7 Tips for Responding to Customer Comments on Social Networks

Social media has given the customer the ability to take charge of the conversation and offer instant feedback to your business and offerings. Instantly visible to your customer service team, it is essential to let customers know you have seen their comments and are ready to respond.

While most businesses want to include social media as an integral part of their customer experience, many businesses do not have a good strategy in place to address customer comments. Regardless of where your social media effort stands, it is critical to evaluate your social response strategy. Here are seven tips to keep in mind when responding on social media:

1. Never ignore a comment: According to social media experts, a lack of response is a response, too, which says, ‘We do not care about our customers very much.’ Many businesses do not follow the rule of thumb of responding to every comment on social media. Of course, there are factors, such as corporate bureaucracy, that prevent businesses from responding on social networks.
2. Have a social response plan in place: Whether it is a sensitive issue that needs to be addressed or a customer feedback, every interaction deserves attention. Your social media management team must be equipped to respond to these comments without the need to run everything past a PR department. This is where preapproved official responses and templates come into play. Those preapproved statements are necessary for addressing critical issues from customers and can help cut down response time.
3. Be consistent when replying to customers: It is crucial for your customer service team to be on the same page when it comes to social responses. If customers are getting different answers or varying levels of service depending on whom they are interacting with, it can go against you and harm your reputation. Tracking responses and having preapproved responses can save much time and prevent customer service annoyances.
4. Track social mentions for your brand: Tracking social activity of your brand can help you better serve customers. Try to treat every social interaction the same way you would treat a customer email or phone call. In order to deliver a great customer experience, you must be able to measure and take action on your customer data. In addition, keeping track of social activities and responses can be useful for employee training purposes.
5. Pay attention to your competitors’ social activity: In order to stay competitive, it is just as important to listen to what people are saying about your competitors and how your competitors are handling their social media activities. This tactic may also help you get involved in a conversation. A well-crafted social media response could bring you a new customer.
6. Hang out where your customers are: It is important to find out what social networks your existing and potential customers are using to talk about your brand. This is because people tend to use different networks depending on the industry, type of products and nature of their comment. No two situations or customers are alike, so it is up to you to understand your target audiences and meet them where they are.
7. Measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts: Social media activities are an integral part of the overall customer journey. Therefore, knowing how your customers interact with your brand on social networks is critical to providing an unmatched customer experience. Is your social media activity with customers leading to more sales? Are customers satisfied after interacting with your brand on social media? These are vital marketing metrics to track.

Regardless of the size of your organization, responding to your existing and potential customers on social networks is worth the time and effort. Not responding to a customer comment on social media is like not answering a phone call in a call center, which is not good for business. In addition, executing an efficient social response strategy can drive customer loyalty. If you are willing to invest in customer service better than your competitors, that can be the differentiator that will set you apart.