The first step is to find out which channels they use, so that you can communicate with them effectively. One of the main methods of active listening is surveys.
If you already have your online shop up and running, you will already have a database of your customers’ emails. You can send them an email with a link to a Google form, or a survey in SurveyMonkey asking them which social networks they use on a daily basis, and whether they would like to be served through them.
Of course, don’t make one of the basic mistakes in social media customer service: redirection. Having a presence in social networks means opening the door for a two-way communication channel with your customers. If you open your Facebook page and your Twitter channel, prepare your strategy to perform customer service through them too. Do not answer a complaint on Facebook by referring the customer to an email address. Sending customers to another channel generates a high rate of frustration.
The next step is to prepare your team for customer service in social media.
If your online shop is in an initial phase you will certainly have a very small team, but that will not prevent you from creating a star customer service team. What you must bear in mind is that you cannot separate channels: customer service must be integrated into social networks in order to build customer loyalty, and to get them to recommend and spend more on your online shop. These are the three qualities that the person in charge of the team must have:
Empathy: we need to understand what our customer is going through. When we buy through an online shop, we expect all our experience to be good; when this is not the case, frustration can be the cause of negative comments on social networks.
Good spelling: the person who gives answers through our channels has to know how to express themselves properly and effectively.
Knowledge of your product: If the person you have designated to attend your social channels knows your company and knows how to get the answers quickly, you will have satisfied customers.
And finally, the last step is to choose a tool that makes your job easier. Managing many comments on social networks is not an easy task. The more your sales grow and the more visibility you have on social networks, the more comments you will receive and you must be prepared.
In the beginning, when your customer service team is made up of just one person, it is easy to work with the social networks themselves: Facebook, Twitter, or we can use Hootsuite to manage all the responses from the same platform. But as your brand grows and you receive more requests, these tools fall short. But don’t worry, there are social CRM tools that will help you do the following:
Automated message prioritisation: you can add keywords such as delivery, dissatisfaction, quality, broken, etc. to a list, and the tool will automatically prioritise those messages and display them first for you to manage.
Assign messages to members of your team: With these tools you can create automatic assignment rules so that agents can resolve doubts in their specialty.
Analyse the feeling of your brand: It is very important to know if the messages we receive in social media are negative, positive or neutral and even more important to determine the conversion. What percentage have I managed to turn an angry client into an ambassador for my brand? These tools allow you to add sentiment to every message you receive on social media and then analyse your results.
And finally, don’t forget something very important: don’t underestimate your customers’ criticism, it’s always an opportunity to improve your product or service. It is very important to know how to listen, but equally important to know how to communicate all suggestions for improvement to the corresponding departments.
If your customers know that their comments are taken into account and implemented effectively, they will feel valued and loyal. And that will make them recommend your brand to their friends and social media contacts.