Customers take their service needs online – how is your social customer service?

Customers don’t really want to pick up the phone to call you.  They would rather not deal with you at all.  And if they have to deal with you, the first instinct is to go online to do so.  In response to this social customer service trend, some companies dedicate specific handles or pages for social customer service, as well as the resources to quickly and efficiently respond to customers.  The companies that understand their customers’ service channel preferences and effectively serve through those channels will create the customer experience to enhance the brand.

Many customers want social customer service and if you’re a company that values its customers, you are working on an effective social customer service strategy now.  The strategy requires more than just reacting and solving the customer’s problem promptly.  What are you doing to proactively push out social customer service solutions?  How are you preventing product and service problems before they start?

Which of your favorite brands are dedicating service handles to deal with customer service issues directly versus their marketing people pushing out promotions, offers and product news?  A few stores have service handles where they ask what projects you are working on and how they can help.  The social service agents are identified by name and respond quickly with ideas and suggestions.  But on the whole, many of my brands had channels within the brand unrelated to service – one for style ideas, one for sales, one for featured designers, but NONE for service.  It leaves one to wonder what are they waiting for? Continue reading “Customers take their service needs online – how is your social customer service?” »