Jos Vennik

Before the year 2005, any customer service blunder would only reach a handful of individuals. With the rise of Social Media, there are quite a number of outlets that will grab a hold of such incidents.

Which can potentially have a very large negative impact on the company in question, as such information reaches such a large amount of individuals within practically no time. So in essence, what companies used to get away with in terms of poor service will be hard to accomplish in these circumstances where the customers have a large deal of control over the brand.

The scenario depicted above is purely an example where the reaction is taking place on a medium where the company has no real presence on a similar platform. Which is a vital mistake if they want to rectify and acknowledge their mistake before it becomes a negative impact on the company.

Possible applications for Social Media based customer service:

• Twitter support account;
• Facebook page;
• Skype for chat / voice chat;
• Windows Live Messenger;
• Web based chat;
• Forums.

Twitter can be utilized in such a way that customers can leave a message for the company at any time; the only downside for this medium is the restriction in terms of amount of characters used. Limiting the users to a short inquiry, which might not always be sufficient for their particular problem.

However it can be responded to with a phone call from the company after an exchange of information, giving the company enough time to comprehend the situation at hand fully and thus give the customer a concise and clear answer without further delay.

Customer service & Social Media presence

As described above, not having a Social Media presence can be deadly for your company. Only utilizing it for damage control would already be a lifesaver in many situations, this alone can reassure customers that their problem is acknowledged and looked into.

It can even give grounds for the company to contact the customer by phone, offering their help with whatever their issue is at the time. Taking it one step further would be to provide the actual support via the social media platform instead.

The American company Comcast already provides this service next to their call centers, utilizing Twitter (@Comcastcares). Their Social Media based service consists of ten employees working eight hours a day to maintain full community engagement across several platforms.

Customers can post a message for example via Twitter, where the response they get is near instantaneous. The timing on this allows the customer to forget about the lengthy queue they can experience when trying to reach a call center, receiving a personal response from a Comcast employee to ensure that their inquiry is being looked into.

General responses include a confirmation of service interruption in a specific location, querying for the account phone number so a local representative can call the customer that initially contacted @comcastcares and basic tips for known problems.

Customer service via Social media however is still in its infancy, making companies such as Comcast, Jet Blue, Dell and various others pioneers in this branch. Pioneering in an area where no clear rules of operation have been defined as of yet.

This particular fact makes it clear why so few companies have taken to going down a similar road. With no real long-term established players on the market, it becomes a risk to fund a new department or subset thereof to create a social media based customer service.

Combining the two

Considering the deterrence to conjoin Social Media with customer service, it is important to lie out the necessities that have to be taken into account when one does decide to pursue this course of action.

Primarily as a motivation as well as rationalizing why a company should not hold back when trying to innovate and improve when making the choice for this particular service. Giving a concise overview of possibilities that are readily available for a company to learn from and eventually utilize. Using Social Media as another tool in the customer service arsenal allows a company to be proactive when it comes to complaints, considering that it is possible to contact customers regarding a complaint that they have not contact your company about.

Doing so shows the customer that you find it important to assist customers, aiding them with any difficulty they might have. Empathizing with a customer on a personal level as you assist them with your product or service will have a good chance of creating a new loyal customer.

Ultimately

Every new tool or technology needs innovators that lead the way for others to follow. While this is already true to an extent for Social Media, many more will have to take point in their particular sector and succeed in order to convince the masses to follow.