Social media marketing is no longer a matter of choice. It is a necessity to keep your brand afloat and visible in the virtual realm. There is no better way to reach out to a large number of people in the least time, with minimal effort and expense. It’s one of the best ways to manage and control your brand’s image. It’s also emerging as the best way to connect with your customers. Social media and customer service should go together. These five social media practices serve as effective tools for improving your customer services:

#1. Add the Human Touch to Your Brand

People are always more comfortable engaging in human-to-human interactions. Adding a human touch to your brand gives social media users a sense that they are interacting with individuals and not a faceless company. Assign a dedicated person to handle social media interactions with your followers, fans and potential customers, and be prompt in your replies. This makes your followers feel valued and helps convert your target audience into a loyal customer base.

#2. Customer is always right, even when they’re so wrong

Complacency is never a good marketing practice, be it online or irl. Humility in handling customer complaints is essential to make them feel like their opinion matters. Use the social media platform to reach out to disgruntled customers. Listen to their complaints, empathize, respond to feedback, and offer an apology or even atonement, if necessary. Admitting your shortcomings (as long as they’re not too awful) will not make your brand lose face, but will add to your credibility.

#3. Rev Up Your Response Time

We agree, it is not possible to answer every customer query or respond to all the comments instantly. But do everything you can to reduce response time and let your audience hear from you as soon as possible. Whether it is a complaint or a query, the promptness of your response sets the tone for your association with your current or potential customers. Even if the nature of a customer’s response is such that you cannot deal with it on a social media site, make it a point to give them an alternate way to deal with their problem. Then deal with their problem.

#4. Make the Most of Communication Avenues

Social media sites are the perfect platform for making the right kind of noise about of your brand, products and services. Use social media as a channel for key announcements and redressing consumer grievances. The more proactive you are in your interactions, greater the chances of more and more consumers watching your social media space to hear from you. They will eventually begin to trust you to offer assistance, keep them updated and solve their problems.

#5. Talk ‘To’ Your Customers, Not Talk ‘At’ Them

Gone are the days when brands enjoyed cult status, with the consumers happy to be at the receiving end of whatever they had to offer. With growing competition and ever expanding options, it is essential to give your consumers a personalized shopping experience. Use your social media presence to talk to clientele, know what they want and use it improve your services instead of loading off a bundle of information for them to process and leaving it at that. Cut-throat competition demands that you talk to your customers as equals and not talk at them. Stand out with individualized responses that use humor and pop culture references. Be entertaining as well as informative, and remember, be relevant.

You should check this extensive guide on customer support which will give great ideas on customer support and related things.

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