Ashley Wilson

Prosser Mirrer
Social Media
Final Paper
May 14, 2015
Customer Service in a Social World
Customer service is very important for a companys success.
Without the customers within a company there will be no revenue. In
order for a company to achieve their goals they need to be able to
maintain a good relationship with their customer. If the customers are
not happy then they wont have anyone buy their product. They can
spread negativity to their friends and colleges, which can hurt the
business. People that have a positive experience with a company's
customer service department will likely tell two or three others about
their experience, according to Consumer Affairs website. Therefore,
quality customer service can be a source of promotion for
organizations. Contrarily, a person who has a bad customer service
experience will likely tell between nine and 20 people(Suttle, Media,
You need to make sure that your customers are happy at all times in
order to run a successful business. In order to do that you need to
make sure you products are good and If there is any discrepancies you
need to make sure that you handle them in the proper way.
With social media being at it all time high right now it creates a
bigger opportunity for companies to increase their customer service.
Discovering, developing and nurturing these customers, therefore, is

critical to the present and future success of most businesses.

Identifying key customers is only one step of creating this profitable
relationship; to maximize profits, companies must continuously collect
ongoing data about these customers or groups. By doing so, a business
can truly create one-to-one relationships with its clients and create
opportunities for continued business with upsells, renewals, cross sells,
and referrals(Cvent,) There are social media networks out there like
twitter, Facebook, instagram etc, which makes it easier for the
company to be in contact with their customers at all times. Customers
are able to directly talk to the companies if they have a problem, or if
they are even satisfied with you they will say good things. When you
see compliments on your page it can increase you business as well.
You can have visitors come to your page and then want to do business
with you because they already can see your credibility. Thats why its
important that you can remain a good relationship with your customers
so you can reach to the highest potential.
Hootsuite is a social media network where you can create multiple
channels at a time. This is probably the best social network out there
that you can have for you business. All you need is to log in to one
place and be able to control every social network. This increases more
availability to your customers. Sharad Mohan is the director of
customer service for hootsuite and he created a training module to
teach you how to give good customer service on twitter.

He first said that there are 3 guiding principles were everywhere,

were available, were helping. Were everywhere, customers need to
able to easily reach out to you. Make sure you have multiple channels
for your customer. The longer it takes for them to reach you the more
unsatisfied they would be. Were available, make sure your respond
back as soon as possible when a customer reaches out. Were helping,
there is always a solution.
He talked about setting expectations in the business. If you set
expectations you will have a happy customer. That way they already
know what to expect. For example- If a customer tweets a question
Saturday night but you dont respond until Monday, It looks bad on
you. But if you clearly stated that you respond back on Monday-Friday,
your customer will expect a response at that time instead of anxiously
waiting.
In order to set expectations you need to have team effort.
The third determinant of overall customer satisfaction is the served
markets expectations. The served markets expectations represent
both the served markets prior con sumption experience with the firms
offeringincluding nonexperiential information available through
sources such as advertising and word-of-mouthand a forecast of the
suppliers ability to deliver quality in the future(Fornell, Johnson,
Anderson, Cha, Bryant, 1996). The departments in your company need
to come together when it comes to responding to tweets to more

effectively respond to customers. Each department has its own

specialization so if a customer tweets a question the help center
doesnt really know you can reply back saying Lets have @marketing
take a look. Multiple accounts for the departments make it easier to
sort through the questions. If each department can decide which kind
of tweets they respond too if will make the process much smoother and
to the company will look more professional.
Then her talked about personifying social support. Make sure you
create a relationship with each customer you are tweeting with!
Engaging with your customer is crucial because it creates a friendship
with them. Create moments of awesome so your customer feels like
they are talking to a real person rather then a computer. Respond with
a video of yourself to create more personalization. Have fun, show
personality, and be efficient with your response!
Like I stated before there will be problems that arise and you
have to handle them in the proper manor. You need an escalation plan.
What do you do when its time to take the conversation elsewhere
because of privacy reasons? After two-four tweets going back and forth
its normally time to move the question elsewhere. Email is the best
option. Make it easier for the customer so they dont get upset that
they need to go somewhere else to continue the conversation.
In conclusion in order to have a successful business you need to
make sure that you have excellent customer service. The customers

make up your business and they need to be handled the proper way.
Engage with your customers to make sure they feel comfortable with
you. Once you get to that level you will have that likability and
consistency.

Bibliography

Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha, Bryant (1996). American Customer

Satisfaction Index: Nature, Purpose, and Finding. Journal of Marketing,
60, 0 (7-8)
"Why Customer Satisfaction Matters." Customer Satisfaction
Matters. Cvent, n.d. Web. 14 May 2015.
<http://www.cvent.com/en/web-survey-software/customer-satisfactionmatters.shtml>.

Suttle, Rick, and Demand Media. "Why Is Customer Service Important

to an Organization?" Small Business. Chron, n.d. Web. 14 May 2015.
<http://smallbusiness.chron.com/customer-service-importantorganization-2050.html>.