7 ways to give a great customer-service experience on social media

Customer service is shifting from traditional call centers to social channels, and that has put more pressure on social customer-service teams.

They have to deliver a great customer experience while handling the growing number of questions and comments coming through different social channels.

Whether you have a dedicated social team or equip your traditional team to manage social care, here are ways to help your business deliver the best service possible.

1. Stay ahead of the curve.

Look at workflows from past peak seasons to see which channels your cases came from and how they were handled. Set up alerts to get real-time notifications that keep you ahead of the curve. Use analytics to compare current and historical data and current variations in seasonal volume.

2. Train, train, train.

Train your agents in multiple areas, such as social skills, the customer-care playbook, when to escalate, what not to do or say, and the psychological aspects of customer behavior, needs, and conflict resolution. Don't forget stress management. Help agents to continually learn.

3. Give agents the right data and context.

The more knowledge and access to context that agents have, the better they will be able to respond in a way that satisfies the customer. Choose social-media-management tools that integrate with existing CRM solutions and offer information such as customer location, product purchase, and customer spend. Be sure your tool has a clear prioritization feature so that agents can address the most important issues first.

4. Find the right expert at the right time.

When questions come up that need to be resolved by an internal expert, you must empower agents to triage questions internally so that designated internal resources can respond as quickly as possible.

5. Be more responsive.

Response time is critical to customer sentiment. Track response time to monitor agent performance, and to determine when to use additional agents.

6. Improve self-service options.

Empower customers to self-serve by directing them to community user-generated content for more information.

7. Be visible to the organization.

Everyone needs to own the customer experience, so it's important to give the organization visibility into how social is affecting your customers and the success your team is having.

By implementing best practices and providing powerful tools and resources, you will give your team the power to handle the influx and provide amazing customer-care experiences.

Learn more about how to offer effective social customer service.

This post is sponsored by Lithium Technologies.

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