Eight great tips for customer service on social media


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Looking to improve the social customer service through the contact centre?

Here are some great tips submitted by our readers.

1.    Make your tweeting times known

When tweeting, say in the morning that you are available until 4pm (or whenever works for you) to answer tweets and then send a sign-off tweet at the end of the day to say you’ll be back tomorrow.

This establishes the expectation that tweets are only responded to during office hours.

Thanks to Kate

2.    Start online, continue offline

Engage the customer early and continue dialogue via direct messaging rather than on a public medium.

Provide a link to your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to allow the contact to progress to another channel where it’s easier to track the history of it.

Thanks to David

3.    Make it personal

Responses should be to-the-point and should also be personal to the individual who posted. No one wants to read a simple ‘copy and paste’ paragraph of impersonal corporate policy.

At the same time, show all other viewers precisely what you are doing to address the problem, even if you need to take it offline.

Thanks to Richard

4.    Do some edge rank research

When posting on Facebook be mindful of how ‘edge rank’ works. Edge rank is a Facebook algorithm that determines what is displayed – and how high – on other users’ news feeds.

To reach more people and get more views, write directly onto Facebook and not through a third party app or software. Engage followers, hit ‘like’ regularly and ask questions.

The more ‘edges’, the more views and the further the reach.

Thanks to Bulent

5.    Do not try to micro-manage

Empower your customer service team to respond without having to hold hands with management every step of the way.

Your customer service team should be trained using hypothetical situations and past issues. An emphasis should be placed on just how crucial response time can be.

Thanks to Sandeep

6.    Don’t mix service and marketing

It’s always best to keep the two main types of social media interaction completely separate.

Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or anything else, have one profile for your customer support and a totally separate one for marketing.

Thanks to Dean

7.    Treat it just like any other positive relationship

Regardless of the medium, people ultimately just want to be treated in a timely, respectful and courteous manner.

When attempting to master a new customer service channel, it can be surprisingly easy to forget this.

Thanks to Ruth

8.    Be very careful with your attempts to ‘take it offline’

When attempting to switch an interaction with an unhappy customer from social media to email or telephone, your manner and choice of words are critical.

If you are direct and personable, then it appears to the customer that you are offering your time and full attention to discuss the problem at length on a one-to-one basis.

But if you are curt and dismissive then it seems that you are just trying to ‘shut them down’ and usher them away from the public domain, which will make them angrier still.

Thanks to Matt Phil

What tips do you have for social customer service?  Please leave your ideas

Author: Jo Robinson

Published On: 21st Aug 2013 - Last modified: 13th Sep 2022
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3 Comments
  • Definitely make it personal! Personalisation stimulates customer behaviour, encouraging them to buy more, stay longer and evangelise the experience to others

    Nicola Brookes 22 Aug at 11:10
  • These are some really great points, i will surely share these. Really like how the tips came form different ppl, good community sprit

    [Part of post removed by a moderator – Please do not advertise in the comments]

    Kevin Ramsoobhag 23 Aug at 01:48
  • You’ve compiled some pretty good tips! I especially like your point on keeping marketing and service social media accounts separate. Makes everything more organized.

    Ian Zafra 7 Oct at 10:05