How to Leverage Social Customer Care to Drive Sales and Revenue

Social media is overflowing with more content than anyone can ever consume, and if you want people to pay attention to your content, you have to remember that it’s all about the engagement. Social feeds are less of a megaphone to drive traffic to your site and more about the one-on-one connections and trust that you build with your audience. To grab a customer’s attention and increase revenue from that customer, engagement is vital. Your social customer care strategy must include plans for building brand awareness, loyalty, and connection to increase engagement over time. By doing so, you’re sure to see increased revenue due to your social media efforts.

Social media algorithms prioritize engagement, conversation, and content drive engagement. Posts with few comments and interactions are assumed to be uninteresting or irrelevant and will be displayed to fewer people over time. However, social posts with higher engagement will be shown to more people, resulting in multiplied engagement.

Beyond resulting in more views, engagement is important to customers individually as well. When consumers feel listened to and appreciated, they’re more likely to recommend a brand or endorse it on social media. Superior customer experience also makes it more likely that they try additional products or services from your organization.

As you develop your social customer care strategy, consider these five key areas for increasing engagement and, therefore, increasing revenue.

Provide Excellent Support

High-quality customer support is essential for success, and it’s even more of a necessity when you’re providing that support via social media. The public nature of social customer care means everyone will see when you’re doing it right, and also when something goes wrong. A lousy interaction or using the wrong tone can impact your entire brand. Customer service agents who understand best practices for providing support on social media are a must-have. Beyond that, all your agents must know what they’re talking about regarding your product or service. Around 46% of consumers will give up on a brand if the employees aren’t knowledgeable. Support on social means providing the wrong answer won’t only be evident to one person. It’ll jump out at anyone following your feeds.

According to PwC’s Future of CX report, 32% of all customers will stop doing business with a brand they love after one bad experience. But what if that experience is shared in public view on social media where other people can see it too? It increases the chances of people indirectly being influenced by that negative experience. And what about customers who won’t ever reach out even when they have a problem? Lee Resources found that for every one customer who complains, another 26 leave quietly without saying anything at all. By providing excellent customer care on social media, your organization has a chance to help those asking, plus anyone who checks out your feed on their own time too.

Furthermore, organizations with top-notch social support see customers spending 20-40% more each year. Considering those numbers, it’s worth the effort to make sure your support stands out among your competitors.

Share Valuable Content on Your Social Feeds

To increase the chances of people paying attention to your social posts, remember to provide value. Your Twitter feed or Facebook page shouldn’t be full of teasing headlines with a link to click to find the good stuff. Instead, aim to provide value right on your feeds. Did you recently roll-out a new feature for your product? Share the details on social. Look for ways to post your top tips for the feature, along with examples of the various ways of using it. This will not only catch more eyes than a basic announcement linking to details elsewhere, but will also serve as a tiny support document for anyone following your feeds.

The key is to create social content that is useful, entertaining, and unique. Then, you just have to stick around to provide customer support to anyone who replies to your social posts with a question. Don’t just stop by, drop the information, and leave. Watch your replies and extend the value of the details you’re sharing by helping people figure things out. To determine what kind of content would provide the most value, check out the most common questions you receive on your social accounts. If you receive queries on the same topics over and over, be proactive and create social content to help people find their answers before they even ask. This will not only serve those who would ask, but can also help the people who would otherwise go on silently with the problem and never reach out for help.

Be Responsive

People who don’t hear back from you once they post a message of any kind, are less likely to spend their money on your product or service. The fact is, feeling ignored doesn’t inspire confidence, and no one wants to spend their hard earned money with a company that seems flaky and lazy. In fact, lack of response or slow response times leads to an increase in customer churn by 15%.

Furthermore, social messaging such as one-on-one conversations through Twitter direct messages, Facebook messenger, Instagram messages etc, is on the rise. People aren’t only interested in your public feed anymore, but are also more likely to reach out privately to your social channels as well. It’s important these messages don’t go unassisted. Provide the attention and help customers in need through DMs for increased happiness, customer loyalty, engagement, and finally – revenue!

Considering how vital customer engagement is on social media, it’s essential to look for ways to encourage responses and interaction on your social feeds. According to Sprout Social, “30% of people will go to a competitor if a brand doesn’t respond.” Be sure your social strategy encourages customers to reach out with questions and thoughts on your product anytime—whether on the public feed or in the private messages—and make sure to follow through by actively engaging with them.

Show Your Human Side

Social media is a space for human interactions, and customers still prefer a human over a bot when given a choice. In fact, 71% of Americans would rather interact with a human than go through an automated process. Knowing this and considering how people use social media, it’s essential to keep your social media interactions and customer care human. While you should find ways to streamline how you manage the support load on social media, be sure not to automate the human touch out of it. Creating a stockpile of prewritten responses to common queries will speed things up, but make sure you customize them enough to avoid sounding like a robot pasting the same message over and over.

Being human and friendly on social media when providing customer care lets people see how you treat customers. Timely responses with helpful information and a welcoming tone will inspire new people to become customers. With each new customer you earn by drawing them in with your skilled social media support, more revenue will follow.

Monitor Mentions of Your Brand

Watch for mentions of your brand or product on social media where your company’s username isn’t included. This will help you find the people who post questions randomly, without directing it at your organization’s account. By spotting these, you can reply and help them out even when they’re not expecting it. However, don’t reach out to them if it’s to argue about their thoughts on your product. The surprise assistance will delight the customer, as long as it’s done kindly. Beyond helping the customer solve the problem, according to Sprout Social, people are 70% more likely to use a brand’s product when that brand reaches out to them on social, and 25% less likely to post negatively about the brand.

Drive Increased Revenue with Top-Notch Social Customer Care

Customers prefer speed, convenience, helpful employees, and friendly service from their customer support interactions. Since social media also benefits from speed and convenience, it’s the perfect place to provide welcoming, high-quality customer care to your customers too. As you develop your strategy for social customer care with an aim to increase revenue, be sure to prioritize friendly and skilled support agents, timely interactions, ideas for increasing engagement, and providing value for your customers. The more you engage your customers, the more success you’ll see in sales too.