Have you ever had that moment of panic when you had a deadline to send an email or document and you couldn’t log in to a program? Your heart is beating 100 miles an hour with anxiety, there’s sweat dripping down the side of your face, and unnecessary words are flying out of your mouth because you know the username and password you entered is correct.
Recently, I needed to prepare an e-newsletter to send the following morning, but I couldn’t log in to my MailChimp account. I sent a tweet to the company’s Twitter handle at 8:30 p.m. Someone responded within an hour, and my issue was resolved.
As a social media professional who counsels clients on the importance of immediacy in the social world, it was both reassuring and refreshing to experience such great customer service.
While it’s not always feasible to respond the second someone reaches out to you or your company online, you must have a monitoring and response plan in place. This proactive approach creates brand advocates, loyal customers, and strong relationships on the social Web.
The benefit of having a dedicated social media team is that someone is always on call to monitor issues and respond in case a customer has a question or problem.
My friends often joke and ask if my job requires me to be on call like a doctor because my phone is always close. Well, I’m not an MD, and I don’t have to deal with life or death situations, but I’ve felt the relief of responsive, attentive customer service through social media, and I help ensure my clients’ customers feel the same way.
The lesson here is that in the ”always on” social world, immediacy and attentiveness will win the day when it comes to creating new and retaining current customers.
To monitor your client or brand, there are many paid tools out there beyond Google Alerts, like Sysomos (we use the Heartbeat platform), Radian6, SocialEngage, Sprout Social, etc. Before choosing a monitoring tool, it’s best to research and figure out which features work best for you or your client, based on your program and needs.
This post was co-authored by Andrea Pecoraro, social media strategist at Identity.
