Curatti

The First Thing To Do Before Social Customer Service

  • Paolo Fabrizio

    • ‘Do, do, do’.  This is not a song. It’s a common approach though for many brands, assuming that the more they do the better business results they’ll get. The bad news is that this equation is not necessarily effective. In fact, as we live in a fast-paced, competitive world, taking smart and innovative decisions and making the right efforts at the right time, has become paramount for the future of any brand.

    As for customer service, regardless of whether you’ve already integrated social networks, it’s imperative to know what customers and prospects think and feel about your brand. 

    Start listening to online conversations (before the going gets tough)

    During the last weeks, I’ve held several training sessions for brands. One of the most frequently asked question was: “Paolo, what’ the first thing you suggest that I do to improve overall customer satisfaction?”  Well, I’ve answered them with the following 2-step approach:

    1. ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS → Do you REALLY KNOW what makes them (un)happy?  Don’t volunteer what you think. Engage with your customers to get their feedback 
    2. MONITOR ONLINE CONVERSATIONS →  since conversations across social networks are public, use social listening tools to monitor in order to get valuable insights 

    Collate the data and insights from points 1 and 2.

    Next, turn them into actions to improve customer satisfaction / reduce customer efforts / increase online conversions (especially as for eCommerce). Most of all, use what you learn in order to prevent/mitigate any crisis that may affect your brand reputation or business results.

    BONUS TIP: when you monitor online conversations, do not forget to listen to your social customer service competitors to learn from their best practices and breaches…  

    Benchmarking your customer support competitors on Twitter

    Image credit: HelpHandles..com

    A few days ago, I interviewed Dean McCann. He is the founder of HelpHandles.com, a social customer service analytics platform. With this tool, you can trace and benchmark your competitors customer support performances on Twitter. In fact, clicking on a brand’s name gives you access to interesting insights, such as:

     

    One of his quotes that I’ve enjoyed the most during our chat was:

    “The best way to think about Social Customer Service (if you’re not doing it) is to start thinking about your customers first.” – Dean McCann, founder HelpHandles.com

    [PODCAST] If you want to learn more about this platform and how can it be beneficial for your brand, listen to the interview HERE.

    Over to you

    As social media has become a customer service tool, the first thing to do is constantly monitor your customers conversations. In a nutshell, listen > learn > prevent.

    Even though customers are not talking to you over social networks yet, they’re already talking ABOUT YOU before taking their decisions. 

    So, how about you? How do you take your business decisions to stand out from your competitors?

    I’d love to read your comments below.

     

    Lead/Featured image: Copyright: ‘http://www.123rf.com/profile_neyro2008‘ / 123RF Stock Photo

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    Paolo Fabrizio

    Digital Customer Service Consultant, Trainer, Author, Speaker. Paolo has been helping companies to harness digital customer service as a business driver. Founder of CustomerServiceCulture, author of books and speaker at conferences in Italy and abroad. Lecturer at the Bicocca University of Milan