1. Allocate Your Resources.

Assign different team members in your company to be responsible for managing social networking profiles to ensure each one is covered throughout the workday. See example below for Comcast social media site. Provide coverage when staff members are not around to monitor social networking profiles.

2.  Create a Center for Excellence.

See the link to Jeremiah Owyang showing how he advocates for creating social media centers of excellence in their “centralized program” that provides resources, training and strategies to in four major areas for planning, resources, processes and vendor selection and management.  He shows how to deploy social media in order to increase efficiency, reduce costs and provide standardization.  This team is run by a corporate social strategist who is in the business as a stakeholder and program champion.

3. Bridge the Gap.

Bridge the gap with your customer service coverage during staff breaks and vacation times.  Do not risk missing out on important messages when someone is out that monitors the social media site(s) for your company.

4. Listen.

Set up a good listening strategy that not only listens to customers’ compliments but to also keep tuned in to listening to complaints.  According to Marketing Expert Heidi Cohen , she states that with the help of customer monitoring tools, customer service can hear what consumers are being asked, provide a timely response, and determine early the warning signs of PR and other issues.

5. Delivery.

Be sure to deliver on your customer communications as promised. For example, see below regarding Whole Foods where they let users know what time and days they can expect to hear back on a response.

6. Evaluate.

On a consistent and regular basis, stop and take a look to see how your social media pages are doing. Review and monitor your reports of keywords and make a determination of how much of your time is spent fielding customer issues. 

7. Justification.

Follow the advice of the Community Roundtable that discusses how Measurement is NOT about justification, but is more about understanding the data to do a better job.

8. Mitigate Problems.

It is easy to listen to what customers are saying, but taking the precautionary steps and actions needed is what truly counts. As Heidi Cohen  mentions in her February 2, 2011 article, it is critical to have a crisis management plan in place for your current social media ecosystem to mitigate potential problems. 

9. Resolve Problems.

Immediately try to resolve problems.  According to Stacy Acevero, she explains how sometimes the largest protestors can become your best advocates with a little bit of love, understanding and attention. If you don’t provide some type of customer service or online redirect to someone who can help, you are risking your reputation.

10. Food for Thought. 

There are a couple of great mathematical equations to remember in this food for thought offered by Best Selling AuthorSeth Godin. His rule of thumb is that every person you turn away because your product or service isn’t right for them turns into three great customers down the road. What this means is that every bad sale may cost you five!

11. Number of Interactions and Issues.

Many companies are primarily focused on the number of fans and followers they are acquiring through social media. While that may be fine and good, it is important to remember to track the interactions staff members are having and be able to report back what issues were identified and how many of they were successfully resolved by teach team member.

12. Unhappy Customers.

When thinking about social media and customer service, there are often times when we find ourselves on the other side of the spectrum as an unhappy customer. According to Erik Deckers’ Five Rules to Getting Good Customer Service on Social Media, he says that if you are unhappy with a company, you should complain. It is your right as a customer to do this.  If you do it the right way, you are more likely to get what you want than if you whine and gripe about a company’s incompetency and failures.  Try this next time you are an unhappy customer. 

13. Opportunities.

Issues and complaints for customer service do not need to be seen as all negative. With the right mindset, these can be viewed as opportunities to learn more about what your customers want and expect from you. Use feedback as an opportunity for improvement within your own company.

Stay tuned for next week’s Part 2 for 13 More Quick Tips for Using Customer Service in Your Social Media Strategy.

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com