Customers expect their trusted brands and service providers to be listening to social media and to treat it like a customer service channel. It’s fast becoming the channel of choice not just for future generations, but for many of your most digitally enabled customers, period. Utilities who ignore this trusted channel as part of their customer service program risk appearing tone deaf or even absent to a very large percentage of their customers. The good news is that success with social customer service isn’t hard. Every utility can do it.
According to Statista, 59% of customers favor brands that respond to complaints over social media. More than 80% of Millennials actually prefer social media for customer service compared to email, phone or chat services. We all know from multiple research reports that utility customers already expect more digital and self-service as a fast response to their questions, it is clear that social media is a necessary, and even vital, channel of customer support for your digital CX program.
But, social media can be a scary. I’ve frequently referred to it as the digital Wild West that doesn’t seem to have very many rules. And, customers have multiple social forums to express themselves, which makes social media messy, uncontrolled and very unpredictable. However, a growing portion of our customers love it and their adoption increases every year. So, utilities have no better time than now to embrace social media for next generation customer service as a critical point of customer engagement and support.
In addition to its popularity with customers, social customer service benefits a utility’s bottom line. Traditional contact center customer service escalations typically from $6 - $10+ and more, but social media customer service events can cost as little as $1 and deliver significant CSAT dividends, as well. Considered this way, Social Customer Service gets incredibly efficient – utilities meet customers where they are, and social delivers the quickest and most cost-effective way to improve KPIs of a digital Utility CX program. It’s a win-win!
On a larger scale, social media can greatly impact your online reputation – which will impact how your customers view your utility. By increasing your social media presence and online support, you can significantly boost your online reputation. Consider the long life of social media posts. Left unresolved, negative social media posts can be a drag on a utility’s digital reputation. But, by treating social media posts as a customer service channel, utilities can take control of the story and close the loop on these customer escalations, burnishing the social narrative that lasts online for the long term.
In addition to the social reputation benefits of a positive social CS channel, consider that text from social media can easily be assimilated and analyzed to provide near real time intelligence to the Voice of the Customer program complete with sentiment analysis, adding even more value to improving your digital Utility CX program over time with more seamless, personalized, and positive customer interactions.
So, social customer service benefits utilities everywhere from digital engagement and customer insights top burnishing your social reputation. And, it’s easy to start a social customer service program. Any utility can do it, whether you have a digital Utility CX program already, or you are just beginning the journey into digital CX.
Listen First
Social Media deserves its reputation as the digital new frontier, so take time to collect and evaluate the different social media outposts where customers comment on their experiences with your company. Be sure to budget at least a few weeks to uncover the trends and rules for each channel before you start to engage with customers. Don’t be in a rush to engage. It pays to listen to understand each social channel’s rules and mores.
Start Small
Once you learn the rules of each social media channel, pick one to start offering customer service feedback. Maybe Facebook or Instagram covers the depth or breadth of the customer base. Perhaps Yelp delivers the most complete escalations. Pick a single outlet that best fits your comfort zone, and start responding to customer service related questions.
Stay in the Lane
Remember, it’s about social customer service, so avoid the temptation to promote the brand or mix the message with marketing communications. Customers expect direct answers to their customer service questions, so follow your CS policies, but adapt them for the social forum. Bring customers into private messaging channels for sensitive topics, and invite them to call for critical discussions. Customers will appreciate that you engaged in their channel of choice, and found the best method to address their issues.
Index to Peers
Measuring success and progress in social customer service can be difficult without established benchmarks and KPI. We recommend comparing yourself to peers in your market. Plenty of social listening platforms can collect and manage posts about your utility, and index it to similar issues across your region. Comparing performance to the other utilities in your market makes it easy to see if you are making progress, how you stack up among your near peers, and where to concentrate your next efforts.
As our customers continue to embrace social media, it’s a matter of when, not if, the utility incorporates social into customer service operations and larger digital Utility CX program. Following this simple playbook makes it easy for virtually any utility to build a responsive team to pilot a social media customer service program. As the data and research suggests, customers already expect the brands they use to deliver customer service through social media. Chances are that your customers already post to your utility’s social media pages expecting a customer support response. Delivering customer service in this channel of choice can be a clear win for utilities and their customers.