Good social customer service has become massively important for organisations in their communications with customers. Good and bad customer service has a significant impact on customer perceptions of the brand. It has always been this way (just think John Lewis!) but social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook have created an opportunity and a challenge for brands as they attempt to keep up with demand for customer services engagement tools through social.

If you needed proof that social customer services is important, here are some nice stats from YouGov:

• 1 in 3 customers say “I would be not consider purchasing from that brand again” as a result of a poor experience
• 16% of customers “Abandoned their purchase”
• 1 in 4 customers “Shared their bad experience on their own social feeds”
• 30% of customers “Verbally recommended to family and friends not to purchase from that brand”
• 15% of customers “Posted a bad customer review on a site like Trustpilot/Tripadvisor following poor social customer care”

Last week we hosted our second event looking at social media customer services. Here are the thoughts from Diffusion CEO Daljit Bhurji on this evolving and important area of brand communications.

Bian Salins, Head of Social – Digital, TSB believes that “The key to improved customer services is for brands to organise themselves around the customer journey” and to do this brands “need to evolve from rigid to fluid, from physical to digital.”

The reality of the connected digital consumer means a cross channel approach to customer service is necessary:

By 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator, according to the Customers 2020 report. Salins believes that from a customer services perspective “it’s vital that brands engage people at the right time and in the right place. The tone of communication must also be right, customers should be talked to, not at! And finally brands must interact with customers, not interrupt them, the key to this being that one size doesn’t fit all.”

As the volume of customer engagements on Twitter increases so does the need for brands to use bots; the sheer volume of customer engagement means that it is not possible for a human to human approach. This approach to the volumes involved, although the only practical option, does seem to go against the need for a personalised, customer specific approach.

Cesar Christoforidis, Vice President Latin America & S. Europe, Socialbakers also gave some background on the busiest sectors for social customer care:

While the increasing importance of social media as a customer services tool should not be underestimated, a cross channel approach is required. This research from Ovum (below) shows that smart phone is set to dominate this space.

74% of consumers us at least 3 channels to engage