Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Drive Customer Service

By George Mwangi

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube have revolutionized communication around the globe.  Both individuals and businesses are embracing this dynamic phenomenon.  Social media creates unprecedented opportunities for businesses in myriad ways, especially in the area of customer service – a critical factor for your answering service’s success.  So, how can you harness the power of social media to drive customer service?

If you’ve already been cultivating a social media presence, you’re aware of the many benefits, including building your brand, networking, and improving your ranking in search results.  Reaping these benefits should be part of the overall strategy for your TAS.

The immediacy and accessibility of social media, however, makes it a double-edged sword.  It’s easy to dash off a Tweet to respond to a customer’s question, which is great, yet this can sometimes be perceived as casual or unprofessional.  The key is to have a plan so you and your employees can deliver consistent customer service across all social media platforms.  Communication is essential to great customer service, and social media is all about communication.

Make sure your staff consists of well-trained, knowledgeable customer service representatives that know the answer or how to get the answer.  You can develop their knowledge through education and training, by sharing information, and by asking for their feedback.  Teach them about your services on a continual basis; provide the latest marketing data; ask what they’re hearing from customers.  You’ll then be on the fast track to delivering a consistent message to your customers.

Additionally, utilizing social media proactively instead of reactively goes a long way in establishing a stellar level of customer service.  This means listening to what your customers are saying and putting “crowd-sourcing” to work for you in the form of innovation and competitive research.  What do your customers like about your services?  What don’t they like?  What are your competitors saying?  What are their customers saying?

A requisite aspect of social media is deciding ahead of time a variety of issues, including which platforms you’ll use to address specific issues, response times, and what’s appropriate for your employees to say and what isn’t.  Not all social media platforms will be right for you or your customers.  So be selective about which social media platforms you’ll use, invest your time and money wisely (with cost benefits in mind) and social media, as part of an overall strategy, can help drive your customer service, as well as the success of your telephone answering service.

George Mwangi is general manager at Call Desk Inc (www.CallDesk.com), a privately owned telephone answering service near Portland, Oregon.

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