Social media is a way for businesses to connect with their customers, increase brand awareness, market their products and now, provide excellent customer service.

Social media is the new word-of-mouth marketing. In the “old” days before social media, word-of-mouth marketing was done behind closed doors. Now you can see how your brand gets known via the best word-of-mouth marketing ever invented. Along with that wonderful window into your market comes the need to provide customer service on each social media channel.

Today, more customers like to receive customer service via forums, web chat, and social media than want to talk on the phone – and the demand is growing. When you think about it, customer service isn’t just about appropriately responding to negative complaints; it’s also about servicing your clients and customers by engaging with them when they’re talking about your brand.

With social media you can listen to your clients and monitor issues before they even become a huge problem. If you provide top-notch service, you’re going to increase customer loyalty in ways you may have never thought possible. It doesn’t matter if you’re a large corporation and well-known brand, or if you’re a mom and pop bricks and mortar shop, or a sole proprietor running their business solely on the internet. Social media customer service demand is growing and here to stay, and it’s time to find out how to take part.

In the past, unless a customer called with a complaint the business had no idea that anything was wrong with any aspect of their product or service. But today, with social media, even if a customer doesn’t contact you with an issue, they will talk about it on social media. It’s up to you to listen, respond, and make it right. Social networks are where your customer is talking about you for bad and for good, so be ready.

Good Customer Service Is Good Marketing

It’s true that on a social media channel it’s possible to miss complaints buried in other comments, but make it your business to read, or pay someone to read, every last comment. Not only might you discover opportunities to provide excellent social media customer service by helping a customer or potential customer answer questions and fix problems, but you can also use the information gathered as a way to create new products and services for your market.

You can also create a specific customer service social media account, and charge someone with the responsibility of keeping up with that account. If you choose this method, you’ll need to remember to direct people in your marketing social media account where to go for complaints or issues. And you might still miss issues if there are people who don’t pay attention and go to the right account. For a small business that rarely receives complaints, this can seem like a little much.

You can also create a new Tab on Facebook that links customers to your customer service ticketing system, FAQ or knowledge base to make it easy for customers who connect with you on social media to resolve issues. Keep in mind that even with these additions you’re still going to need to be actively engaged with your social media pages to ensure that all issues are handled quickly, responsibly and positively.