Here’s a bit of advice: if you’re going to use social media for customer service, service your customers. Techy social media is sexy, and for a long time brands would get cred just for going through the motions of setting up an account and engaging with customers. This sweet spot of having returns come from the practice and not the result never lasts long. Nobody is impressed with a tweet or facebook post anymore. But they are impressed if their questions are answered or their problems resolved.
It’s really not hard. It’s basic business. You wouldn’t walk away from a customer in a store before helping them find what they were looking for, and you wouldn’t hang-up on a customer mid-conversation. Customer service is still customer service, no matter what medium it exists in, even (especially, one could argue) with social media. As with any new business tool, once the glitter wears off, you better know how to use it right because people won’t be satisfied just to look at it. I’m looking at you, Samsung…
