Facebook as a Customer Service Channel
Social media has become an integral part of today’s contact centre. Organizations are using tools like Facebook to deliver service to their customers. These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find any major brand that’s not on Facebook. According to Facebook’s press statistics, the website boasted over 845 million active users, with over 50 per cent of these active users logging onto the website on a daily basis. In other words, the vast majority of your customers not only on Facebook, but they’re using it often.
Facebook Fan Pages are Facebook’s version of a profile for businesses, brands, and public figures. One of the most frequent mistakes brands make is creating a personal profile rather than a fan page for their brand. Not only is it against Facebook’s rules for a brand or company to maintain a personal profile, but you’ll find that fan pages have important features needed to successfully promote your business.
Using Facebook to Provide Customer Service
- Create a dedicated Facebook application or tab for customer service
Although it requires a bit of an extra investment, creating a dedicated landing page for customer service is an excellent way to provide an outlet for customer issues while cutting down on any complaints that might get posted on your Facebook wall. Rosetta Stone, for example, has a support tab on their Facebook page that lets customers search frequently asked questions and chat live with technical support. Dell’s Facebook page is also a great example of a nicely designed customer support tab. If your company does not have a developer on-site, there are many companies that offer easy-to-install landing tabs for Facebook, such as Parature for Facebook and Get Satisfaction. - Remember that good customer service practices still apply
When an angry customer posts a complaint to your fan page wall, your first instinct may be to simply delete or ignore the complaint, however, this must not be done. In the world of social media, ignoring or deleting a customer complaint is the equivalent of hanging up the phone on an irate customer. Your company should strive to reply to all customer complaints promptly and respectfully. When responding, be as transparent as possible, acknowledge the issue without shifting blame, offer an apology, and try to move the conversation to one of the contact centre channels if at all possible. - Reward your loyal customers with perks and promotions
Offering your customers promotion codes and fun giveaways on Facebook is a great, easy way to create online brand advocates out of your fans. If you have a limited budget, consider a flash promotion, such as $5 off purchases made within the hour, etc. Promotions will not only reward your current customers, they will also attract new customers to your Facebook page.
Selling your Products on Facebook
Facebook Commerce (commonly referred to as “F-Commerce”) makes it possible for brands to sell their products directly on their Facebook page. Major brands such as 1-800 Flowers, Express, Best Buy, and Coca-Cola have all created F-Commerce tabs that allow customers to purchase products directly from landing tabs on their fan pages. Of course, it goes without saying that providing a toll free number or chat button on a Facebook Commerce page will help reduce shopping cart abandonment.
Social media monitoring
There are a handful of products available to contact centre managers to monitor social media activity. Tools such as Radian 6, Sysomos, Avaya Social Media Manager, Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck & Simplify 360 give contact centre managers the ability to listen in on conversations about their brand and respond as required. A contact centre staff can be leveraged here to provide customer service through a toll free number, email, chat, or by directly responding on Facebook.
Is F-Commerce working for you? Which social media monitoring tools do you use - and who is managing this, Marketing or the Contact Centre? Which contact centre channels are working best for Facebook customer service? How are you measuring success?
Kien Quach, AVP, Sales, NCO Group