How to Help Your Social Media Customer Service

Meet the Author!

Mitchell Causey @MitchellCausey

Mitch Causey is the Director of Marketing at Lesson.ly, the easy learning software. Lesson.ly helps companies like Lyft, Angie’s List, and ModCloth improve their employee learning programs by allowing them to build, share, and track their materials all in one place.

Customer service and social media marketing both require a lot of thought to be done well. 

By following a process that fits your specific needs, you can save some brain power.

I’ve come up with a 3-step social media customer service process that works for both you and the customer. Check it!

Mindset of “Us” Not “Me”

Step 0:

If you’ve been in the business world for any time, you know one of the most consistent and potent battles is that of the mind. 

Mindset of “Us” Not “Me”

Step 0:

Mindset of “Us” Not “Me”

Step 0: One of the best ways to win the mindset battle is to align your goals with your customer’s goals.

Mindset of “Us” Not “Me”

Step 0: Try saying “us not me” to yourself before reaching out to customers to be better prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that may happen during your day of delighting customers.

Sell or Renew

Step 1:

Sell or Renew

Step 1: Understanding the relationship a customer or prospect has with your company is an important first step for framing your conversation.

Sell or Renew

Step 1: Knowing this relationship will allow you to understand if he/she is a current customer or a prospect, as well as a general tone over time.

Sell or Renew

Step 1: Once you are able to figure out if the person is a prospect or a current customer, you can establish your end goal for that communication: sell or renew.

Triage for Priority

Step 2:

Triage for Priority

Step 2: For companies with a high volume of interaction on social media, it’s crucial to prioritize your time appropriately. 

Triage for Priority

Step 2: The best way I’ve found to prioritize communication is what I like to call the  Triage of Happiness:

Unhappy

Happy

Neutral Hap

pine

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Triage for Priority

Step 2: In general, I treat the unhappy communication as the highest priority because of the old adage that people tell about a bad experience more than a good one.

Unhappy

Triage for Priority

Step 2: The second priority are the happy messages. I suggest this over neutral for the second spot because you’ve got momentum. 

Happy

Triage for Priority

Step 2: The third priority are the natural messages. These should be addressed after the others because the sender is not on either side of the fence.

Neutral

Respond Accordingly

Step 3:

Respond Accordingly

Step 3: Finally, once you have the right mindset, have established whether the contact is a customer or a prospect, and have triaged the messages for priority, it’s time to communicate.

And now I have collected some practical examples of how to respond accordingly based upon where a customer is in the Triage of Priority.

Unhappy Customers

Unhappy Customers

For those unfortunate circumstances where a customer or prospect is upset with your company, your goal should be to shift the communication from Unhappy to Neutral by taking it offline.

An example of what to do

“Dove Stains Clothes”

Unhappy Customers

Unhappy Customers An example of what to do

In this situation, the customer’s clothes have been marked by a Dove product in spite of the company’s messaging explicitly promoting otherwise.

The Dove communications agent did what we should all do in the situation – take it offline.

Unhappy Customers An example of what to do

Is there a public email address you can send to customers instead of the follow/DM process?

Put to Action

Unhappy Customers An example of what to do

What I especially like about the way Dove handled it was that they don’t require the user to follow them for a Direct Message, instead they provide the appropriate email address to send a note to.

Is there a public email address you can send to customers instead of the follow/DM process?

An example of what NOT to do Unhappy Customers

“Comcast Doesn’t Follow Up”

Unhappy Customers An example of what NOT to do

The rep did just what he was supposed to by asking for the follow/DM and even got to the point where it was taken offline.

Then, however, he apparently stopped communicating and it returned back to Twitter for all the world to see.

Unhappy Customers An example of what NOT to do

How can you make sure each open case gets closed quickly with follow up in your business?

Put to Action

Happy Customers

Happy Customers

For the interactions where people are going bonkers for your company (in a good way), your goal should be to leverage that happiness to promote more happiness from more people. Share it, respond how they would want you to, promote it, repurpose it, and have fun with it.

An example of what to do Happy Customers

“Husqvarna is Human”

Happy Customers An example of what to do

This is an incredibly simple, but incredibly impactful example by one of my favorite brands (Husq chainsaws or bust).

The customer was clearly happy with the new mower he purchased from Husqvarna and made the public aware. A friend connection chimed in to share the same sentiment

Happy Customers An example of what to do

Then Husqvarna responded to the friend, not by saying “we are glad you are satisfied” or “thank you for your purchase, please buy this other product,” but said “thanks dude” just as any normal human being would do.

It shows us that there is a human behind the brand, not just a corporate board of directors setting policy.

Happy Customers An example of what to do

How can you show your customers that you are a real human communicating with them?

Put to Action

An example of what NOT to do Happy Customers

“Muscle Milk is Missing”

Happy Customers An example of what NOT to do

Listening is crucial in social media, everyone knows that. Beyond listening though is understanding who is talking.

In this example a Bleacher Report Analyst with over ninety thousand followers tweeted a positive message about Muscle Milk. This was a perfect opportunity to leverage a fairly influential fan for free, but Muscle Milk failed to comment.

Happy Customers An example of what NOT to do

How can you better tell which customers you should respond to if you can’t respond to them all?

Put to Action

Neutral Customers

Neutral Customers

In the case where communication is neither positive nor negative, but somewhere in between, your goal should be to shift it from Neutral to Happy by replying with a positive, helpful response that also spreads your brand-specific messaging.

Neutral Customers An example of what to do

“Dollar Shave Club Shares Reviews”

Happy Customers An example of what NOT to do

Dollar Shave Club does a lot of things right, including sharing their reviews page when the context clearly calls for it.

The potential buyer was asking the community for reviews, so DSC went ahead and joined the conversation by sharing their reviews page, taking it from a wild west of communication to a more moderated place.

Neutral Customers An example of what to do

In addition, they continued following up within the same thread on Twitter, showing that they want to add spice to people’s lives, not just make a quick sale.

Neutral Customers An example of what to do

Can you leverage current reviews if someone pings their network for some opinions?

Put to Action

Neutral Customers An example of what NOT to do

“Hilton Doesn’t Respond”

Happy Customers An example of what NOT to do

Hilton didn’t do anything wrong here, but that’s the point – they didn’t do anything.

If there are conversations going on around a significant individual like that, it’s crucial to be a part of them and leverage them for your brand’s positive image.

Sadly, I don’t think they even tweeted anything from their own account.

Neutral Customers An example of what NOT to do

How can you be more aware of key events that could have mass appeal for your brand?

Put to Action

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