Posted by It has become very obvious how and why customer support has become a major part of business growth. But over the last few years, customer support over social media platforms has really become prominent.
Having customer support on social media has now become a necessity for businesses and brands.
People have found that getting their issues sorted through social media support is easier, faster, and better than any other platform.
A few reasons for this could be:
1. No one wants to get on a call
In this day and age, you’ll find that more people try to avoid calls. They rather stick to texting or other forms of communication. Also, it’s almost always difficult to find a customer support number. And even if you do, there’s probably going to be hours of waiting in line until a representative picks your call. No one likes the queue music; you’d think by now we’d have something else to listen to while waiting. 😀
2. Filling a form or survey
If you don’t find a customer support number, there are high chances you won’t find a support email either. You’ll most likely only be able to see a form that asks for maybe your email and your concerns. This doesn’t give a user much hope that their issues will be sorted or if they’re even going to get a response.
3. Emails ALWAYS get piled up
Even if you do get lucky with an email id, be prepared to wait for as long as a week. I’ve had some horrifying experiences myself when it comes to expecting a reply for an issue via email. Waiting for a response for so long is bound to get you disinterested in that business or brand.
It is so important to be able to give support to your customers and what better way than to do it over social media? Once you give support over social media, there are quite a few reasons why your business or brand will do better than others who do not have social media support.
Some of these reasons are:
1. Quick support
Since social media is so public, it’s obvious that you’ll do everything in your power to address every issue brought into light by your customers as quickly as humanly possible. Customers know that brands or businesses will not.
2. Informal conversation
Because it’s social media, customers don’t feel the need to hold formal conversations which means that they will say exactly what they’re feeling. You will also be able to respond in an informal manner, to some extent. This will make customers more comfortable telling you their issues or wants.
3. Make things right
Apologizing and giving great solutions publicly have 2 great outcomes. Others with the same issue can try out the solution that was given to someone previously. The other thing is that this will help other customers see that you will in fact listen to their needs and give them what they want.
Using Social Media for customer support will almost always paint a pretty picture for your business or brand. Now let’s look at some tools that help you manage the millions of comments and DMs you’ll receive.
1. Salesforce
Salesforce is one of the biggest and oldest customer support software. They offer things all the way from lead management right up to customer support.
Here you can see that they have a whole dashboard to manage social media messages and comments. You’ll get a case or ticket number, the contact name, the case origin i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., a subject, the status, the priority, and the date and time it was opened/created. From this single dashboard, you can respond to any query, request, or feedback in the order that they came in. Or you can also filter it by social platform clearing all tickets from one platform at a time. Salesforce can help you save time and also make sure every user is responded to within a decent amount of time. Try it out here!
2. Sprinklr
Sprinklr is also a well-known customer experience management platform. Giants like Amazon, Nike, and McDonald’s use Sprinklr for their Social Media Customer Support.
Here you can see that each ticket or case is differentiated by the platform logo. If you have more than 1 contact from the same person, it will show up in 1 ticket. Here you can see that there was a DM and then a comment on a post. From here you can also go to the parent post to understand why the user said or asked something in particular. To the right you can see the ticket properties like date and time stamp, sentiment, predicted C-Sat score, status, and priority. Under that, you have your knowledge base that will suggest help articles related to the query or feedback. You can copy the link from there and share it with your customer within seconds. Sprinklr has a very user-friendly UI and you can get it here!
3. Zoho
Zoho is an Indian company that offers a Cloud software suite and SaaS applications. Their dashboard is somewhat different from Salesforce and Sprinklr. They have a social dashboard that lets you view the comments and DMs in something called a live stream.
Here you can reply to all the comments and DMs and keep your customers happy. 😀 You can access your free trial for Zoho here!
Last but not the least, CROWDFIRE!
4. Crowdfire
Crowdfire is one of the most prominent Social Media Management Tools online. It helps you with scheduling your content to your social media platforms. And, also offers Calendar and Grid View, and Advanced Analytics. But the most relevant and coolest feature is their Mentions feature.
It currently supports Twitter public mentions and DMs, Instagram Comments and DMs, Facebook page messages, and Facebook page comments.
Here you can see them all on one dashboard and reply to them using text, images, emojis, and gifs too!
A bonus advantage of using Crowdfire Mentions is that it doesn’t only cover people directly contacting you through DM or anyone tagging you. Even if they mention your Business or Brand name without tagging, it will show up on your dashboard. They also have a set of keywords you can save to track and reply to. This way you can blow your customers’ minds by replying to their comments and feedback even though they didn’t tag you. Managing your publishing and customer support on the platform has got to be a BIG BONUS for Social Media Managers all over.
Crowdfire Mentions are only available on the Premium, VIP, and Business plans. You can get your Free Trial here!
Getting a Social Media Customer Support Tool will help you go a long way in making customers happy faster than you would without a tool. Go ahead and try one of these!
If you use a different tool, let me know which one in the comments! 😀