8 mistakes to avoid in social customer...

By Jay Baer

8 MISTAKES TO AVOID IN SOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

© Clarabridge. All rights reserved. 1

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Overview .................................................................................. 2

1. Not Considering All Channels ................................. 3

2. Insufficient Metrics and Measures ..................... 5

3. No Hiring Plan ................................................................. 7

4. No Style Guide ................................................................ 9

5. No Integration ...............................................................11

6. Insufficient Software ..................................................13

7. Not Auditing Policies ...................................................14

8. No Plan for Proactivity ...............................................16

Conclustion .............................................................................17

8 MISTAKES TO AVOID IN SOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

CONTENTS

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OVERVIEW

Most of today's major brands have at least dipped their

toes into social customer service. But there's no real

template for how to grow those programs effectively, and

it’s easy to make a mistake. Here are 8 common missteps

that brands make—and how you can steer clear of them.



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Look beyond Facebook and Twitter for social customer service

Certainly, Facebook and Twitter remain the primary places where social customer service

occurs. But increasingly, other social platforms are also viable as customer contact opportunities.

Given it’s very large user base (bigger than Twitter, by most estimates) and rapid following among young people, Instagram is likely to become a place

where more and more customers opt to interact with companies.

Instagram has rolled out a “contact” button for businesses, letting customers reach out to companies on the platform. Several brands — including department stores, restaurants, and airlines—are using Instagram as a service channel. Customers with a question can tap the button, after which they are prompted to call, text or email the brand. Volume remains low (for now), and unfortunately Instagram is not easy to integrate into social media customer service software at present, so manual work on this channel is the norm.

NOT CONSIDERING ALL CHANNELS1:



Snapchat is another emerging customer service channel, as the multi-faceted nature of the platform makes it great for real-time walkthroughs and sharing of photos/videos back and forth between customers and companies. And with the new integrated calling features, Snapchat

has the technology to be an all-in-one customer service powerhouse. Alas, it’s nearly impossible to integrate Snapchat into a broader contact management system, but hopefully the high walls they’ve built around themselves will come down eventually.

NOT CONSIDERING ALL CHANNELS

The next frontier in customer service isn’t social media per se, but its cousin, messaging apps.

Facebook is playing for keeps with Messenger, and aims to put a serious dent in email as the de-facto communications method in the near future. Hundreds of companies are building Messenger-powered customer service programs, especially for routine questions, shipping notifications, and so forth.

Within 12-18 months, every large company will either have some sort of Messenger initiative, or will have decided to purposefully not do so. WhatsApp is similarly on-trend, and absolutely skyrocketing in popularity. The Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced recently that 63 billion messages were sent in the messaging app on New Year’s Eve 2016 alone.

Messaging apps are the next frontier for social customer service.



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Measure efficiency, costs, outcomes and satisfaction to prove success

Brands looking to expand social customer service will, of course, incur costs when doing so. Personnel and

software are the largest expenses, and those must be calculated and justified for the expansion to be successful.

Social customer service metrics should include four categories of measure: Efficiency; Costs; Outcomes; and Satisfaction.

Efficiency is how well the program works, and how responsive it is to

customer needs. Two numbers are typically used to measure efficiency: response rate, and response time.

Response rate measures what percentage of total mentions of the brand the company responds to in social media. Response time tracks how long it takes the company to send replies, on average.

Response rate is crucial because to a customer, no response IS a response. It’s a response that says, “We don’t care about you or your problem.” Response time is also critical because when customers’ issues aren’t addressed rapidly, they start to use other contact mechanisms, playing “customer service roulette” with Twitter, phone, email and beyond, creating more work for agents and driving up costs.

INSUFFICIENT METRICS AND MEASURES2:



With the right software and sound strategy and policies, it’s possible to dramatically improve response rate and response time. In the U.K., Sky Betting and Gaming increased response rate 4X after implementing Clarabridge software. Turkish Airlines also overhauled their social care with Clarabridge, and shaved a massive 35 minutes off of their average response time, from 45 minutes to just ten.

Other key metrics includes costs: how much the social customer service program costs overall; how much it costs on a per-interaction basis; and how much a social interaction costs in comparison to a telephone or email interaction. It’s nearly self-evident that answering a customer in social is less expensive than answering a customer via email or phone, but the important question is “by how much?” Because if you’re serious about expanding your social customer service program, that is not a freebie. People and software and consultants and computers have real costs attached.

Outcomes measure the results of the program. This might be actual revenue such as sales generated by social media customer

INSUFFICIENT METRICS AND MEASURES

service representatives directing customers to products on a website. It might also be possible - and certainly illuminating - to measure the average annual purchases of customers assisted via social media versus those using other contact mechanisms.

Successfully helping a customer on social media also prevents that customer from churning—leading to more business from them down the line.

Satisfaction tracks how happy the customers themselves are with their social interactions with the brand. These measures might take the form of Net Promoter-style surveys extended to customers after they interact with a social team, or sentiment analysis of content from customers who have used social care. Tracking sentiment over time will also help determine if your program is working or if you have significant problems that need to be addressed.

4x

78%

Sky Betting & Gaming increased response rates by Turkish Airlines

shaved averageresponse times by



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Social customer service agents need to understand the platfrom and market

I see this all the time. A brand decides to expand social customer service, but has no idea who should fill those

roles or where to find those people. Sometimes front line agents are moved over from phone and email duty, and then those positions are back-filled.

That can work, but is perhaps a less than ideal solution as excellence in email or phone response doesn’t translate wholly to excellence in social response. It’s a different style of customer interaction, in many cases.

It may make sense to hire newcomers for the expanded social team, requiring preparation of a solid job description and use of networking, recruiters, Linkedin and other tools to surface candidates.

This can also work, but has the disadvantage of putting someone on the front lines of social who has very little institutional knowledge of the organization. This can slow response times and can be a risky proposition in a public response setting.

T-Mobile Netherlands reorganized their social teams to add scale and speed and reduce inefficiencies. They took great care to find the right people for the expanded team. They found a good social media agent to have an affinity for social, able to adhere to the right

NO HIRING PLAN3:



tone, and understand the shifting rules and norms of social platforms.

The company looked inside and outside the organization to get a good balance of skills on the team. They recruited people from in-house technical departments with a deep understanding of products; and also hired new employees who had external social expertise and experience.

NO HIRING PLAN

I’d add one other place to look for social customer service personnel: your current customers. Loyal customers and advocates can be a fantastic source of candidates.

There is no one right answer to the hiring question, but having a solid plan and knowing exactly where new agents will come from is not optional.

T-Mobile Netherlands reorganized their social teams to add scale and speed and reduce inefficiencies.



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Your brand needs to maintain consistency on social to avoid confusion

Regardless of whether the new social customer service personnel are moved over from other in-house roles, or

newly hired from the outside, expanded programs necessitate a robust style guide.

I’m not talking about word-for-word scripting of common responses, as I find that level of robot-speak to be counterproductive in many social media scenarios. But the social customer service team does need to sound more or less alike, regardless of agent or

platform. If that’s not the case, it can be dissonant and confusing for customers.

Especially in short-form social media interactions (those without video) how something is phrased, what hashtags are used, and what emojis are included convey a lot of meaning, but of course can also be misinterpreted. They are the non-verbal cues of social media.

A strong style guide and humanization plan provides at least three benefits to brands:

1. It alleviates uncertainty among customers. Inconsistency creates that uncertainty, and increases the likelihood that customers will keep asking the same question or making the same request, hoping they eventually get the “nice rep” that’s always “so funny” on Twitter.

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2. It insures that tone of voice in social is synched with umbrella brand standards. In my book, Hug Your Haters, a study I conducted with Edison Research found that approximately 40% of all 2016 customer service interactions were public (social, review sites, online forums). That ratio may vary in your company, but there’s no question social interactions are becoming a larger and larger share of overall customer contacts. After all, that’s why you need to expand the program, right? But nothing creates more commun-ications and brand dissonance and disruption than companies that feel totally different online vs. offline.

NO STYLE GUIDE

3. Third, having a style guide makes it much easier to plug in new representatives and get them up-to-speed. Of course, they need to use their own judgment and style to some degree, but written guidelines are critical for rapid team growth and onboarding.

Clarabridge has style guides built in to the platform. Brand guidelines and sample replies are included, and my favorite feature is the pop-up warnings when a representative strays from defined norms. Very smart!

A strong style guide and humanization plan provides benefits for your brand.



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Create a seamless cross channel experience for your customers

Befitting the general vibe of social, the style guide for those platforms is often somewhat more casual

and approachable than the brand’s tone in email and via phone. That’s a common difference and is known and somewhat expected by consumers.

What’s not expected (nor appreciated) by customers, however, is when the social team operates in a silo, divorced from their phone and email counterparts.

The reality is that customers will shift contact channels, even during the middle of a single incident, and are more likely to do so the more angry and/or desperate they get. It is imperative that brands can move between channels behind the scenes, working with customers seamlessly regardless of which platforms they select.

When brands cannot integrate online and offline customer service - which happens all too often at present - it creates a cornucopia of issues, including:

• Inter-department confusion and response time sluggishness

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• Multiple case numbers for the same customer issue

• Customers being told different answers by different teams

• Reduced ability to spot customer fraud and abuse

• Sub-optimal readiness to handle a crisis scenario

It is absolutely critical that brands rapidly move toward an integrated, holistic approach to service. We must answer customers in the channels they prefer, not the channel the company prefers, and delivering sub-optimal service in specific channels simply because they aren’t integrated with the customer database of record isn’t going to cut it much longer.

An integrated program gives offline and online agents full access to customer history, which is particularly useful to avoid the “he said, she said” challenges that are so prevalent in disconnected programs.

NO INTERGRATION

Having your social media customer service software tied to your CRM system (Clarabridge has API hooks for many of them) is also terrific for associating customers’ social accounts to their email records, etc. This capability is also very useful when trying to identify and recognize advocates.

Further, key metrics like response rate, response time, and customer satisfaction are far more powerful and educational when they track all contact mechanisms, not just social.



XXX#:Use software to supplement a full-scale customer

There are three ways to handle social media customer service. One is to outsource it to a third party.

Electronics and applicances retailer hhgregg (there’s one right by my house) did that for two years. They had an agency find customer inquiries in social and then send them to the brand for response. It works, but it makes it nearly impossible to truly excel at response rate and response time. hhgregg eventually moved the program in-house.

The second option is to use “regular” social media software to handle customer service. There are, of course, dozens of social engagement platforms on the market, at every price point. And these can absolutely work for modest social care initiatives.

But if you’re serious about this, and have sizable volume, you need to consider software that is robust and purpose-built for social customer service. Ideally, this software should also be able to communicate with phone/email support software and the brand’s master CRM system, as described above.

Features and characteristics to look for evaluating software for an expanded social care team include:

• A streamlined and integrated inbox to see all messages from all channels in one place

• Reporting on response rate and response time, trackable by channel and by agent

• Support for global, follow-the-sun programs, and mechanisms to ensure agents aren’t stepping on each other’s toes during hand-offs

• Crisis management protocols • Brand style and tone guidelines,

alerts, and sample responses

INSUFFICIENT SOFTWARE 6:



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Make sure your customer service policies reflect your brand promises

Whether it’s phone, email, face-to-face, or social interaction, nothing frustrates customers as much

as company “policies” that are used as a reason for telling the customer “no.”

In many cases, these policies are outdated, ineffective, and inefficient and are the customer service equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your own face.

When brands commit to expanding social care, it’s the perfect time to audit

and examine all policies that impact customers. Determine whether those policies are truly critical or if they are instead relics of a prior age. Is this policy worth the reputation hit and the public scorn that it causes in social media?

One of the most irksome policies for customers is inconsistency in agent availability. It’s quite common for brands to have different operating hours for offline service vs. online service, with a third set of availabilities for live chat. While there may be valid staffing reasons (i.e. agents in different channels report to different divisions in the company), always remember that your customers do not care about your organization chart.

Ultimately, customer service should be customer service. Anywhere. Everywhere. And always.

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Customers do not care about your organization charts

Liam Reddington is the internal champion for Clarabridge at Sky Betting and Gaming in the U.K. Here’s one of his simple, powerful ideas to make “service everywhere” an obvious reality for customers:

“Push for your organization to treat social as a traditional support channel.

For example, why not push for your social channels to be included in the Help and Support information on your website? With volumes of conversations growing exponentially over social

NOT AUDITING POLICIES

platforms, it makes sense for companies to treat it as a formal method of communication and make it easier for customers to get in touch via social. “

Bingo! If you’re going to invest time and money into a robust social customer service program, and you accept the premise (as you should) that social is the least expensive way to help customers (other than self-service), why wouldn’t you go out of your way to make sure all customers know about your social care options?


© Clarabridge. All rights reserved.

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Have a plan to delight your customers, before they're unhappy

Having more social customer service agents means the brand should have the capacity to

expand not just reactive capabilities, but also proactive opportunities.

Don’t just wait for customers to complain and ask questions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp and beyond. Use software like Clarabridge to find customer mentions of products, services, categories, and use cases, and reach out to those customers offering assistance or just a metaphorical high five or hug.

When customers don’t expect to hear from the brand is when the impact of hearing from the brand is greatest, so set aside time to strategically and proactively look for interaction opportunities each day. This is where the “shock and awe” of social is born.

Further, research has shown that as few as three percent of customers actually tag the company when seeking help via Twitter. It is critical that brands look harder for engagement opportunities in social.

NO PLAN FOR PROACTIVITY 8:


© Clarabridge. All rights reserved.

CONCLUSION

Ready to Dive In?Social media customer service isn’t going to get any easier. More volume. More channels. More customer expectations. More agents to be hired. More internal scrutiny. That’s the future (and the present, in many companies)

The question really isn’t whether you’re going to expand your social customer service team, but rather when you’re going to do it, how you're going to do it, and whether you’ll do so without incident.

These are the eight most common mistakes brands make when expanding social care programs. I hope you can avoid them!

1. Not Considering All Channels2. Insufficient Metrics and Measures3. No Hiring Plan4. No Style Guide5. No Integration 6. Insufficient Software7. Not Auditing Policies8. No Plan for Proactivity

www.convinceandconvert.com

See for Yourself Find out how your social customer care team can avoid making these mistakes. Visit cxsocial.clarabridge.com for a free demo of Clarabridge CX Social.

Clarabridge CX Social is the most comprehensive platform for real-time social customer service and engagement. CX Social’s solution operationalizes customer analytics and helps business leaders present a more attuned organization—one that not only listens, but also adjusts to customer desires. With CX Social, businesses can track all conversations relating to their brand, filter out the noise, streamline engagement, and respond to what matters most to customers.

cxsocial.clarabridge.com

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About Jay Baer

Digital marketing and online customer service are broken, and Jay Baer brings the repair kit. Jay has created five multi-million dollar companies, and is the most retweeted person in the world among digital marketers. He is the President of Convince & Convert, a consulting firm that helps the world’s most iconic brands like The United Nations, Nike, 3M, and Oracle use technology to win new customers, and keep the customers they’ve already earned. A New York Times best-selling author of five books, Jay is the host of the Social Pros podcast, part of his Convince & Convert podcasting network.He’s also an avid tequila collector, and a certified barbecue judge.


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