1. The Definitive Guide
to Social Customer Service

2. Introduction
Social customer service is an entirely new challenge
for companies; one that many couldn’t have envisaged
only a few years ago. It is a real need today, but one
which has crept up on us unexpectedly. The successful
attempts of marketing teams to attract an audience
and foster engagement have opened up a new route
for customers to speak to companies about anything
they want - including real problems and questions.
Delivering effective customer service through social
networks provides a great opportunity to connect with
customers, but presents new obstacles that customer
service and marketing departments have never had to
confront before.
The job of the social media manager trying to organise
an entirely new customer engagement program is a
tricky one. What are the practical steps you need to
take to make it happen for your own organisation?
This guide will try to help you figure it out.
01

3. What’s in store?
Making the case for social customer service
01 Why does it all matter?
Level One: The Basics
02 How to get going on your own – delivering the right kind
of response for social media.
Level Two: Calling for Backup
03 Tools to help you extend a social customer service program
throughout your company.
Level Three: Measuring and Refining
04 How you can understand and improve your social customer
service program and keep track as you scale it.
Afterthought: The Future of Social Customer Service
05 Where you can take your social customer service
program next.
Where do I start?
You can pick this guide up wherever it
suits you. If you’re just starting to get
organised, hit it from the top, but if you’re
looking to shape up your processes, dive
straight into Level Two.
You’ll find several workbook elements,
designed to help you shape your own
program for your company. We hope this
guide will be a well-loved resource,
for you to keep by your side as you grow.
02

4. 01 Making the Case for Social Customer Service
Why does it matter?
03

5. 01
The Challenge of Social Engagement
Balancing group engagement with individual requests on social networks is a
unique challenge. An effective social engagement program requires input from
several areas of the company
Tuning the message 01 02 Delivering the knowledge
In most companies, marketing departments have Today, consumers are bringing a whole range
initiated social media programs. The public nature of of enquiries to social media that require specific
the medium puts pressure on getting the message knowledge. This could be the details of a particular
right, in what is first and foremost an opportunity for deal, product or just the processes to deal with a
promotion. Any communication (or miscommunication) complaint effectively. Marketing departments might
on social media represents your brand in its entirety. have tone of voice nailed, but just don’t hold the
This can make social customer service difficult to get information needed to pass on to customers when it
started with, as there’s little room for experimentation comes to real customer service issues. Conversely,
with the looming threat of mistakes going viral. contact centres and customer service teams hold the
knowledge customers are crying out for, but they just
aren’t placed to respond to them.
“Do you think providing customer
service over social channels is a good “Are service processes well defined
thing for your organisation?” for social channels?”
04

6. 01
Sounds tough, why bother?
It’s already happening 01
Your customers are asking for
customer service on Facebook
and Twitter.
Source: Facebook, Conversocial, Oracle, Clickfox.
05

7. 01
Ignoring it is bad for business 02
A social media crisis is a huge fear for marketers.
Altimeter reviewed a decade of social PR storms and
found that the biggest culprit was a poor experience
shared online. Service received is the one issue that
will touch every customer you have.
According to ClickFox, only 3.5 % of customers remain
unaffected by other customers’ comments on your
page.
Our own research has found that an astronomical
88% of consumers would be less likely to buy from
companies ignoring complaints and questions on
social media. With social networks, your community is
strongly united, and cares about much more than direct
individual experiences. Those who fail to address
customers’ problems will suffer financially.
Causes of Social Media Crises
(2001-2011) Moreapply one cause
may
than
06

8. 01
Doing it right brings real benefits 03
Customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and meeting
customer expectations are perceived as the strongest
benefits to be gained from social engagement, and
social customer service is understood to be integral
to achievement.
“Do you think providing customer “What were the primary/secondary
service over social channels is a benefits experienced when using
good thing for your customers? ” social channels? ”
UK cinema chain, ODEON, found that
starting a serious in-house social
customer service program reduced
negative sentiment by 60%. ODEON’s
social channels have become reliable
routes for cinema-goers to reach
out, which has greatly increased the
number of queries being submitted in
favour of damaging complaints.
07

9. 01
Doing social customer service properly has an impact on your bottom line 04
People often turn to Facebook and Twitter once they But it’s not too late! In fact it’s the very time to turn them
have exhausted other channels, and see social media around. Customer retention is the mainstay of social
as an opportunity to finally be heard – taking the issue media value. Marketing often focuses on new customer
public. By this point, customers are often frustrated to acquisition, but comprehensive social engagement
the point of turning to a competitor. can increase the value of existing customers, and
even transform them into brand advocates.
CASE STUDY: Leading UK Telecoms company, B.T, has achieved significant results from
effective social customer service. Their surveys found that over 50% of customers find it
easy to get help using social media, with the majority also now preferring these platforms to
traditional channels. This is generating significant savings, with 54,000 calls being deflected
via social media every month, and allowing for effective crisis communication, with over
300,000 customers reached via Twitter during the London riots. Most significantly, because
of the service they’ve had over social media, 90% of customers plan on staying as customers,
and 50% say they would recommend BT to friends.
“If you are unable to get an enquiry
answered or issue resolved in a timely
manner via social media, what is your
next point of contact with a company?”
Trying to push customers away from social customer service isn’t only frustrating; it’s expensive. Phone support
costs an average of $15 for every call. It’s worth investing the time to get social customer service done properly,
through the channels requested. It’s what your customers expect, and they’ll thank you for achieving it.
08

10. 02 Level One: The Basics
How to get going on your own – delivering the right kind of
response for social media
09

11. 02
Facebook and Twitter 101
There are plenty of references across the web to social media best practice, but
it’s important to keep in mind the context of the platform you are working with.
We’re focusing on Facebook and Twitter in this guide, as the most widely used
social networks by consumers.
Facebook and Twitter present slightly different customer service challenges and requirements.
Twitter: The Quick Spread
Your Corporate Response
Twitter is also known as a microblog, and
is all about distribution. The scope for
Facebook: One Voice
retweeting means that a negative message
can be spread to an unanticipated audience. When customers visit you on Facebook to
Your own broadcasting channel remains complain or ask a question, you should reply as
unaffected by your customer service the page. Some companies have established
requests, but your presence on Twitter is fake profiles (‘Jenny at Conversocial’) for the
more heavily characterised by what the company to respond from. This may seem like
masses are saying. a nice way to offer support, but these fake
accounts are against Facebook terms of service
and may be deactivated. Anyone can setup one
Facebook: The Long Burn
of these fake accounts and it’s much harder to
Facebook is less set up for the wide distribution
determine whether outreach is legitimate.
of commentary. But your outward broadcasting
channel can be more easily tainted by
Twitter: Connected Voices
complaints and unanswered questions. Your
entire fan base can see complaints when they Many companies establish a different Twitter
see your updates or visit your page, but anyone account to respond to customer service issues
who isn’t already engaged with you is less likely than is used for marketing updates, to try
to discover negative issues. and channel customers’ messages. For those
with huge volumes of incoming tweets, it’s
often necessary, with a limit of 1,000 tweets
Remember: Customers can take a screen per day for any account. However, setting up
shot or copy and paste text to share anything @companyhelp won’t stop customers from
in minutes, no matter what the platform. complaining to @company, and you’ll need to be
Online, it’s much easier for news to spread prepared to pick up issues wherever
than any other medium. they’re directed.
10

12. 02
We’ve pulled together this table to demonstrate some things to be aware of
when customers reach out to you in different ways in Facebook and Twitter.
Message What you should know...
@mention Your customer is speaking directly to you. This appears on their profile
rather than being published to their followers, and so is specifically
targeted at you.
Tweet containing Your customer is writing a tweet about you to their followers’ news feeds,
an @mention but they want you to see it.
Tweet with your Your customer has referenced you or your services in a tweet. Although
company name/ they might simply not know or bother to look for your Twitter handle,
product or service reaching out to these tweets is more proactive than reactive service, and
you’ll need monitor Twitter for specific searches.
Retweet When someone sees something they find interesting and retweets it,
they are effectively hitting ‘share’ to their followers. This isn’t a new tweet
(it’s even displayed with the original name and picture), but is the way in
which one tweet gets a whole new audience.
Direct Message Direct Messages are used to send private messages to other Twitter
users, and you must be following someone to receive one. Unless you
have a validated account, you will need to follow customers in order for
them to share personal details with you, so make sure you do before
asking for a DM.
Message What you should know...
Post Customers often come to a fan page to post customer service issues; it’s
one of the few times they visit the actual page, as most engagement takes
place via the news feed. On the new Facebook timeline, these can be
viewed at the very top of the page under ‘Recent posts by others’. Both
you and other customers can respond with comments under the post.
Comment When a customer adds a comment to one of your updates the rest of
your fans can see it in their news feeds, without them having to visit your
page. Often, this will be general chatter and interactions, but updates can
also prompt customers to complain or ask questions, particularly for posts
about products. These can get lost among other comments without the right
tools. But the cost of missing them is high, because of their visibility and the
chance of the issue snowballing as other customers add their comments.
Private message Facebook recently released private messages for pages, which are
pretty similar to Twitter’s Direct Message. Anyone can send you a direct
message by visiting your Facebook timeline, making Facebook a more
comprehensive service channel. These can be any length, and you can
only respond to customers – you can’t initiate a private conversation.
11

13. 02
Take Real Customer Service to Social Media
The most important goal for a new social customer service program is the fast
and public resolution of customers’ problems. Social customer service should
deliver real assistance, not lip service to the idea of customer care.
Why?
On social media your customer service program is being watched, and that matters for business. What’s at
stake is far bigger than the individual requests raised. If you resolve an issue offline, that customer might
go away satisfied, but it doesn’t undo the social damage of their complaint. How do your other customers
know that you’re so helpful?
What are your customers
asking for?
You can save yourself a great deal of time by looking at
the most common requests you receive through social
channels. Identifying recurring queries and getting all
the facts down allows you to respond even quicker.
Exercise:
Take a look at the past fortnight or month of your
Facebook and Twitter messages.
• What issues came up again and again?
• Is there some part of company policy or a nugget of
information you can obtain to help your customer?
• Can you give them specific steps to resolve their
problem?
For general queries or complaints, you should be able
to create an easily accessible resource of answers.
It could be that asking a colleague a few simple
questions could fast-track your efforts to offer real help
to your customers on behalf of your company.
Fill in your findings into the worksheet on the next
page. This FAQ list can form the basis of your
customer service framework to be shared throughout
your organisation when you come to scale up your
response machine.
12

14. 02
Social FAQ’s
Question Answer
Tip:
Creating this list of real questions that are asked on Facebook and Twitter is the best way to demonstrate
your company’s need to take customer service seriously to others in your team. If you regularly need to turn
to others for help, then it’s about time that you got your customer service team involved (See Level 2)
13

15. 02
Crafting a Response Fit for the Public
You’ve identified your customers’ most pressing issues, and gathered some
useful information to share with them, but delivering the perfect response is a
fine art.
You need to carefully balance: 03 Reactive Tone
• Customer expectations of a more approachable
version of your brand No matter where the lines are drawn for your brand’s social
persona, showing empathy, and being responsive to the tone
• Core characteristics and principles grounded in
of each message is essential. If your customer is reaching
your own brand guidelines
out to you positively, you should mirror their enthusiasm. If
• Professionalism of a serious and dedicated service
they are angry or upset, a more sombre tone is required.
channel
A response to a question in social media becomes 04 Calm and Measured Reactions
a part of your brand experience - customer service
replies are no different to marketing updates. As for any Accepting genuine faults and saying sorry is much better for
public outlet for your brand voice, it’s important to think damage control than denying issues or deleting comments,
about what wording and colloquialisms are appropriate both of which are sure to make customers more angry and
for your company in social media. If you have any tone vocal - and put you at risk of issues escalating into full-blown
of voice guidelines established for official company crises. False or mistaken statements about your company
posts and tweets, you can take a huge amount of this should be corrected (only when you’re certain) but behaving
into your approach to customer service responses. defensively will only add fuel to the fire. Customers may use
angry or aggressive language, but it shouldn’t be matched.
All social customer service You’ll be surprised how much a few sympathetic words
responses have certain basic can pacify an irate customer. Company statements should
always be calm.
requirements:
Sociable Language 01 KLM’s rules of engagement
Social networks require a fundamentally different tone of • Embrace feedback, even when it’s
voice to more traditional channels, such as email. Some negative (neutralise those who are
natural restrictions, such as Twitter’s 140-character limit, can expressing dissatisfaction, or even
make certain things acceptable (such as shortening words to turn them into advocates)
fit the character limit) that wouldn’t be acceptable elsewhere.
• Respect privacy. Do not share
personal information publicly.
Personalised Response 02
• Show empathy and acknowledge
When you respond on Facebook or Twitter it comes from the your customer’s emotions. It will
brand, but this doesn’t mean it has to be cold and corporate. open the dialogue.
To make replies more personal, agents can sign their names
(or initials in Twitter). This shows the person behind the
• Sometimes people just want to be
heard - listening can be better than
response, and allows for a human connection to develop
a solution.
with those customers that engage with you regularly.
14

16. 02
Scaling Gracefully
As the volume of questions and queries coming through social media
mounts, you need to find ways to maintain your level of service and avoid
a customer backlash.
The Risk: The snowball effect Establish a method that ensures no
The customer service burden grows when issues are messages are being missed
neglected. One ignored customer equates to more Most companies aren’t purposefully ignoring people;
than one problem to deal with. Fans and followers will often they have hardworking and attentive social media
repost their complaint and others will get involved. If managers who are trying to respond to questions when
you don’t step in and address an issue, your upset they see them. But with high volumes of messages,
customer will find that others chime in to share similar it becomes impossible to know what you’ve seen. On
experiences, and real momentum can pick up on a Twitter, @mentions and DM’s come in a consistent
problem. The only way to stop the snowball rolling is date order, but in Facebook questions can be asked in
to get involved. a comment on an old post or photo.
The Solution: At scale it becomes very difficult to keep track without
software. The right software will ensure that everything
Step 1: Consistency 01 is seen, and that multiple team members aren’t wasting
time searching for new messages or duplicating
Make sure every issue gets their effort.
a response
Social media can never become a serious service
How Conversocial Helps:
channel if attention to customers’ issues is ad-hoc.
Dissatisfied customers become even unhappier if they Conversocial’s workflow operates the Inbox 0
discover others getting preferential treatment, while concept. If you can see it, someone needs to
their own queries go unanswered. Inconsistency is deal with it. A shared team inbox, that presents
more critical on social networks than private customer every customer message chronologically, means
service channels – every request is available for your that you can work through content as a team
entire customer base to see. and ensure nothing is missed and no efforts are
duplicated.
Conversocial’s research has found that leading
companies are ignoring around 60% of customer
issues on Facebook.
15

17. 02
Step 2: Quality 02
Make a real connection
Consumers are turning to companies with genuine
customer service issues, but are frequently pointed
towards traditional customer service channels if they
want real help. Regardless of the channel, when
customers reach out first contact resolution makes for
the best customer experience. Even if you can’t give
a complete resolution straight away, make sure your
response shows you are really listening, and they have
Ask yourself:
succeeded in connecting with your company. If you Have you passed on information which puts your
need further information to help, ask for it, even if this is customer in a better position than when they first
just to pass on to a colleague. An auto-responder, akin reached out?
to ‘thank you, we have received your email’ won’t cut it.
Top attributes for a good
customer experience
Source: Convergys U.K. Customer Scorecarrd
16

18. 02
Step 3: Speed 03
Match expectations for a faster
response
Aim for a speedy reply as a next step. The longer Although it will take refinement to get there, getting out
complaints are left unanswered, the more likely responses as close to these expectations as possible
they are to be seen by more of your customers, and will put you on the road to high customer satisfaction. If
snowball. Social media moves much faster than other you’re struggling to get anywhere near these response
channels and consumers have high expectations of times, it’s an indication that it’s time to get more help
the companies they interact with: on board.
• 81% of Twitter users expect a same-day response
to questions and complaints posted at the How Conversocial Helps:
newsfeed.
We pull in all of your social messages into your
• 30% of Twitter users expect a response within 30 inbox in chronological order, and these can be
minutes and 22% expect a response within two filtered and processed in the way that suits you.
hours. Important customer service issues are prioritised
to make sure you see them quickly so you can
• 29% of consumers on Facebook expect a
respond effectively. When it’s time to bring in
response within two hours when they post a
back-up, Conversocial lets you collaborate with
question at a company’s page and 22% expect a
colleagues in an effective and controlled manner,
same-day response.
so you know exactly who’s dealing with what.
Tip:
Once you’ve started replying to all of your real
customer service requests, see how long it takes
you. You can use this as a reference to post
guidelines on your Twitter profile and Facebook
timeline to let customers know when they
can realistically expect a response. If you can
influence your customers’ expectations, you’re
far more likely to meet them!
17

19. 03 Level Two: Calling for Backup
Tools to help you extend a social customer service program
throughout your company
18

20. 03
Building a solid team behind the scenes
Who’s involved, what do they do, and how do they work together?
When everyone in your company wants in on the together. And in truly social companies, someone
social media action, that’s nothing to be sniffed at. is really listening to customer comments on social
Different departments have different things to offer networks and feeding this back into product design or
your customers. But managing and balancing access service offering.
to social media can be a logistical challenge.
Place the customer at the centre of your social
There’s no fixed model for the perfect social media engagement strategy to make sure you’re meeting
team, and each is constituted slightly differently. each of their needs when they speak out to your
But generally, a representative of the frontline of brand. When everyone works together, customers are
customer contact and someone responsible for brand made happier.
and marketing activities should bring their heads
19

21. 03
Who should take these places in your organisation?
Exercise: Who is involved in social media in your company – what are they
currently responsible for?
Name Role Department Responsibilities
Is anyone missing? Look back at the FAQ’s you
compiled in Part One of this guide. For those queries
you were unable to answer yourself or within your
team, it’s important to identify who could.
• Do some queries require local in-store knowledge?
• Do some queries relate to aspects of your service
that you outsource, for example delivery?
• Do some queries require knowledge from
more than one department, for example stock
availability?
If you were to give your customers complete service,
what would it take? Who needs to be involved to make
sure that customers get an answer to those questions?
20

22. 03
Steps to sound social media organisation
Developing a coordinated social engagement strategy
Bring your heads together
It’s a good idea to formalise early stage communications What should your social think
on getting a social engagement process that works for tank organise?
your company. Creating a cross-functional team allows
you to assess and coordinate the input from everyone
01 Set objectives
involved.
You should aim to have clear answers to the following
In some businesses this team becomes a permanent questions:
body to represent the needs and interests of each
department, but even if you don’t carry it forward, a 1. What are your goals for social media engagement?
diverse social media team is an important think tank.
2. Why do you have a presence?
This might only involve a few meetings and documents
3. What do you want to make sure you achieve?
to agree processes, but it will save you a huge amount
of time. Everyone you’ve jotted down for your perfect 4. What do you want to learn?
social media team should be involved in these early
activities. Some of these objectives will be common across
the board, and some will be department specific, but
they should all contribute to a consistent and quality
experience of your company for customers.
A recent survey of business executives showed that
perceived benefits of social customer service are wide-
ranging, but the most prominent surround customer
satisfaction. Delivering positive customer experiences
should underpin all more specific targets; each team
member should think about how they fit into delivering
a positive and consistent experience.
Source: We Are Social: The State of Social Customer Service
21

23. 03
Connect a Customer Service
Determine responsibilities 02 03 Representative to Facebook & Twitter
This will depend on your own goals for social Getting even just one customer service representative
engagement, but there are certain responsibilities you directly connected to customers on social networks
should establish early on: is the most important move towards serious social
customer service.
Who takes care of messaging and tone of
01 voice, and is responsible for making sure Liaising between marketing and customer service is
everyone adheres to guidelines? essential for getting that first agent up and running.
Your first social customer service agent will forge a
Who publishes updates to Facebook and
02 bridge between different departments. Remember that
Twitter? Do you differentiate between
you are addressing a completely new area that your
marketing and service updates?
company isn’t likely set up to tackle. Your social media
Who deals with incoming communication think-tank is the best way to make this happen.
03 from fans? Should the customer service
department take care of general engagement, This early social customer service ambassador needs
or are certain conversations dealt with by a to be fully integrated into your company’s customer
community manager? service processes, with the same knowledge,
capabilities and power to act as the rest of your
Who will be tracking the performance of your
customer service team. However, they should work
04 social engagement? Are different teams
closely between the social media team and customer
interested in different areas?
service team, rather than being slotted neatly into one
Who will be collecting information available department or another.
05 from social conversations and who do they
need to update with any insights discovered?
These responsibilities should be available for all
to access.
How Conversocial Helps:
When you’ve established who’s taking care of
different areas of your social engagement program,
these can be formalised into bespoke roles and
permissions, leaving no room for confusion. Quick
and fluid team workflow enables staff across
different departments to communicate easily and
distribute work appropriately.
22

24. 03
Scaling up your team. It’s all under control
Some basic tools and processes to help you keep social engagement running
smoothly as your team grows.
You want to avoid your agents passing on any issues
they could answer themselves, so make sure you fully
prepare them to take on all they are capable of.
Recruit a team with Create training documents
01 02
social skills with do’s and don’ts
Social customer service agents have specific Take what you’ve learnt from the earlier stages of
skills, and you should form a dedicated social this guide and from your company’s highest-level
customer service team before you try to roll out brand guidelines to formulate some basic rules and
social media engagement to your entire contact suggestions for new engagers. This doesn’t need to
centre. Getting the right team in place from the start be fully formed at first; you’ll constantly learn what gets
will allow you to have a much more autonomous social the best (and worst) reactions from your customers
customer service operation. as you go. Being clear about where real boundaries
lie will actually give your team more confidence to be
To get the right recruits, whether hired internally personable.
or found afresh, a solid and successful customer
service history is important. You should place especial When you’ve spent a lot of time managing your
emphasis on great written communication skills, as company’s social presence, it’s easy to forget that it’s
well as a thorough knowledge of the social platforms a completely new world for those used to engaging
you will be working with. with customers through traditional channels.
• For those who are completely new to social
engagement, start with recommended phrases to
use in responses, or signoffs that your advisors
can add to Facebook messages. Once they feel
confident with these prescribed replies, they can start
to be a bit more creative and make their own tweaks.
E.g. “I’m sorry to hear that, [Name]” “I hope this helps!”
• If there are things you don’t want your agents to
do or say, make that perfectly clear, specific and
accessible. This way, there’s no need for hesitancy
or uncertainty when crafting responses.
E.g. Don’t show personal bias or be opinionated in
your repsonses.
Don’t use emoticons or abbreviated text language.
23

25. 03
How Best Buy Does It
Hiring Training
Best Buy’s ‘community connectors’ must have a The agents receive 4 weeks consumer relations
minimum of 6 months internal customer service training on how to deal with questions and
experience before they can apply; and the core complaints publicly, rather than in the private
thing they look for is strong writing skills. channels they are used to. Then, a further two
weeks ‘social training’ ensures the community norms
of the social platforms they’ll be working on are fully
understood.
Best Buy’s internal social media policy is publicly
available on their website, and given to all employees
in the company. This lays out clearly what employees
should do (e.g. always say you work for Best Buy)
and can’t do (e.g. leak confidential information)
and re-enforces the company’s key principles for
effective social media communication: “Be smart.
Be respectful. Be human.”
03 Provide template responses to FAQs
Create a template response for each of the FAQs E.g. Facebook: I’m sorry to hear that your purchase
assembled earlier in this guide. This will save didn’t meet expectations. If you private message me
your entire team a huge amount of time, increasing your email address, I will send you a prepaid returns
the number of messages that can be dealt with form and we’ll issue you a full refund. I hope that
independently and saving time to devise answers helps. Anna
for those queries that present any uncertainty.
Furthermore, template responses are an opportunity to Twitter: Sorry to hear about that. If you DM your email
formalise some basic guidelines in examples. You can address, I’ll send a returns form for you to claim a full
write policy for how to handle different issues publicly refund. AD
(i.e. always offer a refund for complaints around
quality) into template responses. Replies will need to
be tailored for each query, but gives every agent a
great head start on each response they make.
You should prepare different templates for Facebook and
Twitter, taking the character allowances into account.
24

26. 03
Establish an approval Formalise a process for
04
How Best Buy Does It 06
How Best Buy Does It
process before ‘going live’ escalating problematic
Once new agents have been given guidelines and
messages
training, managers should approve all responses You should develop a comprehensive plan to
they send for a fixed period of time. How long determine when a message needs to be escalated.
this lasts depends on how prepared your agents are These chains of communication should be a reflection
for interacting in social media, and how prescriptive of the responsibilities established by your cross-
your brand guidelines need to be. Some companies departmental think tank. Customer complaints of a
approve all outgoing responses for 2 weeks, others for certain nature may need to go straight to the customer
3 months. service manager and brand sensitive comments that
could spark a PR crisis might go straight to the social
It may be that you wish to approve responses media or PR team. As for tone of voice training, making
indefinitely, but as your customer service demand exceptions clear will give your team the confidence to
scales, your response time will be effective. Using the reply to all standard customer service issues efficiently.
training tools we’ve illustrated in this guide allows you Your escalation process should be written down for
to make the most of your team. everyone to see, with contact details for everyone
involved.
Create a checklist for
05
How Best Buy Does It
crafting responses
A checklist of things to consider before posting
a reply can aid and encourage your team to use
their initiative. Template responses help for a number
of messages, but you can also provide some triggers
to help figure out a problem that doesn’t quite fit the
mould. This allows social customer service agents to
resolve more issues, faster, and ensures that you’re
really delivering personalised support.
• Think first before hitting reply!
• Ask as many questions as possible to resolve in
the fewest possible interactions
• Keep communication as public as possible,
especially when negative
• Address issues raised directly
• when positive, agree and mirror enthusiasm
• when negative, show empathy
• Offer a public solution wherever possible (e.g. if X
not available, you might like Y)
• Always try and end interactions on a positive note
25

27. 03
ODEON Social Media Crisis management: Facebook & Twitter
26

28. 03
These processes can be pulled together into a response map that directs agents
to react in different ways depending on the content of a customer message, and
incorporates triggers for escalation.
Altimeter has created an example
response map, which illustrates how you
might be able to create a similar decision
tree for your own agents.
Source: www.telusinternational.com
27

29. 04 Level Three: Measuring and Refining
How you can understand and improve your social customer service
program and keep track as you scale it
28

30. 04
Now you’ve got some processes in place, what do you need to do to
make sure they’re working for you? Targets should be based around
customer expectations.
Throughout this guide, we’ve tried to illustrate that customers expect you to:
Be Fast Your metrics for understanding the success of your
social customer service program should be focussed
around meeting these expectations.
Be Useful
Track these KPIs to ensure your team is delivering
Be Friendly great social customer service.
Team Performance
Response Time Contact resolution –
• Quick responses are an important benchmark for Queries answered
those aiming to give quality service in fast-paced • It’s important to aim for consistency in your social
channel. customer service offering, and ensure that you
answer as close to 100% of all customer service
• Set SLAs to determine how quickly your team
issues as possible. Identifying which messages are
should be responding to queries and try to
customer service issues and tracking how many of
gradually improve on these. Whether you can offer
these get a response is the only way to get a true
24 hour availability, or just business hours during
overview of the customers you’re helping.
the working week, make sure you have clear
targets so that you can identify customers that
get a below-par service experience and address
Benchmark Your Team
their issues promptly. Aim for at least 80% of • Consider how well you are tackling social customer
issues to be answered within your target response service on an individual level and as a whole team.
timeframe. You can do this by comparing individual response
time averages to those of the team. It’s important
to identify where staff members might be falling
behind so that you can target training efforts and
discover holes in your processes.
Tip:
Take a look at when you’re actually receiving customer messages to understand how to meet your customers’
needs. It could be that you would catch the vast majority of all enquiries by adding an evening shift to your
resources. Some of Conversocial’s customers have reviewed the time distribution of their incoming messages
and found that a significant proportion are submitted between 6pm and 11pm. Adding and evening shift could
dramatically reduce your average response time too.
29

31. 04
Customer Satisfaction
Sentiment Data
Tracking sentiment in social media is one of the
most straightforward ways of measuring customer How Conversocial Helps:
satisfaction. It’s a great way to understand not only Without software, the only way to accurately
the attitudes of your existing customer base, but record customer sentiment is to manually log
the impression projected of your brand. Sentiment every comment and tweet. Logging and reporting
serves as an effective social Net Promoter Score. by copying and pasting customer messages into a
The Net Promoter Score is based on the principle spreadsheet is extremely laborious.
of establishing how many of your customers are
promoters of your brand. Using Conversocial, you can quickly and easily
Traditionally, customer satisfaction and promotion mark your customers’ messages as positive or
are sought out proactively, often through surveys, negative as you process them. This sentiment
but companies already have access to hundreds of data can show the overall health of your
customer opinions on Facebook and Twitter. These Facebook and Twitter communities, but also
are great sources for understanding if customers be drawn out in relation to certain issues. A
are happy, and reflect net promoter in action, given combination of sentiment tracking and issue
their public nature. Tracking the sentiment of these tagging gives you a picture of what makes your
messages gives you an accurate view of the real fans and followers happy or unhappy.
positive promotion and negative detraction happening
on your social platforms right now. To get an accurate
picture of customer satisfaction, you should record the
sentiment of every message you receive.
The key to measuring sentiment consistently and
effectively is to provide your social media staff with
simple, clear guidelines for what constitutes positive or
negative sentiment. The best way to do this is to ask
the following question:
“If a friend saw this comment, would it improve or
worsen their perception of the company?”
Saying “I shopped at ____” certainly isn’t negative...
but it doesn’t quite promote the company either.
Saying “I shopped at ____ and it was great” or “I love
your new product ____!” both clearly promote the
brand. To get the most accurate picture of customer
satisfaction, unless actively positive, comments should
be considered neutral.
If done correctly, you can discover the ‘net promoter
score’ of your page just by comparing the percentage
of positive and negative comments. Tracking this over
time, on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis allows you
to really understand your customers’ satisfaction.
30

32. 04
Track Key Customer Issues
Feedback and Discussion
Sentiment data gives you a simple and effective The only way to tap this data is to keep a full record of
benchmark of your customer attitudes, but social your messaging history, and organise it effectively for
networks offer a wealth of information that can tell you analysis. The trends you spot should be fed effectively
so much more. Your customers are coming to you with into your company’s existing feedback, market
direct feedback on your products or services without research and voice of the customer processes. We’ve
having to be asked for it, and are discussing a wide discovered that the vast majority of social messages
range of topics that gives you invaluable insight into that require your attention are either real customer
their behaviours, preferences and interests. service issues or direct product feedback. These can
teach your company a thing or two about how you’re
doing business.
What types of message are retailers
receiving on Facebook and Twitter?
Source: Conversocial customers’ Facebook pages & Twitter accounts, Jan 2012
31

33. 04
Highlighting real service potholes.
When Facebook and Twitter become real customer
service channels, it’s essential to keep track of
customer reactions to different parts of your business,
and the frequency of different customer issues. As
customers redirect their complaints to social media,
the understanding of customer service issues gleaned
from data through other channels is diluted. And
customers are much more forthcoming with simple
issues, as taking a complaint to Facebook or Twitter
is quick and easy. Track the frequency and sentiment
of requests about different products, services and
common issues.
If you spot a trend towards complaints about delivery,
it’s probably about time to address the quality of your
delivery service and investigate fundamental problems.
Thorough logging and analysis of social customer
service data is one of the best ways to identify how
your company can target areas to fundamentally
improve the customer experience.
How Conversocial Helps:
Conversocial allows you to tag and categorise
your incoming social messages to make the
process of organising and analysing customer
feedback easy and efficient. Whatever you want
to track, you can view all relevant comments
together and get a picture of relative volumes at
a glance.
32

34. 05
Afterthought: The Future of Social Customer Service
Conversocial’s predictions on where your social customer service
program will go next.
Social Media has become well established as a Social media presents everything a company has
mainstream communication channel between friends, to offer to its customers through one united voice. In
but the social relationship between companies and this guide we’ve only touched on the very first stages
their customers is just beginning. of breaking down departmental boundaries to offer
customers a common experience. As customers’
We’ve already seen the evolution from social
needs from social networks develop, businesses
networks as marketing channels to gradually become
will have to become truly socialised internally if they
established as two-way connectors between brands
are ever to offer a sociable relationship with their
and consumers. Over the next year, we’ll shift
customers externally.
more and more of our customer service demand to
social media, and companies will need to adapt and
reorganise themselves internally to keep up.
Social media is set to be the main communication
channel to speak with a business, as it offers the most
convenient and effective solution for consumers. More
and more service issues that would previously never
made it outside of one store are making their way to
Facebook and Twitter, thanks to the convenience
of mobile technology. Ever-increasing demands for
immediacy will require more companies to deliver in-
store service via social channels.
Forward-thinking companies are making moves
to offer localised service through globally public
platforms. As customers expect responses in real-time
to specific local issues, soon it will make sense for
store and branch managers to be integrated into social
engagement programs. For a business to become
truly social, marketing departments will have to release
the reigns even further to better spread information
throughout the company and out to customers. To
keep up with customer demand, those who help to
contribute information to customers and listen to what
they have to say will need to expand beyond the
contact centre.
33

35. Follow @conversocial on Twitter for social customer service
insights, and learn more at www.conversocial.com