Last year, social media emerged as one of the most prominent customer service channels. Consumers today are more prone to use social media to communicate their questions, compliments, or complaints with businesses. According to Sprinklr, 80% of consumers engage with brands online, and 54% of customers prefer social messaging channels for care instead of phone or email. And that means customers today expect companies to have a strong social customer service channel around the clock. Social customer service is rapidly maturing as a customer service channel. Here are a few customer service trends that have dominated social media in 2018 and will continue to do so in 2019.
5 Social Customer Service Trends
1. More people using direct messages
More consumers connect with companies through direct messaging (Twitter) and Facebook Messenger rather than tagging them on social media posts. This way, consumers can upload photos, videos, and sensitive personal information while communicating with a business without broadcasting it to the world. It has also become easier to control the damage.
2. Customer care bots will continue to rise
Customer care bots, or chatbots, allow companies to offer 24/7 automated replies that can instantly help customers fix a technical issue or even order their lunch. While chatbots can be quick, easy, and cost-effective solutions to common queries, they can deliver a less-than-satisfactory experience when implemented without a strategy.
The truth is that chatbots are still evolving and have a long way to go before they can provide communication similar to real-life interactions. Yet, experts have high hopes for this customer care. According to a CNBC report, chatbots could cut business costs by $8 billion by 2022.
3. Social care strategies getting more personal
Stepping in 2019, we see more brands adopting their social media customer care strategies and gravitating towards personalization. Companies today are focusing more and more on personalization and active conversation through messaging in a casual tone using emojis. Once perfected, social care strategies will start providing personalized care for a fraction of the cost of traditional customer care channels.
4. Customer care agents are using social data
Marketing and PR departments have long used social data to influence decisions, but now, customer care teams use it to shape interactions. Today, technology makes it easy to track both positive and negative mentions and reply quickly, allowing a company to show how much it cares.
Social data is also helping social customer care agents learn more about customers and shape their interactions accordingly. For example, if your customers are talking about how you can use less plastic in packaging your product, you can use this opportunity to tell them about your eco-friendly efforts and what steps are being taken to reduce plastic usage. You can also use the same data to change your social advertisement patterns.
5. Customer care is the new marketing
With consumer interactions becoming more public, customer care is becoming the new marketing. While one cannot replace the other, they can work side by side to give their customers the best of both worlds. When a company does an excellent job of managing public and personal messages on social media, words spread faster, resulting in more business.
These are some of the most popular social media customer service trends that will take the customer service space by storm in 2019.
