Passive, Active, Strategic, or Cross-Functional – What is Your Organization’s Social Service Approach?

Relationships are a hands-on part of any business. Whether it’s customer service, member service, patient service – the possibilities are endless, but in the end – it’s all about cultivating and maintaining relationships. Therefore, businesses need to consider the balance between human team members, technology, and how the team uses technology to deliver world class experiences. If you rely too much on technology, you might drive away customers. Not enough, and you incur service costs through an unnecessarily bloated staff.

For the following, I’d like to focus specifically on customer service through social channels and pose some thoughts about what your service model should be in these channels.

There is no single right approach. Every business has to consider their client service strategy uniquely, based on constituents, competitors, product or service offerings, long term tech strategy, and how well service and marketing groups are aligned. This is because in the social space, client service and marketing must absolutely work in concert. Customer service is not just one thing, but an entire experience made up of people, tools, and approaches. What many people think of when they hear “customer service” is how a company representative answers a phone or passively responds to the market, but it is much more than this. Here are some different ways to consider your social client service approach.

Invisible (Passive) Social Service. It may be possible that your social customer service is invisible, at least in social spaces. For those who are very passive on social media and don’t monitor their reputation, this might be a relief. If it’s not invisible, then chances are that it’s VERY visible, VERY public, and potentially, very damaging. If your social listening tools yield you a low volume of reputation issues, your presence may be considered “invisible.” This is not unusual in a few select scenarios. Those who market with little to no social penetration, those who target a market simply uninvolved in social media, or if you are excellent at everything – maybe your social advocates are simply so satisfied they have nothing to say. That’s not a bad thing. But are they saying GOOD things? Because being completely invisible – well that’s not excellent either. If you are invisible on social media, you are also not benefitting from brand ambassadors – the proverbial “low hanging fruit” of social media word of mouth.

Active Social Service. Whether you’re proactive or reactive, there’s a need to be active. The point of social media is to be social. When you see an opportunity to reach out to a follower or someone in your community, do it! Social media is one of the most convenient places for your customers to ask questions, voice concerns, or deliver advocacy. You should be responsive. If you’re not using a social listening tool, you’ll notice that this will continue to be an underlying theme. Your brand ambassadors have earned an engagement. A follow, a retweet or a response is social media gold. If you cultivate the advocates, they will continue to advocate for you again and again. If you catch a negative issue early and your service team is equipped to respond quickly and excellently, you have a unique ability to convert this negative experience into a new advocate. Your client service presence on social media now doubles as a marketing tool that showcases your ability to have a personal relationship with your clients.

Strategic Social Service.  If you browse through big brand Twitter feeds, more and more big brands have a completely separate social property specifically built to handle service issues. This deliberate effort to separate social service from social engagement is mission critical for many product and service providers – especially those who have a highly tech savvy, youthful, or just social client base. For example – if you engage with Amazon via Twitter regarding a service issue – their service channel immediately steps in and redirects the conversation to their @amazonhelp handle. If Amazon managed service on their primary channel, your Twitter feed would be filled with thousands of bits of service chatter which Amazon generates in response to negative sentiment. This strategic effort Amazon implements to handle service issues serves to diminish the potentially damaging sentiment that is aired to the public. It’s quite ironic that many phone service centers who previously outlawed social media sites on employee machines to improve productivity now have a bullpen of Twitter power users plugged into social listening tools who spend their entire work day publicly curating the brand reputation and repairing various brand experiences in a super public fashion.

Cross-Functional Social Service. Advances in customer service technology are in a state of constant evolution. All layers of your organization are likely to be plugged into one or more social technologies. As a marketer or business owner, you need to be highly engaged in this social service environment, leverage the social equity of your entire enterprise, adopt changes as necessary, and provide ongoing service training to your workers. Whether you deliver service by phone, web, or social channels, your service model and voice should be in absolute alignment with the marketing strategy and core values of your business.

What now? Before you try to implement a social customer service plan in your own business, be a consumer. Go forth and engage with a few brands that you love (or don’t love) and consume some service. Go learn first-hand what works and doesn’t so you can begin applying your knowledge to your own world.

If you want to learn more about ways you can improve your use of digital tools inside your organization, please check out our Technology Mastery Institute. We offer a wide range of public courses designed to educate leaders on ways they can use technology to grow revenue and efficiency while being a blessing to both customers and employees.

About the Author

Sara Tsoodle joined FPOV with 15 years of customer relationship management and marketing experience within a variety of industries, as well as several years of technical experience with CRM implementation, administration, and performance measurement for both client service and marketing divisions. As VP of Client Services, Sara is passionate about client relationships and is laser focused on the success and prosperity of FPOV clients.