Tag Archive for: social care

Introducing CPR: Cost-Per-Retention

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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.

Cost-Per-Acquisition as a part of Cost-Per-Retention

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?

Introducing the concept of Cost-Per-Retention

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

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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.

Social Media Crisis Priorities

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.

Social Media Crisis Argument

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!

5 Original Ways to Engage Your Fans and Followers

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You should always aim to engage your fans on social channels, but it is much more fun to do it in a creative way!

engage your fans and followersOne 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!

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4 Tips for Handling Social Care on Twitter

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Social Care on Twitter is becoming increasingly popular with brands of all sizes.

social care on twitterWhat 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!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

 

Why Social Care is Increasingly Important

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Social Care – or customer service on social media – is becoming increasingly popular, and the numbers show that it is equally important.

social care twitterToday, roughly 1 in 3 online adults prefers to engage in Social Care with a brand than to reach out through conventional customer service channels (i.e. phone).

Conventional customer service is time consuming. For the brand, it is an expensive practice that we have learned to accept. For the customer, it can sometimes be difficult or a nuisance. In fact, 48% – nearly half – of consumers say that they will leave a company website if they do not receive proper assistance.

With these numbers in mind, it is hard to deny that Social Care is an important feature to include in your social media strategy. Below are a few of the reasons why Social Care is increasingly important to offer to your customers.

People Want It

In an age where critics point out that face-to-face communication is diminishing, there is no proof more clear than the preferences of consumers. Over one third of consumers would prefer to tweet a brand than to sit on the phone and wait for a call to be answered. What’s more, people want their issues addressed right away.

Studies show that a shocking 71% of consumers want their issues addressed within 5 minutes of reaching a company. When you are dealing with conventional forms of customer service, achieving those goals can become expensive. But it can be detrimental if a brand ignores it; 92% of consumers have left a brand because of poor customer service. Though it may seem like consumers prefer robots, they still want to be treated like a human. A respected customer is a happy customer.

It’s Good for Business

Here are the real reasons why Social Care is so important. When people get what they want, they spend more and stay loyal.

As noted above, nearly half of your site visitors will leave if they cannot get the information or assistance they are looking for. On they other hand, people who receive strong customer service on social media spend, on average, 21% more. That’s a major difference!

Customers who receive good social media service also recommend your brand to others. Over 70% of customers, in fact, will recommend a brand based on the good service they have received.

With a good Social Care program in place, everybody wins. A respected customer is a happy customer, and a happy customer is a loyal customer, and loyal customers keep us in business!

Do you engage in Social Care? How has it worked for you? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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3 Fatal Social Media Engagement Mistakes

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Social media engagement is at the heart of any good program, but a few seemingly harmless mistakes can mean severe repercussions.

social media engagement mistakesAre you taking advantage of the huge benefits that accompany social media engagement? It is supremely important that you are. After all, engaging with your social audience is the key to any good campaign. People are reaching out to you, and want to hear back. But be careful, there are a few mistakes that brands make when it comes to social media engagement, and they could be very costly.

Below are three mistakes that are easy to make but very costly to your brand.

Watch Your Grammar!

If you’ve ever watched your Twitter feed populate, or read through SMS threads among friends, you might come to the conclusion that good spelling and proper grammar are dead. Far from it.

A recent study by Disruptive Communications found that – get ready – 42.5% of customers felt that poor spelling and grammar on social media would damage their perception of a brand. This issue was, quite surprisingly, the most damaging to a brand’s image, with content being all about sales coming in second with only 24.9% of consumers finding it the most damaging to a brand’s image.

Grammar and spelling are still very important, particularly when you are trying to portray a professional image and convince potential customers to choose your brand when conducting business. Pay attention to those commas, and make sure you have the appropriate spelling of there/they’re/their, because your audience certainly is.

Sometimes You Have to Let It Go

Arguing is never fun. Arguing on social media is never smart. So why would you do something that is sure to be a no-fun-no-smarts activity?

It is more likely than not that at some point there will be a past, present or future customer that takes issue with your brand on social media. What is the best course of action? Well, whatever you choose to do, don’t blow it up – that’s very bad for business.

You would be better off acknowledging a complaint and rectifying an issue – even if you feel as though you are in the right – than getting into a public argument with a customer. Imagine how that would be perceived by other customers. Would you do business with a company that appears to have a ‘customer is always wrong’ mentality? Probably not.

Address issues in a professional manner and cater to your clients’ needs. Taking the conversation offline might be the best move in cases like these. But, while you might love your brand, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by berating the people that make it possible for your brand to exist.

Respect Your Social Activity and Audience

Sure, social media is a little more lax and informal than conventional marketing or communications channels. The idea of incorporating social into your business is to create a personality for your brand with which users can engage. But it is important to remember that while social media may seem a little less formal, it is still a serious part of your business, and should be treated as such.

You might create your social channels and hit the ground running. But a lot of brands tend to neglect their social networks after a while, and that means neglecting customers. People are talking to you on social media and leaving them without a response, feeling alone and unimportant can be harmful to your brand’s image online.

Treat your social customers like you would any other – they are really no different.

Keep these three mistakes in mind and you will find success on social media much easier to achieve.

What other social media engagement mistakes can you think of? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Equity: Social Care

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The concept of Social Care – customer service through social media – is growing in popularity, and the benefits it has to your business can be significant.

social care social media customer serviceToday, one-third of online adults prefer to engage with a brand on social media compared to conventional forms of customer service (i.e. phone). That is a significant number. Ignoring it can mean two things: a loss of competitive advantage in your market and an increased likelihood of finding your customers dissatisfied with your customer service.

Social Care is a tactic that has been adopted by several international brands and it is a trend that is catching on with medium and small businesses as well. In addition to offering your customers a new avenue through which to engage with your brand, it also adds value to your business.

Social Equity from Social Care

There are two principle returns from Social Care that generate Social Equity for your business. First, there is the added value for your customers’ experience with your brand that maintains satisfaction and gives you a competitive advantage over competitors that are not offering the service. Second, Social Care is far more cost-effective than conventional forms of customer service.

First, let’s look at how Social Care gives your company an edge over your competitors. As noted above, not many small or medium sized businesses are offering Social Care at the moment despite the major proportion of online adults that prefer this method of customer service. This is not to say that Social Care should replace your current customer service options; it should be added to the mix to offer both clients, prospects and leads a means of reaching out to your company at any time, from any place, without having to worry about whether or not someone will be on the other end of the line right away, or leave them waiting for what seems like an eternity.

social care twitterThe convenience that comes with the option of Social Care adds value to the customer experience. 39% of consumers avoid further business with a brand after a bad customer experience. You can reduce the number of these occurrences by providing alternative means of reaching out to your brand, particularly one as simple as a tweet. Clients and leads can send their message and go about their day, allowing your Social Care team to read, review and respond to these messages in an efficient and timely manner.

The second area from which Social Equity is generated is in the cost-efficiency of such a program. One representative with a sufficient amount of knowledge can handle a significant amount of social inquiries in a much timelier fashion than one that must respond to clients over the phone.

When a customer is sitting on the phone waiting for a representative, it behooves the company to have that call answered as quickly as possible. In order to do that, more representatives are required. On social, however, clients can send in their inquiry, as explained above, and a single representative can handle hundreds of issues daily (theoretically, of course). This system is both a money-saver in the short- and long-run.

Social Care is a new phenomenon, but it is one that has tremendous potential to increase the value of your business.

Does your brand engage in some form of Social Care? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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5 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints on Social Media

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There are certain ways to go about dealing with customer complaints on social media.

customer complaints on social mediaAll customer complaints are not the same, but there are certain features that are true to every one, and certain best practices that should always be adopted when dealing with customer complaints on social media.

The most important thing to note when it comes these complaints is that under no circumstances should any customer complaint go ignored on social networks. In addition to this one universal rule, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with customer complaints on social media.

Always Be Courteous

A 2011 survey on Customer Rage conducted at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University found that 90% of complaining customers want one thing above all else: to be treated with dignity. Yet, only 40% said that this is the kind of treatment that they received.

At Zendesk, the philosophy is to treat a complaining customer as you would treat (or, at least, hopefully treat) your grandmother. Kindness goes a long way, because for a lot of complaining customers, they simply want to vent.

Respond Quickly

If I am a dissatisfied customer and I send you a tweet and hear nothing for days I might be tempted to take my efforts to the next level. The same survey mentioned above also found that 88% of people who had a negative experience with a brand chose to deal with their issue by telling their friends about it. In the age of social media, “friends” could mean tens of thousands. So act fast to help your customers or things could get way out of hand.

Be Knowledgable

Have you ever called a customer service line and found yourself waiting on hold every time you ask a question because your service representative doesn’t know the answer? It’s frustrating. Having answers to customer questions and complaints (both on and off social media) is your most powerful weapon, and you should always have an answer locked and loaded when an issue arises.

Be Proactive

The answers and solutions your customers are looking for should be readily available in as many places as possible. If an issue comes up once, you should always assume it will come up again and prepare for it the next time it does.

The faster you can resolve someone’s issue the happier they will be, and a proactive approach to customer service is going to help you do just that.

Use Your Experience

While this is not a method for dealing with a customer complaint directly, it is a means of using these situations for the benefit of your company. Customer complaints are a great way of figuring out where your product or service needs work. It is your product, so for you, it is perfect. For others, that might not be the case.

Adapting your product or service to the requests and complaints of customers is a great way of making your product more user-friendly, and it is going to make your job of customer service a lot easier down the road.

How do you deal with customer complaints on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Care: Customer Service on Social Media

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Social care is of ever-growing importance when it comes to social media for business, and it is important to understand what it is and how it differs from conventional customer service.

The Social Media Report 2012 from Nielsen and NM Incite explained a relatively new phenomenon: social care. What is social care? Social care is the concept of handling a portion (or, in some cases, all) of your customer service using social media.social care social media customer service

This has been a growing trend in recent years and the majority of consumers have undoubtedly come across examples of social care when dealing with a brand. Perhaps the best known example of using social care to improve a brand’s client engagement and change client perceptions is Comcast.

Ever since Frank Eliason founded the @ComcastCares program, the company has seen a massive turnaround in terms of customer satisfaction and brand perception. That’s all thanks to social care.

Below are a few key benefits to note when it comes to social care, and a few reasons why it is of growing importance in the world of customer service.

It’s Popular!

According to the study by Nielsen and NM Incite, 47% of social media users engage in some form of social care. Furthermore, one in three social media users prefer social care to contacting a company by phone. With that high of a demand, it seems almost counter-intuitive to not have a department for social care.

It’s Convenient

If you ask anyone if they enjoy waiting on the phone for a customer service representative while listening to monotonous elevator music, the answer will almost certainly be uniformly, “No.” Social care eliminates this process and allows users to ask their question and go about their daily activities while waiting for a response. This also eliminates some of the pressure from the company. While it is important to respond in a timely fashion, customer service representatives are not faced with the potential of dealing with a frustrated customer who has been waiting an exceptionally long time.

social care twitterIt’s Less Expensive

Now we’ve got your attention! Social care offers a less expensive alternative to conventional customer service. Engaging with your audience on social media does not require as large a team as conventional forms of customer service. As noted above, the convenience aspect means that a smaller team can be engaging with issues as they arise as opposed to a large team dealing with a heavy volume of phone calls as quickly as possible.

It’s Public

@ComcastCares showed the market that Comcast really did care. The result? A huge spike in business and customer satisfaction. The fact that social media is a public medium means that people are able to see how you treat your customers, and if you really do care (and you should) it will show through social care. When people see that you treat your customers well, they are all the more likely to choose you when making their decision.

Social care is an important phenomenon and, slowly, becoming one of the most prominent forms of customer service.

Have you implemented any form of social care? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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Tag Archive for: social care

Social Care Case Study with Phone Carriers

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Social Care is all about engaging with your audience when they are talking to or about you.

Last week, a friend of mine decided it was time to open the bidding for cell phone carriers to pitch him on why he should switch to their service. Naturally, he thought that the best way to get the opinions of his peers was to tweet to the world:

It was a great tweet that certainly should have caught the attention of those four major players. Within minutes (ten, to be exact) T-Mobile had inserted themselves into the conversation making the first bid:

A great, fast soft sell on Twitter. And for marketers, a great example of near-perfect Social Care (customer service on social media). Over an hour later, Sprint was second into the mix.

Then I thought it was appropriate to commend the two for paying attention to conversations around the web.

What happened next was particularly interesting. While these two providers shared personalized messages, Verizon and AT&T simply shared automated, unengaged responses. What’s more, these messages seemed to be responding to Lorne thanking him for his business, and encouraging me – someone who has not expressed an interest in buying – to join AT&T.

It’s hard to imagine why some brands would engage with their customers – or potential customers in this way. While a competitor – in this case T-Mobile – is getting it right, other major players are far from the mark. Looking through this conversation, it is clear that there are a few lessons marketers can learn.

Listen, Listen, Listen

Perhaps the most resonating thing I took from this experience was in a conversation I had with Lorne on a private Facebook chat shortly after our public tweets went out.

I, a Verizon client, told him about the service I’ve had and how I like the range of plans they offer for business. Lorne agreed, but, amazingly, told me that he was leaning towards T-Mobile and couldn’t pinpoint why. I could. It is hard to believe that first-mover advantage is still such a dominant theory in the age of social, but this is a perfect case to show that it is. You need to be listening to a broad range of audiences. You never know when or where you might find a new client. Keep your tech-ears to the ground so you never miss an opportunity. When it all comes down to it, it might pay off for T-Mobile in this case.

The Early Tweet Gets the Client

This comes back to what I mentioned above about first-mover advantage. Respond quickly. A recent study shows that people want their questions addressed by a brand within five minutes of asking it. Don’t sit around and wait to respond. Social is all about conversing. Be a part of the conversation in real time.

Pay Attention

Automation works for some things and fails miserably for others. Generally, it is the failures that get the spotlight. When people are having a conversation, don’t be a robot. In this case, Verizon might have been better off staying out of the conversation rather than blindly answering based on another response, paying little attention to what was originally asked. The human touch is invaluable when it comes to social.

Keep these pointers in mind next time you find yourself offering Social Care on a network like Twitter. You never want to miss out on an opportunity because you didn’t take Twitter seriously.

Have you had any experiences – positive or negative – with brands through a Social Care service? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 15, 2013

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In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Brands on Social Media: Do You Fit In? [INFOGRAPHIC]

There is a lot of debate over whether or not there is a place for all brands in all industries on social media. Is there an audience for everyone? The reality is that there is room for every brand on social media, you just need to know where your brand fits in! Take a look at this great infographic to find out where your brand fits in on social media!

customer complaints on social media5 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints on Social Media

Social media has created a new avenue through which customers can reach out to brands, and that means a new avenue through which customers can complain to a brand. How we handle customer complaints on social media is crucial. There are certain ways to do it properly, and we have those methods. Find out how to properly handle customer complaints on social media.

18 Twitter and Facebook Business Facts

While the marketer in us knows exactly how important social media is to a successful marketing strategy, the businessperson in us wants to see the truth in numbers. That’s why we have compiled 18 great Twitter and Facebook business facts that should satisfy the businessperson in all of us!

Case Studies sonyCase Studies: Sony

When one thinks of Sony, Pinterest is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, the marketing team at Sony managed to take the electronics developer and turn it into a major player on the Pinterest playing field. Find out what marketers can learn from the Sony Pinterest strategy in this week’s Case Studies!

Social Equity: Social Care

Social media can be a great avenue through which customers and leads can reach out to your brand. It can also add a significant degree of value to your business! Find out how Social Care adds value to your business in this week’s Social Equity segment!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

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5 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints on Social Media

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There are certain ways to go about dealing with customer complaints on social media.

customer complaints on social mediaAll customer complaints are not the same, but there are certain features that are true to every one, and certain best practices that should always be adopted when dealing with customer complaints on social media.

The most important thing to note when it comes these complaints is that under no circumstances should any customer complaint go ignored on social networks. In addition to this one universal rule, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with customer complaints on social media.

Always Be Courteous

A 2011 survey on Customer Rage conducted at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University found that 90% of complaining customers want one thing above all else: to be treated with dignity. Yet, only 40% said that this is the kind of treatment that they received.

At Zendesk, the philosophy is to treat a complaining customer as you would treat (or, at least, hopefully treat) your grandmother. Kindness goes a long way, because for a lot of complaining customers, they simply want to vent.

Respond Quickly

If I am a dissatisfied customer and I send you a tweet and hear nothing for days I might be tempted to take my efforts to the next level. The same survey mentioned above also found that 88% of people who had a negative experience with a brand chose to deal with their issue by telling their friends about it. In the age of social media, “friends” could mean tens of thousands. So act fast to help your customers or things could get way out of hand.

Be Knowledgable

Have you ever called a customer service line and found yourself waiting on hold every time you ask a question because your service representative doesn’t know the answer? It’s frustrating. Having answers to customer questions and complaints (both on and off social media) is your most powerful weapon, and you should always have an answer locked and loaded when an issue arises.

Be Proactive

The answers and solutions your customers are looking for should be readily available in as many places as possible. If an issue comes up once, you should always assume it will come up again and prepare for it the next time it does.

The faster you can resolve someone’s issue the happier they will be, and a proactive approach to customer service is going to help you do just that.

Use Your Experience

While this is not a method for dealing with a customer complaint directly, it is a means of using these situations for the benefit of your company. Customer complaints are a great way of figuring out where your product or service needs work. It is your product, so for you, it is perfect. For others, that might not be the case.

Adapting your product or service to the requests and complaints of customers is a great way of making your product more user-friendly, and it is going to make your job of customer service a lot easier down the road.

How do you deal with customer complaints on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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