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How Customer Service and Social Media Marketing Align - While so many companies these days are focused on closing sales and generating revenue, few consider that a well devised customer service plan can add to the bottom line as well.
For this reason, there are only a few companies that immediately come to mind when thinking about brands that execute a superior customer service experience.
Social media marketing offers businesses the ideal opportunity to move away from a “behind the scenes” customer service approach that companies have historically embraced and instead keep everything out in the public.
Smart businesses utilize social media to address customer concerns in “real time” and provide valuable information to enhance the customer experience.
By using your social media pages to do so, you are allowing customer service to be an integral part of your marketing efforts.
Here are some eye-opening statistics about customer service from Social Mouths that will demonstrate why businesses have a huge opportunity to integrate “social care” into their marketing strategies to set themselves apart from the competition:
- While 80 percent of companies feel that they deliver a high level of customer care, only 8 percent of their customers would agree.
- Customer service offers brands a premium as 8 out of 10 U.S. consumers would pay more to receive better service.
- 78 percent of online shoppers would recommend a brand to a friend after having a good customer service experience.
- Part of delivering high quality customer service is having a competent team. In fact, 73 percent of people relate poor service to rude and incompetent staff.
- Based on the latest Annual Mystery Shopping Study, only 10 out of 100 of the top online merchants are said to offer superior customer service.
In our post about how social media marketing will continue to evolve in 2013, the “social care” trend is at the forefront of this list.
Understanding that consumers would prefer to speak directly to a brand in “real time” via social media versus dialing a 1-800 number, businesses have a huge opportunity to maintain loyal customers and attract quality leads.