What is the Best Social Media Channel for Customer Service?

foreign
customer service and experience expert
today I'm going to talk about using
social media for customer service now
for most businesses Social customer care
may not be the most popular channel to
deal with customer issues but that
doesn't mean it's not important more and
more customers turn to social media to
get help more on why in just a moment
but for now let's address why companies
aren't using social channels when a
company tells me they don't want to
participate in social media customer
care I ask why and they have all kinds
of explanations now notice I'm avoiding
the word excuses but that's exactly what
they are they're just excuses so the
explanations they share are number one
we steer them to the phone so we don't
need any other channels number two we
don't have the staff to handle all the
different social channels number three
we don't have the budget to expand our
customer support department
and number four the excuses I'm sorry
explanations the explanations they say
are the social channels aren't important
well our annual customer service
research shows that of all the ways
customers reach out to customer support
social media channels like Twitter
Facebook Instagram and others are at the
bottom of the list but that doesn't mean
they should be ignored the phone has
always been the most popular Channel why
well because it's easy and it's always
been there but now there are options
such as email chat apps and more well
gen Z and Millennials are the catalysts
of Digital customer support channels
zappos.com's former senior director of
Customer Loyalty Bob seifter shared his
take on social media channels in a
recent Inc article when asked why Zappos
uses social media his answer was Zappos
customers use it all we do is to decide
if we want to be in that space he also
said customers call us but we didn't
invent the phone now that last sentence
says it all customers call us but we
didn't invent the phone none of us
invented social channels either his
point is just because we didn't invent
it it doesn't mean we shouldn't use it
especially if our customers want us to
now earlier I promised to share the why
or the reason behind customers turning
to social media while more and more are
using social media channels like Twitter
and Facebook it's not always their first
choice unfortunately it's where
customers go because the company didn't
make it easy to call them or didn't
respond to their emails or text messages
so they go social and post on Twitter
Facebook and other platforms that's a
terrible reason and by the way the rest
of the world can see these posts and if
you choose not to respond your customers
might notice yet despite that terrible
reason you should still be on social
media if you haven't already noticed
you'll start to see more and more
customers commenting asking questions
and complaining on social channels and
you need to respond to them watch where
your customers are and be there for them
so one of the best social media channels
for customer service the ones your
customers are using well I hope you
enjoyed this short lesson thank you very
much for tuning in this is shop hyken
reminding you to always be amazing