At our church, we have one full-time person who leads social media engagement for our organization. She leads a team of about 100 volunteers who help answer questions every day of the week on our social channels. Because of this team, we are able to equip and handle questions from people around the world in a relatively short amount of time for having over a million followers that we are responsible for. People ask all the time our stance on tough topics that are happening in the media or what we believe about certain lightning rod issues. On a somewhat lighter side, or maybe not depending on who you talk to, we had a parent upset because at one of our weekend services it was alluded to that Santa is not real. They had their child in there who became upset. They left a comment on our Instagram and our volunteer leaders helped diffuse the situation really well by taking a caring stance and not blowing off the situation, I was really proud of how they did that. 

We recently had a (large) partner leave a comment on a post about the future of our services and their product. I quickly reached out to the head of that team and we hopped on a call to discuss a response. He was so willing to step and in and ensure we had the best messaging in response. Collaborating with other team leads has been extremely helpful in customer responses.

To get to the best solution, I try to listen, learn, ask the right questions, and remember that we’re all human. When I pay attention to those things, we can usually get to a good place. 

To give the best support, you have to be available during communicated times. Communication around support times and communication around expectations are essential in social media, especially with global clients. Also, it is essential to put the tools in place to remember to follow up on issues as needed (whatever reminder/task tool you use - use it!). 

In my current position, there was one time a client got really heated over a couple things. I was lucky enough to only have to reach out to one department for assistance. We gave them a plaque with a different company’s (of the same name) logo and we tagged them wrong on Facebook for only a few minutes. They got really heated in our messages and I just calmly kept reminding them, “Hey it’s gonna be alright, that’s why I’m here to help you, let’s work this out right now.” I basically kept leveling with them that I’m there to help them, and not to fight with them. In short, I remained calm and kept progressing our conversation forward.

In my past experiences I became very dedicated to the online customer experience because anything but a “white glove service” was not acceptable for the company’s customers and I deeply appreciate what that taught me. Below are some of the ways we ensured the best possible experience online:

1. Started out with one week of extensive training and shadowing with the customer service department. I listened in on phone calls, watched how they tracked cases, and learned the ins and outs of the voice of the company.
2. Throughout my time at this company I built a network of “pros” across different departments like production and installation so when a complex question came up I knew who to go to for an answer.
3. Curated sample images of the most-loved products (home interiors/building materials) so that when customers asked about what our product looked in real life I had banks of content to show them. This bled into our blog where we created steady streams of product highlight content.
4. Established a direct line of contact with our head of customer service so when the time came for me to hand off my customer I knew they were in good hands.
5. Built a guide of answers for the most common questions that became the essential book of responses for anyone taking over social media engagement to ensure a consistent experience.

What this all comes down to is there needs to be more communication between marketing and customer service teams. Neither is perfectly equipped to handle conversations online alone and partnership between these departments is the way forward.

While at this company one experience sticks out to me. A customer had purchases our product through a third party retailer and during installation something went wrong and then the retailer went out of business. After trying countless methods of contacting the retailer the customer finally took to social media to voice their complaint. Using our social media tool at the time we picked up the conversation on a home interiors blog and were able to step in to assist. I able to review the install and pinpoint the issue (thanks to the knowledge I can’t from the install pro), determine who the nearest retailer was and confirm they had a replacement available (thanks to the production pro) and connect the customer with our head of customer service to ensure the replacement was handled swiftly and at no cost to the home owner. Having touch points throughout the org kept this project on track and helped us see the customer through to the end result, which they of course shared on social praising us for our dedication to helping them.

I had this client who frankly messed up.  Their instructions were clear, and they wanted the campaign to follow a progression similar to someone they liked.  Put the assets in place, ran the campaign and saw increased interactions and vanity metrics.  It looked like a win. 

Client lost their mind.  Received a few nasty grams and they were going to tell the world about me, yada yada. 

Rather than keeping the conversations digital and do all that things like dig my heels in and insist I was right, I called them.  We started talking and I listened to them get all the things off the chest they needed to say.  We then went back to the beginning and I had them share with me what they sent for requirements. 

The call got very quiet. 

“Oh, I see, terribly sorry about that ol chap” - paraphrased. 

We’ve continued to work together and they’ve even referred me to others.  Love a good ‘oops’ when I’m on this side of it.  :D 

Congratulations @sara.miller you’ve been randomly seletected as the winner! And THANK YOU to everyone that participated last week!