marketing matters

The New Customer Service

Alicia Hoglund

Today’s businesses are making customer service a top priority, and turning to social media to enrich their efforts and provide consumers with the interactive and personalized approach they crave.

Eyecare Business spoke with social media experts Joshua March, cofounder and CEO of Conversocial, and Dean Browell, PhD, executive vice president of Feedback, about this trend and how eyecare practitioners can leverage their social media presence to increase customer satisfaction and provide stellar customer service to patients.

Eyecare Business: Why should ECPs incorporate social media into their customer service efforts?

Joshua Marsh: More and more consumer-facing organizations are realizing that this service is increasingly the first and preferred point of contact to raise queries and complaints. It’s fast, convenient, and effective for the consumer, which means it’s becoming essential for businesses to react. The alternative means leaving unanswered dissatisfaction for all your customers and potential customers to see.

EB What customer service opportunities does social media provide that old-fashioned care doesn’t?

Dean Browell, PhD: It may sound like a paradox, but social media gives an opportunity to react in both real time and in due course.

On the phone, you are dealing with a problem that usually needs to be resolved right away, and the longer you take, the higher the emotions get. On social media, though there can be a real-time feel, you can also delay satisfaction in the spirit of wanting to respond and fix the problem correctly, and simply letting someone know you’re looking into an issue, or requesting the customer contact you offline in a different way. This buys [you] time to source and fix a problem.

JM The biggest differentiator is that it’s public. This means that your successful resolutions and attentive interactions have a wide audience, available for your entire customer base and new prospects to find forever.

Consumers use the Internet and social networks to research companies. Our research has found that 88 percent of consumers are less likely to buy when they find ignored complaints. The opportunity to protect revenue on social is huge.

EB Does social media help to provide more dynamic and responsive customer service?

DB Absolutely, especially because it’s public. Others will see the question, the way you serviced the issue, and potentially the solution. That means many with the same question just saw the answer without having to ask. And, that the way you served in public becomes an opportunity to communicate the brand’s dedication to its audience, values, etc.

JM The consumer demand for a better level of service, and the risk facing companies the longer they leave customer dissatisfaction visible, has been the major catalyst for more responsive service over social media. Though this might have been the route for many businesses, we’re seeing more companies notice the real benefits of delivering service in this way.

A social user can handle four to eight times as many contacts as he can on the phone, and these public resolutions provide a permanent resource of content that can be found when consumers research online.

EB Which social media sites best lend themselves to reactive customer service?

DB Facebook, Twitter, and the forums or message boards associated with your audiences. Don’t overlook the latter or get distracted by the shiniest new channel.

JM Facebook is the more reactive channel, whereas Twitter demands greater proactivity when it comes to customer service. Facebook requires customers to engage with companies’ branded pages, whereas on Twitter users can broadcast experiences for a more public audience, with the knowledge that those brands can find them.

Though it’s important to prioritize reactive service for those customers who have directly reached out, ignoring the ‘rest’ misses a major opportunity. Our research found that when mentioning major retailers on Twitter, consumers drop the ‘@’ 97 percent of the time.

EB How important is it for ECPs to participate on this level of customer service?

JM Small businesses have an opportunity to boost customer loyalty through social media, and providing public information on platforms like Facebook and Twitter can provide customers with great connection and insight into your company. It’s important to maintain the experience that’s expected by customers, and follow them into the channels they communicate through daily. EB