In today’s marketplace, Social Media has become a primary channel for businesses to engage with their customers. Responding to customer enquiries on social media is a critical component of any customer service strategy. It not only ensures customer satisfaction but also builds brand reputation, promotes loyalty, and provides a competitive edge.

To ensure that you are optimising your social media interaction with your customers, it’s crucial to follow best practices. These may include monitoring your social media channels regularly, responding promptly to customer enquiries, personalising your responses, and providing helpful and relevant information. Read on to find out how!

Best Practices for Responding to Customer Enquiries on Social Media

Below are a few recommended techniques for handling customer inquiries on social media:

• Your dedicated team should monitor social media channels It is an unmissable way to keep your finger on the pulse of your customer body!
• Today’s customers expect fast responses on social media, so it’s important to respond quickly, ideally within an hour or less.
• When responding to customer enquiries, your agents should be helpful, empathetic, and understanding. Acknowledge customers’ concerns and show that you care about resolving their issues.
• Your tone on social media should be friendly and professional. Avoid using slang or overly casual language.
• Provide helpful and accurate solutions to customer enquiries. If your agents are unsure about the answer, they should let the customer know they’ll look into it and get back to them as soon as possible.
• Whenever possible, your team should personalise their responses to customers by using the customer’s name, history and their specific inquiry.
• If the issue requires more in-depth discussion and attention, your team should take the conversation offline. Provide the customer with a phone number or email address where they can reach you directly.
• Always follow up and follow through after resolving an issue. Make sure the customer is satisfied with the outcome, and that all promises made have been kept.
• Always ensure your agents are trained and qualified to provide accurate, helpful and relevant information. Waffling is simply not on – it’s sure to irritate the most forbearing customer!
• Handle any negative feedback professionally by thanking the customer for their input and then taking it onboard as a valuable learning opportunity.
• Use templates and canned responses judiciously. They have a place in customer service as they can save time and ensure consistency. But they should be tailored to the specific customer’s situation, and should never make the interaction feel robotic and impersonal. Balance them with real, empathic human interaction with your helpful team members.

Tips for Managing High Volumes of Customer Enquiries

Managing high volumes of customer enquiries can be a challenging task, but here are some tips to do so efficiently:

• Prioritise urgent inquiries that require immediate attention like product defects, billing errors, or urgent requests for assistance. By doing this, you can ensure the most pressing customer concerns are addressed first.
• Use automation tools like chatbots and autoresponders to provide quick, automated responses to common questions. This will also reduce the workload of your customer support team.
• Create a well-designed FAQ section on your website to help customers find answers to common questions by themselves. This’ll reduce the call volume your team needs to handle, while still ensuring your customers get the help and information they need.
• Set clear response time expectations so that when customers make enquiries, they’ll know how long they have to wait. By managing customer expectations, you’ll reduce frustration if an immediate response isn’t possible.
• Train your customer support team to handle high volumes of enquiries effectively. This should include training on how to prioritise enquiries and use automation tools effectively. It should likewise teach your agents how to provide high-quality, personalised responses to customers.

Related content: How to use Twitter for customer support

Benefits of Outsourcing Social Media Support

If you don’t have the staff, time, or resources to handle all your social media inquiries in-house, then outsourcing may be your best option. There are several significant benefits to outsourcing this challenging and vital function, not the least of which is cost-effectiveness.

Onboarding, training and running an in-house team to the necessary high standard is expensive! Outsourcing your social media support to experienced, well-resourced providers like Digital Customer Care Company can save you time, money, and stress! The specialised expertise of our trained social media agents will ensure efficient and effective support to your business.

Our established infrastructure means we can handle the high volumes of enquiries that social media platforms often generate efficiently. We also offer you 24/7 availability, ensuring your customers get the round-the-clock support they expect. And if you have customers around the world, we can offer you multilingual support, ensuring your customers receive support in their preferred language.

We must emphasise that outsourcing your vital social media function to the right, reputable and experienced social media support provider is of vital importance in ensuring your customers receive high-quality and efficient support. Get in touch to find out more.