7 ways to get customer service right on social media

Social media engagement is vital for retail businesses. Not only can it provide valuable feedback, it can also build a solid reputation for the brand, increase an existing customer’s trust and attract new potential customers through word-of-mouth marketing.

Social media for retailers is now not an option, it is a necessity. More and more people are heading to their social media pages to engage with their favourite brands, whether it be to search for a business, research what a business is offering, discovering what benefit they would receive from a business, or to even review their experience.

Customers not only want to experience what a business has to offer, but to engage with the business. Engagement on social media is all about sparking conversations and encouraging your customers to interact with your brand in order to build a relationship with them.

Here are six golden rules to help you maximise your engagement and build a lasting reputation on social media.

Stick to what you know
Make sure the majority of your posts relate to your business and industry. Research conducted by Facebook found that speaking about subjects related to your brand is the best way to generate engagement. When people ‘like’ your page, they are obviously interested in your business and want to receive information about you and your niche. If you start posting content on other topics, your followers will lose interest and unfollow you.

Respond to questions and complaints
The best way to maintain engagement with customers is by always responding to comments, questions and complaints on social media. If a customer comments on your profile and you ignore it, they may never comment again, or even unfollow you.

Customer service
People will be more likely to engage with a retailer if they are friendly and responsive on social media. If your business comes across as negative or rude it could turn into a potential social media crisis and you could lose customers. It’s therefore important to maintain great customer service at all times to encourage customers to build a lasting relationship with your business.

Make it easy to share your content
One way to measure engagement is by how many times your content has been shared by other users. This means you need to create interesting content that is easy for people to share. For example, pictures are great shareable content because they are easy to consume and are eye catching.

Ask questions
Questions are a great way to start conversations online and allow many users to express their opinions.

Be active on social media
You can’t just sit and wait for people to comment on your social media platform if you haven’t bothered to post any interesting content. Get active on social media and interact with other users by posting engaging content and sharing others’ content. The more you communicate with others, the more likely they are to communicate with you.

By engaging with your customers on social media, you can create a mutually beneficial relationship with them. Customers will feel valued by your brand and you can gain important customer feedback to help you grow the business.