Social media is slowly starting to become a key element of a brand's communication strategy and, of course, this means they need to take customer service into consideration. ExchangeWire speak with Leo Ryan, VP, customer solutions, EMEA, Spredfast, about how brands are dealing with this form of communication, and how marketing technology is aiding them in their social care strategy.

ExchangeWire: There has been a huge rise in the number of consumers turning to social media to approach brands with customer service queries – what has driven this increase and how are brands managing it?

Leo Ryan: Increasingly, consumers expect a rapid response from brands when it comes to customer care. We have research that suggests half expect to get an answer within an hour, 25% in the same day, and 9% in just a few minutes. ‘Over the phone’ customer care has a long-standing reputation for being slow, frustrating, and ineffective; whereas social media gives people the possibility of truly holding brands to account in a public arena. It’s attractive because it leaves brands little choice but to reply in a helpful and timely manner. 

These conversations already make up a huge proportion of the social conversations happening between brands and people. Brands that focus solely on content over conversations are missing the point; the social interactions we see from brands are just the tip of the iceberg – 93% of brand-to-customer interaction is one-to-one.

What can brands do to ensure they are providing quality customer service through these new social platforms, while maintaining strong brand reputations?

Some brands with high customer interaction, like retailers or travel and hospitality, handle more than 10,000 social engagements a day, so maintaining consistency of tone while operating at scale and speed is key, whether it’s answering a complaint or launching a promotion. But there’s no one rule for all businesses; Virgin and O2 have taken risks in the past with their social care by gently teasing their customers in a comedic way, but this would jar with less light-hearted, consumer-facing brands.

How does technology aid this?

Leo Ryan, VP, Customer Solutions, EMEA, Spredfast

Social customer care makes smart business sense. The average call centre interaction costs around £5 to resolve, an email can cost as much as £7, but on social media it costs less than £1. However, the volume is more of a challenge when you don’t know exactly when your customers are messaging you, or what about. As well as strong brand guidelines, which every single customer care manager is carefully trained in, high levels of customer interaction can be handled effectively by configurable technology that reduces the chance of errors. 

Spredfast for Social Care has been designed to help care managers monitor social activity in real time; this includes features like automated routing and labelling, and status indicators to eliminate duplication and multiple responses to the same issue. Brands can have more than one manager responding to customer queries and, most helpfully, they can incorporate your CRM information into the system so managers can see relevant background data on who they’re talking to, live.

When we think of martech, we don’t think enough about how it can assist with a brand’s customer service layer, over and above its other functionalities and benefits. Are enough brands using martech for this purpose?

Thankfully, a company’s social care strategy is slowly coming to the attention of senior management. However, while the strategies have become more sophisticated, the management lacks resources and often overwhelms a marketing team. 

The social network platforms themselves have fully entered the world of social customer care. From Facebook’s badges for a responsive page to Twitter’s NPS℠ surveys, social media as a channel for customer support is maturing to a point where it can now challenge traditional means. Brands need to adopt technology at a scale that suits their business and makes the most of these opportunities.

Are brands too focused on acquisition over maintaining customer loyalty?

As the number of touchpoints consumers communicate with a brand on increases, brand loyalty becomes more and more important. Apps such as Uber and Deliveroo use technology to constantly improve the user experience by offering live journey tracking features, profiles of the driver, live chat services, and repeated incentives to introduce new customers. 

Social media and excellent care solutions also provide opportunities here. By finding out which online communities a brand’s customers hang out in, and who their active advocates are, brands can tailor content to their fans and show similar, familiar messages throughout the online journey.

How can brands ensure customer service becomes an important part of their overall communications strategy?

The ‘social care strategy’ often fills a marketing team with dread because it’s inevitably linked with crisis and consumer complaints. However, each new interaction should be seen as an opportunity to build a long-term relationship. Again, technology can help by seamlessly integrating other data streams with a social care tool. For example, the Spredfast solution also incorporates the ability to plan content, monitor conversations in real time and replicate digital experiences across a brand’s entire digital property.