Social media is no longer just for promotion. In fact, it can wind up being your most important customer service platform, depending on the age of your target customers. Millennials prefer to contact a business through social media — 26% of customers ages 18 to 34 use social media to contact a company. This means it is increasingly important for businesses to monitor their social channels more diligently than ever, especially as millennials gain more purchasing power.
Businesses can receive feedback in a number of ways, and social media is a favorite venue for customers to share their experiences:
- On Facebook, a customer can either recommend or not recommend your business by leaving a review.
- On Twitter, a customer can use your company’s “handle” to describe an experience (and possibly associate your business with a hashtag).
- On Yelp or Google, customers can use the traditional “star rating” system to rate your business and provide a narrative to give context to the rating.
People are talking about your company on social
Are you listening? More importantly, are you responding? And most importantly, how quickly are you responding?
In today’s world, people expect immediate results. The majority of social media users expect responses in less than 24 hours, with a growing number expecting a response in an hour or less. Social media response times can mean the difference between a satisfying customer experience and a disgruntled customer who is willing to shout from the proverbial rooftops about how terribly your business treated him or her.
Phone Enquiries Are on the decline
In fact, call centers — which can feature long wait times and language issues (depending on where the call center representatives are located) — are declining in popularity. Just 16% of people prefer to contact businesses through a phone call, which declines every year.
To successfully engage with customers in multiple age categories, it is imperative for a business to use a number of different channels. Studies show that, 31% of people will contact a company through email to have a question answered, while 30% of baby boomers prefer to fill out a contact form on a company website.
Statistics show that 21% of people prefer to use social media to engage with a business. That means that social media should be an essential part of your business’s customer service strategy, especially if your company targets younger customers.
This article was originally published on Business2community.com
