer. This is still an emerging trend, and your brand can be among the first to reap the benefits!
Let’s go through 4 helpful tips when it comes to offering Social Care on Twitter.
Have a Plan in Place
The most important thing you are going to need to do is have a plan in place for dealing with customer service issues as they come up. Whether it is a technical issues (maybe you provide a software, or a physical product) or a dissatisfied customer, you need to have procedures in place to address these issues in real time.
Remember, everything you share on Twitter is public (with the exception of Direct Messages) so make sure that you know exactly what you want to share, how you want to share it and the image you would like to portray for your brand, because these conversations will be seen by a potentially large audience.
Address Issues Immediately
When it comes to customer service, surveys show that customers want their issues completely resolved within 60 minutes. They want their issues addressed by a brand within five minutes of bringing them up. Letting complaints, questions or comments sit in the socialsphere and gestate is worse than having the comment up there to begin with.
What kind of image is portrayed of your company when you let your customers’ issues go unaddressed, for the whole world to see what kind of service you offer? Make sure you are handling these issues in real time. After all, that’s why people are reaching out on these media.
Take Twitter Seriously
If you plan on offering Social Care on Twitter, you have to be prepared to take it seriously. The same way you would have a team in place to deal with customer service calls, you need to have a designated individual or team for handling Social Care on Twitter.
People expect the same service, if not better service on Twitter than they do from any conventional form of customer service. Just because it is Twitter, does not mean it is a free pass.
Take Advantage of Tools
The bigger the brand, the heavier the volume of customers reaching out. It can be overwhelming to watch a stream fill up with queries and complaints. You might find it hard to address every one. Take advantage of some of the tools that exist to help with organizing your Social Care on Twitter.
Look into ZenDesk, which works with HootSuite, or Salesforce Desk to help you manage your Social Care. You’ll find it a lot easier to work these into your Social Care strategy than to run the whole thing on Twitter alone. Remember the tip above, you need to take Social Care on Twitter seriously.
Implement these tips into your Social Care strategy and you’ll see that customers love a caring brand! Tell us how you use Social Care on Twitter in the comments below or on Twitter!
Feel free to reach out to t2 to find out how we can help you with your Social Care strategy!
Social Media Case Study: McDonald’s on Facebook
A great example of practices to avoid in your Facebook strategy comes from McDonald’s on Facebook.
Have you ever visited McDonald’s on Facebook? The brand might look great by the numbers – nearly 30M likes, tons of check-ins, and plenty of engagement on their individual posts – but if you look closely, you’ll see that the brand is displaying some bad habits that smaller companies, without a household name, should probably avoid.
When it comes to McDonald’s on Facebook, there are certain things that the company can get away with based solely on the nature of the brand. Those golden arches are recognized the world over, and there is little the brand can do without getting a massive amount of attention for it – for better or worse.
There are three things that the brand does on Facebook, however, that might work for McDonald’s, but should be avoided at all costs by smaller brands without the commercial clout the fast food chain has to fall back on.
No Engagement
Despite the fact that every post shared by McDonald’s generates hundreds if not thousands of comments by fans of the brand, McDonald’s has virtually never responded to a single user.
Now when a post generates hundreds of responses in a matter of hours, it might be hard to respond to every one of them – that’s fair. But there is not so much as a ‘Thank You’ by the brand anywhere. Now pretend this was not McDonald’s. Let’s say it was a small, single-location restaurant with a loyal customer base. Would it not seem strange if people were sharing content and reaching out to the company and being completely ignored?
There should always be some form of Social Care in place – customer service on social media. Let your audience know that you are listening and being social, and not simply using the platform to promote your brands.
And that brings us to the second faux pas by the brand.
All About the Sale
Go through the posts shared by McDonald’s on Facebook, and you might be surprised to see that almost everything the company is sharing is promoting their products – and nothing else. With the exception of a few albums for some McDonald’s-sponsored events or Monopoly, everything McDonald’s shares has that sales pitch feeling to it.
Again, what would people say if a brand without the commercial clout that McDonald’s has started doing this? It probably wouldn’t go over so well.
No Thanks Given
Despite consistently high levels of engagement with their sales-based posts, there is nothing unique offered by McDonald’s on their Facebook page in order to reward loyal fans.
Take a look at what Cadbury did to thank their fans on Facebook, and you’ll see an excellent example of a brand showing customer appreciation. McDonald’s makes no effort to show gratitude, and one has to assume that if those golden arches were not behind it, would they find as much success on Facebook?
It might look good on the surface – hard to argue that close to 30 million fans is a bad thing – but in reality, McDonald’s exhibits several ‘Do Nots’ when it comes to Facebook. Smaller brands would be best to take the McDonald’s Facebook strategy as a list of practices to avoid.
What big brands do you think have done a great job on Facebook or other social channels? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
