Empowering social media agents to deliver great customer service

Source: www.unsplash.com

In response to this rise of social media as a customer service channel, social media agents are having to expand their skillset. Marketing and social engagement specialists are now having to become customer service experts as well, and it is critical that they are empowered with the tools and techniques necessary to make this transition.

Here are five ways to empower social media agents to deliver great customer service:

Set up dedicated social handles for customer support

Having a dedicated customer service social handle is a win-win – it provides customers with a direct channel on social media to voice their service queries, while flagging these requests as service-related for social media agents. Internationally, the brands that are leading the way in social customer care all have service-dedicated social handles, including @StarbucksCare, @NikeService, and @AmazonHelp.

Implement social customer service guidelines

Clear customer service guidelines for social media are important to ensure that agents respond in the correct manner and know when to escalate an issue. These guidelines would generally include the business’ expectations in terms of tone of voice, response times per channel, FAQs, and escalation protocols.

Create response templates

In addition to general guidelines, it can be helpful to provide agents with a variety of templates for common queries and issues. These templates can be tailored according to the issue at hand but will save the agent time – thus allowing a speedy response – as they won’t have to come up with something from scratch.

Ensure regulatory compliance

Since the Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA) officially came into force on 1 July, businesses need to communicate to customers that the information shared via any platform – including social media – will be processed, as well as what it will be used for, and request consent.
Ensure that agents have been trained on this process, as well as what to do if a customer asks further questions, or does not consent to their information being used.

Invest in a social customer service platform

Social customer service platforms enable agents to handle customer service requests in real-time. Based on prioritisation of the most important conversations, these platforms are able to optimise customer care workflows so that agents can focus on serving customers without worrying about finding the important tickets in a messy queue.