5 Creative Ways to Improve Customer Service with Social Media

5 Creative Ways to Improve Customer Service with Social Media:from Business 2 Community by Amit Kothiyal

With all the improved high tech world and more beneficial communication tools, various organizations have found an interesting way to reach customers and improve customer service.

Remember how we all “dislike” being put on hold on a phone line or approaching prompts to get the must deserved customer service. With all the improved high tech world and more beneficial communication tools, various organizations have found an interesting way to reach customers and improve customer service.
Through social media, customers get exactly what they are looking for and receive better customer support and easier ways to contact an organization. Jump into the game changing strategy to increase company’s touch, use seo and social media, if you are not because serving customers is social, too!

5 Simple and creative ways you can take customer service to the next level with social media

1. Make Twitter part of your customer service contact channel

Use Twitter to solve customer problems and answer questions. The much used phone conversations may help solve the problems but phone wait time will not. A single tweet is enough to reach a lot of customers in just one click, which made twitter a fast-lightning platform.
Use Twitter to build your customer service brand image. Better customer service gets talked about, which may lead to better brand image and more sales. Twitter is one of the social media ways that may turn a single happy customer story to international news.
Use Twitter to facilitate customer service and reduce costs. Customers have better things to do than to be on call for hours because of a simple issue. With Twitter, the solution is quick, cheap and precise and it also reduces the call rates and time.

2. Use live chat technology to handle multiple customers all at the same time

There can be various reasons to use the chat functionality. Some consumers are not always comfortable or understand the solution on call or have a lot of patience to pick the phone to call the service center. Also online chat can be a great way to inform customers about your new services or to sell the complimentary helpful products.
Whether the problem is about a bank account or online assistance, chat works great for customers and the company.

3. Connect with customers and serve them through a company blog

Blogging is the finest way to create a social customer service strategy using social media style. The World Wide Web has taught us to demand and get everything immediately without wasting much time and effort and blogs do exactly the same. A blog post can solve customer query, market a product or service and advertise about the new improvements of the company.
The regular and easy updates on the blogs keep the brand always in news. The comment section of the blog provides instant feedback about the product or service, which may turn the negatives into positives and develop brand image.

4. Let customers work with each other on customer service forums

If a lot of customers are facing a similar kind of issue and calling to ask the same questions, it is smarter to put the solution that is searchable globally by the users and the search engines. The customer can easily click on the product name, to sort out their issues.
Also, a forum can provide various solutions to a single problem so that the customer can choose the most suitable one. Along with better and quick customer support, a forum may reduce your customer service admin calls, as the customers are getting the solutions through the net.

5. Let customers connect and share experiences on social networking sites

Social networking sites have brought the world closer and made life easier and now its time for the organizations to use these channels as a means of providing better customer service. The sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and MySpace not just enable a company to communicate with the customers on various levels but also help solicit feedback, send out the update bulletins about the product and service and manage the reputation and the image of the brand.
These sites bring you closer to the customers, which enhance customer support. Build community, start an event or social networking forum, the ultimate result would be, better brand image through proper customer service!

What’s your take on simple and effective ways to use social media for customer service?

Social media is providing interesting ways to reach customers and and has improved customer service through customer feedback, providing important announcements via social networking sites and follow market trends. What other ways have you found effective to leverage social technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience?