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Delivering Effective Social Customer Service: Webinar with Martin Hill Wilson

Apr 30, 2014

Having trouble effectively running a social customer service program?

Voiance recently hosted a webinar with consultant, keynote speaker, blogger and author, Martin Hill-Wilson as he discussed his latest book about implementing effective social customer service.

During this webinar, Martin provided an overview of his book,Social Customer Service: A complete reference for achieving excellence in social customer service. Webinar attendees learned the 15 social customer service competencies to help companies plan to deliver excellent social customer service.

Three social customer service competencies that stood out were: recruiting, training and managing social teams, aligning with other customer strategies, and mastering social media monitoring.

Recruiting, training & managing social teams

Recruit and hire a dedicated social media team so all their attention can be on social customer service and not torn between other responsibilities. First step for them is to learn the basics like the key roles they will be involved in and where to find the answers they need. Then dive deeper into questions like “Why are we using social engagement?” and “What does ‘bad’ or ‘good’ responses look like?” Finally, review crisis management. What makes a crisis and how do you engage should a crisis arise?

Martin added, “Social support team members must be trained to make decisions in the field and in the heat of action. There’s no calling back to the mother ship. So give them the tools and authority to do whatever it takes to wow customers. Empower them across the organization, and give them full authority to do what’s needed, when needed, where needed, without approval. And put a budget behind it. If you cannot do that, then you don’t trust your people. And so you picked the wrong people and will not succeed.”

Aligning with other customer strategies

Use and share content that is relevant to your specific clients and customers. Use topics that customers have inquired about or inspired. Share stories and examples from real experiences that customers will find interesting and engaging.

Mastering social media monitoring

Learn to effectively listen to your social media mentions of your brand to accurately categorize those that need a response.

The best advice that Martin had for anyone wanting to improve their social customer service efforts was to make sure all your departments working together to make your social customer service program successful. This way everyone is working towards the same common goal and social customer service becomes a natural part of the business instead of an extra burden.

If you are interested in a recording of this webinar or other recordings from the Voiance webinar series, please contact us at marketing@voiance.com.