When it comes to how to best amplify your brand, it’s time to acknowledge that social customer care is marketing.
It’s no secret that we’re scrolling through social on our phones more than ever. In between all those engagement and baby announcements, we’re often presented with examples of good and bad customer care.
When it comes down to purchase time, what do you want to be remembered for? The brand that turned a bad situation into a social customer care homerun? Or the brand that Chrissy Teigen is making fun of on Twitter?
Read on to learn why social customer care is marketing.
Customer Experience Is King
We’ve covered it before – customer experience is a BIG deal. A large part of building that experience is being there when your customers need you.
And we’re not talking about two weeks, or even two days, later. We mean IN the moment.
For many of our partners, we aim for a response time under one hour during the hours of 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Many times, our teams’ numbers come in at about 30 minutes or less.
Maybe a 60 minute response time seems unattainable, but the fact is, 42% of consumers who complain on social expect it.
Often, when answered quickly, users will reply “Thank you for your speedy response,” diffusing the situation from the start. This sets up a conversation where clear respect is coming from both sides. From there, it is much easier to make sure the customer is completely satisfied.
If a customer isn’t entirely satisfied with their experience with you on social, it just might be the end of your relationship.
According to Sprout Social’s recent index report, 56% of consumers unfollow a brand on social because of a poor customer service experience. And that’s a best-case scenario. Some unhappy customers will turn to trolling your feed.
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Brand Advocacy Is The Goal
When a customer is completely satisfied, they make the transition to brand advocate. And if we could only choose one reason why you should think of social customer care as marketing, it’s because it creates brand advocates.
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) has been an incredibly powerful tool since the beginning of time. While marketing has continually evolved and technology has changed rapidly, WOMM has continued to produce results.
With the power of social at the consumer’s fingertips, a positive or negative experience can be in front of millions of eyes in just a few moments.
The same Sprout Social report linked above also found that 59% of consumers reach out on social because they’ve had a great experience with a brand.
Think about it! Are you more likely to share positive experiences with a product, service, or brand with your friends? I for one, cannot tell you how many people I’ve encouraged to by Revlon’s One-Step Hair Dryer – including the B2 Crew!
Most recently, my pet insurance (shout out to Healthy Paws) rejected a claim for my dog. I reached out to understand the reasoning for this and they not only responded quickly but also reversed the decision. You bet I’ve advocated for Healthy Paws to my fellow dog moms since this experience!
Long story short, when we love something, we talk about it, becoming grass-root marketers for that product or service. And that’s what brings new people to your brand.
You Need To Invest In Social Care
As marketers, we know that it’s more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing ones. As discussed above, using social customer care to keep current customers can lead to them organically recruiting new ones. What’s better than a customer marketing for you?!
In many industries, fighting for an increased budget can be a marketer’s full-time job. We understand the struggle, trust us! But the numbers above don’t lie. Not only do your customers expect you to be on social, but they also expect you to address their issues there. You can’t do that properly without the right tools.
Bare minimum, you’re going to want a software that manages your mentions, private messages, and tagged posts across all channels. At B Squared we use Sprout Social. Sprout pulls all of the above into one inbox, making it easier to reply, find trends, and track the history we have with consumers.
Another way you can invest in the quality of your brand’s social customer care is through AI. Our Founder and CEO, Brooke Sellas, wrote all about how brands can invest in low barrier AI on Mark Schaefer’s blog.
Finally, if this all seems too much or inaccessible, you can always contact the B Squared Team! We offer a number of services aimed at improving your social customer care, including community management, reputation management, chatbot creation and more.
Social Customer Care Is Marketing
When it comes down to it, social customer care is marketing!
There’s nothing more powerful than turning a consumer with an issue into a brand advocate. If you start treating social customer care as marketing, there’s no doubt that your brand will stand out from the rest.
Value customer experience, focus on creating brand advocates and invest in tools that will improve your customer support and there will be no stopping what your brand can do!
Tell us how your brand handles social customer care in the comments!
Leah K. Williams
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