In this edition of The Baer Facts, I talk with Kyle Lacy of ExactTarget about customers using Facebook more and more as a customer service channel.
Interesting new research from Social Bakers uncovers an important finding:
The volume of questions posted on Facebook has increased 26% in 6 months. (tweet this)
Historically, brands have put more customer service eggs in the Twitter basket, and many noteworthy companies have Twitter programs that are managed (or partially so) by customer care teams, while Facebook and other channels are more often overseen by marketing and communications personnel. This must change.
As Facebook becomes (due to its much larger user base vs. Twitter) a more and more convenient customer service outlet for consumers, brands must break down internal, channel-oriented silos. Customers don’t care about your social silos and internal turf wars.
You must unify your social customer service processes and personnel to provide a consistent experience, regardless of channel. Not doing so is disrespectful of customers, and dramatically increases risk of social missteps resulting in crises. Let’s remember that as you wrestle with these questions of governance and staffing, customer expectations for social customer service continue to escalate. As we uncovered in The Social Habit research:
42% of consumers who have complained in social expect a response within 60 minutes (more details) (tweet this)
