Social customer service: The heat is on

There’s no denying that social networks are playing a huge role in holiday shopping this year. Four out of five U.S. Internet users visit social networks and blogs, according to Nielsen — and Shop.org found that 42% of online consumers use those sites to follow at least one retail brand, with the average being six brands. Nielsen found that these users expect to interact heavily with these brands — from posting comments about products or service to purchasing items to using social media as a portal for clicking through to the main eCommerce site.

Of special note: social networks’ role in customer service. A whopping 38% of Facebook users and 55% of Twitter users say they have posted comments about a brand’s customer service, and 43% and 54%, respectively, report having posted comments about product. With such heavy activity, it’s crucial for merchants to maximize the ease of communication on social outposts — especially during these peak weeks of the holiday season.  To provide stellar social service:

Display customer service information prominently on your profile. This tip may seem like a no-brainer, but the fact of the matter is that many leading brands don’t include their “800” customer service number or links to live chat or click-to-call service, if available, on their social outposts. A quick Facebook tour of the top 50 merchants in the Internet Retailer 500 found that just 14% of their sites displayed a specific customer-service link or an “800” phone number.  Don’t follow their lead; rather, incorporate customer service information directly into your Facebook or Twitter page profile information, as Crate & Barrel does with its main profile graphic.

Similarly, Kohl’s uses the graphical area outside its Twitter stream to highlight a customer service email for Twitter users and reiterate customer service features such as “hassle-free returns”.

Set expectations and then staff appropriately. It’s okay if your social outposts aren’t staffed 24/7 — but if that’s the case, go ahead and say so on your “info” page or “about” box so followers can view hours of operation and access alternative contact methods.

During the hours you do commit to staff, understand that expectations are high for instantaneous response to customer service questions and complaints. Train social network monitors to post replies to every question or comment and to do so quickly — even if their first answer must be “I will investigate further”. To compensate for a CyberMonday glitch, Ann Taylor promised a special offer to Facebook followers. When a fan wrote, “When?” the company replied instantly with a forthright response to say the exact timing of the offer was unknown.

By contrast, apparel retailer Anthropologie left unanswered a follower’s question about a Black Friday purchase that arrived in the wrong size – potentially creating the impression that the brand is unresponsive to more thorny questions.

Keep track of off-profile/off-page commentary. Not everyone with an opinion about your brand will bother coming to your social outpost to share it — so be sure to use saved searches for Twitter terms and monitor unofficial Facebook pages for comments. In the stream of search results below, Tweets about Best Buy’s free movie offer — and a product recall — don’t include the “@” sign that would route the posts to the Best Buy page, making them invisible unless staff are monitoring separately for the keywords “best buy”.

What are you doing to monitor social customer service this holiday season?