As well as having a lot of very important uses already, social media profiles are used by many brands as an arena for dealing with customer complaints, queries and feedback.
Don’t be put off at the thought that people may complain about things that aren’t necessarily your fault, or just complain for the sake of complaining, as this is your opportunity to show the world your brand of exceptional customer service.
You won’t be alone in advertising your Twitter or Facebook as customer service forums, from a relatively small time researching, I have found pages from massive corporations that utilise this service such as BT, Topshop and Carphone Warehouse who have a whole twitter profile set up to deal with issues and complaints called the “Geek Squad”. The Geek squad, are well and truly embracing the idea of social networks for customer service, using their website, handle, but also monitoring relevant hashtags to see when questions and comments occur, that they can help with!
Customers have the freedom to say what they want, on or off line, and although it can be a scary thought that they may spam your pages with untruthful comments and snide remarks, wouldn’t you rather know what was being said, true or not?
As opposed to stopping their freedom of speech altogether (which will cause no end of problems, and lots of hassle) its better if you can deal with them up front, swiftly or even instantly, and social networks give you this possibility like never before! However, with this great power comes great responsibility, and policies that need to be decided so that your employees know what to do if someone complains.
Here are some examples of possible customer feedback, and what you should do if you happen to come across it…
“I was in ‘that’ shop the other week and the staff were really rude and unhelpful”
Begin the response to this complaint with an apology, probably something along the lines of “we’re sorry that you have had a bad experience with us” then go on to offer some sort of reconciliation: “Do you remember any names of staff, and if not, the time and date you were there so that we can solve this problem?” Whether or not the post is true, the fact that you are addressing the issues makes you look efficient and caring to your potential and current customers.
Sometimes, issues cross over into legal complaints, and these should be dealt with in the following way.
“I was in that ‘bar’ and someone offered me drugs”
In a complaint such as this, print screen the comment and record the users name, when the comment was made and then delete it. Deal with this comment, privately and considerately, this is the type of thing that you don’t want in the public eye.
“That place never has what I want”
Respond to these types of comments by offering a solution such as a service that allows you to order special items in, or apologise and ask what they were after. If there is nothing you can do, then this is not your kind of customer, and at this point advising another store can be a way to gain real customer trust.
Social media is really changing the way that brands communicate with their customers. This open arena for communication however needs to have some element of control meaning, tighter policies for online discussions to be signed by your staff, and consequences if these are ignored.
Along with many positive examples of great ways to use social media, there are also brands, who have used them badly. This is a screen shot taken from a real conversation between Nestle and an individual user following the palm oil crisis a number of years ago. Nestle’s policy at the time was either very broad, or none existent and resulted in a shockingly poor way to deal with negative comments… Enjoy!
